Fascism is one form of government that is represented in form and structure by an unyielding single-party dictatorship. Opposition under a fascist regime is oppressed through force, usually military. It is also marked by a fanatical nationalism, racism and militarism. This form of government originated in Italy during the early 1900s and achieved its greatest claim to infamy during the reign of Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini. In Germany around the same period of time, the National Socialist German Worker’s Party was evolving under the aegis and leadership of Adolf Hitler. Known as the Nazi party, it represented merely a form of fascism which called for forcible opposition and elimination of the enemy and programs for promoting nationalism, racism, rearmament of Germany after World Word I and military aggression.
It may come as little surprise that two leaders with such common socio-political viewpoints would join forces to create one of the most unholy alliances in the history of mankind where barbarism, fanaticism, and world domination are concerned. What is more unique, however, is the ways in which the two men were able to rise to power. Hitler, almost defeated before he began, endured to become the worst leader in known history. Mussolini, exiled and jailed, and then freed was basically a puppet of Nazi Germany, but that did not mean he was almost as skilled as Hitler in using a combination of methods to woo popular support from the people in his homeland. Both men were helped in their bid for power and leadership because of the impoverished social, economic and political situations their mutual countries were experiencing after World War I. Yet, they used many other skills, techniques and personal characteristics to rise to unparalleled heights of power, control and ruthless manipulation of the masses for their own twisted objectives. In various ways, both men can be considered unbalanced, egomaniacal madmen ...