Neuropa

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Neuropa is a neologism, first used in English in 1941 by the prominent Pan Africanist W.E.B. DuBois. His article "Neuropa: Hitler's New World Order" discussed comparisons between his experiences in Germany in 1892 - 1894 and his trips there in 1928 and 1936. The term did not come into general use in English, perhaps because of unfamiliarity with the play on words. Neu is German for new, and 'Europa' is the word for Europe in German and many other European languages.

This was never used in Nazi Germany. However the word has been used in Scandinavian countries, with no apparent derivation from Du Bois' text. The term 'Neue Ordnung' (New Order) was the most prominent of the terms used to describe Nazi ideas about the future organisation of Europe, but it also applied to the new social order in Germany itself. Racial hierarchy, ethnic cleansing, German resettlement in the East, the creation of Nazi puppet states, and gigantic infrastructural projects, were all considered.

The (largely secret) plans of Nazi Germany were not available to W.E.B. DuBois in 1941. He wrote before the United States involvement in the war, but after the occupation of western Europe. In his article, DuBois remarks that there was broader basis of democracy than before the first world war, when society was run for the benefit of the monarchy, the nobility and the rising capitalists in finance and industry. He discusses the insecurity of middle class civil servants and clerks, who were "wracked by fear of being levelled down to workers". DuBois focusses on the mass education campaigns of the Nazis, which followed those of the Bolsheviks and Italian Fascists. However behind "all this smoke and propaganda" DuBois saw a more significant and older phenomenon, the Rationalisation Movement which had developed the German economy as a planned economy.

Recently the term resurfaced in English, in the context of discussions within €uroMayDay, an anti-capitalist movement. The discussions concern infiltration by the New Right in such social movements. However, Neuropa, as a combination of 'new' and 'Europe', is a play on words in several European languages, and its use does not necessarily indicate ideological intent, let alone a revival of Nazi plans for Europe.

[edit] References

"Neuropa: Hitler's New World Order" by W.E.B. DuBois, The Journal of Negro Education,Vol. 10, 380-386, 1941