The conceit that both the nazis and communists were both far left stems from a pathological far right need to sanctify themselves and demonize opponents, and it's there that "professors" become a factor: The mindset that calls any objectionable fact in "the liberal media" a lie and responds with its own biased inaccurate "media" does the same with education. Thus home schools can teach that evolution is both factually and morally wrong, and "college" educated political scientists can insist, with a straight face, that Hitler was a liberal. Hitler was so "liberal" that far right isolationists in the '30s loved him even more than do todays far right isolationists.

Fascism is NATIONALIST first and foremost, which should have given you pause long ago. That makes it militaristic, but also traditionalist, makes civil liberties seem weak and treacherous to fascisms own brand of law and order, which basically enshrines "the principles that made this country great". It is, in a word, conservative, extreme conservatism that produces totalitarian absolutism as surely as extreme liberalism, but still inherently conservative. Hitler hated unions and communism in a way you can't even imagine, because they threatened the established order, and a threat to the established order was a threat to the nation, thus intolerable to fascism. Mussolini and Franco were no better, and many American conservatives eagerly supported Franco with the same economic and political aid Mussolini and Hitler accompanied with military aid. Communism makes democracy a Trojan Horse for totalitarianism and fascism does the same with patriotism, but being executed as a traitor to the people or the state makes little difference to the guy in front of the firing squad.

Once again, neither faction has a monopoly on virtue or truth, and not only do both sides have clay feet, but the extremists on both side have little else.