RACISM IN FANCY DRESS:

In December, during a public event by the right-wing organisation Turning Point UK, American conservative commentator and activist Candace Owens answered a question on nationalism and globalism by explaining how Adolf Hitler was not a nationalist, because his policy was expansionist.

Needless to say, curiosity got the best of us over here in Europe. We attempted to find out how apparently not all historical evidence points us to the conclusion that nationalism - and its unholy alliance with bigotry and institutionalised discrimination - created the Third Reich and its destructive motivations. Owens "clarified" her statements by doubling down: "I'm saying Hitler wasn't a nationalist." For her, Hitler was "a homicidal, psychotic maniac" and there is "no excuse or defense ever for ... everything that he did."

Owens is, to nobody's surprise, very wrong. While Hitler did not create the nationalist movement as such, he did need to tap into it to justify expansionism and ethnic cleansing.

Hitler's nationalism was expressed through those two wishes: giving the Germans "Lebensraum" (habitat) by reuniting Greater Germany (incorporating Austria, the Baltics, Belarus, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Caucasus region, and all of European Russia).

But this was not the first time that nationalism had effectively destroyed Europe. In fact, nationalist destruction peaked with World War I, which would bring the continent from prosperity to decades of destruction.

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