Chapter Five

Nouvelle Ecole

So far a common pattern has been shown to exist in journals like The Mankind Quarterly and Neue Anthropologie. Behind the scholarly appearances lurk the traditions of Nazi race-science. There are those involved with both magazines who are attempting to relate those traditions once again to fascist political activity. What is more, both journals have clear links with the modern psychological research of Eysenck and Jensen. This common pattern is not just to be found in Britain and Germany today.

One constant feature of contemporary fascism is that practically all fascist and Nazi parties, whilst claiming to be fervently nationalistic, have international connections. Groups like the National Front might portray themselves publicly as rigid 'nationalists', yet nevertheless their leaders maintain contacts with European and American fascist organisations. In the same way the racist culture of The Mankind Quarterly and Neue Anthropologie is an international enterprise.

The proof of this lies in the fact a French journal, Nouvelle Ecole, is closely related to the academic circles of The Mankind Quarterly and Neue Anthropologie. In fact, all three journals carry advertisements for each other. Likewise Nouvelle Ecole is recommended by the Northern League's The Northlander (see for instance August/October 1972, p.10).

What might make this surprising at first sight is the Northern League's apparent pro-German (or Teuton) and anti-Gallic stance. This was well illustrated by Jürgen Rieger's speech to the Northern League's annual meeting in Brighton in 1969. Rieger criticised the Belgian fascist Jean Thiriart and his magazine Jeune Europe for suggesting mixing the 'Nordic' and 'Latin' races. Instead, declared Rieger, Germany must be secured "against Southern and Latin Europe, against Italy which has been mongrelised since the time of the Roman Empire (like all other South-European countries) and against France" (The Northlander, August/October, 1969).

However, Aryan and Gallic racists are prepared to bury their differences in order to promote racism as such. Here Nouvelle Ecole, a far glossier and more expensive production than either The Mankind Quarterly or Neue Anthropologie, has had an important function to bring racialist assumptions and theories into French intellectual life. In this task Nouvelle Ecole is aided by many of the same people involved with its British and German counterparts.

ALAIN DE BENOIST

The editor of Nouvelle Ecole is Alain de Benoist, who also publishes under the pseudonym of Fabrice Laroche. Perhaps Benoist is more predisposed to the Nordic nonsense of Riger et al than many of his French colleagues on Nouvelle Ecole. He is in fact on the Advisory Board of Neue Anthropologie and in 1976 contributed a lengthy article on 'The misfortunes of the highly-gifted'. Moreover the French edition of Who's Who lists de Benoist as a member of the Society of Friends of Bayreuth.

De Benoist is one of the leading members of the French intellectual movement 'Groupement de Reserche et d'Etudes pour la Civilisation Européenne' (GRECE), whose meetings are advertised in Nouvelle Ecole. GRECE represents an amalgam of French Right-wing intellectuals. Foremost among the ideas propagated by GRECE is the notion that different races have different sorts of intelligence; it also promotes an interest in eugenics.

GRECE has some extremely influential supporters in France. For instance the director and editor of the national newspaper, Figaro Dimanche - Louis Pauwels and Patrice de Plunkett - are supporters; they are also on the editorial committee of Nouvelle Ecole. GRECE actively disseminates the ideas of Jensen and Eysenck; its publishing company, Copernicus, has recently brought out French editions of Eysenck's books The Inequality of Man and Race, Intelligence and Education.

De Benoist's books include Le Courage est leur Patrie (Courage is their fatherland), Rhodesia: terre de lions fidèles (Rhodesia: land of faithful lions); Vu de droite (Right view).

NOUVELLE ECOLE'S PATRONS

Each edition of Nouvelle Ecole boasts an impressive list of members of the comité de patronage (board of patrons). Most of the members are French academics; however there are a number of foreign academics, most of whom have already been mentioned in connection with The Mankind Quarterly and Neue Anthropologie.

Gayre is one of the patrons. So is Garrett. In the Autumn 1973 issue of Nouvelle Ecole, the magazine published a letter from Garrett talking of the importance of bringing to the attention of "the European public samples of the immense number of scientific studies and works of racology or racial psychology which the egalitarians never mention".

Kuttner is also on the comité de patronage. Nouvelle Ecole, July/August 1972 published a letter of praise from Kuttner: "I have known of Nouvelle Ecole for more than a year and I wish to tell you all the good things I think of it. Nouvelle Ecole is definitely on the right lines. It is a remarkable publication, always well informed from the scientific point of view and it shows the true value of things. I hope that its influence will be of the same order as its value".

Similar praise came in the same issue from Northern League member F.J. Los, who like Kuttner and Gayre is on Nouvelle Ecole's comité de patronage: "I have read with a great deal of pleasure and sympathy most of the articles that you have published in Nouvelle Ecole to date, and I see that our views are practically the same on a very great number of subjects".

Bertil Lundman, another member of the comité de patronage, as well as being an Honorary Adviser of The Mankind Quarterly and former contributor of Zeitschrift für Rassenkunde, called Nouvelle Ecole "an event in the world of international periodicals". This racial theorist went on to describe the international aims of cultural racism. It was, according to him, necessary to form "a cultural school embracing the entire human world, being rigorously apolitical and truly humane, in the middle of a chaotic universe menaced by subversive forces of all sorts". He went on to praise the magazine as being "a true pleasure for cultured eyes" (Autumn 1973).

