3 April 2019

Nature writing’s fascist roots

When the Christchurch shooter described himself as an “eco-fascist”, he invoked the age-old and complicated relationship between nature writing and the far right.

By Richard Smyth

Eva Braun (1912 - 1945) exercising in her bathing suit at Konigssee, Berchtesgaden, Germany, 1942. Eva Braun liked to go swimming at the lake, which is only 4 miles from Adolf Hitler's Berghof, where she lived with the Nazi dictator. (Photo by Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images)

There is a snake in our Eden. Or rather, our Eden is the snake – subtle, tempting, full of false promises, beckoning us on to ruin. The land in which we live is no longer a green and pleasant one, but as we fumble for a way back into paradise we risk opening a door on to dystopia. The landscape of modern writing on nature is haunted by the ghosts of fascism.

In her hugely influential H is for Hawk (2014), Helen Macdonald describes watching a herd of deer on chalk-land near her mother’s home. A middle-aged man, passing by, remarks: “Doesn’t it give you hope?”