Exploiting nationalism in order to repudiate democracy: the case of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany

Abstract

The assumption at the basis of this article is that the chronicles of Italian Fascism and German Nazism reflect a common trajectory in the history of two respective democracies in which a nationalist socialization overpowered the universal values of democratic civil society. This history underscores the persuasive authority and power of the nationalist narrative, running ever so blindly and counter to the humanistic principles that aspire to the welfare of all human beings. While fully acknowledging the singularity of German National Socialism during the first half of the 20th century, the conclusion of this article finds Nazism to be a highly applicable instance of the principles of fascism and an ultimate expression of the dangerous potential inherent to nationalism. By means of an analysis of the speeches and writings of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, the core principles of nationalism are demonstrated: a particularistic solidarity among individuals who are allegedly bonded by a historical definition (based on a cultural, religious or biological foundation), and the prioritization of the interests of the nation and of those who are seen to be part of it above everything else. These principles are provided as an alternative ethical core by Mussolini and Hitler, and are shown in this article to be no less significant motifs than the common racial ones strewn throughout the various argumentations in the two respective fascist ideologies.

Acknowledgements

I thank Professor Mario Sznajder, Professor Moshe Zimmermann and Professor Otto Dov Kulka from the Hebrew University, Professor Moshe Zuckermann from Tel Aviv University and Mr. Dan Schlossberg and Mr. Tim Paradis for their thoughtful and dedicated editing.

Notes

^1. G. Mosse, Masses and Man (New York: Howard Fertig, 1980), p. 196.

^2. George Mosse developed a sophisticated theory of fascism and an understanding of Nazism based on the recognition of the affective appeal of nationalism and its religious aura under the anomic conditions of modernity. In a recent scholarly forum in the journal, Erwagen, Wissen, Ethik, Roger Griffin confronted A. J. Gregor, Ernst Nolte and other scholars who rejected the identification of nationalism as a dominant and common definer of fascism, including that of Nazism. Accordingly, this present article classifies nationalism as an ideological plank of both Nazism and fascism. See R. Griffin, ‘Fascism's new faces (and new facelessness) in the “post-fascist” epoch’, Erwägen, Wissen, Ethik, 15(3) (2004), pp. 287–300. On the fascist myth of national regeneration, see also Ruth Ben-Ghiat's various writings, specifically: ‘Modernity is just over there: colonialism and Italian national identity’, Interventions, 8(3) (2006), pp. 382, 386, et passim. See also M. Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews: German-Italian Relations and the Jewish Question 1922–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).

^3. Clarification: In this text, all cases of Italian Fascism use a capitalized ‘F’ and all general references to fascism use a lower case ‘f’.

^4. Griffin, ‘Fascism's new faces’, op. cit., Ref. 2, p. 290.

^5. Ian Kershaw refers to the concept ‘national rebirth’ as used by Roger Griffin, in I. Kershaw, ‘Hitler and the uniqueness of Nazism’, Journal of Contemporary History, 39(2) (2004), p. 247.

^6. M. Zimmermann, ‘Blind in the right eye: Weimar as a test case’, Israel Law Review, 32(3) (1998), pp. 395–406.

^7. Among those who support a comparative study of fascism but still question its comparison with Nazism, mention should be made of those scholars whose other assumptions are basic to this article. For example, see the perspective of Yehuda Bauer, who took issue with this comparison because of its anti-Semitic aspect: Y. Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 83. In regard to the views of Ze'ev Sternhell, who underscores the common characteristics of fascism and Nazism but at the same time stresses the distinctions found in Nazist biological determinism, see Z. Sternhell, M. Sznajder and M. Asheri, The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994) (Hebrew), p. 17. Regarding attempts to deal with the comparative issue as well as an emphasis on the common characteristics of both regimes, see M. Sznajder, ‘Fascism again: in search of the right conceptualization of generic fascism’, Erwägen, Wissen, Ethik, 15(3) (2004), pp. 353–354.

