European fascist ideologies - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Fascism in Europe was composed of numerous ideologies present during the 20th century which all developed their own differences from each other. Fascism

Fascism

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

was born in Italy

Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)

The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...

and subsequently, across Europe several movements which took influence from it emerged. Purists assert that the term "Fascism" should only be used in relation to the National Fascist Party

National Fascist Party

The National Fascist Party was an Italian political party, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of fascism...

under Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....

in Italy.

However, commonly the following European ideologies are also described as forms of, or strongly related to fascism. The Falange

Falange

The Spanish Phalanx of the Assemblies of the National Syndicalist Offensive , known simply as the Falange, is the name assigned to several political movements and parties dating from the 1930s, most particularly the original fascist movement in Spain. The word means phalanx formation in Spanish....

in Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

under Francisco Franco

Francisco Franco

Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...

, the Austrofascism

Austrofascism

Austrofascism is a term which is frequently used by historians to describe the authoritarian rule installed in Austria with the May Constitution of 1934, which ceased with the forcible incorporation of the newly-founded Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938...

in Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

under Engelbert Dollfuß, the 4th of August Regime

4th of August Regime

The 4th of August Regime , commonly also known as the Metaxas Regime , was an authoritarian regime under the leadership of General Ioannis Metaxas that ruled Greece from 1936 to 1941...

in Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

under Ioannis Metaxas

Ioannis Metaxas

Ioannis Metaxas was a Greek general, politician, and dictator, serving as Prime Minister of Greece from 1936 until his death in 1941...

, the Sanation in Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

under Józef Piłsudski, the Estado Novo in Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

under António de Oliveira Salazar

António de Oliveira Salazar

António de Oliveira Salazar, GColIH, GCTE, GCSE served as the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. He also served as acting President of the Republic briefly in 1951. He founded and led the Estado Novo , the authoritarian, right-wing government that presided over and controlled Portugal...

, and the Nazi Party of Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

under Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

.

The most striking difference is the racialist and anti-Semitic ideology present in Nazism

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

but not the other ideologies. Fascism was founded on the principle of nationalist unity, against the divisionist class war

Class conflict

Class conflict is the tension or antagonism which exists in society due to competing socioeconomic interests between people of different classes....

ideology of Socialism

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

and Communism

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

. Thus the majority of the regimes viewed racialism as counter productive to unity, with Mussolini asserting that "National pride has no need of the delirium of race".

Italian Fascism was expansionist in its desires, looking to create a New Roman Empire. As was Nazi Germany, who looked to expand its borders. The same cannot be said for the other ideologies who focused almost exclusively on internal matters. This led to some countries, such as Spain or Portugal, remaining neutral in World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, rather than being Axis powers

Axis Powers

The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...

, while Metaxas's Greece fought against the Axis, due to Italy's invasion. It is widely accepted that the Nazis murdered the Austrofascist dictator, causing an uneasy relationship between Fascism and Nazism at an early stage.

The question of religion

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

also poses considerable conflicting differences, some forms of fascism, particularly the Falange and Estado Novo were devoutly Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

. Thus the occultist and pagan

Religious aspects of Nazism

Historians, political scientists and even philosophers have studied Nazism with a specific focus on its religious or semi-religious aspects.The most prominent discourse here is the debate whether Nazism would constitute a political religion, but there has also been research on the millenarianistic,...

elements of Nazism, were directly opposed to the Christian element found in the vast majority of fascism movements of the 20th century.

Early relationship

Mussolini and Hitler were not always allies. While Mussolini wanted the expansion of fascist ideology throughout the world, he did not initially appreciate Hitler and the Nazi Party. Hitler was an early admirer of Mussolini and asked for Mussolini's guidance in how the Nazis could pull off their own March on Rome

March on Rome

The March on Rome was a march by which Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party came to power in the Kingdom of Italy...

