Today the word "fascist" is synonomous with "racist." Yet it may surprise many people to learn that fascism wasn't always racist. Fascism as an ideology began with Mussolini - not Hitler. And in the Doctrine of Fascism, as well as in words of Mussolini himself, it is clear that racism and anti-semitism were two ideologies that were not supposed to be a part of fascism. In fact, the first sixteen years of fascism in Italy had no anti-semitic or racial laws on the books whatsoever. There were even members of Italy's well integrated Jewish community that were ardent supporters of fascism, until the racial laws of 1938.
So what happened? Why did fascism become racist?
HITLER AND MUSSOLINI'S ROCKY ALLIANCE
Fascism's adoption of racism is connected to geopolitical events over the course of the 1930's that would force Mussolini into an alliance with Hitler. While Hitler had a tremendous amount of admiration for Mussolini, the feeling was not mutual. In fact, their relationship was rocky from the very start.
In the beginning of the 1930's, things got heated between the two due to Hitler's desire for the Anschluss, the unification of all German peoples under one state, which would mean the annexation of Austria. Mussolini wanted an independent Austria subject to Italian influence, and was willing to fight for it. When in the summer of 1934, Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss was assassinated by Austrian Nazis, Mussolini was livid. He dispatched three divisions of the Italian army to the Austro-Italian border to send a clear message to Hitler: if you want Austria, you will have to fight for it. Hitler realized he had overplayed his hand and backed down. Although the Anschluss would eventually take place - much to Mussolini's frustration - it would not happen until four years later, when Germany had become the dominant partner in the relationship.
Their first meeting together in 1934 could be described as tense. Mussolini listened to Hitler talk at length without saying much (this would become characteristic of their meetings) and afterwards wrote Hitler off as a quack. He believed Hitler's ideas of race and the existence of superior races were crazy, and dismissed them as out of hand. After their first meeting, Mussolini remarked dismissively, "He's just a garrulous monk." [1]
Yet eventually Mussolini would become closer to Hitler, due to tensions with the western democracies. A key event that distanced Mussolini from Europe's democracies was his invasion of Ethiopia, an independent African state which until then had avoided colonization. After Mussolini's invasion, the League of Nations promptly voted to impose economic sanctions on Italy. (It should be noted at this point that England and France had colonized much of the known world, so there was a good deal of hypocrisy involved in this matter).
Now Germany had already left the League of Nations at this point, and Hitler was very supportive of Mussolini's invasion. So this was a key event that pushed Mussolini into the arms of Hitler. Mussolini decided that Italy's destiny lay not with the "reactionary democracies" of Europe, as he called them, but with Hitler's Germany.
Yet even after these developments, the relationship with Italy and Germany was still luke warm at best. Hitler had a habit of acting unilaterally, which was a great source of frustration for Mussolini. One particular point of contention was Hitler's desire to incorporate historically German Sudentenland. However, this risked war with France, who had an alliance with the Czechs. In 1938, the Italian war machine was completely unprepared for a military confrontation with a European power. So when it seemed that war was imminent, Mussolini offered to mediate between the powers. A conference was called at Munich which was attended by Britain, France, Italy, and Germany, and it was agreed that Germany could have the Sudetenland, but would not be allowed to take any more territory.
The Munich Conference was a massive triumph for Mussolini, because he got to broker a major agreement between the great powers. He was hailed by many for his statesmanlike behavior.
Yet this triumph was not to last. Six months later, the German army rolled into the rest of Czechoslovakia and it was declared to be a German protectorate. Not only had Hitler torn up the Munich agreement, but he did not consult Mussolini of his intention to take the rest of Czechoslovakia. So once again, Mussolini was furious at the unilateral actions of Hitler.
But despite these diplomatic hiccups, Mussolini would eventually come to depend upon his alliance with Hitler. As time went on, Hitler would become the more powerful of the two dictators, and Mussolini was forced to give into Hitler's policies in order to maintain the alliance.
Thus Fascism, an ideology that originally opposed racism, eventually caved to the ideas of Hitler and enshrined anti-Semitism into law. Had Mussolini been able to secure an alliance with the western democracies, rather than Hitler, one can speculate that the history of fascism may have turned out very differently.
