Date of Award
5-11-2025
Date Published
June 2025
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Geography & the Environment
Advisor(s)
Matthew Huber
Keywords
Ecofascism;Fascism;German Nazism;Gramsci;Political Ecology
Subject Categories
Geography | Social and Behavioral Sciences
Abstract
In recent years, the topic of ‘ecofascism’ has been increasingly engaged in both scholarly and popular contexts, but often with little clarity or consistency in how the term is defined—sometimes detaching the concept from historically-based understandings of ‘fascism’ altogether. This thesis intervenes on this front, thoroughly grounding the concept of ecofascism in fascism through an explication of the political ecology and economy of interwar and Nazi Germany. As this thesis shows, while it is inaccurate to speak of a cohesive ‘green-wing’ within the Nazi Party, the nascent German conservation movement played a key role in cultivating a range of ecologically-themed discourse—most notably ‘blood and soil’ and organic theories of state—which were then effectively utilized by the Nazi Party, particularly throughout their movement building phase. Critically, though, I argue that this interaction represented more than a mere opportunistic appropriation of ecological and conservationist discourse in pursuit of a specific, niche electoral constituency. Rather, as this thesis argues, these discourses that emanated from the German conservation movement were especially well-suited to aid the Nazi Party in their pursuit of cultivating a cross-class mass-based political movement. To conclude, I offer some reflections on how this history of the Nazi Party’s engagement with discourses cultivated and refined by Germany’s nascent conservation movement might inform our modern understanding of ‘ecofascism,’ highlighting the volatility of ‘ecology’ as a cultural and political concept and how the historical relationship between the German conservation movement, ecological discourse, and the Nazi Party demonstrate that ‘ecofascism’ can take a variety of forms.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Thomas, Cassidy Glen, "The March Towards a Totalitarian Ecology: Making sense of 'Ecofascism' Through the Political Ecology of German Nazism" (2025). Theses - ALL. 954.
https://surface.syr.edu/thesis/954
