Fascism in Europe
[3] The ideology of fascism would not fully develop until 1921, when Mussolini transformed his movement into the National Fascist Party, which then in 1923 incorporated the Italian Nationalist Association.
The INA established fascist tropes such as colored shirt uniforms and also received the support of important proto-fascists like D'Annunzio and nationalist intellectual Enrico Corradini.
The first declaration of the political stance of fascism was the Fascist Manifesto, written by national syndicalist Alceste De Ambris and futurist poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and published in 1919.
[5] Prominent figures associated with European fascism outside of the Axis include Oswald Mosley, Rotha Lintorn-Orman, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, Joris Van Severen, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, Francisco Rolão Preto, Hristo Lukov, Aleksandar Tsankov, Bolesław Piasecki, Radola Gajda, Eoin O'Duffy, Sven Olov Lindholm, Vihtori Kosola, and Konstantin Rodzaevsky.
The nationalism espoused by these groups contrasted the internationalist focus of communism; there was little coordination between fascist movements prior to the Second World War; however.
[a] [b] Parties, movements or politicians who carried the label "fascist" quickly became political pariahs with many nations across Europe banning any organisations or references relating to fascism and Nazism.
These included the Chilean Nacistas, Brazilian Integralist Action, Argentine Civic Legion, Peruvian Revolutionary Union, National Synarchist Union, Revolutionary Mexicanist Action and the Silver Legion of America along with figures like Plínio Salgado, Gustavo Barroso, González von Marées, Salvador Abascal, Nicolás Carrasco, William Dudley Pelley and Adrien Arcand.
Outcome of theoretically multi-party elections which were clearly manipulated is ignored as unrepresentative for genuine support which the party enjoyed, e.g. the result of Partito Nazionale Fascista in Italy of 1924.
The second part of Hitler's Mein Kampf ("The National Socialist Movement", 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.
However, within the Italian fascist movement there were a minority who endorsed Hitler's antisemitism as Roberto Farinacci, who was part of the far-right wing of the party.
Habsburg Austria (Hitler's birthplace) had an antagonistic relationship with Italy since it was formed, largely because Austria-Hungary had seized most of the territories once belonging to Italian states such as Venice.
Although initially neutral, Italy entered World War I on the side of the Allies against Germany and Austria-Hungary when promised several territories (Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Trieste, Istria and Dalmatia).
When Mussolini's government collapsed in 1943 and the Italian Social Republic was created, Alto Adige/South Tyrol was annexed to Nazi Greater Germany, but was restored to Italy after the war.
Like Hitler, Mussolini publicly declared his support of a eugenics policy to improve the status of Italians in 1926 to the people of Reggio Emilia: We need to create ourselves; we of this epoch and this generation, because it is up to us, I tell you, to make the face of this country unrecognizable in the next ten years.
[73] However, under pressure from Nazi Germany, the fascist regime eventually embraced a racist ideology, such as promoting the belief that Italy was settling Africa in order to create a white civilization there[74] and it imposed five-year prison sentences on any Italians who were caught having sexual or marital relationships with native Africans.
[73] Against those colonial peoples who were not loyal, vicious campaigns of repression were waged such as in Ethiopia, where native Ethiopian settlements were burned to the ground by the Italian armed forces in 1937.
[75] Under fascism, native Africans were allowed to join the Italian armed forces as colonial troops and they also appeared in fascist propaganda.
However, Hitler was still audacious enough when meeting Mussolini for the first time in 1934 to tell him that all Mediterranean peoples were "tainted" by "Negro blood" and thus in his racist view they were degenerate.
Final solution Pre-Machtergreifung Post-Machtergreifung Parties Italian Fascism was expansionist in its desires, it advocated the establishment of a New Roman Empire.
The Nazis murdered the Austrofascist dictator Dollfuss, causing an uneasy relationship in Austria between fascism and Nazism at an early stage.
In the 1920s, Hitler, with only a small Nazi party at the time, wanted to form an alliance with Mussolini's regime because he recognized the fact that his espousal of pan-German nationalism was seen as a threat by Italy.
The official Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter contained articles which extolled the mutually benefitial results of the alliance: Firmly bound together through the inner unity of their ideologies and the comprehensive solidarity of their interests, the German and the Italian people are determined also in future to stand side by side and to strive with united effort for the securing of their Lebensraum [living space] and the maintenance of peace.
Hitler and Mussolini recognized the fact that there were commonalities in their politics and the second part of Hitler's Mein Kampf ("The National Socialist Movement", 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.Both regimes despised France (seen as an enemy which held territories claimed by both Germany and Italy) and Yugoslavia (seen by the Nazis as a racially degenerate Slavic state and holding lands such as Dalmatia claimed by the Italian fascists).
Hitler viewed Slavs as racially inferior, but he did not see importance in an immediate invasion of Yugoslavia, instead focusing on the threat from the Soviet Union.
German, Italian, Bulgarian, Hungarian and Croatian insurgents (under the Axis puppet Independent State of Croatia) decisively defeated Yugoslavia.
In the aftermath, with the exception of Serbia and Vardar Macedonia, most of Yugoslavia was reshaped based on Italian fascist foreign policy objectives.
The question of religion also poses considerable conflicting differences as some forms of fascism, particularly the Fatherland Front and National Union that were devoutly Catholic.
The occultist and pagan elements of Nazi ideology were very hostile to the traditional Christianity found in the vast majority of fascist movements of the 20th century.