THERE WERE NO RACIAL LAWS IN THE FIRST SIXTEEN YEARS OF FASCIST ITALY
It is important to note that fascism as an ideology was first conceived by Mussolini, and in the first sixteen years of Mussolini's dictatorship, there were no racial laws on the books whatsoever. Mussolini himself held the view that a small contingent of Jews had lived in Italy "since the days of the Kings of Rome" and should remain undisturbed [2]. There were even Jews in the National Fascist Party, such as Ettore Ovazza, who in 1935 founded the Jewish Fascist paper 'La Nostra Bandiera.' [3]. Before 1938, Italy's Jews were the most assimilated Jews in Europe. And according to Cecil Roth - author of “History of the Jews of Italy" - most Italians considered the profession of Judaism to be an amiable eccentricity, rather than a social mistake. Not only did most Italians disagree with anti-Semitism, but Mussolini did not seem to agree with it much either, until the later years of his dictatorship.
QUOTES FROM MUSSOLINI ON ANTI-SEMITISM
"Anti-Semitism does not exist in Italy," answered Mussolini. "Italians of Jewish birth have shown themselves good citizens, and they fought bravely in the war. Many of them occupy leading positions in the universities, in the army, in the banks. Quite a number of them are generals; Modena, the com- mandant of Sardinia, is a general of the artillery." ("Talks with Mussolini" by Emil Ludwig)
Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist to-day. Amusingly enough, not one of those who have proclaimed the 'nobility' of the Teutonic race was himself a Teuton.
Gobineau was a Frenchman; Houston Chamberlain, an Englishman; Woltmann, a Jew; Lapogue, an- other Frenchman. Chamberlain actually declared that Rome was the capital of chaos. No such doctrine will ever find wide acceptance here in Italy. Professor Blank, whom you quoted just now, is a man with more poetic imagination than science in his composition. National pride has no need of the delirium of race." ("Talks with Mussolini" by Emil Ludwig)
The Jews have kept their blood unmingled. Successful crossings have often promoted the energy and the beauty of a nation. Race! It is a feeling, not a reality; ninety-five per cent.* at least, is a feeling. ("Talks with Mussolini" by Emil Ludwig)
"If, then, neither race nor the form of government accounts for nationalism, are we to attribute it to community of speech? But ancient Rome, like other empires, was a State in which many tongues were spoken; and in modern history it has never seemed to me that multiplicity of languages was a source of weakness to a State. The Habsburg dominion fell, but Switzerland flourishes." ("Talks with Mussolini" by Emil Ludwig)
REJECTION OF RACIAL GROUPING IN DOCTRINE OF FASCISM
It is also worth reading 'The Doctrine of Fascism,' which is considered to be the most complete articulation of Mussolini's political views. In this doctrine, he speaks out against the idea of defining a state as a race, but instead says that the unity of the state should be that of a 'people,' who have been brought together by natural and historical conditions into a nation:
"Grouped according to their several interests, individuals form classes; they form trade-unions when organized according to their several economic activities; but first and foremost they form the State, which is no mere matter of numbers, the sums of the individuals forming the majority. Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number; but it is the purest form of democracy if the nation be considered as it should be from the point of view of quality rather than quantity, as an idea, the mightiest because the most ethical, the most coherent, the truest, expressing itself in a people as the conscience and will of the few, if not, indeed, of one, and ending to express itself in the conscience and the will of the mass, of the whole group ethnically molded by natural and historical conditions into a nation, advancing, as one conscience and one will, along the self same line of development and spiritual formation. Not a race, nor a geographically defined region, but a people, historically perpetuating itself; a multitude unified by an idea and imbued with the will to live, the will to power, self-consciousness, personality (The Doctrine of Fascism)."