^8. M. Zimmermann, ‘Between Jew hatred and racism’ in W. D. Hund, C. Koller and M. Zimmermann (Eds) Racisms Made in Germany (Zurich: LIT Verlag, 2011).

^9. M. Zuckermann, ‘Had it not been for the great annihilation….’, in M. Horkheimer, ‘The Jews and Europe’, Theory and Criticism, 3 (1993) (Hebrew), pp. 79–86.

^10. Zuckermann, ibid.

^11. R. De Felice, Interpretations of Fascism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1977), p. 73.

^12. A. J. Gregor, Interpretations of Fascism (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1997), p. xx. See also A. J. Gregor, Phoenix: Fascism in Our Time (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1999); Gregor, ‘Social science, fascism and the extreme right’, Erwägen, Wissen, Ethik, 15(3) (2004), pp. 316–319; Gregor, ‘Once again on Roger Griffin and the study of “fascism”’, Erwägen, Wissen, Ethik, 15(3) (2004), pp. 387–390.

^13. E. Nolte, ‘Faschismus—eine palingeneticsche Form von populistischem Ultra Nationalismus?’ Erwägen, Wissen, Ethik, 15(3) (2004), p. 332. This was first claimed in Nolte's book, Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche:die Action francaise, der italienische Faschismus, der Nationalsozialismus (Munich: Piper & Co. Verlag, 1965).

^14. Griffin, ‘Fascism's new faces’, op. cit., Ref. 2.

^15. Nolte, ‘Faschismus—eine palingeneticsche’, op. cit., Ref. 13.

^16. Nolte, ibid., p. 333.

^17. Nolte, ibid., p. 333: ‘Nicht ultra-nationalistisch sondern anti-national’.

^18. See A. Vincent, ‘Power and vacuity: nationalist ideology in the twentieth century’ in M. Freeden (Ed.) Reassessing Political Ideologies: The Durability of Dissent (London: Routledge, 2001).

^19. Kershaw, ‘Hitler and the uniqueness’, op. cit., Ref. 5, p. 247.

^20. R. Ben-Ghiat, Fascist Maternities (Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2001).

^21. R. Ben-Ghiat, ‘A lesser evil? Italian fascism in/and the totalitarian equation’ in H. Dubiel and G. Motzkin (Eds) The Lesser Evil: Moral Approaches to Genocide Practices (London: Routledge, 2004) p. 137.

^22. Ben-Ghiat, ibid., p. 146.

^23. Ben-Ghiat, ibid., p. 140.

^24. F. Cassata, Building the New Man: Eugenics, Racial Science and Genetics in Twentieth-Century Italy (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2011), p. 6.

^25. Cassata, ibid., p. 7.

^26. The historian Otto Dov Kulka was the first to use the concept of ‘redemptive ideology’ in 1961 in regard to the phenomenon of anti-Semitism. The concept indicates that the elimination of the Jews was viewed by the Germans as redemption from the catastrophe that the Jew presented, that is, the alleged collapse of the ‘exclusive’ nature and spirit of the German nation. See O. D. Kulka, ‘Richard Wagner und die Anfänge des Modernen Antisemitismus’, Bulletin des Leo Baeck Instituts, 4 (1961), p. 296. The ‘redemptive’ aspect of anti-Semitism was further applied in Saul Friedlaender's 1997 analysis, which emphasized the contribution of nationalism to the escalating measures taken by the Nazis against the Jews in Germany. See S. Friedlaender, Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution, 1933–1939 (New York: HarperCollins, 2007).

^27. See Hans Mommsen's interview for Yad Vashem in: Ruhr-University Bochum, 12 December 1997, Jerusalem, http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%203850.pdf; ‘Ulrich Herbert, Die richtige Frage’, in: Ein Volk von Mördern? Die Dokumentation zur Goldhagen-Kontroverse um die Rolle der Deutschen im Holocaust (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, 1996).

^28. M. Freeden, ‘Is nationalism a distinct ideology?’ Political Studies, 46(4) (1998), p. 756.

