Maurice Bardèche

Maurice Bardèche (1 October 1907 – 30 July 1998) was a French art critic and journalist, better known as one of the leading exponents of neo-fascism and Holocaust denial in post–World War II Europe.

Bardèche was also the brother-in-law of the collaborationist novelist, poet and journalist Robert Brasillach, executed after the liberation of France in 1945.

Bardèche's main works include The History of Motion Pictures (1935), an influential study on the nascent art of cinema co-written with Brasillach; literary studies on French writer Honoré de Balzac; and political works advocating fascism and Holocaust denial, following his brother-in-law's poetic fascism, and inspired by fascist figures like Pierre Drieu La Rochelle and José Antonio Primo de Rivera. Viewed as the "father-figure of Holocaust denial", Bardèche introduced in his works many aspects of neo-fascist and Holocaust denial propaganda techniques, methodology and ideological structures; his work is deemed influential in regenerating post-war European far-right ideas at a time of the identity crisis in the 1950–1960s.