There is also an interesting footnote in the document which states:
Race: it is a feeling and not a reality; 95 %, a feeling. (E. Ludwig, Talks with Mussolini, London, Allen and Unwin, 1932, p. 69)
JEWS LIVING IN EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY ITALY
THE MOST ASSIMILATED JEWS IN EUROPE
As we mentioned above, in the early twentieth century, Italy's Jews were actually the most assimilated in Europe (according to the American Council for Judaism). Although Italy was a strongly Catholic nation, Jews were accepted as an important member of society, and were successful in the military, politics, and in every skilled profession. When Benito Mussolini's government asked the Italian people to turn on their neighbors, an astoundingly large number said "No." As a result, a higher percentage of Italian Jews were saved from the holocaust than any other occupied country, aside from Denmark. The role of Italy in the holocaust is complex. Their official behavior is condemable, but there was an impressive rejection of anti-Semitic policies among the Italian people.
In Italy, Jews benefited from the absence of legal and social disadvantages that existed elsewhere in Europe. The spoke Italian, or the local dialect, rather than Yiddish or Ladino, that many other European Jews spoke. Yet we should say that this was a fairly new status for the Jews. Italy was one of the last countries in Europe to eliminate the ghetto with the liberation of Rome in 1870 during the Italian unification movement.
Commenting on the success of Jews in Italy, the author of "History of the Jews in Italy," Cecil Roth, also described the nation as very accepting. "After 1870, there was no land in either hemisphere where conditions could be better. It was not only that disabilities were removed, as happened elsewhere too during these momentous years, but that the Jews were accepted freely, naturally and spontaneously as members of the Italian people, on a perfect footing of equality with their neighbors."
By 1902, out of 350 senators, six were Jews. By 1920, there were nineteen Jewish senators. And in 1910, Luigi Luzzatti, a Venetian Jew, became prime minister. Jews served in the military in numbers far outpacing their share of the population. Historian Renzo De Felice, writes in “The Jews in Fascist Italy” that at the end of the 19th Century, the Italian Jews were “almost fervent patriots.” When Rome was captured in 1870, there were 87 Jewish officers in the Italian army. There were fifty Jewish generals in the Italian army in World War 1. Piedmontese Jews had gained such a reputation for military service, that some historians have compared the Piedmontese Jewish community with Prussia because of its military tradition. More than one thousand Jews won medals for valor in World War I, and both the oldest and youngest volunteers to receive Italy’s highest military honor, the Gold Medal, were Jews. These figures display both the patriotism of Italian Jews and their desire to be accepted as full members of Italian society.
Italian Jews also had the highest rate of mixed marriages in Europe. According to the 1938 census, of married couples involving Jews, only 56.3 percent were both Jewish; the other 43.7 percent were mixed. So there was a tremendous amount of social acceptance towards Jews in Italy.
EARLY SUPPORT FOR FASCISM AMONG ITALY'S JEWS
Many people today would be surprised to hear that under fascist Italy, patriotism among the Jewish community was very strong. Are we saying that all of Italy's Jews were fascists? No. Jews were represented fairly equally across the political spectrum. But the point is that Italian fascism had been in power since 1922, and it only became anti-Semitic in 1938. So conservative Jews were just as likely as any other conservative Italian to be fascists.
One key example of support is The Day of Faith. On December 18, 1935, Italian leader Benito Mussolini declared a national day of faith in which Mussolini requested the wedding rings of Italian women. The Day of Faith was called to show national solidarity in the face of international criticism over Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia. On that day, virtually every Italian synagogue celebrated the day by playing the Royal March (the Savoy hymn) and the fascist song ‘Giovinezza.’ A patriotic sermon followed, and the women relinquished their wedding rings.
In a typical Day of Faith sermon, Rabbi Rosenberg of Ancona said: “Today is the sacred Day of Faith. Today is the thirty-first day of the economic siege, ordered to humiliate the Italian people and stop its march to victory. But Italy is demonstrating today to the entire world its firm will to defeat the ignoble siege . . . and you, wives and mothers, are in the vanguard. Following the august example of the Queen of Italy you have today placed on the altar of the Fatherland the most precious object you possess.... More than a gift of gold, it is a gift of the soul.” Rosenberg emphasized that Jews had an additional reason for giving: “for the honor of your religion.”
In another example of Jewish-Fascist support, Ettore Ovazza was one of the 230 Italian Jews who participated in the October 1922 March on Rome that installed Mussolini in power. In fact, the number of Jews who signed up as fascists was disproportionately high. Ovazza started a Jewish fascist newspaper, “La Nostra Bandiera” (Our Flag) in an effort to show that the Jews were among the regime’s most loyal followers. They defended Jews from anti-Semitism and attacked Zionists and anti-fascist Jews. Ovazza’s father, Ernesto, was the leader of the Turin Jewish community. Not only was it not unusual that he was a fascist, he would probably be unable to hold this semi-public position if he had not been a member of the party.
