Youth of the 'new Europe'. Transnational connections of the National Youth Storm at the European Youth Association

This article sets out to analyze the participation of the National Youth Storm, the largest fascist youth movement in the Netherlands during the Second World War, in the European Youth Association, founded in Vienna in 1942. Following recent research on the transnational dimensions of fascism, I argue that the Dutch youth organization understood itself as part of a cross-border movement in which a common fate was shared with other European youth organizations. At the same time, however, ultra-nationalist ideals were also at its heart. This ostensibly paradoxical situation meant cooperation within a European framework went hand in hand with conflict, especially regarding the equivocal Hitler Youth. Moreover, attempts to maneuver between nationalistic interests, European ideals, and loyalty to Nazi Germany were complicated even more by internal friction between adherents of a Greater Netherlands and a Greater Germanic Reich.