I always had a sense that fascism wasn't really about the particular policies or strategies of 1930s Germany, any more than it was about jodhpurs or unimpressive moustaches. But I didn't consciously understand fascism until I read the classic essay on Ur-fascism, by a survivor of Mussolini's regime in WW2 Italy, the novelist Umberto Eco;
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/
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