The aim of this paper is to trace the evolution of the neofascist networks from the vantage point, between 1945 and 1953, of Madrid, a city where a myriad of extreme right activists gathered to discuss and promote their cause at a transnational level. Exploring the local socio-political context in which these (neo)-fascists moved, and the networks that they formed, the study delves into the creation of ratlines crucial for fascists to escape from the Allied prosecution once the Second World War was over, the consolidation of the city as a central meeting point for fascists from all over the world (from Degrelle to Skorzeny, passing by Horia Sima or Filippo Anfuso), discussions around the possible creation of paramilitary organisations, and the everyday lives of (neo)-fascists operating in Madrid. On the basis of police reports, secret service intelligences and other primary sources, this paper foregrounds the role of the fascist diaspora and the subsequent interactions as driving forces enabling entanglements, and cooperation among (neo)-fascist movements and the Francoist regime, at various formal or informal political levels.

This article offers a new perspective on the Swedish protests against the Vietnam War by placing it in its broader global Cold War context. As a case study on ‘people's diplomacy’ and ‘united front strategy’, it acknowledges the importance of Chinese and Vietnamese influences on the peace campaigns in Sweden and aims, as far as possible, to reconstruct Hanoi's motives, strategies and actions to create and direct Sweden's policy and opinion on the war. With the extremely generous political freedoms granted it by official Sweden, Hanoi was able to find new international allies as well as organise political propaganda manifestations from their Stockholm base. In the end, North Vietnam's version of the war as being about national liberation fought by a people united in their resistance to a foreign, genocidal, aggressor won a large enough share of the opinion in the West to force the American political leadership to give up the fight. Hanoi's Diplomatic Front in Sweden was one of the important battlefields behind that victory

This article examines the activities of the Soviet military-political organs in the Baltic Fleet. It shows that the web of party institutions transformed the fleet into a space of political and social activism that had little to do with the strictly military aspects of government policy. Such activism was nevertheless unfailingly promoted, even as it became clear that it compromised core elements of military efficiency such as discipline and well-defined chains of command. This argument has implications for our broader understanding of the nature of the Soviet state. It indicates that once the Bolsheviks’ revolutionary ideology had become institutionalised in the state via the ubiquitous presence of party organs, pragmatic retreats for organisational efficiency became exceptionally difficult to implement.

What can historians bring to the current discussion about refugee journeys? Building on the example of a group of 1,115 young Jewish survivors who went to Canada in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, this article addresses two essential questions: why did they leave and why did they go to Canada and not elsewhere? Drawing on Nicolas Mariot and Claire Zalc's notion of a ‘world of possibilities’ and taking into consideration age as a category of analysis, I argue that one can formulate hypotheses about these journeys by, first, mapping what was and was not available to the young survivors at different moments of their displacement and, second, by looking at how individuals navigated these possibilities and constraints. In so doing, this article aims to nuance approaches that uncritically emphasise agency, and therefore erase the specificity of young people's experiences of displacement.

This article examines how states with a fascist past – Germany, Austria and Italy – used modernism in the visual arts to rebrand national and European culture at the Venice Biennale of Art after 1945. I argue that post-war exhibitions of modern art, including those at the Biennale, reveal a vast confrontation with Jewish absence after the Holocaust. Christian Democrats and proponents of European integration attempted to reimagine modernism without the Jewish minority that had shaped it in crucial ways. Meanwhile, living Jewish artists resisted their exclusion from the post-war interpretations of modernism, as well as absorbtion of modernism as part of national heritage. Their criticisms lay bare a seeming paradox at the heart of post-war Europe: a desire to claim the veneer of pre-Nazi cosmopolitanism without returning its enabling demographic and cultural diversity. This article points to the significance of philosemitism for establishing post-war national and continental identities.

During the 1960s, development aid helped West Germany project a benign image while it discouraged diplomatic recognition of East Germany. In Ghana, however, this effort clashed with the Pan-Africanist aims of President Kwame Nkrumah. Four periodicals under his control attacked West Germany as neo-colonialist, militarist, racist, latently Nazi and a danger to world peace. West German officials resented this campaign and tried to make it stop, but none of their tactics, not even vague threats to aid, worked for long. The attacks ended with Nkrumah's overthrow in early 1966, but while they lasted, they demonstrated that a small state receiving aid could use the press to invert its asymmetric political relationship with the donor.

As in many other countries, Spanish society also underwent its own ’68. In response, the Franco regime increased repression: it became much harsher, and much broader. After that, opposition to state brutality became the anti-Franco movement's main cause and a unifying element for its many different actors. This is the process addressed by this article. Specifically, it aims to explore how repression facilitated the encounters between activists coming from different social movements and political organisations. At the same time, it tries to show the importance of diversifying the analyses on the long ’68 – focusing on different countries, regions and cities – in order to grasp its transnational nature.

There were major guidelines in the application of Greek transitional justice in 1974–5. Trials connected with politics had often taken place in Greece: in 1922, 1935 and during the civil war in the 1940s. Justice had often been instrumentalised during previous internal conflicts, mortgaging both the interwar republic and the post-war democracy. The 1974–5 transition followed a different path. According to the internal documents of the Greek government, there was constant care to uphold the rule of law and conform to the emerging international standards concerning human rights. This was seen as a necessary precondition for the establishment of a modern European democracy.

Surprisingly, sexuality has not been at the centre of scholarship on post-war Central and Eastern Europe. While neighbouring topics, such as gender or everyday life, have been thoroughly and wonderfully researched (the list here is too long, but let me mention at least some shining examples), sexuality somehow escaped the spotlight. Path-breaking research done by Dagmar Herzog on East Germany or Dan Healey on Soviet Russia was for a long time not followed by similar examinations focusing on other countries from the region. The situation is beginning to change.

Few European countries have gone through as much as Poland during the twentieth century. Even among the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which during the ‘Age of Extremes’ experienced the substantial losses and movement of tens of millions of people, Poland's history is somewhat unique, as most of these expulsions affected the Polish border regions. Although not the only culprit, one can make a strong case that the border changes were a primary factor, having – for better or worse – a strong effect on the economy, the society and the general development of Poland. Poland has, nevertheless, been economically successful since the 1990s. It is thus with good reason that two questions have played a major role in the historiography of economic and social trends in twentieth-century Poland. The first one was whether the ‘border changes’ were a burden, or if Poland was able to profit from them. The second question asks whether Poland was able to modernise because of them. At the same time, few authors recognised that both issues are closely intertwined. Emphasising their interconnection is the main purpose of this review.