WI: Mussolini - style Fascist Germany?

He identifies without any evidence a difference between Fascism and National Socialism and then uses this supposed ideological difference between the two to explain the military prowess of Germany vis a vis Italy.

Firstly, the idea that National Socialism did not identify its enemies by the contradictory "strong but weak". If anything, National Socialism had more of this in their ideology in Italian Fascism. The corruption and decadence of Britain and France, the "old" civilizations of the West, who had kept Germany down during the Weimar Period. The "betrayal" by Jews and their controlling of money and industry- combined with their scientifically discovered deficiencies, mentally, morally and physically. The oppression of ethnic Germans by sub-human Slavs and so on.

Italy, meanwhile, still had a lot of left fascism in some of its thought- old ideas of "international fascism" as holdovers from its syndicalist roots, even if Mussolini attempted to remove some of these strains of thought. There was much less of a sense of betrayal and encirclement, and much less of a denigration of outside forces. There was indeed even some romanticism towards the British during the early years. Italian Fascism was in fact, quite a bit less bitter, without as many examples of the strange "strong but weak" contradictions that abounded in National Socialism.

Secondly, the idea that ideological differences alone can account for the differences between the militaries of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. It shows a lacking ignorance of history. More on this in a second....

Thirdly, the idea that political ideology affects one's mental capacity as he appears to be implying is ridiculous. Italian Fascists were not bombastic provincials who thought they could conquer the world alone, regardless of the fact that they saluted the Duce. They weren't imbeciles because of their fascist ideology.

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Now, as to why the Germans did better than the Italians- and there are many reasons, there are really only a few places where ideology can be said to come into the mix- and it was ideological decisions with more underlying causes.

The purging of the officer corps and the institution of the Blackshirt Ras. Why didn't the SA do the same in Nazi Germany? Well, it wasn't just an ideological reason, even if you think Italian Fascism had a bigger chip on its shoulder.

The Italian Army had much less of an institutional presence than that of the German Army, a lot less respect in society and much less of a true tradition among officers and enlisted alike. There, was for example, no real professionalism among the Italian General Staff and much less of an intensive planning focus, which had been the core of Prussian reforms for quite a time.

In addition, the Italian officer corps was quite a bit more actively political in Italy- and, almost as if taking a cue from South American countries, it often leaned to the center-left (whereas the Army the Nazis inherited had a center to far-right political orientation)

There was also the oppressive use of the Italian Army- oddly reminescent of the strike-breaking of the US Army, actually. The early Fascists opposed, for example, the displacement of tenant farmers by the Italian Army prior to the March on Rome (admittedly, they changed their tune later, but that isn't what matters) The Germans had very few examples like that to contend with.

Interestingly, the purging of the officer corps did have one positive effect- the Fascists actually paid attention to language differences, and promoted a number of Southern Italians through the ranks, whereas the pre-Fascist army generally ignored language issues among and, despite Southern Italians being more common in the enlisted ranks, generally possessed a Northern Italian officer corps. (And if you're wondering, Germany had paid attention to language differences since the beginning)

So, while it could be argued to be an ideological decision in the purging of the officer corps, there were a number of other factors. It was not just drooling dullard Fascism against suave, well-cut Nazism.

Moving on, their decisions of where to expand. The Germans had the arguably more logical Drive to the East, the repeat to the Western Front of WWI and so on. The Italians, meanwhile, had some very strange mishmash of Mediterranean and Balkans expansion which makes a lot less sense from any grand strategy viewpoint. Was this an ideological effect, the Fascists being too stupid to see the values of the places they wished to conquer?

Not really. The Nazis just happened to have better choices among their historical irredentists. Italians had long wanted to dominate the Mediterranean and Northern Africa and had some claims in the Balkans, Germans had long wanted to dominate Central Europe. Both of them merely carried on pre-existing irredentist claims. Its hardly the fault of Italian Fascists that their desires were stupid.

Then there's the doctrines of warfare that came to dominate their thinking. Germany pioneered the blitzkrieg. Italy muddled along without any seeming indication of some overarching idea of warfare. Why was that?

Well, again, one can point to the differences in military tradition between the two nations. But there is another effect that often goes ignored- the leapfrog effect.

Italy began the reformulation of Italian military strategy during the 1920s. Nazi Germany began theirs during the 1930s. A world of difference in military thinking.

Italy happened to latch on to the ideas of massive terror bombings and a war from the air- and tried to do so before the technology was really there. They were actually, a little bit too forward thinking there. Their attempts at naval rearmament were similarly hampered. By the time it was obvious their ideas and arms were outdated, they had exhausted much of their industrial capacity (which they had less of to begin with than Germany)

Germany, meanwhile, fell into a decade where a new doctrine of armored warfare was already attracting various adherents and where post-war developments were beginning to catch up to post-war ideas. They actually hit the right time. If they had latched on to the idea of armored warfare in the 1920s, as the Italians had done with a war from the air, they could have been saddled with outdated armor that didn't reach the expectations of theory.