. Mussolini did not respond to Hitler's requests; he did not have much interest in Hitler's movement and regarded Hitler to be somewhat crazy. Mussolini did attempt to read Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...

to find out what Hitler's Nazism was but was immediately disappointed, saying that Mein Kampf was "a boring tome that I have never been able to read" and claimed that Hitler's beliefs were "little more than commonplace clichés."

Mussolini had personal reasons to oppose antisemitism: his longtime mistress and Fascist propaganda

Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

director Margherita Sarfatti

Margherita Sarfatti

Margherita Sarfatti was a Jewish Italian journalist, art critic, patron, collector, socialite, and one of Benito Mussolini's mistresses.-Biography:...

was Jewish. She had played an important role in the foundation of the Fascist movement in Italy and promoting it to Italians and the world through supporting the arts. However, within the Italian Fascist movement, there were a minority who endorsed Hitler's antisemitism. These included Roberto Farinacci

Roberto Farinacci

Roberto Farinacci was a leading Italian Fascist politician, and important member of the National Fascist Party before and during World War II, and one of its ardent anti-Semitic proponents.-Early life:...

and Julius Evola

Julius Evola

Barone Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola also known as Julius Evola, was an Italian philosopher and esotericist...

, who represented the far-right wing of the Party.

There were also nationalist reasons why Germany and Italy were not immediate allies. Habsburg

Habsburg

The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...

Austria

(Hitler's birthplace) had an antagonistic relationship with Italy since it was formed, largely because Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

had seized most of the territories once belonging to Italian states such as Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

. Italian irredentist claims sought the return of these lands to Italian rule (Italia irredenta
Italia irredenta
Italian irredentism was an Italian Irredentist movement that aimed at the unification of all ethnically Italian peoples....

). Although initially neutral

Neutral country

A neutral power in a particular war is a sovereign state which declares itself to be neutral towards the belligerents. A non-belligerent state does not need to be neutral. The rights and duties of a neutral power are defined in Sections 5 and 13 of the Hague Convention of 1907...

, Italy entered the World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

on the side of the Allies

Allies of World War I

The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...

against Germany and Austria-Hungary when promised several territories (Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Trieste

Trieste

Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...

, Istria

Istria

Istria , formerly Histria , is the largest peninsula in the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Bay of Kvarner...

and Dalmatia

Dalmatia

Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....

). After the war had ended, Italy was rewarded with these territories under the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

In Germany and Austria, the annexation of Alto Adige/South Tyrol was controversial, as the province was made up of a large majority of German speakers. While Hitler did not pursue this claim, many in the Nazi Party felt differently. In 1939 Mussolini and Hitler agreed on the South Tyrol Option Agreement

South Tyrol Option Agreement

The South Tyrol Option Agreement refers to the period between 1939 and 1943, when the native German and Ladin speaking people in South Tyrol and three communes in the province of Belluno were given the "option" of either emigrating to neighboring Nazi Germany or remaining in Fascist Italy and...

. (When Mussolini's government collapsed in 1943 and the Italian Social Republic

Italian Social Republic

The Italian Social Republic was a puppet state of Nazi Germany led by the "Duce of the Nation" and "Minister of Foreign Affairs" Benito Mussolini and his Republican Fascist Party. The RSI exercised nominal sovereignty in northern Italy but was largely dependent on the Wehrmacht to maintain control...

was created, Alto Adige/South Tyrol was annexed to Nazi Greater Germany, but was restored to Italy after the war).

Racism

Nazism differed from Italian fascism in that it had a stronger emphasis on race, in terms of social and economic policies. Though both ideologies denied the significance of the individual, Italian fascism saw the individual as subservient to the state, whereas Nazism saw the individual, as well as the state, as ultimately subservient to the race. But subservience to the Nazi state was also a requirement on the population. Mussolini's Fascism held that cultural factors existed to serve the state, and that it was not necessarily in the state's interest to interfere in cultural aspects of society. The only purpose of government in Mussolini's fascism was to uphold the state as supreme above all else, a concept which can be described as statolatry

Statolatry

Statolatry, which combines idolatry with the state, first appeared in Giovanni Gentile's Doctrine of Fascism, published in 1931 under Mussolini's name...

