The Third Position refers to neo-fascist political ideologies that were first described in Western Europe following the Second World War. Developed in the context of the Cold War, it developed its name through the claim that it represented a third position between the capitalism of the Western Bloc and the communism of the Eastern Bloc.
History and ideology The term "Third Position" was coined in Europe during the Cold War as an umbrella term for neo-fascist and nationalist syncretic ideologies, mostly those decedent from Italian fascism and other, primarily but not exclusively non-Hitlerite, fascist movements. These ideologies were generally united in their rejection of both Western Bloc capitalism and liberal democracy as well as Eastern Bloc Marxist communism, instead wishing to establish a third ideological force on the world stage, hence its name. Third Positionist ideologies also generally had in common the wish to overthrow existing governments to replace them with homogeneous states, either as independent nation states or within the context of a larger pan-European nationalism as espoused by Oswald Mosley's Europe a Nation idea. Economically, most Third Positionist ideologies, like their predecessors, advocated for a form of corporatism or national syndicalism. Third Positionist groups and ideologues cooperated with the Libyan regime under Muammar Gaddafi and were generally sympathetic towards national liberation movements in the Third World. Some Third Positionists, like Francis Parker Yockey, Otto Ernst Remer, and H. Keith Thompson; advocated for an alliance between communists and fascists called the red-brown alliance. During its height in the Cold War, Third Positionists established various pan-European political groupings including but not limited to: the National Party of Europe and the European Social Movement of Oswald Mosley, the European Liberation Front of Francis Parker Yockey, the New European Order of René Binet and Gaston-Armand Amaudruz, and the International Third Position of Roberto Fiore. Fiore has also since its foundation served as the leader of the Alliance for Peace and Freedom, a modern Third Positionist alliance. Groups and individuals that associate themselves with the Third Position still exist in modern Europe, but their influence has declined since the end of the Cold War. Third Positionist ideology has at times influenced the European New Right in both France (Nouvelle Droite) and Germany (Neue Rechte).
Germany
After World War II, the German far-right primarily consisted of the Socialist Reich Party (SRP), lead by Otto Ernst Remer, which directly attempted to revive the just defeated Nazism. The SRP was however later brought under the influence of Francis Parker Yockey who had, in his book Imperium, developed more unorthodox ideas for the Nazi movement such as an alliance with the Soviet Union, pan-European nationalism, and a spiritual, rather than biological, racism influenced by Julius Evola. The German Social Movement (DSB) of Karl-Heinz Priester was a non-Nazi neo-fascist movement in West Germany that was founded as the German chapter of the Third Positionist European Social Movement (ESM) which also included parties like Oswald Mosley's Union Movement, the Italian Social Movement, and the New Swedish Movement of Per Engdahl. Both the ESM as a whole and its German chapter specifically advocated a pan-European fascism. Like other Third Positionist movements at the time, the DSB of Priester supported national liberation projects abroad, particularly the Algerian National Liberation Front, while also pushing for European–African cooperation via the Eurafrica concept. Otto Strasser, upon return from exile to West Germany in 1955, founded the German Social Union (DSU), a political party that espoused Otto Strasser's version of explicitly anti-Hitler Strasserism that would form the basis of various Third Positionist movements, particularly in economic policy and in its advocacy for a European Confederation as a third force on the world stage. With the formation of the Aktion Neue Rechte (ANR), a splinter of the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), in 1972, the German New Right was born, a movement that explicitly distanced itself from historical Nazism (as opposed to the so-called 'Old Right') and took major inspiration from the French Nouvelle Droite. The early German New Right that had emerged from the ANR of Henning Eichberg was closely linked with the Third Positionist movement, similarly advocating for a European nationalism and socialism in the Strasserist spirit which attracted orthodox followers of Otto Strasser such as the Independent Workers' Party (German Socialists) to the nascent movement. Yet this movement also pioneered modern New Right ideas such as ethnopluralism, a term that likely originated from a 1973 essay by Eichberg. After the dissolution of the ANR in 1974, the German New Right became dispersed and as a result grew more diverse, taking on stronger influences from the Revolutionary Conservative Movement of the Weimar Republic as well as the French Nouvelle Droite, citing Marxist thinkers like Antonio Gramsci but also neo-fascists like Julius Evola. Especially since the 2000s, the German New Right has moderated and largely claims adherence to Germany's constitution. This moderate version of the German New Right would later go on to influence parts of the Alternative for Germany. The Third Path, a German political party founded in 2013, is named after the Third Position and likewise views itself as a third alternative to both liberal capitalism and the now-obsolete Soviet communism. Although espousing German Socialism, based on Strasserism, the party is primarily made up of more traditional neo-Nazis. It advocates for a European Confederation, a pan-European nationalist model also espoused by Strasser, and views the Ukrainian resistance against the 2022 Russian invasion as an anti-imperialist fight, supporting the Ukrainians and being a member of the pro-Ukrainian Third Positionist group Nation Europa since its foundation in 2024.
France
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