In contrast, Fascism extolled the supreme sovereignity of the nation as an absolute. The slogans of the French revolution 'liberty, equality, fraternity' were rejected with Mussolini's slogan 'to believe, to obey, to combat'. Apart from the state there was no scope for independent action either of individuals or of groups. In place of democracy Fascism substituted the figure of 'Il Duce', or 'Leader' who had to be obeyed unquestioningly. In international politics, Fascism exalted war instead of peace, maintaining that a nation must have 'a will to power' and the desire for expansion.
War is to man what maternity is to woman.
I do not believe in peace, but I find it depressing and a negation of all human virtues of man'. He regarded the Nordic Aryan race as the only source of human greatness, and he despised the 'inferior' Slavs and above all the Jews as un-German. His anti-Semitic campaign resulted during the 1940's in the infamous Holocaust , that is, the extermination of many millions of Jews. That was but the first step, for Hitler believed that a life and death struggle was the substance of history. The future of the German race could only be assured, he argued, by colonizing large territories in the East and settling them with Germans.