. Unlike Hitler, Mussolini repeatedly changed his views on the issue of race according to the circumstances of the time.

In 1921, Mussolini promoted the development of the Italian race such as when he said:
Like Hitler, Mussolini publicly declared his support of a eugenics policy to improve the status of Italians in 1926 to the people of Reggio Emilia

Reggio Emilia

Reggio Emilia is an affluent city in northern Italy, in the Emilia-Romagna region. It has about 170,000 inhabitants and is the main comune of the Province of Reggio Emilia....

:
In private, in a conversation with Emil Ludwig in 1932, Mussolini derided the concept of a biologically superior race and denounced racism as being a foolish concept. Mussolini did not believe that race alone was that significant. Mussolini viewed himself as a modern day Roman Emperor

Roman Emperor

The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...

, a cultural elite

Elite

Elite refers to an exceptional or privileged group that wields considerable power within its sphere of influence...

and wished to "Italianise" the parts of the Italian Empire

Italian Empire

The Italian Empire was created after the Kingdom of Italy joined other European powers in establishing colonies overseas during the "scramble for Africa". Modern Italy as a unified state only existed from 1861. By this time France, Spain, Portugal, Britain, and the Netherlands, had already carved...

he had desired to build. A cultural superiority of Italians, rather than a view of racialism. Mussolini believed that the development of a race was insignificant in comparison to the development of culture, but did believe that a race could be improved through moral development, but does not say that this will make a superior race:
Mussolini believed that a biologically superior race was not possible, but that a morally superior culture was. He believed that Italian culture and morals were superior to those of other nations, such as African nations. For Mussolini, inclusion of people in a fascist society depended on their loyalty to the state. Meetings between Mussolini and Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

dignitaries from the colony of Libya

Libya

Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

convinced Mussolini that the Arab population was worthy to be given extensive civil rights, and allowed Muslims to join a Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

section of the Fascist Party - the Muslim Association of the Lictor

Muslim Association of the Lictor

The Muslim Association of the Lictor was created in 1939 as the Muslim branch of the National Fascist Party of Italy found largely in Italian Libya....

. However under pressure from Nazi Germany, the Fascist regime eventually did take on racist ideology, such as promoting the concept of Italy settling Africa to create a white civilization in Africa and handing out five-year criminal sentences for Italians caught in a sexual or marital relationship with native Africans. For those colonial peoples who were not loyal, vicious repression was used, such as in Ethiopia, where in 1937, native Ethiopian settlements were burned to the ground by Italian armed forces. Under Fascism, native Africans were allowed to join the Italian armed forces as colonial forces and appeared in Fascist propaganda

Propaganda of Fascist Italy

Propaganda of Fascist Italy was the material put forth by Italian Fascism to justify its authority and programs and encourage popular support.-Use:...

.

The Nazi movement, at least in its overt ideology, spoke of class-based society as the enemy, and wanted to unify the racial element above established classes; however, the Italian fascist movement sought to preserve the class system and uphold it as the foundation of established and desirable culture. Nevertheless, the Italian fascists did not reject the concept of social mobility

Social mobility

Social mobility refers to the movement of people in a population from one social class or economic level to another. It typically refers to vertical mobility -- movement of individuals or groups up from one socio-economic level to another, often by changing jobs or marrying; but can also refer to...

, and a central tenet of the fascist state was meritocracy

Meritocracy

Meritocracy, in the first, most administrative sense, is a system of government or other administration wherein appointments and responsibilities are objectively assigned to individuals based upon their "merits", namely intelligence, credentials, and education, determined through evaluations or...

. Yet, fascism also heavily based itself on corporatism

Corporatism

Corporatism, also known as corporativism, is a system of economic, political, or social organization that involves association of the people of society into corporate groups, such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labor, military, patronage, or scientific affiliations, on the basis of common...