There's really quite a bit more, but I feel I've put too much thought into refuting it already.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
He identifies without any evidence a difference between Fascism and National Socialism and then uses this supposed ideological difference between the two to explain the military prowess of Germany vis a vis Italy.
No he doesn't. In fact, he doesn't compare the national socialist military prowess to fascist military bumbling. Your post contrasting the German and Italian militaries was quite good, but that wasn't the point of Eco's essay at all. In fact, he never does that, so that renders the vast majority of your post moot.

If you look at the article, Eco never uses the words "Germany" or "national socialism" and only uses the word "Nazi" thrice; twice in regards to similarities with the fascists' penchant for superficial technology worship, and once pointing out both ideologies' use of impoverished vocabularies.

Nor does Eco anywhere say that ideology is the only reason that the fascists don't win wars. He just says that it renders them unable to win wars, which is supported by history.

Secondly, the idea that ideological differences alone can account for the differences between the militaries of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. It shows a lacking ignorance of history. More on this in a second....
Again, Eco never ever says this. Ever. I'm also amused that you'd have the gall to accuse Eco (one of the world's foremost historians and somebody who actually lived under fascism) of "a lacking ignorance of history."

The purging of the officer corps and the institution of the Blackshirt Ras. Why didn't the SA do the same in Nazi Germany? Well, it wasn't just an ideological reason, even if you think Italian Fascism had a bigger chip on its shoulder.
Your point here doesn't stand. The SA didn't have the power or political go-ahead to purge the officer corps, whereas the Blackshirts did. In fact, the national socialists continuously denied the SA (who were basically fascists) control or even influence over the military. It is impossible to say this about Italy or any other fascist regime.

Italy, meanwhile, still had a lot of left fascism in some of its thought- old ideas of "international fascism" as holdovers from its syndicalist roots, even if Mussolini attempted to remove some of these strains of thought. There was much less of a sense of betrayal and encirclement, and much less of a denigration of outside forces. There was indeed even some romanticism towards the British during the early years. Italian Fascism was in fact, quite a bit less bitter, without as many examples of the strange "strong but weak" contradictions that abounded in National Socialism.
Just because Mussolini (though no other fascist dictator, mind) entertained the concept of "international fascism" doesn't mean that Eco's wrong about fascism's inherent phobia of other nations. He very clearly points out that fascism tolerates/ignores its own contradictory tenets.

And like you point out, fascism later abandoned these empty internationalist pretensions. And again, you're only talking about and comparing Italy and Germany, something that, again, Eco does only three times, and every one of those times in passing.

There's really quite a bit more, but I feel I've put too much thought into refuting your post already.
 
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Röhm wanted to get rid of the Wehrmacht and institute the SA as a mass people's army. Imagining a universe where he somehow gets to actually do this WW2 most definitely wouldn't go too well for the Germans. Basically they'd try to be the Red Army without the motivation that fighting the aggressors gave the Russians, or the land and manpower to trade away for time to learn and to overstretch the enemy's logistics.
 
Actually Umberto Eco has been one of the many to argue for a divide between National Socialism and Fascism in terms of political classification (Something I disagree with. They were both stemming from the same trends and were similar enough to be grouped together). I was responding to your Umberto Eco post, not to all of Umberto Eco's work. If I wanted to give a nice, detailed, exhaustively researched critique of a mainstream writer, I wouldn't post it here. If I wanted to argue a point basically off the top of my head with an anonymous person on the internet.....

Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.

But as to Eco, this can be refuted by Nazi Germany's track record. They were not "constitutionally incapable" because of their ideology. Their eventual "constitutional inability" (Barbarossa, post-D-Day) came from the Fuhrer himself, not any flaw in the ideology. Before that, the Nazis were quite adept at sizing up their enemies, in both politics and war. You can see a semiotic view of history in this and many of other Eco writings, and while interesting, its not necessarily right.

Now, how about your points, which it should be obvious I was referring to in my post? You said a Fascist Germany would be less competent because Fascist Italy was less competent than Nazi Germany, and posted the quote by Eco as "proof" of your theory being "mainstream".

As to your little attempt at a rebuttal, the problems with the SA were not ideological. They were personal. However, due to the reasons stated in my post, I don't think even an SA led by someone more amenable to Hitler would have seen a purging of the Wehrmacht- again, for the reasons in my post.

My point about international fascism was that, vis a vis Nazism, Fascism had much less of the feelings of betrayal and encirclement, which you seemed to extrapolate meant they would be militarily incompetent.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Actually Umberto Eco has been one of the many to argue for a divide between National Socialism and Fascism in terms of political classification (Something I disagree with. They were both stemming from the same trends and were similar enough to be grouped together).
Well your viewpoint basically renders you incapable of accepting Eco's fascism critique because you (erroneously) believe that there ought not to be a divide between national socialism and fascism.

The only national socialist incarnations that can be classified as fascist would be its manifestations in Bavaria and Austria. The SA can also be classified as fascist.

