Rome – Benito Mussolini was a fierce anti-Semite, who proudly said that his hatred for Jews preceded Adolf Hitler’s and vowed to “destroy them all,” according to previously unpublished diaries by the Fascist dictator’s longtime mistress.
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According to the diaries, Mussolini also talked about the warm reception he received from Hitler at the 1938 Munich conference — he called the German leader a “softy” — and attacked Pope Pius XI for his criticism of Nazism and Fascism.
The dairies kept by Claretta Petacci, Mussolini’s mistress, between 1932 and 1938 are the subject of a book coming out this week entitled “Secret Mussolini.” Excerpts were published Monday by Italy’s leading daily Corriere della Sera and confirmed by publisher Rizzoli.
Historians said the diaries appeared to be convincing and reinforced the image that Mussolini was strongly anti-Semitic, even though early on there was some Jewish support for his Fascist movement. But they cautioned that these are the diaries of the dictator’s lover — not Mussolini himself — and therefore must be taken with an extra grain of salt.
Corriere said the diaries shed new light on Mussolini, who had been seen as more obsequious toward the pope and “dubious” over Italy’s racial laws, which led to widespread persecution of Italian Jews.
Many of the excerpts that were published date to 1938, a crucial year during which Mussolini’s Fascist regime passed the racial laws and Europe sealed its appeasement toward Nazi Germany at the Munich conference.
“I have been a racist since 1921. I don’t know how they can think I’m imitating Hitler,” Mussolini is quoted as boasting in August 1938. “We must give Italians a sense of race.”
Italy’s racial laws restricted the rights of Jews and expelled them from government, university and other fields.
In 1943, German troops occupied northern and central Italy, and thousands of Jews were deported. According to some researchers, there were 32,000 Jews in 1943 in Italy, of whom over 8,000 were deported to Nazi concentration camps.
“These disgusting Jews, I must destroy them all,” Mussolini was quoted as saying by his lover in October 1938. At another point he calls them “enemies” and “reptiles,” according to the excerpts.
Mussolini also denounced Pius XI, who saw the rise of anti-Semitism in the last years of his 1922-39 papacy, as harming the Catholic Church. Pius commissioned an encyclical to denounce racism and the violent nationalism of Germany, but he died before releasing it and it was never published.
The Fascist dictator said that “there never was a pope as harmful to religion” as Pius XI and accused him of doing “undignified things, such as saying we are similar to the Semites,” according to the excerpts.
For years, the Vatican has struggled to defend Pius’ successor — the wartime Pope Pius XII — against claims he didn’t do enough to save Jews from the Holocaust.
Mussolini had kind words for Hitler, whom he said was “very nice” and had tears in his eyes when he met the Italian dictator in Munich. “Hitler is a big softy, deep down,” Mussolini is quoted as telling Petacci on Oct. 1, 1938, shortly after the conference.
Mussolini also wrote to Petacci about his “mad desire” for her “little body” and his regret over having had relations with other women. “I adore you and I’m a fool. I mustn’t make you suffer,” he was quoted as saying.
Mussolini and Petacci were shot by partisans on April 28, 1945, and their bodies were displayed to a jeering crowd hanging upside-down from a gas station in a Milan square.
Piero Melograni, a historian who has written several books on Fascism and World War II, said the excerpts were “convincing in terms of the character that emerges and therefore the authenticity of the diaries.”
He said the diaries appear to strengthen the notion of a strongly anti-Semitic Mussolini, as demonstrated by the 1938 laws and several speeches. But he said the personal quotes almost “humanize” him.
Another prominent historian, Giovanni Sabbatucci, said that while he has no reason to doubt the authenticity of the diaries, he is less sure of their historical significance because they might not reflect Mussolini’s real thoughts.
“We must not forget that, even when authentic, we are reading what a mistress was writing about what her lover told her,” he said in a phone interview.
Sabbatucci said that while there is no doubt that Mussolini had developed a strong anti-Semitism in the later years of his life, historians are split as to when these sentiments began. The diaries appear to show he developed them earlier rather than later, but Sabbatucci was doubtful.
“We must not take for granted that she correctly wrote what she was told. And we must not take for granted that what she was told was the truth and not some lover talk,” said Sabbatucci, who teaches contemporary history at Rome’s Sapienza University.
That’s funny the Italian Mussolini carried on about the Jews. The Italians are about as “Un Aryan” as you can get.
Y’S’Y
Mussolini’s mistress, Claretta Petacci, was herself Jewish.
that is funny because the Italian Fascist Senate had a Jew named Finzi. Jabotinski was a friend of Mussolini. In 1938 Mussolini facilitated the exit of the motocycle brigade of the Betar from Vienna which left Vienna under Hitler for Italy
Mussolini’s hatred for Jews preceded Adolf Hitler’s with five and a half years as they were hatched in 1883 and 1889 (un)respectively.
interesting
however, the Jews where pretty safe under Mussolini, and he did not deport the Jews to Germany even after many requests from Hitler.
