Racism in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany

Racism in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany

During the interwar period, Europe witnessed the rise of authoritarian regimes that challenged liberal democracy and promoted nationalist ideologies. Two of the most notable ones were Fascist Italy, headed by Benito Mussolini, and Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler. These two regimes, which were both founded on a belief in totalitarian control, militarism, and propaganda, differed tremendously when it came to race. The Nazis of Nazi Germany based their ideology on Aryan superiority and institutionalized racism, whereas Italian Fascism was more opportunistic in its policies toward race. While Fascism in Italy and Nazism in Germany incorporated racial ideologies, racism is remembered more as part of the Nazi regime than the Italian Fascist one. The essay will address the ideological similarities and differences between these regimes and discuss their remembrance in postwar societies.

Core Similarities between Fascism and Nazism

Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany had some key essential features that made them closely comparable within the range of totalitarianism ideas. They were strikingly anti-democratic; in support of centralized state power headed by a charismatic leader, Mussolini (during his reign as Il Duce) and Hitler (as Führer). Their political leadership philosophies worshiped power, compliance, and conformity of personal interest to that of the nation. In his Doctrine of Fascism, Benito Mussolini said that the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative (1). This spirit of state dominance gave rise to authoritarianism in the two countries.

The other common feature was hyper-nationalism. Both Mussolini and Hitler wanted to restore the greatness of the Roman Empire and a new Germanic Reich, respectively, to be built around the ideas of blood and soil. The two regimes relied on militarism in fostering national unity, the glorification of violence, as well as territorial expansion. The motives behind the campaigns by Italy in Ethiopia and Albania and by Germany in Poland, France, and the Soviet Union were a need to show power and the need to regain national pride.

Both systems were based on the use of propaganda. Both regimes monopolized newspapers, radio, art, and educational systems to shape opinion and silence opposition. Propaganda waxed gloriously patriotic, demonized those against them, and supported a cult of personality. Children were brainwashed at a young age in the youth clubs such as Hitler Youth and Fascist Youth with a focus on state loyalty.

Finally, both regimes brutally suppressed political opposition. The Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism (OVRA) in Italy and the Gestapo in Germany used secret police forces that kept a watch on the people, arrested those who disagreed, and ensured command by instilling terror. Trade unions, independent media, and political parties were eliminated or merged into state machinery. These similarities indicate that there was a totalitarian model of Fascism and Nazism. There was, however, a significant point of departure, and that was concerning the ideological and institutional purpose of race.

Key Differences between Fascism and Nazism

Racial Ideology in Nazi Germany

Racism was not an afterthought in Nazi Germany, but was central to Nazi ideology. One of the most obvious statements of this belief was made by Hitler in his January 30, 1939, speech in the Reichstag. Hitler predicted in it a future world war that would destroy the Jewish race in Europe (2). This statement was not a rhetorical flourish; it was a racial-coding statement of ideological purification.

According to Peter Staudenmaier, the Nazi racial ideology was based on biological determinism and misleading eugenics (3). The State advocated Aryan superiority and dehumanized the Jews, the Roma, individuals with disabilities, and other minorities. The 1935 Nuremberg Laws, which made antisemitism official state policy, stripped Jews of their citizenship, barred intermarriage, and controlled the control of employment. There was a definition of legal identity, social status, and moral worth through the aspect of race.

More than legal exclusion, this ideology led to genocide. The Nazi Regime built concentration and death camps in the program of the Final Solution to kill six million Jews and millions of others. This racial plan colored every single area of Nazi governance, including schooling and policies, as well as international matters. Becoming a Jew in Nazi Germany was not a religious or cultural condition but of irrevocable biology, a system of beliefs that dictated extermination as a rational conclusion.

Racial Ideology in Fascist Italy

Italian Fascism lacked a racial element at its root. During these initial works, Mussolini stressed national unity, spiritual rebirth, and the strength of the State instead of race. Mussolini, in the Doctrine of Fascism, believed in making a disciplined and heroic citizen without reference to racial purity and antisemitism. The Italians of Jewish background had the right to join the Fascist Party, and antisemitism played a minimal role in Fascist rhetoric until the late 1930s.

Fascist Italy embraced racial ideology once the regime was keen on aligning itself with Nazi Germany. In 1938, Mussolini presented the Italian Racial Laws, which limited the rights of the Jews in education, working, and marriage. These laws, however, were not systematically applied, as was the case in Germany. Staudenmaier observes that any attempt by intellectuals to introduce a spiritualized Aryan myth in Italian Fascism was not taken seriously and did not have much of a grip (3).

