Revolution from the Right: Fascism - School of Arts and Humanities ...

war conditions which prevailed in liberal Italy between 1919 and 1921, and which allowed
Mussolini’s Blackshirts to become a major political force. In cultural matters, too, Fascism did
little to censure artistic creativity or impose a particular style (though it kept a tight reign on the
content of news reporting in the press, radio, and cinema). Instead, it ensured that it was seen as
the patron of all cultural production, whatever the style or content, just as it used propaganda
to associate itself with all Italy’s technological and sporting achievements whatever the politics
of the inventor or athletes responsible. 20
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The Third Reich was an altogether different proposition. Its leaders were generally
ruthless in pursuit of their interpretation of Nazi ideals. Its paramilitary formations numbered
hundreds of thousands of ‘fanatical’ followers prepared to be ‘brutal’ for the good of the nation.
It had at its disposal a highly modernized country of immense industrial and technological
resources and, compared to Italy, and an educated, socialized population. Its version of ultra-
nationalism pursued the goal of racial health and hygiene based on a blend of a spurious science
of ‘eugenics’ which identified as enemies to the purity of the national community whole
categories of human beings from Jews (4-6 million killed), and gypsies (over 750,000 killed) to
homosexuals and the physically and mentally disabled, most of whom eventually fell victim to
a programme of systematic extermination: over 320,000 ethnic Germans were sterilized and as
many as 150,000 murdered in order to improve the racial health of the ‘national community’.
This is not to mention the many millions of Polish and Russian prisoners of war and civilians
who were enslaved or killed as embodiments of racial inferiority.
Meanwhile Nazism’s crusade against spiritual decadence ultimately extended beyond the
persecution of ideological enemies such as Communists, Free Masons, and radical Christians such