Sorry, Hitro, you are making the same mistake as all of the others who consider Nazism and Fascism to be one in the same.
The word Fascist originates (as was said earlier) from the Roman Fasces, which symbolized a Roman government official's power.
Fascism, while it does support the idea of a centralized government, does not entail leadership of that government by one man, thats Despotism friend.
Fascists are people who place loyalty and responsibility to the state above all else, including family, friends or religious creed. They do not inherently value strength above all else. To put it simply, Fascism is an attempt to instill a military like cohesive loyalty and fraternity to the entire "unit" (state), in essence to live for the state.
Again, just because the Nazis were called Fascists at the time, does not mean they were fascists in character. I would consider Nazism to be a more "refined" version of Despotism: unquestioned rule by a single individual, enforced by the army and/or paramilitary groups (i.e. brownshirts).
Look, I'll concede that Nazism definitely has fascist characteristics (nationalistic pride, military-like loyalty to the state, elevation in social class of the armed forces, etc) but Nazism has several other characteristics which divorce it from Fascism (a cult of personality around a single leader, persecution and elimination of minorities, etc).
The fact that Fascism is (mistakenly) use so broadly is both annoying and idiotic. Its just as stupid to refer to Russia's current government as being democratic (when its clearly not, considering its run largely by organized crime, the "Russian mafia".)
As for Hitler being the best known Fascist leader: He is, if you get your entire understanding of Fascism from coffee-table books and the equally slap-dash popular press. But in truth, Hitler was a despot, not a fascist. Just as Catherine the Great, Stalin, Quadafi (spelling?), Hussein and so on were/are despots.
Oh, on a more philisophical note, the idea of having a single man at the top is not espoused by democracy, fascism or communism like it is in Despotism and Monarchies. Rather, I think it arises simply out of 1) Human tendencies for grabbing power, and a need to see power concentrated in one man (its easier to follow a defined "leader' as opposed to an impersonal/ethereal ruling body like "the senate") and 2) a need to get things done; hard to do when government power is so diffuse (look at the existence of a President in the US, lots of power for one man.)
