The Russian Roots of Nazism: White Émigrés and the Making of National Socialism, 1917–1945

Abstract

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, scholarly interest in the inter-war Russian emigration has increased significantly, and numerous works on émigré life, culture, and politics have been published. Given the limited influence that émigrés had on the world around them, much of this work has inevitably been rather introspective, of little interest to scholars outside this narrow field. Michael Kellogg's new book, The Russian Roots of Nazism, is rather different. He argues that one group of White Russian exiles had a decisive influence on the development of the Nazi Party and its leader Adolf Hitler in the early 1920s. His account makes an important contribution not only to the history of the Russian emigration, but also to that of German politics.