^29. Freeden, ibid., p. 759.

^30. For the core principles of liberalism, see K. Mannheim, Conservatism: A Contribution to the Sociology of Knowledge (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), pp. 107–108.

^31. Mannheim, ibid., pp. 84, 91, 102. On the relation between modern ideologies and nationalism, see Freeden, ‘Is nationalism a distinct ideology?’, op. cit., Ref. 28.

^32. Freeden, ‘Is nationalism a distinct ideology?’, op. cit., Ref. 28, p. 763.

^33. Freeden, ibid., pp. 752–754.

^34. Z. Sternhell, ‘Reflections on the fate of ideas in the twentieth century’, in M. Freeden (Ed.) Reassessing Political Ideologies: The Durability of Dissent (London: Routledge, 2001).

^35. On the rivalry of nationalism with the modern ideologies of liberalism, conservatism and socialism, see Freeden, ‘Is nationalism a distinct ideology?’ op. cit., Ref. 28.

^36. See Ze'ev Sternhell's list of questions in Sternhell, ‘Reflections on the fate’, op. cit., Ref. 34, p. 141.

^37. U. Tal's Introduction to J. M. Snoek, The Grey Book: A Collection of Protests against Anti-Semitism and the Persecution of Jews Issued by Non-Roman Catholic Churches and Church Leaders during Hitler's Rule (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1969), p. xvi.

^38. U. Tal, Christians and Jews in Germany: Religion, Politics, and Ideology in the Second Reich, 1870–1914 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1975), pp. 282, 286, 297.

^39. U. Tal, ‘Political faith of Nazism prior to the Holocaust’, Annual Lecture of Jacob M. and Shoshana Schreiber (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1978; published as a booklet), p. 22.

^40. See, for example, Adam Tooze's interesting contribution: A. Tooze, The Wages of Destruction (New York: Viking Penguin, 2007), p. 135.

^41. Tal, Christians and Jews, op. cit., Ref. 38, p. 54; U. Tal, ‘On the study of the Holocaust and genocide’, Yad Vashem Studies on the European Jewish Catastrophe and Resistance, 13 (1979), p. 33.

^42. M. Wildt, Hitler's Volksgemeinschaft and the Dynamics of Racial Exclusion: Violence against Jews in Provincial Germany, 1919–1939 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012).

^43. M. Wildt, Volksgemeinschaft als Selbstermächtigung: Gewalt gegen Juden in der deutschen Provinz 1919–1939 (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2007).

^44. Wildt, ibid., p. 29. Wildt uses the form, ‘naturally’.

^45. Wildt, ibid., p. 38.

^46. It should be noted that the identification of the concept of human rights as a defining fundamental of democracy—also embodied in Kant's ethical doctrine—was expressed among thinkers of both the formalist and essentialist streams. See J. Rawls, Collected Papers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 227, 303–307; J. Habermas, ‘A kind of settlement of damages: the apologetic tendencies in German history writings’, in E. Piper (Ed.) Forever in the Shadow of Hitler? Original Documents of the Historikerstreit, The Controversy Concerning the Singularity of the Holocaust (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1993); N. Bobbio, The Future of Democracy (Jerusalem: Magnes, Israel Democracy Institute, 2003) (Hebrew), pp. 23, 72, 73; R. A. Dahl, Toward Democracy: A Journey, Reflections 1940–1997, vol. 1 (Berkeley, CA: Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkley, 1997), p. 227.

^47. E. Nolte, ‘Between historical legend and revisionism’, in E. Piper (Ed.) Forever in the Shadow of Hitler? Original Documents of the Historikerstreit, The Controversy Concerning the Singularity of the Holocaust (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1993).

^48. See Paul Bookbinder's thesis on Holocaust-period Italy in D. Kertzer, ‘The Italian refuge: rescue of Jews during the Holocaust’, in J. D. Zimmerman (Ed.) Jews in Italy under Fascist and Nazi Rule, 1922–1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 2.