, which was supposed to supersede class conflict

Class conflict

Class conflict is the tension or antagonism which exists in society due to competing socioeconomic interests between people of different classes....

s. Despite these differences, Kevin Passmore (2002 p. 62) observes:

There are sufficient similarities between Fascism and Nazism to make it worthwhile applying the concept of fascism to both. In Italy and Germany a movement came to power that sought to create national unity through the repression of national enemies and the incorporation of all classes and both genders into a permanently mobilized nation.

Nazi ideologues such as Alfred Rosenburg were highly skeptical about the Italian race and Fascism but saw an improvement of the Italian race as possible if major changes were made to convert it into an acceptable "Aryan" race, and said that the Italian Fascist movement would only succeed if it purified the Italian race into an Aryan one. Nazi theorists believed that the downfall of the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

was due to interbreeding of different races which created a "polluted" Italian race which was inferior. Hitler believed this, but saw Mussolini as representing the attempt to revive the pure elements of the former Roman civilization, such as the desire to create a strong and aggressive Italian people, but Hitler was still audacious enough when meeting Mussolini for the first time in 1934 to tell him that all Mediterranean peoples were "tainted" by "Negro blood" and thus in his racist view, they were degenerate.

As relations were initially poor, things grew worse after the assassination of Austria's fascist chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss

Engelbert Dollfuss

Engelbert Dollfuss was an Austrian Christian Social and Patriotic Front statesman. Serving previously as Minister for Forest and Agriculture, he ascended to Federal Chancellor in 1932 in the midst of a crisis for the conservative government...

by Austrian Nazis in 1934. Austria under Dolfuss was a key ally to Mussolini and Mussolini was deeply angered by Hitler's attempt to take over Austria, and angrily mocked Hitler's earlier remark on the impurity of the Italian race by declaring that a "Germanic" race did not exist and notes how Hitler's society's repression of Jews indicates that Germany did not have a pure race:

Foreign affairs

Italian nationalist and Pan-German

Pan-Germanism

Pan-Germanism is a pan-nationalist political idea. Pan-Germanists originally sought to unify the German-speaking populations of Europe in a single nation-state known as Großdeutschland , where "German-speaking" was taken to include the Low German, Frisian and Dutch-speaking populations of the Low...

claims clashed over the issue of Tyrol

Euroregion Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino

[Image:Tirol-Suedtirol-Trentino.png|thumb|Detailed map of the Euroregion, formed by the Austrian state of Tyrol and the Italian autonomous provinces of South Tyrol and Trentino.----...

. The region had been administered with Italy (as the province

Roman province

In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and, until the Tetrarchy , largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of Italy...

of Italia) by the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

, but had been populated primarily by ethnic Germans and part of Austrian Empire

Austrian Empire

The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...

and then Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

for centuries afterward. With the collapse of Austria

Austria

in World War I, an independent Austria was no longer a serious threat to Italy, but the popularity of Pan-German nationalism in both Germany and Austria remained. The Fascist regime opposed the Nazis expansionist efforts towards Austria and supported Austria's sovereignty and promoted the adoption of fascism in the country.

In the 1920s, Hitler wanted an alliance of the Nazi movement with Mussolini's regime, and recognized that his pan-German nationalism was being seen as a threat by Italy. In Hitler's unpublished sequel to Mein Kampf, Hitler attempts to address concerns among Italian Fascists about Nazism. In the book, Hitler puts aside the issue of Germans in Tyrol by explaining that overall Germany and Italy have more in common than not and that the Tyrol Germans must accept that it is in Germany's interests to be allied with Italy. Hitler claims that Germany, like Italy was subjected to oppression by its neighbours, and he denounces the Austrian Empire as having oppressed Italy from completing national unification just as France oppressed Germany from completing its national unification. Hitler's denunciation of Austria in the book is important as Italian Fascists were skeptical about him he was born in Austria which Italy long considered to be its primary enemy for centuries and saw Germany as being an ally to Austria. By declaring that the Nazi movement was not interested in the territorial legacy of the Austrian Empire, this is a way to assure the Italian Fascists that Hitler, the Nazi movement, and Germany were not enemies of Italy.

