Fascist Italy: Mussolini, Hitler, and Roosevelt

Fascist Italy

Fascism emerged in Italy after World War I. Along with German Nazism, it was the most prominent unparliamentary ideology of the interwar period. Fascist ideology had several characteristics:

• It defended the establishment of a totalitarian state.
• It supported a dictatorial one-party political system.
• It was radically anti-capitalist and anti-communist.
• It maintained an aggressive, expansionist, and militaristic nationalism.
• Racists and fascists considered non-whites inferior.
• It descended into violence against political opponents.
• It exalted masculine principles.

Italy felt cheated after World War I. A moral crisis joined a grave economic, political, and social situation. Benito Mussolini created the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, known as the Blackshirts, in 1919. In 1921, the Fascists became the PNF (National Fascist Party) with an extremist political agenda. The strength of the Fascist Party and powerful groups prompted Mussolini to seize power through the March on Rome in October 1922. The government attempted to oppose him, but King Victor Emmanuel III overruled them and appointed Mussolini prime minister.

Until 1924, Mussolini maintained an apparent democratic rule while transforming the government into a dictatorship, which succeeded in 1926. He tried to steer the economy and industrial relations through corporatism, interventionism, and autarky.

Benito Mussolini (1883-1945)

Benito Mussolini was a teacher, journalist, politician, and member of the Socialist Party. In 1919, he founded the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, which in 1921 became the National Fascist Party. In 1943, he was deposed. Upon the German retreat from Italy, he was imprisoned near Lake Como on April 27, 1945, and escaped with the help of Nazi Germany. However, the next day, he was executed along with his lover and his ministers.

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)

Born in Austria in 1889, Adolf Hitler lived there until 1912. He fought in the German army during World War I. He joined the German Workers' Party, which, under his leadership, became the Nazi Party. In 1933, he was appointed chancellor by President Hindenburg. When Hindenburg died, Hitler assumed all powers in Germany, ushering in a dictatorship that led to World War II. He married Eva Braun, and they both committed suicide and were cremated.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)

Born in New York City in 1882, Franklin D. Roosevelt was an American politician. He was elected U.S. president as a candidate of the Democratic Party in 1932. He launched the New Deal. He was reelected between 1936 and 1940, strengthening ties with the United Kingdom. He was again reelected in 1944. The U.S. entered World War II during his presidency. He died shortly after celebrating the Yalta Conference in 1945 in Warm Springs, Georgia.