The novelist Girorgio Bassani, author of “Garden of the Finzi-Continis,” grew up in Ferrara, a city known for a long tradition of tolerance for Jews. He has said that he does not remember a single Jew who was not a fascist.
Alexander Stille, author of “Benevolence and Betrayal,” writes about how widespread Jewish fascism was. “Although there are instances of Jews making compromises with fascism elsewhere in Europe, these were isolated cases of personal opportunism, of private pacts with the devil. In Italy, Jewish fascism was a real ideological movement, a mass phenomenon, as much as that was possible in Italy’s tiny Jewish population of 47,000. In 1938, at the beginning of the racial laws, more than 10,000 Jews-about one out of every three Jewish adults-were members of the Fascist Party.”
Yet as we said earlier, as assimilated members of Italian society, Jews were represented across the board of Italy's different political parties. Just as there were many prominent Jewish fascists, there were also many Jewish anti-Fascists. Claudio Treves and Renato Modigliani were among the leaders of the socialist party. Umberto Terracini was a leader of the Italian Communist Party. And we should mention that the antifascist movement in Turin was largely led by Jews. (The American Council For Judaism)
THE SECRET POLICE AND THE S.S. COMMENT ON
THE LOW LEVELS OF ANTI-SEMITISM IN ITALY
Guido Leto, the head of the Italian secret police, the OVRA, recalled the climate in 1936 in his memoirs: “Beyond a few cities where some Jews, gathered in specific neighborhoods, as in Rome, could be the target of jokes, more for fun than out of meanness, it was very difficult for an Italian to see the difference between an Aryan and a Jew, or even have a minimum of curiosity in knowing the race and religion of persons he was friendly with or with whom he had business relations.”
On July 25, 1943, the fascist Grand Council voted Mussolini out of power. Marshal Pietro Badoglio took over. Seeing its ally collapse, Berlin sent German forces to occupy Italy. The German estimation of the Italian view of the Jews was similar to that of the Italians. The senior SS representative in Italy Lieutenant-Colonel Knochen wrote on February 12, 1943, “The best of harmony prevails between the Italian troops and the Jewish population.”
On December 13, 1944 Josef Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister wrote in his diary, “The Italians are extremely lax in the treatment of the Jews. They protect the Italian Jews both in Tunis and in occupied France and will not permit their being drafted for work or compelled to wear the Star of David. This shows once again that Fascism does not really dare to get down to fundamentals but is very superficial regarding problems of vital importance.” (The American Council For Judaism)
RACIAL LAWS COME TO ITALY LATE IN MUSSOLINI'S DICTATORSHIP
On July 4th, 1938, The Manifesto of Race (Manifesto della razza) was published in Italy. This manifesto paved the way for the enactment of the Racial Laws in Italy, in October, 1938. These laws were regarded as anti-Semitic in nature and stripped the Jews of Italian citizenship, along with any government position they may have held. The Manifesto of Race declared Italians to be descendents of the Aryan race, and targeted those who were dubbed to be non-Aryan (such as the Jews). This manifesto was influenced by Adolf Hitler and other National Socialists who penetrated some circles in Fascist Italy. The individualistic, maverick thinker Julius Evola was key in introducing Aryan racism and anti-Semitism into Italy.