Despite public attempts of goodwill by Hitler to Mussolini, Germany and Italy came into conflict when in 1934, when Engelbert Dollfuß, the Austrofascist

Austrofascism

leader of Italy's ally Austria, was assassinated by Austrian Nazis on Hitler's orders in preparation for a planned Anschluss

Anschluss

The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....

(annexation

Annexation

Annexation is the de jure incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity . Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities, barring physical size...

of Austria). Mussolini ordered troops to the Austrian-Italian border in readiness for war against Germany. Hitler backed down and defer plans to annex Austria.

When Hitler and Mussolini first met, Mussolini referred to Hitler as "a silly little monkey

Monkey

A monkey is a primate, either an Old World monkey or a New World monkey. There are about 260 known living species of monkey. Many are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent. Unlike apes, monkeys...

" before the Western Allies forced Mussolini into an agreement with Hitler.

Mussolini also reportedly asked Pope Pius XII

Pope Pius XII

The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....

to excommunicate Hitler.

From 1934 to 1936, Hitler continually attempted to win the support of Italy; the Nazi regime endorsed the Italian invasion of Ethiopia

Second Italo-Abyssinian War

The Second Italo–Abyssinian War was a colonial war that started in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire...

(leading to Ethiopia's

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

annexation as Italian East Africa

Italian East Africa

Italian East Africa was an Italian colonial administrative subdivision established in 1936, resulting from the merger of the Ethiopian Empire with the old colonies of Italian Somaliland and Italian Eritrea. In August 1940, British Somaliland was conquered and annexed to Italian East Africa...

) while the League of Nations

League of Nations

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

condemned Italian aggression. With other countries opposing Italy, the Fascist regime had no choice but to draw closer to Nazi Germany. Germany joined Italy in supporting the Falange

Falange

fascist Nationalists under Francisco Franco

Francisco Franco

with forces and supplies in the Spanish Civil War

Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

.

Later, Germany and Italy signed the Anti-Comintern Pact

Anti-Comintern Pact

The Anti-Comintern Pact was an Anti-Communist pact concluded between Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan on November 25, 1936 and was directed against the Communist International ....

committing the two regimes to oppose the Comintern

Comintern

The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...

and Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

communism

Communism

. By 1938, Mussolini allowed Hitler to carry out Anschluss in exchange for official German renunciation of claims to Tyrol. Mussolini supported the annexation

German occupation of Czechoslovakia

German occupation of Czechoslovakia began with the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia's northern and western border regions, known collectively as the Sudetenland, under terms outlined by the Munich Agreement. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's pretext for this effort was the alleged privations suffered by...

of the Sudetenland

Sudetenland

Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...

during the Munich Agreement

Munich Agreement

The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...

talks later the same year.

In 1939, the Pact of Steel

Pact of Steel

The Pact of Steel , known formally as the Pact of Friendship and Alliance between Germany and Italy, was an agreement between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany signed on May 22, 1939, by the foreign ministers of each country and witnessed by Count Galeazzo Ciano for Italy and Joachim von Ribbentrop...

was signed, officially creating an alliance of Germany and Italy. The Nazi official newspaper Völkischer Beobachter
Völkischer Beobachter
The Völkischer Beobachter was the newspaper of the National Socialist German Workers' Party from 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from February 8, 1923...

published articles extolling the mutually benefit of the alliance:

"Firmly bound together through the inner unity of their ideologies and the comprehensive solidarity of their interests, the German and the Italian people are determined also in future to stand side by side and to strive with united effort for the securing of their Lebensraum
Lebensraum
was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...

