Scandinavia has since the post-war been influenced by both fascism and national socialism. Especially since the occupation in Denmark and Norway, national socialism is a remembrance of a dark age. The two ideologies have ever since been a repressed memory by Denmark, Norway and Sweden, whereas the two aforementioned especially associate both fascism and national socialism with the occupation. Why these ideologies still occupy the societies in Scandinavia is a conundrum. One which we hope to shed light on in this thesis on neo-fascism and neo-Nazism in Scandinavia.
To reach this end, we have utilized several memory studies combined with the theories on historian Paul Connertons types of forgetting. It is our belief that forgetting is in large part responsible for the development of the ideologies in the collective memory. Here those who were connected to the occupational forces were mainly punished collectively in the aftermath of World War II. Considering that this plays a part in the way Scandinavian societies viewed these individuals. Traitors and collaborators were afterwards shed aside as a desired thing to repress from the memory of the occupation. However this was not the end for fascist and nationalsocialist influence on the societies - far from it. In the process of repressing the ideologies from the societal consciousness, underground cultures arose as a separate social group. The very existence of these were caused by how Denmark, Norway and Sweden constructed the collective memory which vilified both fascism and national socialism in the cultural memory.
Incidentally the repressive erasure of the ideologies birthed a new wave of fascism and national socialism in Scandinavia. Despite the overall negative view of the ideologies, they have become a more subtle part in the Scandinavian societies. This was because the handling of them, never acknowledged how both fascism and national socialism appeals to cultural identity of the Danish, Norwegians and Swedish. They are modernistic political tools which utilize the cultural memory of societies like those in Scandinavia. By using history as point of reference for the cultural identity, both fascism and national socialism are an extreme sort of nationalism. The longing of the past’s previous glory is a tendency, which appeals to all. In attempting to erase the ideologies by persecuting people in the Scandinavian countries, we have eventually come to the realization that ideologies are not that easily thwarted. The continued presence of fascism and national socialism is irrefutable evidence of such.