Making of the Modern World: Fascism

How do you recognize fascism?

• The ‘content’: Fascist Ideology?

• The ‘action’: Fascist Practice?

• A historical approach: What was Fascism?

• Fascist Movements and Fascist States

Making of the Modern World: Fascism

Fascist Movements I: Italy

• World War One and the first Italian Fascists

• The Biennio Rosso: Social Crisis and the Rise of Fascism

• The Fascist March on Rome, October 1922

Making of the Modern World: Fascism

Fascist Movements II: Germany

• The Post-War Crisis and the emergence of Nazism (NSDAP = National Socialist German Workers Party)

• The Rise of Nazism at the End of the Weimar Republic

• The Nazi take-over of power, January 1933

Making of the Modern World: Fascism

Fascist Movements II: Germany

• The Post-War Crisis and the emergence of Nazism (NSDAP = National Socialist German Workers Party)

• The Rise of Nazism at the End of the Weimar Republic

• The Nazi take-over of power, January 1933

Making of the Modern World: Fascism

Fascist Regimes

• Fascist Dictatorships? The Leadership Principle

• Forming a National Community, from above and from below

• Anti-Semitism and Racism

• The Regime as a Movement: Constant Mobilization

Making of the Modern World: Fascism

Fascism and War

• Fascist Imperialism (Ethiopia, Mediterranean) and Nazi Expansion in the East (Space for Living)

• The Enslavement of the Slavic Population

• The Murder of European Jewry

Making of the Modern World: Fascism

Fascist Ideology

• Anti-isms: Anti-Marxism, anti-liberalism, anti-Semitism, etc.

• The Fascist vision of a new society: a purified and rejuvenated nation that would overcome class struggle

• Visions of heroic individualism

• Anti-rationalism and the belief in myths

Making of the Modern World: Fascism

Fascist Practice

• Central role of violence, above all against their opponents (Communists, Socialists, Jews)

• Violence as a means to create a (masculine) community

• Ideology and Practice: The glorification of violence and the fascist will to action

Making of the Modern World: Fascism

Fascism and Youth

• Fascism as a youth movement?

• Youth and its ability to build a ‘new society’ played a key role in Fascist ideology.

• A generation of fascists? Many fascists, especially Nazis in Germany, had been too young to fight in World War One. They longed to become ‘heroes’ and to create something radically new.