^49. M. Domarus (Ed.), Hitler's Speeches and Proclamations 1932–1934 (London: I. B. Tauris, 1990), p. 37.

^50. R. Bessel, Germany after the First World War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).

^51. Tal, ‘On the study of the Holocaust’, op. cit., Ref. 41; Kershaw, ‘Hitler and the uniqueness’, op. cit., Ref. 5, p. 251.

^52. For his pragmatic lessons and the need for the captivation of the masses, see A. Hitler, Mein Kampf (Boston, MA: The Riverside Press, 1943) (English), pp. 98–108.

^53. Hitler, ibid., p. 99.

^54. G. L. Weinberg (Ed.) Hitler's Second Book: The Unpublished Sequel to Mein Kampf (New York: Enigma Books, 2003), p. 48.

^55.The Hitler Trial, vol. 1 (Arlington, VA: University Publications of America, 1976) (stenographic report).

^56. B. Mussolini, My Rise and Fall (New York: Da Capo Press, 1998), Ch. 6: ‘A death struggle of a worn out democracy’, pp. 146, 177.

^57. Sternhell, ‘Reflections on the fate’, op. cit., Ref. 34, p. 269.

^58. Mussolini, My Rise and Fall, op. cit., Ref. 56, pp. 79–81.

^59. Hitler, Mein Kampf, op. cit., Ref. 52, p. 218.

^60. Regarding the aforementioned concepts, see also R. De Roussy de Sales (Ed.) Adolf Hitler: My New Order (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1941), and the introduction to this book by Raymond Gram Swing, p. 8 et passim.

^61. Hitler, Mein Kampf, op. cit., Ref. 52, p. 200.

^62. Hitler, ibid., p. 76.

^63. Hitler, ibid., p. 395.

^64. Hitler, ibid.

^65. Hitler, ibid., p. 396.

^66. Mussolini, My Rise and Fall, op. cit., Ref. 56, pp. 141, 155.

^67. Mussolini, ibid.

^68. Mussolini, ibid., pp. 210–211.

^69. Mussolini, ibid., p. 151.

^70. Mussolini, ibid., p. 150.

^71. Mussolini, ibid.

^72. See the various writings of George Mosse and Uriel Tal.

^73. The term for the clashes between the groups in Germany was Zusammenstösse. The number of deaths from the right wing and left wing were 22 and 376 respectively. See D. Evans and J. Jenkins, Years of Weimar and the Third Reich (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1999), pp. 34–35; A. Elon, The Pity of It All (New York: Henry Holt, 2002), p. 368.

^74. Among the groups who engaged in armed protest in Germany, the following should be noted: Freikorps, Schwarze Reichswehr, Sturmabteilung, Kampfbund, Oberland Liga, Reichskriegsflagge.

^75. Note should be primarily made of Alfred Hugenberg, leader of the right-wing party (DNVP).

^76. See S. Payne, ‘Historical fascism and the radical right’, Journal of Contemporary History, 35(1) (2000), pp. 109–118; R. Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (London: Printer, 1991), p. 63.

^77. Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, op. cit., Ref. 76.

^78. Griffin, ibid.

^79. Griffin, ibid.

^80. Giovanni Giolitti served as prime minister in Italy for five terms during the years 1892–1921. He died in 1928.

^81. Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, op. cit., Ref. 76, p. 63.

^82. For the implications of d'Annunzio's actions, see also Sternhell et al., The Birth of Fascist Ideology, op. cit., Ref. 7, p. 269.

^83. Mannheim, Conservatism, op. cit., Ref. 30, pp. 107–108.

^84. Weinberg, Hitler's Second Book, op. cit., Ref. 54, p. 17.

^85. Hitler, Mein Kampf, op. cit., Ref. 52, p. 173.

^86. Hitler, ibid., p. 27.

^87. Mussolini, My Rise and Fall, op. cit., Ref. 56, p. 69; See also p. 60.

^88. B. Mussolini and G. Gentile, Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions (New York: Howard Fertig, 1968), p. 10.

