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The Eastern Front

Introduction

The Great War, also known as World War I or the “war to end all wars,” brought the concept of total war to the battlefield, unleashing unprecedented destruction and leaving millions of victims in its wake. After such devastation, it might have been reasonable to expect those affected to be pacified by a feeling of war weariness, but instead we saw the rise of a political ideology whose followers advocated perpetual conflict. Fascism is a quasi-religious political ideology that is anticommunist, ant liberal, ant capitalist, anti-intellectual, ant positivist, anti-internationalist, anti-Christian, anticonservative, anti-rationalistic, ant proletarian, antibourgeois, anti-individualistic, and antidemocratic (E. Gentile, 2003, 2004; G. Gentile, 2002; Gregor, 2001; Ioanid, 2005; Laqueur, 1996; Lederer, 1937; Schuman, 1934; Sternhell, Sznajder, & Asheri, 1994; Szaz, 1963; Wellhofer, 2003).

Although it may appear that the above litany of negations encompasses everything, fascism demanded cultural and ideological unity among all within the nation by forcing the creation of a new society, a new way of thinking, and a new man. Thus it was a totalitarian ideology. It was fiercely nationalist and jingoistic once in power, employing myth in order to stimulate nationalist fervor among its followers and seeking to eliminate all political opposition through violence.

Fascism came in different forms. The two most prominent were in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Fascist parties arose in other places, as well, but did not achieve the same success as the National Fascist Party in Italy and the National Socialist German Worker's Party or Nazi (short for National Socialist) Party did.

Discussion and Analysis

Germany was in bad shape following World War I, both economically and socially. People rejected the peace that had long existed since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the liberal cultural synthesis, and Germany's contemporary leadership. Political life became brutalized, and the government increased its control over society while curtailing civil liberties. Fueling this was rampant hyperinflation and chaotic social conditions, at the same time that the inception of mass media allowed those with extreme solutions an outlet for their ideas (Payne, 1995). The Nazi party blamed all Germany's woes on the Jews. The reasons for Germany's loss in World War I were also the Jews' fault that, according to the Nazis, they were responsible for the establishment of parliamentary democracy and what Nazis called the “Jew republic” of the “November criminals” of 1918. The signing of the Treaty of Versailles was seen as a stab in the back of the German military. Likewise, all of Germany's problems following the armistice were attributed to the Jews (Schuman, 1934).

The Treaty of Versailles had unjustly assigned Germany all the blame for the war and sought excessive punitive actions in the form of territorial concessions and inordinate reparations. Like Italy, Germany experienced very high unemployment and inflation. The difficulty of the Weimar Republic in solving these problems led many to turn to extreme political movements such as the Nazis. An incipient economic recovery was rudely interrupted by the Great Depression, which struck in 1929, bringing about the ...