This panel analyzes the ways in which Europeans rebuilt their national identities following World War II, responding to the particular demands of continental migration and the Cold War geopolitical world order. Rather than a complete break with the past, we argue that influential interwar factors shaping national self-definition (such as religious traditions, nationalism, and anti-Communism) continued to hold sway in the decades following World War II. Giuliana Chamedes analyzes the ways in which the Vatican impacted the formation of the new democratic Italian state, guaranteeing the Catholic church’s influence in that country for years to come. Marla Stone assesses the success of the Italian Christian Democratic Party’s attempts to define a new nationalism in opposition to two enemies: defeated Fascism and popular communism. Stefanie Krull examines a move among Polish sociologists in the 1970s to preserve the integrity of their country’s postwar borders, suggesting that the government recognize a distinct “Silesian” identity to stem the tide of emigration from Poland. While in Poland scholars called for recognition of regional identities, Rhiannon Evangelista argues that, in 1950s Italy, former Italian Fascists promoted a continental European identity and set of values, insisting that committed nationalists support calls for European economic and political integration.