I would also reject the fact that they stemmed from the same trends in that national socialism was based on pseudo-scientific race theory whereas fascism is just basically ultranationalist right-wing Catholicism (with very few exceptions). I will not at all deny that national socialism and fascism have many things in common, but there are significant differences. I could get into them if you'd like, but I'd rather not if you're just going to dismiss them out of hand.

But as to Eco, this can be refuted by Nazi Germany's track record. They were not "constitutionally incapable" because of their ideology. Their eventual "constitutional inability" (Barbarossa, post-D-Day) came from the Fuhrer himself, not any flaw in the ideology. Before that, the Nazis were quite adept at sizing up their enemies, in both politics and war.
*See above: Nazism =/= fascism

Now, how about your points, which it should be obvious I was referring to in my post? You said a Fascist Germany would be less competent because Fascist Italy was less competent than Nazi Germany, and posted the quote by Eco as "proof" of your theory being "mainstream".
Well, I never used the words "proof" or "mainstream." Misquoting is an ugly thing to do and I'd strongly advise against it.

I never said that "a Fascist Germany would be less competent because Fascist Italy was less competent than Nazi Germany". In fact, I only mentioned Italy three times in any of my posts: twice about its distinct lack of political anti-Semitism when compared to Germany, and once about its "victory" over Abyssinia in the '30s.

I said that a Fascist Germany would be less competent than a Nazi Germany because fascism has never proven itself militarily competent at any point in history and, as Eco said, is unable to effectively or objectively evaluate enemies militarily, which has also been proven by history. So here, as before, I'm pointing to history for proof, not Eco.

As to your little attempt at a rebuttal
Yet more condescension. Charming. Keep this and your deliberate misconstructions of my arguments up and I'll report you for rudeness (and yes, Ian is a stickler about that).

the problems with the SA were not ideological. They were personal. However, due to the reasons stated in my post, I don't think even an SA led by someone more amenable to Hitler would have seen a purging of the Wehrmacht- again, for the reasons in my post.
The problems between the SA and the military were both personal and ideological. The military didn't want a bunch of boorish, corrupt, authoritarian street thugs taking over Germany's armed forces. The SA, for its part, was contemptuous of aristocrats in general, especially the Junkers running the military, who they saw as effete armchair generals responsible for "betraying" Germany, not to mention dangerous since the whole of the institution was not under direct Party control.

Your belief that the General Staff will somehow survive the classist, radicalist, and ideological purging/overhaul of the military (especially with regards to the officer corps) that every other fascist regime underwent is baffling to me. As I said, the fascistic elements in Germany were vehemently opposed to the independence and political influence wielded by Reichswehr and its high command, which for its own part was disgusted and militantly hostile towards the fascists. I see no reason why the General Staff would be spared in the case of a fascist takeover of Germany. In fact, I see it as being the fascists' first target since it, more than any other group, is the largest threat to the new regime.

My point about international fascism was that, vis a vis Nazism, Fascism had much less of the feelings of betrayal and encirclement, which you seemed to extrapolate meant they would be militarily incompetent.
I find it weird that you are suddenly comparing Nazism and fascism since you previously said that they were the same thing. Why would you compare two things so similar that, according to you, don't deserve distinction from one another?

I never said that "feelings of betrayal and encirclement" would render anything militarily incompetent. I merely said that I agree with Eco in that their ideological myopia would almost certainly dash their chances of victory due to their constant rhetorical shift between their enemies' inherent weakness and overwhelming power.

Either you are contradicting yourself or you're just being intellectually lazy. You've already proven that you're not above ducking my points by taking the argument down an unrelated path while at the same time misconstruing and misquoting what both Eco and myself have said. That, plus deliberate intellectual blinkering, does not seem to be working for you.
 
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Please be aware in considering Eco's view.
I am not saying he is wrong, but he is known for not being objective on the subject
 
You've weaseled out of everything you've said in this thread, and occasionally hidden behind Eco. You're being intellectually lazy, or simply trying to backtrack because you're wrong.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
You've weaseled out of everything you've said in this thread, and occasionally hidden behind Eco. You're being intellectually lazy, or simply trying to backtrack because you're wrong.
No I haven't. If you're so sure, refute me point for point like I have you. Prove that I'm wrong. If you're not willing to do that, then stop griping.
 
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Wolfpaw

Banned
Please be aware in considering Eco's view.
I am not saying he is wrong, but he is known for not being objective on the subject
You're right that he's been known to not be completely objective about fascism, but as somebody who has studied it extensively and actually lived under it, his insights are worth serious consideration. Besides, a lot of his points have been more or less proven by history.

For my own part, one of the things I disagree with him about is that fascism is inherently racist. I would say that it is inherently xenophobic with a strong tendency to devolve into racism; Italian fascism, for example, actually embraced Arabs and Africans for a long while. The war in Abyssinia, for example, soured them on the latter.
 
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