FASCISMItaly and GermanyDIANA ALVES. 4ºB 2013-2014

IES FRAY PEDRO DE URBINA.

Index Introduction to Fascism Fascism in Italy:

MUSSOLINI Colonial Empire How it influenced the

World Wars How it ended Effects

Nazi Germany: HITLER The Holocaust World Wars & Foreign

Policy How it ended Effects

Hitler & Mussolini's Alliance

FASCISM Right-wing political ideology/A radical authoritarian nationalism from the

20th century in Europe. Origin: Italy, during the World War I. It's a very harsh control or authority from the government (dictator) in

which people are not allowed to disagree with the government.

CHARACTERISTICS It banned opposition parties, trade unions and elections. Opposed to democracy, liberalism and communism. Use of intimidation and terror.

FACTORS THAT CAUSED ITS RISE

Economic factors The economic instability weakened the political system Mass unemployment

Treaty of Versailles Dissatisfaction with the terms of peace treaties of the WWI Italy didn't received the territories that were promised Germany lost territories

Germany's lost territories

FACTORS THAT CAUSED ITS RISE

FASCISM IN ITALY

MUSSOLINI

29 July 1883 – 28 April 1945Italian politician, journalist and leader of the National Fascist Party, ruling the country as Prime Minister from 1922 to 1943.In 1922 he made a coup d’état, gaining the power and becoming a dictator (1925):

In October 1922, he organized a march to Rome. He commanded his forces from Milan and ordered them to seize power in Rome. Fearing the beginning of a civil war, the king Victor Emmanuel gave Mussolini the post of prime minister.

MUSSOLINI

1925 / 1927 - He began to establish his dictatorship by opposing press and non-fascist parties, and stated to persecute his enemies.

He also created the OVRA, a secret police force, and made the government entirely fascist.

And also by: Subduing Libya (1922-1932)

Pacifying Somalia (1923-1927)

Conquering Ethiopia (1935-1936)

Helping the Nationalists to win the Spanish civil war (1936-1939)

Seizing Albania (April 1939)

»» He made Italy predominant in the Mediterranean-Red Sea region. But his military

adventures in 1935-1939 left his armed forces exhausted (military attacks to Abyssinia)

Colonial Empire

Invasion of Ethiopia – Italo-Ethiopian WarEthiopia (Abyssinia), which Italy had unsuccessfully tried to conquer in the 1890s, was a prime target because it was still an independent country, one of only two in Africa.Mussolini was facing troubles at home because his government was corrupt. So to divert his people's attention, he said he would avenge the defeat and shame they all felt in the Battle of Adwa (1896) which they had lost. He also wanted to boost his party’s popularity.

World Wars

World War IDuring WWI Mussolini was just a soldier in the Italian army who served in the trenches, and he was even wounded by an accidental explosion of a bomb.

World War IIIn May 1938 (one year before the start of WWII), Mussolini promised to fight alongside Adolf Hitler in any war, against the democracies of the world.

His armies, however, poorly led and not well prepared for war, were defeated quickly by Allied forces.

Italian resistance to his dictatorship eventualy led to his fall from power and to his death.

The End of Mussolini

During the last days of the war, Mussolini attempted to escape the advancing Allied Army by hiding in a German convoy headed toward the Alps.

Guerrilla soldiers stopped and searched the convoy and found him in the back of a truck.

The guerrilla soldiers took him prisoner and he was later joined by his mistress, Clara Petacci.

The council of the guerrilla leaders, lead by the Communists, secretly decided to execute Mussolini and 15 leading Fascists in retaliation/revenge.

They were all executed on April 29, 1945, and their bodies were hung at a gas station in Milan.

Mussolini's Death

Effects

After Benito Mussolini's Death:The conflicts between political parties, which had given rise to a civil war (1943-45), continued for about three more years.In 1946, Italians voted to dissolve the Monarchy, then in 1948, the first political elections were held, establishing the First Italian Republic.

NAZI GERMANY

HITLER

20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945.

He was German politician and the leader of the Nazi Party.

Hitler was at the centre of Nazi Germany, World War II in Europe, and the Holocaust.

In the 1920s he became chancellor.

In 1923, he attempted a coup d'état in Munich to take the power. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment.

After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting anti-Semitism, anti-communism, etc. with charismatic eloquence and Nazi propaganda, denouncing capitalism and communism as being part of a Jewish conspiracy.

HITLER

He eventually won the elections. Stared a process of transforming the republic into the Third Reich, a

single-party dictatorship (based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of National Socialism).

In 1934 he made himself supreme leader:

AUTHORITARIAN DICTATORSHIP » TOTALITARIAN REGIME

His first six years in power: Rapid economic recovery from the Great Depression Annexation of new territories to Germany, which gave him significant

popular support.

Curiosity - Hitler's Elections Voting Ticket

YES NO

The Holocaust

The Nazis were anti-semitic, which means they were racist towards people of other religions, cultures, ethnicities, etc. and considered themselves superior. Hitler believed that the Jews were the great enemy of the German people.

The Holocaust consisted of a genocide: a mass extermination of mainly Jews (6 million died), but also Romani people, homosexuals, gypsies, etc.

The Holocaust

They were sent to concentration camps, where they were executed, died in gas chambers, or died due to starvation or exhaustion from the forced works.

Over 11 MILLION people died in the Holocaust in total.

» The Holocaust documentary

World Wars & Foreign Policy

Like Mussolini, Hitler only participated in the World War I as a soldier, being decorated as veteran.

His aggressive foreign policy is considered to be the primary cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe:

March 1938, Anschluss, annexation of Austria into Germany.

In September 1938, leaders of France and Great Britain met Adolf Hitler to discuss his demands, granting him control over the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. In return, Hitler promised to leave the rest of Czechoslovakia alone.

He broke that promise taking the rest of Czechoslovakia and then invading Poland.

He directed a large-scale rearmament of his troops and on September 1st, 1939 he invaded Poland, resulting in British and French declarations of war on Germany.

How It Ended Hitler ordered the attack to the Soviet

Union, but it failed. The United States joined the war, making

Germany turn defensive and suffer many defeats.

Germany was fighting the Soviet Union, The United States and France at the same time.

In the final days of the war, Adolf Hitler commited suicide to avoid being captured by the Red Army (Russia's army and air force).

Germany surrendered in the war one day after his death.

Effects

There was no freedom of speech in Germany for many years.

Death of millions of people, mainly Jewish, in concentration camps. The Jewish population has still not fully recovered.

Around 60 million combatants were killed in the World War II, which was provoked by Hitler and Germany when they attacked Poland.

Nazis are still around to this day.

MUSSOLINI & HITLER'S ALLIANCE

VIDEO