Road to

GOAL!

World War II

Japan

Versailles and the Racial Equality Clause

Great Depression

This put Japan on the path toward “Radical Nationalism”

• Extreme nationalism
• Contempt for elite leadership
• Hostility toward parliamentary democracy
• Focus on one emperor, with the divine right
• Return to past (Age of Samurai Warriors) -
• No more Democracy (Westernization)
• Dedication to foreign expansion
• Increased Japanese ethnocentrism, especially in Asia

Racial Purification

Road to

The Jew

The Eternal Jew 1930 Film

German Fascist Propoganda

Germany

The guarantee of German military strength!

Treaty of Versailles and Germany

Heavy reparations

Forced to accept sole responsibility for war

Military severely restricted

One People, One Reich, One Furer

Health, child protection, fighting poverty, aiding travellers, community, helping mothers.

Adolf Hitler “It cannot be that two million Germans should have fallen in vain….No, we do not pardon, we demand - vengeance.”

Add in - The Great Depression

The Nazi Party offered

• Intense German Nationalism
• Opposition to Communism
• Rescue from the humiliating defeat at Versailles
• Answer to economic problems

Italian Fascist Propaganda

Black Brigades. Ready, Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. Fighting for the honor of Italy.

Prisoner of the Sea

Defend Him

Strategic Retreat

http://www.ideologicalart.com/fascism/

BENITO MUSSOLINI

Italy

• "Founder of Fascism"
• Leads Italy from 1922 through 1943
• Credited for Allying Italy with Nazi Germany
• Influenced by Hitler's policies, also institutes anti-Semitic policies in Italy

United the unemployed war veterans into "Black Shirts" in support of his newly formed Fascist Party

1925 Declares himself "Dictator" - Il Duce - with goal to re-establish Italy as a Great European Power

1935 - Italy invades Ethiopia adding territory to Italian Empire

1939 - Pact of Steel with Hitler's Germany

The fasces: a bundle of sticks featuring an axe, indicating the power over life and death

Benito Mussolini and the Black Shirts

• Resentful of Versailles Treaty
• Winners but gained little coveted territory
• Black Shirts were war veterans
• Economic Instability/Unemployment
• Stresses Italian Unity AND Religious Unity
• Condemns Capitalism and Communism

Fascism

Definition: “Governmental system led by dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc, and emphasizing nationalism, and often, racism.”

World War II

Middle Road between Capitalism and Communism

Communism versus Fascism

Why is Fascism Attractive?

• High Unemployment:
• Italy - 1921 Post WWI Unemployment Caused by Fiscal Crisis, End of Loans from US and Britain, and Political Instability (Orlando Resigned shortly after Versailles Treaty was Signed)
• Germany - 1932 Directly connected to Stock Market Crash in US due to US loans for War Reparations drying up as US had no available $$
• Instability in Government
• Both countries lost faith in Political Leadership after failures at Versailles
• Fear of Communism after Success of Bolshevik Revolution

Common Characteristics:

-extreme militaristic

Violence often deemed necessary for progress

- Extreme Nationalism

Nation binds people together

Often attempts to "purify" nation from "outsiders" or "others"

-contempt for electoral democracy and political liberalism

-belief in social hierarchy, often with scientific justifications

-individual interests are subordinate to the good of the nation ( Realpolitik)

-condemn individualism, feminism

- Contempt for communism and capitalism

While communism is a system based around a theory of economic equality and advocates for a classless society, fascism is a nationalistic, top-down system with rigid class roles that is ruled by an all-powerful dictator.

Causes

Versailles Treaty + Economic Instability =

• Fascism
• Socialism
• Communism
• Militancy
• Imperialism
• Extreme Nationalism