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What are the main differences and similarities between Italian Fascism and German Nazism?

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by conservative_liberal (U2560760) on Tuesday, 22nd November 2005

  Differences
  
  Nazism differed from Fascism proper in the emphasis on the state's purpose in serving its national ideal on the basis of a national race, specifically the social engineering of culture to the ends of the greatest possible prosperity for German race at the expense of all else and all others. In contrast, Mussolini's Fascism held that cultural factors existed to serve the state, and that it wasn't necessarily in the state's interest to serve or engineer any of these particulars within its sphere. The only purpose of government under fascism proper was to uphold the state as supreme above all else, and for these reasons it can be said to have been a governmental statolatry. Where Nazism spoke of "Volk", Fascism talked of "State".
  
  While Nazism was a metapolitical ideology, seeing both party and government as a means to achieve an ideal condition for certain chosen people, fascism was a squarely anti-socialist form of statism that existed as an end in and of itself. The Nazi movement, at least in its overt ideology, spoke of class-based society as the enemy, and wanted to unify the racial element above established classes. The Fascist movement, on the other hand, sought to preserve the class system and uphold it as the foundation of established and desirable culture, although this is not to say that Fascists rejected the concept of social mobility. Indeed a central tenet of the Corporate State was meritocracy. This underlying theorem made the Fascists and National Socialists in the period between the two world wars sometimes see themselves and their respective political labels as at best partially exclusive of one another, and at worst diametrically opposed to one another.
  [edit]
  
  Similarities
  
  Nevertheless, despite these differences, Kevin Passmore (2002 p.62) observes:
  
  There are sufficient similarities between Fascism and Nazism to make it worthwhile applying the concept of fascism to both. In Italy and Germany a movement came to power that sought to create national unity through the repression of national enemies and the incorporation of all classes and both genders into a permanently mobilized nation.
  
  Hitler and Mussolini themselves recognised commonalities in their politics. The second part of Hitler's Mein Kampf, "The National Socialistic Movement", first published in 1926, contains this passage:
  
  I conceived the profoundest admiration for the great man south of the Alps, who, full of ardent love for his people, made no pacts with the enemies of Italy, but strove for their annihilation by all ways and means. What will rank Mussolini among the great men of this earth is his determination not to share Italy with the Marxists, but to destroy internationalism and save the fatherland from it. (p. 622)
  
  Does anyone agree or diagree with it and are there any important points missing?

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  Posted by Mark (U1347077) on Tuesday, 22nd November 2005

  From a military standpoint, why was Nazism so much more successful than Fascism? While both were defeated, the former conquered most of Europe and held off Russia, the US and the UK until 1943, Italy was unable to defeat Greece and was soundly beaten by the Western Desert Force in 1940.
  
  Both regimes were utterly corrupt and had limited raw materials yet Germany designed the Panzer IV etc while Italy came up with the M13/40 and so on. The Italian Navy seems to have been competent but struggled in the Mediteranean against only part of the Royal Navy. While both Hitler and Mussolini had inflated egos, the German dictator seems more of a hindrance than the Italian one yet it was Germany that created a powerful war machine.

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  Posted by DL (U1683040) on Tuesday, 22nd November 2005

  Mahros,
  
  I think the difference Militarily is that the Germans already had the Prussian tradition of a "Warrior Class", whereas the Italians, well I'll not go into their abilities on the Battlefield during WW2, I'll just quote the old joke about the Italian tank captured in the Western Desert, it had 2 forward gears, and 6 reverse! Add to this already existing militarism the resentment present with High and Middle ranking German Officers (those who fought in WW1) to the harsh terms of the Versailles Treaty, and the racist fanaticism indoctrinated into the population by Nazism (and exhibited on the battlefield by the Waffen SS), and that explains why the Germans fought much more successfully than the Italians. Equipment of course has a part too, but the general ability of the average soldier differed greatly. You used the example of the North African campaign to show the ineffectiveness of the Italians, it also shows the effectiveness of a fairly small German force against the same enemy, and clearly demonstrates the difference in ability.
  
  As for the differences between Nazism and Fascism, the original post was pretty much spot on, the main difference was that Nazism created a state where racism was not only encouraged, it was government policy. This was the main difference, and the original poster put it far better than I can!
  
  Cheers
  DL

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  Posted by KCLUndergrad (U2561619) on Tuesday, 22nd November 2005

  First of all conservative_liberal, that is pretty comprehensive, although there are more similarities (which escape me at the mo, sorry). You might want to acknowlegdge the, er, help you had from Wikipedia though, plagiarism applies to the web, too.
  
  Secondly to Mahros. Don't draw too distinct a line between Nazis and Fascists, the Nazis were a fascist regime just a different type from 'standard' fascism if such a thing exists. What is crucial to remember is the composition of the states at this time. Although both Germany and Italy had unified within a decade of each other (Ger: 1871, Italy: 1861), they were vastly different states. Italy was still effectively two countries, the very agricultural south and the industrial north. The south resented centralised power and many Italians did not think of themselves as Italian, rather as people of their province.
  
  Germany, on the other hand, had adapted to nationhood very well and her people felt just as much German as the British felt British. This cannot be underestimated when considering people's fighting prowess, since fascism appeals to the emotions (esp. patriotism), it is more effective in creating a military force if its people feel those emotions.
  
  The German army was quite simply better trained and better disciplined than the Italian army. For whatever reason, and you could link this back to the fact that maybe italian soldiers didn't want to fight in an 'Italian' Army, the German's superiority in the field was directly related to their good training and rigid discipline.
  
  Finally, don't overstate things too much. The Italian Navy caused the Royal Navy a vast number of problems and drew disproportionate amounts of valuable shipping away from the main battle in the Atlantic. Hitler's inteference was indeed a massive hinderence, but has no bearing on the power of the german war machine as even he did not have the time to stick his oar in everywhere.
  
  Hope i haven't spoken complete nonsense and that at least some of this is useful.

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