Why are Europe’s far-right parties so opposed to compulsory vaccination?

Thanks to soaring infection rates in Europe, the war against Covid has entered a new phase, with the prospect of tougher restrictions and compulsory vaccination. Tens of thousands marched in protest through the streets of Vienna and Brussels at the weekend, with many chanting ‘Freedom’ and ‘Down with Dictatorship’. Prominent in their ranks were supporters of the far right, a.k.a. fascists.

It is easy enough to understand why libertarians of the right such as Boris Johnson, and many, though by no means all, Tories would oppose the suspension of the fundamental civil liberties of the unvaccinated. But far-right fascists? Aren’t they the ones supposed to be hell-bent on the imposition of dictatorship and the suppression of freedom? In the case of the Covid vaccination, wouldn’t any fascists worth their salt be dead keen to force everyone to get jabbed — at the point of a bayonet if necessary? Not these days. Ironically, it is far-right parties, whether national-populists, identitarians or fascists, who are opposed most loudly, sometimes violently, to these new restrictions.

In Nazi Germany vaccination was compulsory — though only for Germans, because it was considered a privilege. In 1942, the Führer himself reminded high-ranking Nazis of this while discussing his plans for Russia once conquered: ‘In the field of public health there is no need whatso-ever to extend to the subject races the benefits of our own knowledge. This would result only in an enormous increase in local populations… Compulsory vaccination will be confined to Germans alone… It is stupid to thrust happiness upon people against their wishes.’

Today however, Germany’s far-right AfD is one of the few parties anywhere in Europe opposed not just to the vaccine pass but to the vaccine itself. Vaccination rates are particularly low in AfD strongholds in eastern Germany — just 57.5