Hitler's views, articulated in Mein Kampf (’My Struggle’), built in
many ways upon more orthodox conservative German political
theorists and philosophers. Hegel [177O—1831], for instance, had
stressed the importance of a strong state, its role in defining culture
and the existence of a logic (or dialectic) of history which justified war
by superior states upon inferior ones. Schopenhauer [1780-1860]
glorified Will over Reason. Nietzsche [1844-1900] believed in the
creation of a race of superior individuals. Views like these were
combined with carefully selected ’scientific’ findings about natural
selection _and the nature of human racial divisions to create an
ideology which had a powerful appeal in the politically volatile
atmosphere of an economically depressed Germany in the 1930s.
Italian fascism, by contrast,_although drawing upon many of the
same causes of social and political discontent and using many of the
same methods to achieve power - street warfare and mass rallies for
instance — placed much less emphasis on racism. As an alternative to democracy the appeal of the leader was combined with an attempt to create a corporatist structure of representation in which bodies such as the Church, the army and employers’ associations and even