Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany: Comparisons and ContrastsRichard Bessel Can Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany be compared? Not long ago, the answer seemed obvious: they could be and they were. Nationalist rhetoric, hostility to the left and to parliamentary government, and the glorification of violence seemed to invite comparison. More recently, doubts have arisen. As more attention is paid to the consequences of Nazi racism, it has been questioned whether Nazi Germany can be compared with anything. This collaborative volume meets the challenge of comparing the two movements. It contains ten essays, two each on five central themes: the rise of the Fascist and Nazi movements; the relation of the regimes to workers, women, and war; and how the regimes may be viewed in a long-term perspective. The essays take stock of recent research, advance fresh theories about the histories of Nazism and Fascism, and provide a basis for informed comparison of two regimes central to twentieth-century history. |
Contents
Notes on the contributors | ix |
Preface | xii |
List of abbreviations | xiii |
Italy Germany and fascism | 1 |
The crisis of bourgeois society and the origins of Fascism | 12 |
The crisis of bourgeois society in interwar Germany | 23 |
Italian workers and Italian Fascism | 40 |
Whatever was the attitude of German workers? Reflections on recent interpretations | 61 |
The value of marriage for the Volksgemeinschaft policies towards women and marriage under National Socialism | 94 |
Expansionist zeal fighting power and staying power in the Italian and German dictatorships | 113 |
Restorative elites German society and the Nazi pursuit of war | 134 |
From Fascism to postFascists Italian roads to modernity | 165 |
National Socialism and modernisation | 197 |
| 230 | |
| 232 | |
Women in Fascist Italy | 78 |
Common terms and phrases
argued army attitudes behaviour Bologna bourgeois society Cambridge Christian Democratic civil Communist crisis of bourgeois culture democracy Detlev Peukert Deutsche deutschen Deutschland dictatorship divorce Dritten Reich economic elites Europe European example extreme Right factory Fascist and Nazi Fascist Italy Fascist regime female forces Frankfurt/Main gender German German society Germany's Geschichte Ginsborg guerra historians Hitler Holocaust Ian Kershaw ideology impact industrial inflation interwar Italian Fascism Italy's labour London marriage Martin Broszat Mason middle-class Milan military mobilisation modern movement Mussolini National Socialism National Socialist Nationalsozialismus Nazi Germany Nazi regime Nazionale Nazism Oxford Partito party period Peukert political population postwar propaganda public health offices racial Rainer Zitelmann rationalisation recent regime's Renzo De Felice Republic Resistance role social policy Stato Storia terror Third Reich Tilla Siegel totalitarianism tradition Turin violence Volksgemeinschaft Weimar Republic Weimarer Republik welfare Willson women workers working-class Zitelmann