Fascism is an economic model, actually, in which the State controls industries and output which remain in private hands. It is midway between laissez faire capitalism where individual people own and control the means of production and the polar opposite, Communism, where the government owns and allocates all resources and means to produce.
What happened in Europe in the late '30s and early '40s that centered around Germany was attempted genocide, wrapped in a fascist economic mantle, and ultimately totalitarianism, but even more, the elimination of millions of those who would not bend their knee to the Party and the State, who would not submit.
In a war in which our enemies have sworn by their beliefs to convert us, kill us, or die, we have three options; convert, be killed, or assist them in the latter. I know which I would choose.