20. Nazism in Germany, Fascism in Italy — Full Notes

CORE Key Points at a Glance

1. 1

   Fascism — Birth in Italy (1919)

   • Benito Mussolini founded Fasci di Combattimento (Combat Leagues) in 1919
   • Name derived from fasces — bundle of rods, ancient Roman symbol of power
   • Mussolini became Italy's Prime Minister on 28 October 1922 after the March on Rome
   • King Victor Emmanuel III yielded rather than risk civil war
2. 2

   Hitler's Early Career and NSDAP

   • Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) joined the German Workers' Party in 1919
   • Renamed it National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP/Nazi Party) in 1920
   • Attempted the Munich Beer Hall Putsch (8–9 November 1923) — failed, imprisoned
   • In prison wrote Mein Kampf (1925) — autobiographical manifesto laying out racial ideology
3. 3

   Treaty of Versailles (1919) — Primary Grievance

   • Imposed "war guilt" clause (Article 231) and reparations of 132 billion gold marks
   • Germany lost 13% of its territory (Alsace-Lorraine; Rhineland demilitarised)
   • Army reduced to 100,000; all colonies stripped away
   • Germans called it the Diktat (dictated peace) — humiliation that fueled extreme nationalism
4. 4

   Great Depression (1929–33) — Economic Trigger

   • Germany's unemployment reached 6 million (30% of workforce) by January 1932
   • Hyperinflation had already devastated savings — 1923: one US dollar = 4.2 trillion marks
   • Economic catastrophe destroyed faith in the Weimar Republic
   • Desperate voters turned to Hitler's promises of national regeneration
5. 5

   Nazi Ideology — Six Pillars

   • Racial supremacy: Aryan master race vs. Jews, Slavs, Roma as "subhumans" (Untermenschen)
   • Anti-Semitism and anti-communism as core hatreds
   • Extreme nationalism and Volksgemeinschaft (people's community)
   • Führerprinzip — leader principle: absolute obedience to Hitler
   • Lebensraum — living space: German expansion eastward at expense of "inferior" Slavs
6. 6

   Hitler's Legal Seizure of Power (1933–34)

   • Appointed Chancellor on 30 January 1933 by conservatives who thought they could control him
   • Reichstag Fire (27 February 1933) — blamed on Communists; civil liberties suspended via Decree
   • Enabling Act (23 March 1933) gave Hitler dictatorial powers for 4 years — passed 444 to 84
   • After Hindenburg's death (August 1934), Hitler merged both offices as Führer und Reichskanzler
7. 7

   The Holocaust (Shoah) — Systematic Genocide

   • Nazi Germany murdered approximately 6 million Jews (two-thirds of European Jewry)
   • Also killed 5–6 million others: Roma, disabled people, Soviet POWs, Polish civilians, homosexuals
   • Sites: extermination camps — Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec — in occupied Poland
   • Nuremberg Laws (1935) had first stripped Jews of citizenship; Wannsee Conference (1942) coordinated the "Final Solution"
8. 8

   Italian Fascism under Mussolini (Il Duce)

   • Glorified the state, action, and violence; rejected democracy and communism
   • Promoted aggressive nationalism and imperial expansion — invasion of Ethiopia (1935)
   • Pursued the myth of a new Roman Empire dominating the Mediterranean
   • Mussolini coined both the term "fascism" and the "Third Way" between capitalism and communism
9. 9

   The Weimar Republic (1919–33) — A Democracy Undermined

   • Germany's first democratic experiment — born in defeat, associated with national humiliation
   • "Stab-in-the-back" myth (Dolchstoßlegende) blamed Jewish socialists for Germany's WWI defeat
   • Survived hyperinflation (1923) and Great Depression (1929–33), but was never accepted by army, judiciary, or conservative elites
   • Those same conservative elites eventually handed power to Hitler — a fatal miscalculation
10. 10

    Night of the Long Knives & Kristallnacht

    • Night of the Long Knives (30 June 1934): Hitler had SA leader Ernst Röhm and 200+ murdered to appease the army
    • This consolidated Hitler's internal power and elevated the SS over the SA
    • Kristallnacht (9–10 November 1938): Nazi pogrom — 7,500 shops smashed, 1,400 synagogues burned, 30,000 Jews arrested
    • Kristallnacht was a decisive turning point signalling the shift toward genocide
11. 11

    The Axis Alliance and Road to WWII

    • Italy and Germany formed the Rome-Berlin Axis (October 1936); Japan joined via Tripartite Pact (September 1940)
    • Hitler's territorial annexations: Austria/Anschluss (March 1938) and Czechoslovakia (1938–39)
    • Invasion of Poland (1 September 1939) triggered WWII
    • This aggressive Axis alliance made global war inevitable