Difference between fascism and nazism?

Nazism is considered to be one form of fascism. Though both Nazism and fascism reject the ideologies of liberalism, Marxism and democracy, these two are different in many aspects. It is hard to make a perfect differentiation between the two.

Nazism and Fascism have their origin in the 20th century. While fascism was in vogue between 1919 and 1945, Nazism became popular from 1933 to 1945. Fascism is a term that was originally referred to the fascists of Italy under Mussolini.

Nazism on the other hand, referred as National Socialism, is in an ideological concept of the Nazi Party or the National Socialist German Workers’ Party of Adolf Hitler. Fascism believes in the ‘corporatism’ of all elements in society to form an ‘Organic State’. They were not racial and had no strong opinion of any race.

For Fascists, the state was the most important element. The Doctrine of Fascism, which is the authoritative document of the fascism, emphasis on nationalism, corporatism, totalitarianism and militarism. According to this Doctrine the State is all embracing and no human or spiritual value exists beyond it.

But Nazism emphasised on racism. While fascism considered state as important, Nazism considered ‘Aryanism’ as more important. The Nazism doctrine believed in the superiority of the Aryan race.

While fascism was based on certain political ideology, Nazism was blindly based on racial hatred. Nazism considered class based society as enemy and stood for unifying the racial element. But fascism wanted to preserve the class system.

The fascists almost accepted the concept of social mobility, while Nazism was against it. Nazism considered state as a means for the advancement of the master race. But fascism considered state to be a form of nationalism.

Fascists considered nationalism as something related to national culture as opposed to other cultures. Coming to the etymology, fascist comes from fascio, an Italiam word, meaning a union of bundle.