Fascists As Bloodthirsty Jew Killers? History Begs To Differ

One of my ongoing quibbles with the chattering classes is the usage of fascist.  They toss it around like an insult while pretending to not know what it means, or worse, not having a clue to what it means.  For one thing, it is an insult to me because I do not have a socialist spec of blood in my body.  When I point this out, they get upset and say or type it in all caps - FASCIST!

If anybody tells you that Hitler invented it, that is either a teachable moment or grounds to dismiss them to protect your sanity.  No Nazi ever called himself a Fascist and Hitler joined the already existing National Socialist German Worker's (Nazi) Party when he was supposed to be spying on them for the German government and Mussolini's Fascist Party was already big in Italy.

The Leftist problem is one of their own making that keeps biting them when they try to express themselves in written or spoken language.  The problem of changing the meanings of words at a whim until they become meaningless.  In actuality, Fascism is a form of Socialism, of the National Socialist variety.  Nazism is a form of Socialism too, also in the National Socialist group.  Mussolini used it as a vehicle to promote Socialism in Italy because his beloved Communist party was not gaining enough popularity to impose "fairness and equality" on everybody in Italy.  Remember, to the Socialist, fairness is stealing other people's property and equality is equality of misery for everybody but the smart people running the show.

International Socialism or Communism, is experiencing the same X-Brand Socialism makeover as I type.  A growing chorus of neo-Socialists proclaim that Communism was not Socialism and object to the term International Socialism as some sort of slander.  All that is fodder for another post and will be examined in depth in How Many Borders Would You Like With That Socialism?

Now, what were the major National Socialist regimes of the World War II era?  Italy, Germany, France and Spain for sure with the United States, England and the Soviet Union making 'valiant' attempts at becoming National Socialist regimes, with the Soviets remaining the only totalitarian regime of that set.

Now, how many Jews did each round up and murder?

Spain - ZERO

During World War II , Franco-led Spain aided the Jews by permitting 25,600 Jews to use the country as an escape route from the European theater of war, provided they “passed through leaving no trace.” Paradoxically, though Spain later cultivated relations with Arab countries, it also assisted Moroccan and Egyptian Jews who survived pogroms.

I wanted to use Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism citation of Franco's repeal of the 1492 Spanish Edict of Expulsion (Alhambra Decree), however Franco did not repeal that act until 1968.

Italy under Mussolini - ZERO
Mussolini was never a big fan of anti-Semitism like his fan and ally Hitler was.  Jews of Rome occupied high positions in Mussolini's Fascist party, like Aldo Finzi, from the beginning and up to 25% of the Jewish population were party members.  However, the same anti-Semitism that swept Europe in the late 1930s showed up on his desk around 1937 and a series of anti-Jewish laws were enacted.  By 1940 Mussolini created the Campagna camp and housed Jews there, refusing to deport them to Germany.


Italy after Mussolini - 7,500
Italian resistance to German demands for Jews to be sent to their death was blatant.  The Italian commanders in Croatia and France refused German demands outright, with support from Mussolini.  No Jew was relocated to a German concentration camp until 1943, after Mussolini was voted out of power and jailed.  When the Germans took control of Italy, they found the Campagna camp empty, but still managed to find some 7,500 Jews to send to Auschwitz, despite the efforts of the Italians to shield them.  It is estimated that the Germans rounded up 20% of the Jews in Italy for the "Final Solution".

France - 90,000
The Vichy French government engaged in more than collaboration with the German 'occupiers,' they kept several steps ahead of the Germans in sending Jews to their deaths.  On 3 October 1940 they enacted Statut des juifs, The Statute on Jews, before the Germans so much as asked.  Jews were stripped of French citizenship, prohibited from serving in the military, prohibited from changing residences, and rounded up into French concentration camps to await deportation to German death camps.  It is estimated that 26% of the Jews in France were murdered in the Vichy "Final Solution".

Germany/Austria - 210,000

Werner Goldberg "The Ideal German Soldier"

It is estimated that 88% of Jews in Germany/Austria lost their lives to the "Final Solution".  However, the Germans did not exempt "half" and "quarter" Jews from conscription.  The number would have been higher had it not been for Jewish war heroes returning from the front only to find their families on "relocation" lists.  Frequently, these soldiers were able to shame the bureaucrats into leaving their families alone, for a time.  See Hitler's Jewish Soldiers by Dr. Bryan Mark Rigg.  Watch him on C-SPAN's BookTV.

So, what we have here is two National Socialist regimes, that never called themselves Fascists, who rounded up Jews and others for extermination.  So, where does the pejorative Fascist come from?  One rule to remember about Leftists and Socialists: facts are meaningless.  They decided, sometime way back when, that since the Italian Fascists eventually allied with the German National Socialists, then they could all be called fascists.  A side note, since all the cool Socialists love France (the birthplace of National Socialism) a whole false history has been created for the French, one that substitutes the actual French reaction to German occupation with the Italian resistance to German occupation.

The Leftists want you to believe Nazi collaborators in France were rare.

Now the story goes, every single French citizen was a member of the underground, save the women of Paris whose heads were shaved after the Allied liberation, and each home hid twenty Jews in the attic and another dozen in the cellar.  That fits more with the Assisi underground in Italy than anything that happened in France.

Remember, when someone calls you a fascist or a Nazi, 1) they probably do not know what they are talking about, 2) you are probably winning an argument.