From: Nathan Hook nhook@bemail.org
Sorry, neither the Brits nor the Germans nor anyone in recent memory
invented
fascist regimes. In fact, fascist regimes are all the rage in many SF
books,
many, many of them written by American authors long before B7 ever
appeared
on the scene. Said Annie... But I believe facism was invented, or at least appeared in Italy...prior
to the second world war obviously, I forget the sate it roughly emerged....
As far as I understand, fascism in the modern political sense was French in origin, and can be attributed to a chap called Maurras (forget his first name) and the LAF (Ligue de l'Action Francaise) in the late 19th Century who sought to overthrow whichever Republic was ruling France at the time of the Dreyfus Affair. "C'est la revanche de Dreyfus!" declared Maurras when he was jailed in 1945 or 46 for collaborating with the Nazis. The LAF is very much the 'forgotten' fascist movement, effectively killed off by France's victory in WW1, but was influential on Mussolini and Hitler (and minor fascist movements elsewhere in Europe, probably Mosely's BUF as well) when they came to formulate their doctrines.
Neil