Weiner goes on to explain that the policies of racial distinctions in Italy had no in-depth convictions, but were politically biased and irregular in their implementation (4). The racial laws were a display of support for Hitler rather than based on Fascist ideology. During World War II, many Italians broke the law and hid Jews, and did not obey German command. A biologically based racial worldview was never entirely adopted by the State. Race was not a key ideological concept, but rather a means of Italian Fascism’s foreign policy.

Postwar Perception and Memory

Their divergent application of race is also depicted in the postwar memory of these regimes. Pasquini demonstrates that the reference to Fascism in postwar years was usually more nationalistic than political, with the emphasis given to the fact that it was a misguided action that lacked the issues of the racial features of Fascism (5). German media and popular discourse, on the contrary, focused on the atrocities of Nazism, in particular the Holocaust, as the defining element of its heritage.

This disparity is further depicted by Weiner in his analyses of the post-war textbooks in Italy and Germany. German textbooks repeatedly recognized the racial crimes of Nazism as having an essential role in contextualizing the regime. On the contrary, the 1938 racial laws were downplayed, or even absent, making Fascism appear less extreme and more emphasized on national discipline (6). These postwar accounts strengthened the notion that although racism was a concept that breathed out an essence of Nazism, it was not an element inherent to Fascism.

In conclusion, Fascism and Nazism shared a unity in their belief in authoritarianism, nationalism, militarism, and suppression of dissent. They applied similar policies of propaganda and state control, and this classified them as totalitarian. They, however, disagreed significantly over the issue of race. While Fascism in Italy and Nazism in Germany incorporated racial ideologies, racism was a guiding principle in German Nazism, whereas, in Italian Fascism, it had a less defining and more politically expedient role. This difference goes beyond mere comprehension of the nature of each regime and is essential to those who would understand some of the different routes totalitarianism may follow and how dangerous it can be when hate becomes policy.

Bibliography

Mussolini, Benito. “The Doctrine of Fascism,” 1932. https://sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/2B-HUM/Readings/The-Doctrine-of-Fascism.pdf.

“Hitler Speech January 30, 1939.” n.d. World Future Fund. https://www.worldfuturefund.org/Articles/Hitler/hitler1939.html.

Staudenmaier, Peter. “Racial Ideology between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany: Julius Evola and the Aryan Myth, 1933–43.” Journal of Contemporary History 55, no. 3 (October 7, 2019): 473–91. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009419855428.

Weiner, Daniela R.P. “Teaching about Fascism(S): The Relationship between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in Italian, West German, and East German Textbooks, 1950–60.” Journal of Contemporary History 58, no. 1 (December 13, 2021): 002200942110630. https://doi.org/10.1177/00220094211063097.

Pasquini, Dario. “Longing for Purity: Fascism and Nazism in the Italian and German Satirical Press (1943/1945–1963).” European History Quarterly 50, no. 3 (July 2020): 464–94. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265691420932251.

Dollinger, Stefan. “Eberhard Kranzmayer’s Dovetailing with Nazism: His Fascist Years and the ‘One Standard German Axiom (OSGA).’” Discourse & Society, August 7, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1177/09579265241259094.

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Racism in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany

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Provide in-text. end note style citations according to the The Chicago Manual of Style. For example, place the number of the citation in parenthesis at the end of the sentence, as shown below:
In 1814, Andrew Jackson defeated the British in the decisive Battle of New Orleans. Later, Jackson assaulted the people of New Orleans, too. By the time he left, most New Orleanians despised the man (1). Jackson’s degradations did not end with New Orleans, though. Later in life, following the end of his presidency, the one-time hero and long-time conspiracy theorist fell into bankruptcy and faced the prospect of losing his home, the Hermitage, to foreclosure. Jackson managed to save his house by bribing members of the Tennessee legislature to pass an act allocating taxpayer funds to pay off his mountainous debts in exchange for the Hermitage’s deed. True to his low character, however, Jackson demanded and won the right to live in there, rent free, for the remainder of his life, making Andrew Jackson the only former US president to end up living in government subsidized housing (2).
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1. John Q. Smith, The Intolerable Life of a Man Named John Q. Smith (New York: Smith Publishing, 2010), 78.
2. Ibid., 80; Ima Writer, “Andrew Jackson: What a Jerk,” The Journal of Southern History 45 (Spring 1963), 208-13; Major Irony, “Andrew Jackson’s Face on the Twenty Dollar Federal Reserve Note,” Journal of Profoundly Stupid Economic Policy 2 (November 2012), 3.