Hitler's influence on Fascist Italy was unpopular with many of the Italian people. So unpopular in fact, that Pope Pius XI sent a letter to Mussolini protesting his enactment of Racial Laws. [4]
FASCISM WAS POPULAR AMONG ITALIANS
ANTI-SEMITISM, WAS NOT
When considering the record of the Italian people, it is important to remember that Mussolini was a popular leader and fascism was a popular movement. When the racial laws were passed, the most common reaction among Italians was one of indifference, not outrage. Yet with that said, the racial campaign also failed to sway most Italians to anti-Semitism. While the most assimilated Jewish community in Europe was betrayed by its own government, it found that many Italians remembered their past service to the nation, viewed them as no different than their Catholic neighbors, and stood by their Jewish countrymen. (The American Council For Judaism)
RACIAL LAWS ARE NOT UNIQUE TO FASCISM
THE UNITED STATES HAD RACIAL LAWS UNTIL THE 1960'S
It should also be noted that racism is not a policy unique to fascism. Not by a long stretch. The United States of America has had a long and bloody history of institutionalized racism. The European colonization of the American continents is one of the most brutal campaigns of racial genocide in human history. "Manifest Destiny" in particular was a plan of the U.S. government to tame the entire American landscape and set up a nation that stretched from "coast to coast" uninterrupted. Much of this was accomplished in the form of forcefully relocating Native American communities who "got in the way" to reservations, or killing off those who didn't cooperate. Many of these reservations were on uninhabitable lands and several Native Americans starved to death in the relocation process.
In the formation of his "General Plan East," Hitler wanted to do much of the same thing in Russia: exterminate or relocate the Slavic inhabitants and set up a vast empire of "Aryan" stock.
Yet Hitler's desire to emulate America wasn't just based on their massive land expansion in a short period of time. He was also fascinated by their racial policies in general. One area in particular was America's institution of race based slavery.
Slavery has existed throughout all of human history. Yet in western civilizations like Rome and Greece, slave labor for the most part was not race based. Race based labor was more of a policy in Hindu India with their racial caste system, which Hitler was inspired by as well. (See our page on The Caste System and Fascism in India).
However in places like Rome and Greece, slaves were generally the people conquered in wars or those who couldn't afford to pay off their debts. So the western empires had light and dark skinned people alike performing slave labor. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade (16th-19th century) of captives from West Africa into European colonies was the first time that the West used race based slavery on a major economic scale. Much of the early U.S. economy was built up through this racial system of mass slavery. In 1860, 13% of the country and roughly one third of the American South was populated by African American slaves.
Eugenics as a social movement in the United States existed for years before fascism as a functioning political system even existed. Eugenics in America was also not some obscure movement of a few crazy radicals either. The eugenics movement was enshrined into law and received funding from some of America's most enduring business institutions, including the Carnegie Institution, Rockefeller Foundation, and the Harriman railroad fortune.
Immigration restriction was also put in place by U.S. policy to limit "inferior races" from entering the United States. The Immigration Restriction League was founded in 1894 to enforce this idea. The founders of this league did not want immigrants to dilute what they saw as the "superior American stock" (upper class Northerners of Anglo-Saxon heritage). Many American eugenicists felt that this superior breed would be weakened by mixing with immigrants of Southern European and Eastern European blood, and such ideas were put into written law via the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924. Not only did this law limit the immigration of Southern Europeans and Eastern Europeans, but it also severely limited the immigration of Africans, East Asians, Arabs, and Indians.
We will also note that it was not until the aftermath of World War II that eugenic ideas and policies began to wane in the United States. After the world became disgusted by the policies of Hitler, there was a big effort to hush up and dissolve the eugenics program in America.
Of course, the actions of Hitler, and the later acquiescence to these policies by Mussolini, were very evil - a murderous atrocity that deserve the most severe condemnation. Yet the idea that fascism is inherently racist, while other political policies are not is completely inaccurate. Institutionalized racism was on the books in American law until the 1960's.
So racial laws are not necessarily synonymous with Fascism. They are something that did not come to Italy until 1938. Fascism was originally not racist and should not be seen as intrinsically connected with the ideas of Hitler. To learn more about the original ideas of fascism, see our resources below.
RELATED PAGES: Ancient Roots of Modern Fascism Nazi Germany Documentary Sources Global Fascist Revolution The Doctrine of Fascism Mussolini Documentary Sources
[1] The Relation Between Hitler and Mussolini (Quora)
[2] Hollander, Ethan J. Italian Fascism and the Jews (PDF). University of California. ISBN 0-8039-4648-1.
[3] "The Italian Holocaust: The Story of an Assimilated Jewish Community". ACJNA.org. 8 January 2008.
[4] "Mussolini and the Roman Catholic Church". HistoryLearningSite.co.uk. 8 January 2008.