1004 Ch. 25 • Economic Depression and Dictatorshipof the war channeled them all in new and frightening directions, con
tributing to the proliferation of aggressive nationalism. For many veterans
of the trenches, the experience of the war had made them increasingly
indifferent to brutality and human suffering. To an extent, nationalism
represented a continuation of the Great War—and the camaraderie of the
trenches—now transformed into a race war against those considered inter
nal or external enemies. In Germany, in particular, right-wing movements
attracted demobilized soldiers, who had returned home with weapons,
habits of military order, and experience with violence. Fortunate enough to
have returned home from the war at all, demobilized troops found not a sig
nificantly better life to repay them for their sacrifices, but hard times driven
by inflation. They kept right on marching. Paramilitary squads of war veter
ans destabilized political life in France and Italy, in victorious states, but
above all in revisionist states that did not accept The Versailles Settlement
(see Chapter 24). The Free Corps in Germany, the Home Guard in Austria,
and the Cross of Fire in France denounced the “decadence” and “softness”
of parliamentary regimes. They wanted continuation of war, the dominant
experience in their lives, not peace.
Aggressive nationalism easily became racism. From the beginning, Hitlers
National Socialism espoused German racial supremacy. Nazism mani
fested an unparalleled capacity for violence and destruction based upon
the assumption that Nazis could assume the authority to determine who
could live and who could die. Their principal target was Jews. This carried
Nazi ideology and practice beyond other violent nationalist right-wing
regimes. Germans were not alone in believing spurious literature proclaim
ing the superiority of their race and the degeneration of other races. East
ern European dictators denounced other ethnic groups and nations, which
could be blamed for practically anything. Anti-Semitism also characterized
authoritarian movements in Austria, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia, as
well as in France and Belgium. Inspired by Hitler, Mussolini also added
anti-Semitism to his nationalist ravings in 1938.
Fascism borrowed some symbols and rites that represented spiritual revo
lution (for example, “blood” and “martyrdom”) from Christianity, replacing
the latter with nationalism. Fascism became something of an all-embracing
civic religion that sought to build a “national community.” In a totalitarian
way, fascism sought to eliminate the distinction between private and public
life. Fascists sought to create the “new man” who would serve the nation
(women were to remain at home) and a new elite defined by service to the
state. Fascists emphasized youth and youthful energy, contrasting the “new
men” with what they considered the old, failed political systems. Lining up
behind authoritarian dictators whom they believed to be natural, aggressive
leaders who incarnated their national destiny, fascists trumpeted the histor
ical rights of, and duties to, the nation, which they believed outweighed any
other rights. In their view this gave them the right to exclude from the
national community—and, for some fascists, to kill—those they considered