To the Threshold of Power, 1922/33: Origins and Dynamics of the Fascist and National Socialist Dictatorships, Volume 1 (review)

This book comes with much advance praise; the back cover is filled with accolades from a number of well-known historians in the field of German and Italian studies. Indeed, much about the work is impressive. Based upon a vast array of literature that reflects the author's prodigious erudition, this is one of the few books in comparative history that is genuinely comparative rather than just an accumulation of parallel chapters.

However, the analysis is based upon two historiographical postulates that, as Knox himself states, will raise eyebrows among some of his professional peers. The first is that the primary cause of the dynamics of history is war and the pursuit of power. As Knox puts it, “politics and war led the way, society followed” (40). The second is the firm belief that until 1945, Italian and German history constituted a Sonderweg in historical development. Although Knox pays lip service to the truism that all societies have their own Sonderweg, he insists that Italy and Germany are unique cases. They were incomplete societies that developed “national myths” of unfulfilled expectations that could be achieved only by war (57).

With these two postulates firmly in mind, Knox proceeds to write the history of Italian Fascism and German National Socialism à la longue durée. Reaching far back in history, Knox insists on a centuries-old longing for leaders and followers who would finally take the countries into battle to achieve their unfulfilled expectations. The actual fascists, who do not appear in the book until page 300, provided this element because World War I had created determined warriors and a “technocratic-fanatical Führer” (192).

In pursuing his thesis, Knox depicts his subjects with broad brush strokes. This is not a book of nuances. So far as Knox is concerned, Germany started World War I in order to achieve global supremacy. He states this proposition as a “self-evident truth” (235). Knox clearly sees no merit in the carefully balanced assignment of responsibility for the outbreak of the war that Wasserstein recently advanced.¹ Similarly, he portrays Prussia as a “warrior state” of radical nationalism (89). Clark's recent, more nuanced account of Prussia is not mentioned in the bibliography.² Moreover, this longing for world domination had far-reaching antecedents. Knox quotes the Reformation figure Ulrich von Hutten to the effect that the Germans were determined to be a “weltherr-schendes Volk,” a phrase that Knox translates rather freely as “natural leader of the world” (29).

For both Italy and Germany, World War I represented the culmination of their Sonderweg, and national failure. Germany was defeated, and Italy achieved only a mutilated victory. In both cases, the national myths decreed that democracy would be a failure and a renewed war inevitable; Italian Fascism and National Socialism were the answer to the fulfillment of the national myths. In the final analysis, the military in both countries brought the radical right to power. In 1922 and 1933, the military leadership determined that Italy and Germany needed the Fascists and the Nazis in order to prepare the two countries for the next war (379).

Is this tour de force persuasive? In some ways, it is. The military certainly played a major role in Germany and Italy, and frustration with the outcome of World War I in both countries is undeniable. It is problematical, however, to link these developments exclusively to centuries-old national myths. Knox does not ascribe much significance to economic factors in history. He claims that the Germans voted for Hitler because of his radical nationalism, not because of the effects of the Depression. To achieve his purpose, the author engages in some careful culling of the evidence. For example, he allows for virtually no German Enlightenment. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing does not appear in the narrative or the index, but...