The rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe

A. J. P. Taylor aside, most academic historians regard Nazi and fascist ideology as essential to understand­ing both the origins and practices of the war. Fuelled by popular dissatisfaction with the 1919 settlement, extreme right-wing movements arose in the 1920s and 1930s. These fed on the social, economic, and political instabilities engendered by World War I. Italy had never really achieved stable central government despite unification in the nineteenth century. Although fascist mythology claimed that Mussolini seized power with his 'March on Rome', in reality he was invited to form a parliament by the king and conservative politicians in 1922, because the traditional right-wing parties had failed to form a stable government. Far from marching on Rome, he was brought to the capital by special train. Once Prime Minister, Mussolini set about conducting a 'fascist revolution' in Italian life, which no doubt horrified at least some of those responsible for bring­ing him to power.

As many historians and political theorists have pointed out, 'fascism' evades easy definition— arguably so incoherent as not to constitute a political philosophy at all. As practised in Italy, it entailed the establishment of a type of state popularly termed 'totalitarian' (especially after 1945), in which almost all aspects of its citizens' lives were subject to invasive regulation. In the sphere of employment, trade unions were abolished and 'corporations' of employers and employees established, overseen by fascist bureaucrats. Whatever the legitimation in terms of harmonious labour relations, 'corporatism' in practice ensured that the interests of big business prevailed over those of organized labour. In politics, opposition parties were eliminated, and a personal­ity cult was built around the figure of Mussolini, 'Il Duce'. Social life was heavily imbued with fascist ideology—from women's institutes, to football clubs and youth leagues.

Fascist precepts also influenced foreign policy, although there was some continuity of purpose between Mussolini and his predecessors. Fascism glorified violence and straggle, within society and between states, as natural and heroic. War was the ultimate test not only of individual 'manhood' but of a state's maturity and position in the International hierarchy. Mussolini was thus committed to over­turning that part of the Versailles settlement which had subtracted territory from Italy in the Adriatic. In addition, he strove to expand his 'New Roman Empire' into North Africa, by war if necessary. The obvious target was Abyssinia—the last remaining independent state in Africa—and in 1935, Italian troops moved to seize control of the country from Haile Selassie. This became a more protracted cam­paign than Mussolini had probably envisaged. Its most obvious beneficiary was not Il Duce himself, but Adolf Hitler, who used the cover of Mussolini's North African adventure to proceed with his own plans for dismantling the 1919 settlement in Europe.

Hitler came to power in Germany over a decade after Mussolini's accession in Italy. After years of street-fighting and rabble-rousing in beer cellars, Hit­ler's National Socialist party achieved success at the German polls in 1933. Once in power as Reich Chancellor, Hitler—like Mussolini—moved to con­solidate the grip of his party over both the organs of the state, and the German people as a whole. Nazis assumed power in central and local government; the state directed industry, and controlled the German mass media. Opposition parties were abolished, and dissent stifled, either by physical punishment or the fear of it. Hitler's particular targets of detestation— the Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals—were sent in ever increasing numbers to concentration camps. No aspect of German life was left untouched by the Nazi party and ideology. Even the most intimate aspects of private life—relating to reproduction and childrearing—were subordinated to the imperatives of the Third Reich. German women were accordingly exhorted to produce genetically pure children for the greater good of the Reich.

In this regard, as in others, Nazism closely re­sembled Italian fascism: Mussolini also insisting that 'Maternity is the patriotism of women' (Mazower 1999; 82). But Nazism exhibited distinct, and more virulent, strains, especially in its genocidal anti-Semitism. At the heart of Hitler's world view was his racist belief in the superiority of the pure German people—the Aryan race. Not only did he believe that Germany had been unfairly robbed of land and people in 1919, but his territorial aims went far beyond mere rectification of the wrongs of Versailles. In pursuit of more lebensraum (living space), Aryan Germans must fulfill racial and historical destiny, by expanding eastwards (the drang nach osten), at the expense of the Slavonic untermenschen ('sub-humans') who inhabited Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union in particular. Hitler's world view thus rested on a debased Social Darwinism, in which the 'fittest' race was compelled to expand at the expense of its genetically inferior neighbours.