In the 1930s, a sizable portion of elite opinion was four-square behind fascism. From Jeffrey A. Tucker at brownstone.org:
Fascism became a swear word in the US and UK during the Second World War. It has been ever since, to the point that the content of the term has been drained away completely. It is not a system of political economy but an insult.
If we go back a decade before the war, you find a completely different situation. Read any writings from polite society from 1932 to 1940 or so, and you find a consensus that freedom and democracy, along with Enlightenment-style liberalism of the 18th century, were completely doomed. They should be replaced by some version of what was called the planned society, of which fascism was one option.
A book by that name appeared in 1937 as published by the prestigious Prentice-Hall, and it included contributions by top academics and high-profile influencers. It was highly praised by all respectable outlets at the time.
Everyone in the book was explaining how the future would be constructed by the finest minds who would manage whole economies and societies, the best and the brightest with full power. All housing should be provided by government, for example, and food too, but with the cooperation of private corporations. That seems to be the consensus in the book. Fascism was treated as a legitimate path. Even the word totalitarianism was invoked without opprobrium but rather with respect.
The book has been memory-holed of course.
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Black Shirts and Mussolini cornered that market and those faces on the balcony by Benito, epic.
NSDAP land was a hybrid form of socialism with some state and corporate merger for the war machine and cradle to grave morale programs such as Kraft durch Freude to let the working class enjoy boat cruises and other escapes that they usually couldn’t afford.
Weren’t the original Shrubbush elders into some fascism and some say they have been overthrowing the republic since the 1930s.
Bright idea to let them run the Criminals In Action.
BTW-The Liugi’s strawberry Italian ice is almost orgasmic on a hot day.