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Fascism originated with the founding of Benito Mussolini's (1883-1945) group "Fasci di Combattimento" or Fighting Leagues in 1919. It is a poltical philosophy that dominated central, southersn, and eastern-central Europe beween 1919 and 1944. Fascism's most central tenet is an emphasis on the nation (race or state) as the center of all history and life, with an indisputable authority of the leader with whom the people were expected to develop an unbreakable unity. The goal of fascism is to "transform the nation into a permanently mobilized armed force to conquer maintain, and expand power." Mussolini eventually became the youngest prime minister of in Italian history, as well as the first fascist dictator. The Nazi Party is another name for the National Socialist German Workers Party, which was led by Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) who ruled Germany from 1933 until 1945. The party called for German abandonment of the Treaty of Versailles (which was the treaty that ended WWI) and the expansion of German territory. This was coupled with openly anti-Semitic rhetoric. Malcolm was right in his assertion that Schopenhauer, Kant, and Nietzsche "laid the groundwork on which the fascist and Nazi philosophy was built." Mussolini read all three philosophers voraciously. He picked out what appealed to him and ignored the rest. He used his version of the works of these philosophers to rationalize his fascist ideology.
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