Abstract
Like the Britons, the Imperial Fascist League was founded by a man with a colourful background. Arnold Spencer Leese was born in 1878 in Lancashire, grew up as a protected child in a middle-class environment and was trained as a veterinary surgeon.1 After having received his diploma in 1903 he practised for three years in the East End of London. He then took a post with the Indian Government to study the diseases of camels. After six years in India he went to Kenya, then returned to England at the outbreak of World War I. He joined the Royal Army Veterinary Corps and served in France and Somaliland. Shortly after the war Leese opened a practice in Stamford, where he gradually established himself as one of the notables of the town. In 1928, after having published a study on camels, he abandoned his career as a vet in order to devote himself exclusively to political activities and founded the IFL, which he led as the unchallenged leader until his death in 1956.
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Notes
On bibliographical details, cf. A. S. Leese, Out of Step: The Two Lives of an Anti-Jewish Camel Doctor (n.d.). J. E. Morell, ‘Arnold Leese—Fascist and anti-Semite’, Wiener Library Bulletin XXIII, nr 4, n.s. nr 17 (1969) pp. 32–6.
Fascist nr 31 (December 1931) p. 1. Cf. M. Domarus, Hitler Reden and Proklamationen I (Würzburg, 1962) pp. 450–1.
R. Benewick, Political Violence, p. 44. J. E. Morell. Benewick, Political Violence, p. 44. J. E. Morell, ‘Arnold Leese’, Wiener Library Bulletin, XXIII (1969), p. 34.
L. H. Sherrard, ‘Yellow English’, Fascist nr 5 (July 1929) p. 1. This was the journal’s first contribution on racial problems.
MEPO 2/3069: A. S. Leese to Commissioner of Police, 2 October 1933. For a psychological interpretation of Leese’s opposition to Mosley, cf. R. Thurlow, ‘Authoritarians and Populists on the English Far Right’, Patterns of Prejudice, X, nr 2 (1976) p. 17.
Cf. M. D. Biddis, ‘Myths of Blood’, Patterns of Prejudice, IX, nr 5 (1975) pp. 11–19.
Ibid., nr 24 (May 1931) p. 2. In his autobiographical account H. E. Thost, Als Nationalsozialist in England (München 1939) p. 250, mentions Lease (sic) and the IFL as crusaders against Jewry.
J. Barnes, ‘Mein Kampf in Britain 1930–1939’, Wiener Library Bulletin, XXVII, n.s. nr 32 (1974) pp. 2–10.
Ibid., nr 37 (June 1932) p. 3. Cf. A. Hitler, Mein Kampf 213th edn (München 1936) p. 316: ‘Alle grossen Kulturen der Vergangenheit gingen nur zugrunde, weil die ursprünglich schöpferische Rasse an Blutsvergiftung abstarb.’
These contradictions are overlooked by R. C. Thurlow, ‘Racial Populism in England’, Patterns of Prejudice, X, nr 4 (1976) pp. 28–32.
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© 1978 Gisela C. Lebzelter
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Lebzelter, G.C. (1978). Imperial Fascist League. In: Political Anti-Semitism in England 1918–1939. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-04000-1_5
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