[living space] and the maintenance of peace." (May 23, 1939)

Hitler and Mussolini recognized commonalities in their politics, and the second part of Hitler's Mein Kampf ("The National Socialist Movement," 1926) contains this passage:

I conceived the profoundest admiration for the great man south of the Alps

Alps

The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

, who, full of ardent love for his people, made no pacts with the enemies of Italy, but strove for their annihilation by all ways and means. What will rank Mussolini among the great men of this earth is his determination not to share Italy with the Marxists

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

, but to destroy internationalism

Proletarian internationalism

Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is a Marxist social class concept based on the view that capitalism is now a global system, and therefore the working class must act as a global class if it is to defeat it...

and save the fatherland

Fatherland

Fatherland is the nation of one's "fathers", "forefathers" or "patriarchs". It can be viewed as a nationalist concept, insofar as it relates to nations...

from it. (p. 622)

Both regimes despised France

French Third Republic

The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...

(seen as an enemy which held territories claimed by both Germany and Italy) and Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

(seen by the Nazis as a racially-degenerate Slavic

Slavic peoples

The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...

state and holding lands such as Dalmatia

Dalmatia

claimed by the Italian Fascists). Fascist territorial claims on Yugoslav territory meant that Mussolini saw the destruction of Yugoslavia as essential for Italian expansion. Hitler viewed Slavs as racially inferior, but did not see importance in an immediate invasion of Yugoslavia, instead focusing on the threat from the Soviet Union.

Mussolini favored using the extremist Croatian nationalist Ustaše

Ustaše

The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...

as a useful tool to tear down Yugoslavia, led by the Serbs and with a Serbian dynasty

Dynasty

A dynasty is a sequence of rulers considered members of the same family. Historians traditionally consider many sovereign states' history within a framework of successive dynasties, e.g., China, Ancient Egypt and the Persian Empire...

, the House of Karađorđević. In 1941, the Italian military campaign in Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

(the Greco-Italian War

Greco-Italian War

The Greco-Italian War was a conflict between Italy and Greece which lasted from 28 October 1940 to 23 April 1941. It marked the beginning of the Balkans Campaign of World War II...

, called the Battle of Greece

Battle of Greece

The Battle of Greece is the common name for the invasion and conquest of Greece by Nazi Germany in April 1941. Greece was supported by British Commonwealth forces, while the Germans' Axis allies Italy and Bulgaria played secondary roles...

for the period after the German intervention) was failing. Hitler reluctantly began the Balkan Campaign with the invasion of Yugoslavia

Invasion of Yugoslavia

The Invasion of Yugoslavia , also known as the April War , was the Axis Powers' attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II...

. German, Italian, Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

n, Hungarian

Hungary during World War II

Hungary during World War II was a member of the Axis powers. In the 1930s, the Kingdom of Hungary relied on increased trade with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to pull itself out of the Great Depression. By 1938, Hungarian politics and foreign policy had become increasingly pro-Fascist Italian and...

, and Croatian insurgents

Insurgency

An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents...

(under the Axis puppet

Puppet state

A puppet state is a nominal sovereign of a state who is de facto controlled by a foreign power. The term refers to a government controlled by the government of another country like a puppeteer controls the strings of a marionette...

Independent State of Croatia

The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...

) decisively defeated Yugoslavia.

In the aftermath, with the exception of Serbia and Vardar Macedonia

Vardar Macedonia

Vardar Macedonia is an area in the north of the Macedonia . The borders of the area are those of the Republic of Macedonia. It covers an area of...

, most of Yugoslavia was reshaped based on Italian Fascist foreign policy objectives. Mussolini demanded and received much of Dalmatia from the Croats in exchange for supporting the independence of Croatia. Mussolini's policy of creating an independent Croatia prevailed over Hitler's anti-Slavism and eventually the Nazis and the Ustashe regime of Croatia would develop closer bonds due to the Ustashe's brutal effectiveness at suppressing Serb dissidents.

Early relationship

Racism

Foreign affairs

See also