Question

how would you define Fascism, and what were some of the key reasons that so many people living in Europe (particularly in Italy and Germany) in the 1930's and 40's chose to embrace it?

Answer 1

Fascism, political ideology and mass movement which dominated many parts of Central, Southern and Eastern Europe between 1919 and 1945 and which also had followers in Western Europe, the United States, South Africa, Japan, Latin America and the Middle East. Europe's first fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, took his party's name from the Latin word fasces, which referred to a set of elms or birch rods used in ancient Rome as a sign of the penal authority. While fascist parties and movements differed substantially from each other, they had many common features, including extreme militaristic nationalism, disdain for parliamentary democracy and political and cultural liberalism;

The main European political groups were split up at the end of World War II, and were formally outlawed in several countries (such as Italy and West Germany). Nevertheless, several fascist-oriented parties and movements were founded in Europe as well as Latin America and South Africa, starting in the late 1940's. Although some "neo-fascist" European groups achieved great successes, especially in Italy and France, none were as powerful as the interwar period's main fascist parties.

During World War I, when Benito Mussolini and other leftists founded a political party (called a fasci) supporting the war against Germany and Austria-Hungary, the rise of fascism in Italy commenced.
On January 24, 1915 the first meeting of Mussolini's Fasci of Revolutionary Action took place.
The small group of fascists engaged in political activities for the next few years, taking advantage of workers 'protests to provoke violence.
Around 1921 the fascists started to merge with mainstream conservatives, increasingly growing membership.
Starting in 1922, fascistic paramilitaries strengthened their policy by targeting socialist offices and socialist leadership homes

Sometimes, authoritarian regimes are concerned "with group collapse, humiliation, or victimhood, and compensatory cult of solidarity, strength, and purity," resulting in nationalistic and racist philosophies and practices such as the Nazi Germany Holocaust.
The word originated in Italy and is derived from fascio, meaning a bundle of rods, and is used by unity to symbolize strength: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is hard to break.
At the end of the First World War, fascism rose to international prominence from relative obscurity, with authoritarian governments emerging most prominently in Italy, Germany, and Japan, the three of which would be allies in the Second World War.