Abstract
Scholars of fascism have mostly come up with generic definitions and tried to define their topic by sketching out more or less elaborated lists of characteristics. This paper tries to come to terms with fascism not so much as an ideological but rather as an aesthetic phenomenon which has to be considered in its social functions. Fascism wanted to put life on stage – Hitler and Mussolini referred to themselves as “artists” who designed the state as a ‘gesamtkunstwerk’. Fascist aesthetics was eclectic in its stylistic preferences: It could deploy futuristic, expressionistic or neoclassicistic devices; using a formalized language of symbols, it did not depict but rather created reality. Fascist aesthetics reinstated art in its premodern social function. Art was not segregated from the public sphere and exiled to museums and exhibitions, but social life itself had to assume the fascist design which also included behavioral patterns.
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