A. NICOLAIDES
Both National Socialism and Italian Fascism sought to bring
about national and social unity in single-party systems which
were highly totalitarian in nature. In fascism, politics took pri-
ority over economics and the focus was on the nation. Eco-
nomics was thus determined by national objectives. In both
National Socialism and Italian fascism, economic practices
were a combination of soci alist and liberal policies. The corpo-
rate state would integrate employers and employees in Italy and
politics as expressed in the nation state. This was considered to
be spiritually as well as morally superior to economics. In the
case of National Socialism, race and Volk occupied the key
position in thinking. In both Germany and Italy, the idea was
for self-sufficient economy gathering its economic resources
for the national ends. In the case of both states it was linked to
the war footing in the 1030s. In Germany from 1936 onwards,
the aim was for economic self-sufficiency in preparation for
international conflict (Bullock, 1962: pp. 358-359).
The main ambiguity of both the German and Italian fascist
regimes was that they used “a battery of economic controls to
which left-wing governments, outside the Soviet Union, could
still only aspire to”. Yet the beneficiaries of these proposals
were groups which supported more right-wing parties (Milward
in Laquer, 1979: p. 411). Sternhell explains the development of
fascist ideology in both Italy and Germany as a logical and
reasonable response to the pervading practical political circum-
stances. The hatred for the bourgeois order and hatred of their
values is a visible theme in both Italian fascism and Nazism
(Sternhell, 1994: pp. 93-99).Certainly both Hitler and Musso-
lini appeared to have very little interest in economic theories, as
long as their nationalist and imperialist ambitions could be
underpinned. As Mosse noted on National Socialism: “It na-
tionalized when it wanted to nationalize… It allied itself with
big business when it wanted such an alliance”, overall it
seemed to lack any specific economic commitment (Sternhell,
1994: pp. 93-99). Fischer (1996) stated: “In the past fifteen
years, the long-entrenched thesis that National Socialism rep-
resented the revolt of the Mittelstand (the middle-class, bour-
geoisie) has undergone decisive revision. Although few histo-
rians would deny the Nazi party’s success among the German
middle classes in recruiting party members and drawing voters,
sophisticated statistical work, much of it drawn from newly-
explored regional archives, has shown that the Nazi constitu-
ency was much more diverse than once imagined. Recent
scholarship now argues that support for the Hitler movement
extended to all social classes. Moreover, although the Nazi
party performed especially well in Protestant regions, it did not
fail to attract Catholics. In short, National Socialism evolved
into a genuine Volkspartei (party of the nation) that tran-
scended the class and milieu-based politics of the Weimar pe-
riod...”.
In the area of Fascist attacks on intellectualism, it is difficult
to isolate Fascist themes or ideologists although the Italians had
Giovanni Gentile who “built” up much of the doctrine of fas-
cism for Mussolini. The National Socialists did not have any-
one as distinguished in their ranks. The National Socialist in-
terpretation of the term “social” was distinct from that of the
Italian fascists as the former focused on the racial Volkisch
dimension rather than on the state. An individual was consti-
tuted through the community which was constituted in terms of
racial soul (Volkseele). Nature was regarded as a life force
which gave both meaning and purpose to humans and their
Volk (Mosse, 1978: p. 15). It was the emotive, instinctive life
of people that linked them to their Volk and also to their inner
life-force of nature. People could be glorified, therefore, ac-
cording to their oneness with nature, and not through their
dominance over it. Unlike the Italian fascists, the Nazis cele-
brated in a bogus, and almost mystical sense, peasant life,
country landscapes and nature. It was the landscape which im-
bued people with their inner life force. Hitler’s love of animals
and the fact that he was a vegetarian are related to this stand-
point. As in the case of leaders in Nazism, the leadership mem-
bership of the Fascist movement was derived from amongst war
veterans and in particular, former commissioned and non-
commissioned officers. Members were also recruited from the
ranks of the white collar workers and the educated middle class.
Madden (1987) has shown that National Socialists emanated
from all social classes in large volumes. Fischer (1978) also
assessed the class orientation of the members of the Sturm Ab-
teilung (S.A., Stormtroopers or Brownshirts) and uncovered
that “the workers are over-represented in the S.A.” (p. 140).
From 1933-1934, some 69.9% of the S.A. emanated from the
working class compared to 53.2% from the German population
in general. Italian Fascists as well as Nazis criticized liberal
democracy on the grounds that political parties and various
pressure groups appealed to the selfish egoism of certain people
and increased social conflicts at a time when national unity was
desirable. Both Hugh Trevor-Roper and Ernst Nolte view fas-
cism as a result of tyranny and megalomania on the parts of
Mussolini and Hitler respectively. Alan Bullock states that
fascism “was to Hitler the instrument of his ambition” (Bullock,
1962: p. 237).
Conclusion
Both Fascism and Nazism were highly totalitarian in nature.
Both had one powerful leader, who came to epitomize the
general will of the nation. The leaders felt at ease in invading
all areas of both public and private life and this was justifiable
as it supposedly served the “greater good”. Each state sought to
bring about national and social unity in single-party systems
which were totalitarian in nature and although there were some
differences between fascism and National Socialism, there were
enough similarities between them for them to be treated as part
of the same movement in which the masses could be won over
by extensive propaganda (Mosse, 1978: p. 128). Sternhell is of
the opinion that Nazism was not “truly fascist” on account of its
form of racism (Sternhell, 1994: pp. 93-97) whereas R. de Fe-
lice viewed Italian fascism as being fundamentally different
from Nazism on account of Nazism’s atavistic tendencies (De
Felice, 1977: pp. 20-26). Philip Moran sees Italian fascism and
German National Socialism as belonging to the same “family”
as both were mass movements of the “middle-class reaction
against liberalism and socialism in an era of severe political and
social crises” (Morgan, 2003: p. 8). This is somewhat distinct
from the view of Reinhard Kuhnl who asserts that “National
Socialism was ‘fascist’ but was also its own movement with its
own criteria which are not directly connected to capitalism or to
capitalist desires” (Mosse, 1996: p. 48) and had an “unquestion-
able revolutionary nature” (De Felice, 1977: p. 191). Vajda, in
Fascism as a mass move ment, sees Ita lian fascism and Nat ional
Socialism as original European phenomena which expressed
the traditions and tendencies of Europe and should thus be un-
derstood as part of the development of the ideological and po-
litical structure of the West. Both are bourgeois and both are
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