Una “Fatalità tedesca”. Il pensiero nazionalbolscevico di Ernst Niekisch nella critica al nazionalsocialismo (1932)

This article’s aim is to analyze the critique of National Socialism, carried on by Ernst Niekisch (1889-1967) in a pamphlet, published in 1932, with the title Hitler-ein deutsches Verhängnis [Hitler- a German fatality]. His analysis of National Socialism has been considered very interesting because of two strictly connected reasons. In fact, not only it is based on the particular statement about the “bourgeois” and “western” nature of Hitler’s movement, but also it allows to understand the main features of National Bolshevism. In other words, criticizing National Socialism, Niekisch also draws the theoretical lines characterizing that politically and culturally heterogeneous movement, whose the author was a reference point and leading spokesperson, even if sometimes harshly contested. The article, moreover, gives a brief account of this National Bolshevik intellectual’s life and political commitment and it tries to take stock of the complex historiographical debate about his thought, touching on the role played by Niekisch’s analysis as far as some groups, belonging to the radical right in the Post-Second World War, are concerned.