For starters, Italy's Fascism having less marked racist connotations and being more of a strictly corporatism and anti-communist nature, at least for most of its peacetime period (the introduction of the racial laws against Jews in Italy happened only in 1938, arguably at the pressure of the alliance with Nazi Germany which many, even in the high officiers, saw with leeriness such as for example Galeazzo Ciano), makes it considerably less of a black-and-white subject than Nazism, and any association to it. Thus, in many cases, the debate over Fascism between Italians concerns merely political aspects of it and the necessity of it at the time.

Secondly, Italy itself was absolutely not enthusiastic to start a war in the 1940s in the first place, with the perception being that Italy was instead dragged into the war by Germany's hubris. One eloquent example: Mussolini and his government even directly warned Hitler, on the days immediately after the signing of the Pact of Steel in 1939, that in the event of a conflict Italy wouldn't have been fighting-ready until 2 or 3 years, hoping that peace would have been mantained until then.

Another two factors that come to my mind are that Italy, unlike Germany and Japan, worked during its wartime period to rid or distance themselves of Fascism, or at least of its topmost leaders, something which cannot be said to have been widely attempted in the other two countries aside from small cadres or private failed coups. This too, in collective consciousness, helped toward an "atonement" of guilt for Fascism.

On the top government side, the motion on July 25, 1943 to depose Mussolini, have him arrested, and to apply for an armistice with the Allies was carried out by none other than the very Grand Council of Fascism through a regular voting, and this was executed without opposition.

Even there, the differences with the Nazi Germany government are evident: one can easily make a comparison with the Goering Telegram that was sent to Hitler on April 23, 1945, which asked for him to relinquish leadership in the face of the approaching Allied forces, so as to conduct negotiations, and that his silence would have meant consent. This only led to the arrest of Goering by the SS for his "insubordination".

On the bottom civilian side, most importantly, there is also the fact that the Italian partisan resistance showed themselves active and tightly organized in fighting Fascism right on the home front, in a way that was no less than what French resistance and Yugoslavian partisans did against Nazis, even liberating cities or cleaning the path from Fascist forces ahead of the arrival of any Allied troops.

While in Germany the best one may say at any level is "I was just following orders" to try and distance oneself from the WWII past, in Italy there are no small numbers of people who can at least say "I have fought with/collaborated with the Partisans" to demonstrate one had effectively done something concrete to rebel against the regime rather than sheepishly obeying.