^89. Mussolini, ibid., p. 37.

^90. De Roussy de Sales, Hitler: My New Order, op. cit., Ref. 60, p. 50.

^91. Mussolini, My Rise and Fall, op. cit., Ref. 56, p. 36.

^92. Hitler, Mein Kampf, op. cit., Ref. 52, Vol. 2, Ch. 2.

^93. Hitler, ibid., p. 402.

^94. Hitler, ibid., pp. 65, 382.

^95. Hitler, ibid., p. 39.

^96. Hitler, ibid., pp. 150, 283, 297.

^97. Hitler, ibid., p. 150.

^98. Hitler, ibid., p. 399.

^99. Hitler, ibid., p. 430.

^100. Mussolini, My Rise and Fall, op. cit., Ref. 56, pp. 60–62.

^101. Mussolini, ibid.

^102. Mussolini, ibid., p. 60.

^103. Mussolini, Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions, op. cit., Ref. 88, p. 32.

^104. J. Habermas, Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant's Cosmopolitan Ideal (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997).

^105. Mussolini, Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions, op. cit., Ref. 88, p. 35.

^106. Mussolini, My Rise and Fall, op. cit., Ref. 56, p. 161.

^107. Z. Sternhell (Ed.) Fascist Thought and Its Variations (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Hapoalim, 1988) (Hebrew), p. 179.

^108. Mussolini, Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions, op. cit., Ref. 88, p. 20.

^109. Hitler, Mein Kampf, op. cit., Ref. 52, pp. 135, 143–145.

^110. De Roussy de Sales, Hitler:My New Order, op. cit., Ref. 60, p. 103.

^111. Helmuth von Moltke (1800–1891), head of the Prussian General Staff in 1859.

^112. Hitler, Mein Kampf, op. cit., Ref. 52, p. 206.

^113. Hitler, ibid., p. 112.

^114. Hitler, ibid., p. 113.

^115. Hitler, ibid., p. 490.

^116. Weinberg, Hitler's Second Book, op. cit., Ref. 54, pp. 8–9.

^117. Weinberg, ibid., p. 27.

^118. M. Zimmermann, Deutsche gegen Deutsche: das Schicksal der Juden 1938–1945 (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 2008).

^119. Zimmermann, ibid., p. xxx.

^120. B. B. Quaranta (Ed.) Mussolini as Revealed in his Speeches (November 1914–August 1923) (New York: Howard Fertig, 1976), p. 12.

^121. Quaranta, ibid., p. 110.

^122. Quaranta, ibid.

^123. Quaranta, ibid., pp. 40, 74.

^124. Mussolini, My Rise and Fall, op. cit., Ref. 56, pp. 56, 151.

^125. Mussolini, ibid., p. 128.

^126. Rawls, Collected Papers, op. cit., Ref. 46, pp. 361, 381–2, 411, 515.

^127. Hitler, Mein Kampf,op. cit., Ref. 52, pp. 426–428.

^128. Both Mussolini and Hitler were influenced by the psychologist Gustav Le Bon and his writings on the nature of the crowd, and by the French philosopher and revolutionary syndicalist, Georges Eugène Sorel, and his texts on the power of myth. See G. Le Bon, The Crowd (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1995); G. E. Sorel, Reflections on Violence (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

^129. Hitler, Mein Kampf, op. cit., Ref. 52, p. 410.

^130. Hitler, ibid., p. 419.

^131. Hitler, ibid.

^132. I. Kershaw, ‘Ghosts of fascists past’, The National Interest, March–April, 2011, p. 10. Kershaw points out that this optimistic vision may be challenged if another economic crisis or terrorist attack takes place and is subsequently exploited by the right wing.

^133. Kershaw, ‘Ghosts of fascists past’, op. cit., Ref 132, pp. 8, 9.

^134. Mosse, Masses and Man, op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 196.

^135. Griffin, ‘Fascism's new faces’, op. cit., Ref. 2, p. 288.

^136. Griffin, ibid.