Fascism (Lecture)
ID Terms
Fascism | Individual interests put lower to the good of the people/nation/race Authoritarian and ultranationalist Scientific racism (Eugenics) See warfare as a combination of adventure, honorable engagement, masculinity, and a test of the people | Active state Violence for political means Valorization of warfare External other used as target for violence |
Totalitarianism | State that seeks to fully mobilize and control its citizens Citizens forced to accept power and take an active role in generating power for leader and government | One party Public and private control Active participation required Violence/Propaganda |
Stab in the Back Myth | Myth in Germany that spread through veterans Directed violence and blame towards “others” | Germany did not lose but citizens at home (Jews and socialists) created later unrest and forced the government to sign treaty |
Benito Mussolini | Fascist leader of Italy Role as a veteran in the movement is key First to release idea of fascism in Europe despite his various failures | Humble origins - formerly left-wing Unite the people |
Black Shirts | Paramilitary forces established by Mussolini to fight nationalists and socialists | Emphasized the violence used in the rising fascism ideology |
Adolf Hitler | Also a war veteran and found meaning life in comradeship in trenches Stab in back myth (jews) | Humble origins and antisocial German Workers Party (Nazi) (racial nationalism) Charismatic with experience even before reputation |
Brown Shirts (SA) | German paramilitary group of ex soldiers performing military violence against political enemies | Original failure results in Hitler’s new plan to rise in politics |
Kristallnacht | 1938, large scale attack on Jews | 7500 Jewish storefronts smashed, 267 synagogues burned, 20,000 Jews arrested and sent to camps |
Nuremberg Decree | 1935 No citizenship or intermarriage for Jews |
Europe 1930s-1940s
Why did all this spring up in Europe in the form of fascism?
Majority of middle-class Europeans go for antisocialist, anti-liberal movement
Working class and higher class pressuring middle class
Scientific ideas of race come back to home country
Why was that fascism in particular?
How did the Great War contribute to the development of fascist ideals?
Middle class characteristics are lost due to war. Increasing threat of Bolshevism. Communism develops and those who reject it come up with new solutions rather than liberal parties. Fascism speaks to bitter veterans to remake the world after the Great War.
Exhaustion of liberalism
Enlightenment
Large expansion of lower middle class
New forms of nationalism that is explicitly racist
Great War
Post war economic troubles
Bolshevik threat
WWI veterans made up fascist shock troops
Hitler How
Economic/political turmoil
Disaffected lower-middle electorate
Complicity of old elite
Ban other political parties