Hitler Andnmussolini Comparison Essay, Research Paper

Mussolini and Hitler Compared

Because of military unpreparedness, Mussolini did not enter World War II until June 1940, when the Germans had overrun France. Italy fought the British in Africa, invaded Greece, and joined the Germans in beating up Yugoslavia, attacking the Soviet Union, and declaring war on the United States.

After Italy’s many military defeats, King Victor Emmanuel dismissed Mussolini in 1943, and in September obtained an armistice with the Allies, who had invaded southern Italy. At the same time, the Germans rescued Mussolini and made him organize a Social Republic in northern Italy. In the final days of the war Mussolini attempted an escape to Switzerland with his mistress Clara Petacci. Italian partisans captured and shot them on April 28, 1945, at Giulino di Mezzegra near Lake Como. In view of their country’s wartime disasters, few Italians regretted the overthrow of the Fascist regime and the death of its Duce.

Hitler spread his gospel of racial hatred and contempt for democracy. He organized meetings, and terrorized political foes with his personal bodyguard force, the Sturmabteilung (SA, or Storm Troopers). He soon became a key figure in Bavarian politics, aided by high officials and businessmen. In November 1923, a time of political and economic chaos, he led an uprising in Munich against the postwar Weimar Republic. He proclaimed himself chancellor of a new authoritarian regime. Without military support, however, the Putsch collapsed.

As leader of the plot, Hitler was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and served nine months, which he spent dictating his autobiography Mein Kampf . The failure of the uprising taught Hitler that the Nazi party must use legal means to assume power. Released as a result of a general freedom in December 1924, he rebuilt his party without interference from those whose government he had tried to overthrow. When the Great Depression struck in 1929, he explained it as a Jewish-Communist plot, an explanation accepted by many Germans. Promising a strong Germany, jobs, and national glory, he attracted millions of voters. Nazi representation in the Reichstag rose.

During the following two years the party kept expanding, benefiting from growing unemployment. Nevertheless, when Hitler was appointed chancellor in January 1933, he was expected to be an easily controlled tool of big business.

Hitler successfully appealed to a Germany that was humiliated by defeat in World War I and the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. Many Germans, and even other Europeans, believed that the terms of the treaty were too harsh, and Hitler was successful in defying some of them. His efforts to rearm Germany in 1935 met with little protest from other European countries,and when he sent troops into the demilitarized Rhineland in 1936, France did not react.

When the Spanish Civil War began in July 1936, Hitler supported Nationalist leader Francisco Franco, supplying airplanes and weapons. German aid to Franco gave Hitler the opportunity to test his strategies and weapons technology. In October 1936 Hitler signed a pact with Italy’s Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini. In November 1936 he signed the Anti-Comintern treaty with Japan. In 1940 Germany signed a tripartite alliance with both Italy and Japan, pledging mutual support.

Hitler believed that Germany needed to expand to the east in order to find living space, which could be used as both agricultural and industrial land. In 1938 when Hitler occupied Austria claiming that Germans were being persecuted, he encountered no resistance. In September 1938, stating that Germans in the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia were being oppressed, he encouraged them to make demands on the Czechoslovakian government that it could not fulfill. Thus Germany had an excuse to march into Czechoslovakia. Britain and France feared the outbreak of war and agreed to the Munich Pact, which gave the Sudetenland to Germany in exchange for Germany’s promise not to take additional Czech territory. However, by March 1939 Hitler had brought the remainder of Czechoslovakia under German control. He was actively preparing for an aggressive maneuver toward the east.

He was successful, however, only because many Germans were willing to be led, even though his program was one of hatred and violence. His impact was completely destructive, and nothing of what he instituted and built survived.