Comparison Italian And German Fascism

In the 20th century there were a lot of rises and falls of many types of government. In some cases, two “world wars” influenced these events and multiple changes arose in power. The First World War gave way to such styles of rule as Fascism and Nazism. Very often these two ideologies are conflated as the same thing. However, while there are similarities between these concepts, a lot of differences also exist, that need to be mentioned. In order to understand these two movements, one should get to know the meaning of these terms. Such political ideology as Fascism is used in reference to the style of ruling that arose in Italy after The First World War and was represented by Benito Mussolini. And Nazism is embodied by the man who might be a true Nazist itself, Adam Hitler.

Fascism could be considered as militant political movement that emphasized loyalty to the state and obedience to the leader. It based on the principles of Authoritarianism: government tried to organize and control with strong discipline as much as possible in people’s lives. The first obvious difference between these two political systems is about the intention: Hitler’s Nazi wanted to avenge what the world done to them after the World War I, he wished Germany to gain the hegemony all over Europe. While Mussolini’s fascism just wanted to reconstruct Roman Empire, build up the southern part from agriculture to industrial as the northern part of Italy. Other areas of differences between Germany and Italy involve their people. Hitler had people’s support till the end, while Mussolini gradually lost people’s faith.

After the World War I, Germany and Italy were in the same period of difficulty. Germany was considered to be the nation that made the war breaks out. Because of this reason, they had to pay massive reparations to some countries. It harmed their economy so much, and embarrassed the German people. This pushed up Hitler to start his ideas of new political policies called Nazism. Main points of this policy was to demanded more land, expand anti-semitism, and to make Germany become a super nation. Hitler used political propaganda to fuel their cause against the enemy. One of propaganda’s methods was the radio. That is kind of demagogism, the people knew nothing about the truth, but lies. Hitler’s Nazi were also against the Jews, use them as scapegoat. Jews were cheated extremely rude. About economic, Hitler’s Nazi could help their people out of the crisis, all economic activities devoted to the nation and the enlargement of the army. Role of women was not be respected, under Nazism, women have only role to take care of children and support their husband to serve the state. No place for women in any important field like political or economic.

About Italy, Mussolini’s fascism was the only policy which have freedom, all others were extinguished. All people who against the new policy was killed or exiled. Though parliament still met, all the important decisions were done by Fascism party, all followed what the dictator Mussolini told. Local power replaced by the mandarins appointed from Rome. Local fascists always had the same power as the government officials. No freedom of press in Italy that time, all the press, radio, movies, theatre were censorship strictly. All anti-fascism editors were replaced by fascist supporters. Schooling was tightly supervised, all books were rewritten to praise the fascist system. Teachers must wear uniform, students had the right to point out any teachers who did not have the fervency to the fascism. All the economic activities also under controlled by corporate state, they tried to harmonize the employers from all class. Lockouts and strikes were not allowed. About religion, especially here is Catholic, was forced. No other religions could exist.

In spite of these differences, these two fascism states share many important experiences. Since Mussolini and Hitler are allies, the way they used fascism is very similar, they have almost the same political point of view. Both of them were dictator fascists, looked for the new form of government: totalitarianism. They love to use violent, followed the doctrine of anti-democratic and anti-socialist, despised to civil rights and individual liberties. Their political ideologies formed just after the World War I. Violent propaganda was the key tool in both nations to increase social conflict everywhere in their nations, enabled the fascism government to dominate the points of view of the public to what they want to. The education systems in Germany and Italy were also very similar. The main purpose in education was to create as much well-trained and loyal soldiers as possible, because of the physical training was a major part of education. The women’s role in both states was not respected. France is considered as the common enemy for both Germany and Italy, because France invaded territories of both two countries. All characters above may be not enough, but they are somehow representative for the similarities between Italian Fascism and Nazi’s Germany.

Although political systems of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany differ from each other in many areas, but they still share some common experiences. As James Brown quotes: “Fascism and Nazism, although poles apart in their intellectual content, are similar in this, that both have emotional appeal to the type of personality that takes pleasure in being submerged in a mass movement and submitting to superior authority.”