Right.
I've read so much bivine dung in this thread I feel I must make a statement, or have a bad stomachache for the rest of the day.
Your perception of "fascism" and "nationalsocialism" is pretty much similar, from a social and cultural point of view, to your perception of geography, to quote but one.
Come the end of the Great War (the one you joined in 1917 and demanded to claim you won in 1918, the one all other players had been fighting since 1914) most of Europe was pretty much in dire straits.
The one Nation which, regardless of losing some 654000 men age 20-30, and suffering another 450000 men through "shell shock" (=PTSD) or losing limbs or even eyesight through the first gas Attacks...
...the one nation which rose to become the continental industrial supoerpower was NOT Germany (remember the failed Republic of Weimar) not the UK (which had plenty of protection from the Channel) nor France (which remained pretty much agricultural) but ITALY.
Italy, under Mussolini, became the one nation to set industrial and mechanical records of the modern age, some of which still remain today.
You all remember Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Ocean, not all remember the Italian formation Flying across the same Ocean, a feat nobody equalled on propeller-driven Aircraft during nor after WW2.
"Officine Panerai" and "Officine Galileo" respectively produced chronographs and optical lenses of far superior quality than the Swiss chronographs or German lenses of the day.
Names like Fermi, Marconi, Majorana, Pacinotti; firms like Caproni, Breda, Piaggio; they all made Italy famous in their day.
The very Oppenheimer and Von Braun which sent your Gemini and Apollo missions into space wouldn't have made it without studying on Italian university texts.
The first flight of a jet engined aircraft to come to popular attention was the Italian Caproni Campini N.1 motorjet prototype that flew on August 27, 1940. It was the first jet aircraft recognised by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (at the time the German He 178 program was still kept secret). Campini had proposed the motorjet in 1932.(quote courtesy of Wikipedia; the flight was done a few miles from my home, at the ITAF Experimental Center in Guidonia, near Rome)
If you compare the 1929 crisis in the USA and in Italy, and see how the two nations managed and ran business...
- John Steinbeck wrote his famous "The Grapes of Wrath"
- Italy had, through the Fascist party, adopted the principle of "corporativism" so that any large industry HAD to diversify its produciton and its Investments; hence, the fall of Wall Street did take its toll, but only in limited fashion. Modern medical and social innovations were put in practice: urbanization called for the "industrialization of city services" so that it was mandatory for all new homes to have electricity - which was distributed through underground conduits, eliminating the dangerous and unsightly practice of hanging loose lines from poles along city streets.
Please do take your time and study Italy during the 1920s and 1930s. Your opinion on "fascism" and "dictatorship" will definitely change, as will many Forum Members' opinion on my being "a socialist" and your understanding of "the McCarthy years".
A good day to you all
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