‘Filthiest Gangs of Thugs’: Anti-Fascism and Anti-Nazism Perceptions in Southern Rhodesia, 1930s to 1940s

ABSTRACT This article examines anti-fascist and anti-Nazi sentiments in Southern Rhodesia from the 1930s to 1940s. Even though the country did not have an anti-fascist and anti-Nazi policy or legislation, the state and the white population held competing anti-fascist and anti-Nazi attitudes regarding how the government should deal with suspected fascist and Nazi propaganda activities in the country and in internment camps. The United Rhodesia Party, Southern Rhodesia Labour Party, Labour Party, Southern Rhodesia Communist Party, and trade unions were all anti-fascist and anti-Nazi. As an openly pro-British self-governing colony, Southern Rhodesia collaborated with other colonial regimes in southern and eastern Africa by exchanging intelligence information on suspected fascist and Nazi activities. However, some sections of the white population in Southern Rhodesia criticised the state for not being committed enough in their efforts to curtail such activities in internment camps, an accusation the government rejected. White settlers defined their anti-fascism in terms of their British identity, the Allied war effort, and democracy. Using newspapers, archives, and Southern Rhodesia parliamentary debates, this article examines the convoluted nature of white identity politics based on contradictory political divides, ethnicity, and white-on-white racism during this era.