The problem started when Italy Mussolini was very weak and the Germans where running the show.
There is also evidence (I an thinking of the source) that Hitler was mad at Mussolini for not giving up the Jews
Its quite possible that Mussolini wrote all this stuff to impress Hitler rather than really believing it. He could have done much more damage if he were really as much of an antisemitie as this suggests.
This is what he was saying in ’38; but I wonder whether he ever breathed a word of this antisemitism before he hooked up with Hitler. This sounds to me like revisionism on his part; “oh yeah, I’ve always hated Jews < s>and we’ve always been at war with Oceania< /s>”
According to most sources, 85% of Italy’s Jews survived the war. Even according to the article, 75% were not deported. I wish all our enemies acted so efficiently, and hated us so much. 🙂
It is well known that even in areas outside of Italy, wherever the Italian army had control, it was much better for the Jews.
Mussolini an antisemite. OK, my turn. Ice freezes at 32f and the sun rises in the east.
I’m a bit confused after reading the first ten posts…are you saying maybe Mussolini was really a big tzadik and may have been a victim of nazi propaganda or historical overstatement. I doubt it.
A friend whose Father survived the camps told me that when he was working in a field as a Camp prisoner, Italian Army troops were on a train passing by and the soldiers threw food down for them to eat. Clearly, the Italian Army was not heartless and evil like the Germans, YMSVZ.
Mussolini may have been a raging anti-semite but the Italians in general were more tolerant of the Jews. I have a friend whose father fled Germany to northern Italy were the Italian army told him to get on a transport truck to southern Italy where “he would be safe”. He survived the war in Italy.
The fact is that the vast majority of historians who’ve written about Mussolini say he was not personally an an anti-Semite, and Italy’s Jews were afforded a degree of protection unheard of in other European countries. I would not give a whole lot of credence to the musings of an unstable, self-hating Jewish mistress. And to the poster above, Franco was no Jew-hater either. He saved many Jews and went along only reluctantly with some of Hitler’s directives/requests. Read books, people. Books are your friends.
We must change our attitude, and stop using words like, Shegetz, Shiksa, Urrel, Er Zol Pegeren.
If we will sincerely improve our attitude, then our children will stop using these words in Cheder as well.
HKB”H will reward us Middoh Kneged Middoh, and he will never again instill such hatred into Non-Jews, towards us, and towards our children.
Reply to #17 . You are right in your statement except for the fact that it was actually Mussolini who left his Jewish lover. Being a primitive and uneducated man to a certain degree in his earlier years he was attracted to bright Jewish women, some of the revolutionaries who could uplift a bit his peasant primitive nature. They were attracted to Mussolini for his rude primitive peasant though ambitious nature. Later when Mussolini obtained his power he did not have to predend anymore for beind educated. He was attracted at that point ro pritty, simple cardebalet type of girls.
I do not know if he was a zoological anti semite. I think he was a shovinist and that makes him to hate everything that was different or of cosmopolitan nature which Jews represent.
My mother and her family lived in Tripoli -Libya (that time it was called Tripoli) until making aliya in 1948.
The Italians had control over Libya for many years and she says as long as it was Italy in control then the Jews were safe from Arab mobs and Nazi Germans in the Libyans area that they lived. I don’t know how it was for other Jews in other areas in Libya because the Nazi Germans imch shemam vezichram murdered many Jews
In Libya in those areas.
But when Italy moved out of Libya and gave the control to the British, My mother says, the Italians were worried for leaving the Jews behind and even made agreement with the British to guard the Jews and protect them from the Muslims mobs in Libya. But the British never kept this promise. For 2 days there was no control in Libya – because the British “did not settle yet” – and the most horrible things happened to the Jews there, many Jewish all over Libya were murdered in cruller ways with out any British to protect them or any one. Also after that it kept and the British ignored it. My mother remember her Christian Italian neighbors that lived above them throwing dry bead to my mothers house balcony, because my mothers family were hiding in the house for many days with out being able to go out, because there were Muslim mobs all over. My mother says Mussolini just played and act like he “hate Jews” but actually he protected them all the way. Or at least try tried to do it as long as he had control. And when he did not had control any more he “sold out” the Jews. But I wander if it was more the effort of some Italians Jews who were in the Italian government by that time, if it was their effort actually to protect the Jews in Libya and Italy. And not Mussolini himself?
So I don’t know if it would be a mistake to publish something such as “historical” as this book with facts about Italy and Mussolini that are not so correct. Or unclear about him. There are many Jews from Libya that could testify about there life condition under the WW2,
And it could be wiser to know more about him before we judge him.
This is not to justify Mussolini in any way but just to bring out truth and facts.