Roger Pearson founder of the Northern League and patron of Nouvelle Ecole

Nouvelle Ecole's American representative is Donald Swan of Neue Anthropologie and the IAAEE. From the earliest editions of Nouvelle Ecole Swan has contributed articles on race (e.g. 'Le processus biologique de formation raciale' in Volume 3). In Volume 18, 1972, Swan wrote an article introducing Nouvelle Ecole to the work of Lundman.⁽⁶⁶⁾

Another of The Mankind Quarterly's advisers is also with Nouvelle Ecole's comité de patronage: J.D.J. Hofmeyr, the South African geneticist. In July 1972 de Benoist interviewed Hofmeyr for Nouvelle Ecole on the subject of race. Hofmeyr argued for the importance of racial differences, alleging that "cultures and civilizations, far from being a product of the environment, are intimately linked to the innate capacities of the races which have created them". In Hofmeyr's opinion, differences between races are unchangeable: "Races were formed thousands and thousands of years ago, and they remain just how they were formed". This means, according to the South Africa geneticist, that blacks will remain mentally inferior to whites.

Hofmeyr, in this interview, went on to expound a theory that the climate of the Northern Hemisphere led the white race to evolve superior mental powers. According to Hofmeyr's theory this explains "the leadership of the Northern Hemisphere of the planet in the field of science and technology".

Nouvelle Ecole claims to be the first French publication to publicise Jensen's work. De Benoist originally reported Jensen's research in Nouvelle Ecole, September/October 1969 in an article entitled 'Intégration scolaire et psychologie raciale'. This article was translated into German and appeared the following year in Junges Forum, under the title of Schulintegration und Rassenpsychologie. Jensenismus: Tabu, Rasse und IQ. The term 'Rassenpsychologie' has distinct echoes of earlier research into race.

More than just publicising Jensen's work, Nouvelle Ecole also claims to be in France "the first to give directly the words of Dr Jensen". This it first did in 1972, Volume 18, when it published an exclusive interview Jensen gave to De Benoist.⁽⁶⁷⁾

In the course of this interview Jensen explained why he thought that intelligence was determined primarily by heredity rather than by environment. He also regretted that the research necessary for establishing that there are racial differences in intelligence is no longer undertaken. However, Jensen rejoiced in the fact that "a large number of American and foreign thinkers have recognised the importance and truth in the questions which I have raised".

Jensen went on to publicise three of his books which were due to be published in London. He commented, "I am convinced that these works will have an influence on educational research for the next ten years".

Nouvelle Ecole continued bringing the words of Jensen to the attention of the French public by reprinting Jensen's article 'Educability, Heritability and Population Differences', in Volume 24, 1974.

In his interview with Nouvelle Ecole Jensen also recommended Eysenck's "little work" Race Intelligence and Education: "It is an essay which presents some of my research and views in a way which is clear and accessible to a non-specialised public. It deserves to be read by many people".

Jensen may have initially introduced Eysenck to the readers of Nouvelle Ecole, but firmer ties were soon to follow. Thus in 1974 Eysenck himself joined the comité de patronage.

Nouvelle Ecole in Autumn 1973 gave page-space to Eysenck's words. It reprinted an article by Eysenck, not on race, but on Freudian psycho-analysis.⁽⁶⁸⁾ To accompany the piece Nouvelle Ecole included several cartoons, photographs, and selected quotations from psycho-analysts, which taken together had more than a faint whiff of anti-Semitism.

This in itself illustrates the direction in which race-science has travelled in the past and the direction it seems to be going today. Thus, even in the French Nouvelle Ecole it is possible to detect signs that Günther's work is not totally forgotten. Just as The Mankind Quarterly and Neue Anthropologie combine the traditions of Nazi race-science with modern IQ psychology, so Nouvelle Ecole promotes Eysenck and Jensen as well as rehabilitating the memory of Günther.

For instance, Armin Mohler of the University of Innsbruck is on the comité. Mohler is the author of Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland, 1918-1932, which classes genuine conservatives like Thomas Mann under the same heading of 'radical conservatives' as Nazi racial theorists like Günther, Wirth and Kummer. In this way Mohler plays down the contribution which such racial theorists made to Nazism.

In a short article in Nouvelle Ecole, Autumn 1973, Mohler continues his whitewashing of Günther. In fact, he alleges that there were fundamental differences between the theories of Günther and Hitler, such that the Führer would "have been incapable of using the racial studies" because "the distinction 'Jew/non-Jew' satisfied him fully". Not only does Mohler here gloss over Günther's own extreme anti-Semitism, but also he neglects Günther's contributions to Rosenberg's anti-Jewish congresses. These heavily politicised congresses coincided with Hitler's fateful attempt to carry anti-Semitic theory to its logical conclusion, as well as with Mohler's own studies at the University of Berlin, where Günther was professor.

Nouvelle Ecole's racist perspective is hardly surprising considering that a former member of the comité was Roger Pearson, founder of the Northern League. Although Pearson is no longer officially listed on the comité, it is clear that connections are still maintained. Pearson is currently the chairman of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), an organisation which links the activities of racist and anti-Semitic groups throughout the world.

The Washington Post, May 28 1978, described the 11^th annual conference of WACL, chaired by Pearson and held in Washington. Amongst those present were representatives of the Italian fascist party MSI, Liberty Lobby, the American extreme racist and anti-Semitic group, and representatives from Nouvelle Ecole. The Washington Post report mentioned that the Nouvelle Ecole group met informally during the conference with William Pierce, former leading member of the American Nazi Party. According to Pierce, the Nouvelle Ecole members "are working along lines very close to ours".

To chapter #6