Italian Fascism and German Nazism
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Italian fascism and German Nazism held a relationship involving both mutual fascist agendas but also a contentious relationship with each other. Both reject liberalism, democracy and Marxism.<ref>Ernst Nolte, Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche (Fascism in its Epoch), München 1963, ISBN 3-492-02448-3.</ref> Usually supported by the far right, fascism is historically anti-communist, anti-conservative and anti-parliamentary.<ref>Laqueuer, 1996 p. 223; Eatwell, 1996, p. 39; Griffin, 1991, 2000, p. 185-201; Weber, [1964] 1982, p. 8; Payne (1995), Fritzsche (1990), Laclau (1977), and Reich (1970).</ref> The Nazis' rise to power was assisted by the Fascist government of Italy that began to financially subsidize the Nazi party in 1928.<ref>Payne, Stanley G. A history of fascism, 1914-1945. Abingdon, England, UK: Routledge, 1995, 2005 (Digital Printing edition). p. 463.</ref> Political scientist and historian Zeev Sternhell proposes that the varieties of fascism are unique, despite the schematic resemblance between Italian fascism and German Nazism — greater than resemblances among the Eastern Bloc Communist states of the Cold War, and among European liberal democracies.<ref>cf. Roger Griffin, The Blackwell Dictionary of Social Thought, “International Fascism”, 35f., and Anthony Paxton, Anatomy of Fascism, London 2004, p. 218, and Stanley Payne, A History of Fascism 1914–1945, University of Wisconsin Press 1995, p. 14.</ref>
Contents
Relations between Italian Fascism and German Nazism
Hitler admired Benito Mussolini and the Italian Fascists, and after Mussolini's successful March on Rome in 1922, presented the Nazis as a German version of Italian Fascism.<ref name="Fulda, Bernhard 2009. p. 65">Fulda, Bernhard. Press and Politics in the Weimar Republic. Oxford University Press, 2009. p. 65.</ref><ref name="Carlsten, F.L 1982. p. 80">Carlsten, F.L. The Rise of Fascism. 2nd ed. University of California Press, 1982. p. 80.</ref> Hitler endorsed Italian Fascism, saying that "with the victory of fascism in Italy the Italian people has triumphed [over] Jewry" and appraised Mussolini as "the brilliant statesman".<ref name=autogenerated9>Nazi foreign policy, 1933-1941: the road to global war. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2004. Pp. 10.</ref> Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's chief propagandist, credited Italian Fascism with starting a conflict against liberal democracy, saying:
The march on Rome was a signal, a sign of storm for liberal-democracy. It is the first attempt to destroy the world of the liberal-democratic spirit[...] which started in 1789 with the storm on the Bastille and conquered one country after another in violent revolutionary upheavals, to let... the nations go under in Marxism, democracy, anarchy and class warfare...<ref name="Carlsten, 1982. p. 80">Carlsten, 1982. p. 80.</ref>
Hitler remained impressed by Mussolini and Fascist Italy for many years in spite of resentments towards Italy by other Nazis and resentments by Italian Fascists towards Germany. During the period of positive outlook towards Fascist Italy, Hitler became an Italophile.<ref name=autogenerated13>Fortescue, William. The Third Republic in France, 1870-1940: conflicts and continuities. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2000. Pp. 181.</ref> Hitler like Mussolini profoundly admired Ancient Rome, and repeatedly mentioned it in Mein Kampf as being a model for Germany.<ref>Scobie, Alexander. Hitler's state architecture: the impact of classical antiquity. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990. Pp. 22, 38.</ref> In particular, Hitler admired ancient Rome's authoritarian culture, imperialism, town planning, and architecture, which were incorporated by the Nazis.<ref name=autogenerated2>Scobie, Alexander. Hitler's state architecture: the impact of classical antiquity. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990. Pp. 22</ref> Hitler considered the ancient Romans to have been a master race.<ref name=autogenerated2 />
In an unpublished sequel to Mein Kampf, Hitler declared that he held no antagonism towards Italy for having waged war against Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I, saying that Italy went to war with Germany only because of Germany's alliance with Austria Hungary, on which Italy had territorial claims.<ref name=autogenerated19>Nazi foreign policy, 1933-1941: the road to global war. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2004. Pp. 9.</ref> Hitler declared his sympathy to the Italians for desiring to regain Italian-populated lands held by Austria-Hungary, claiming it was naturally in Italians' national interest to wage war to regain those lands.<ref name=autogenerated19 />
Mussolini however was not initially impressed with Hitler. Mussolini refused to support Hitler in 1923 during Hitler's first surge in popularity.<ref>Peter R. D'Agostino. Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism. University of North Carolina Press, 2004. ISBN:9780807855157. Pp. 213.</ref> Mussolini did want an ally regime in power in Germany, but in the 1920s Mussolini supported the Stahlhelm - a prominent German nationalist paramilitary organization at that time.<ref>Stanley G. Payne. Fascism: Comparison and Definition. University of Wisconsin Press, 1980. ISBN:9780299080648. Pp. 62.</ref>
In 1934, the first meeting between Hitler and Mussolini in was held in Venice. At this time, Mussolini was at the height of his prestige amongst world leaders, and Mussolini believed that Hitler would logically acknowledge him as the dominant leader between them, and that Mussolini would be able to dictate the policies that the two countries would mutually pursue.<ref>Santi Corvaja, Robert L. Miller. Hitler & Mussolini: The Secret Meetings. New York, New York, USA: Enigma Books, 2008. Pp. 29.</ref> However Hitler sought to domineer the meeting, he did much of the talking, he said that Mediterranean people (including Italians) were contaminated by "Negroid characteristics" but if Italy adhered to the Nazis' agenda of anti-Semitism and repudiation of the Treaty of Versailles, he would establish an economic and military alliance with Italy.<ref>Santi Corvaja, Robert L. Miller. Hitler & Mussolini: The Secret Meetings. New York, New York, USA: Enigma Books, 2008. Pp. 29.</ref> During a break from the meeting, Mussolini went to a window on the second floor of the building and made a strange gesture to the Italian officials outside and below, who were on break.<ref>Santi Corvaja, Robert L. Miller. Hitler & Mussolini: The Secret Meetings. New York, New York, USA: Enigma Books, 2008. Pp. 29.</ref> Many of the Italian diplomats who witnessed this gesture say that it was meant to convey that Hitler was crazy.<ref>Santi Corvaja, Robert L. Miller. Hitler & Mussolini: The Secret Meetings. New York, New York, USA: Enigma Books, 2008. Pp. 29.</ref>
The assassination of Fascist Italy's client leader in Austria, Engelbert Dollfuss, by Austrian Nazis loyal to Hitler, enraged Mussolini who blamed Hitler for this. In 1934 Mussolini denounced Nazi Germany and Hitler, saying "It would be the end of European civilization if this country of murderers and pederasts were to overrun Europe..." and he called Hitler "a horrible sexual degenerate, a dangerous fool".<ref>Edward Alexander. The Holocaust and the War of Ideas. New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA: Transaction Publishers, 1994. Pp. 116.</ref>
Hitler made controversial concessions to gain Fascist Italy's approval and alliance, such as abandoning territorial claims on the South Tyrol region of Italy that had a dense population of hundreds of thousands of Germans.<ref name=autogenerated13 /> In Mein Kampf Hitler declared that it was not in Germany's interest to have war with Italy over South Tyrol.<ref name=autogenerated9 /> Ethnic Germans from South Tyrol were resettled into Germany by force in exchange for Mussolini's pledge to restrict the rights of Jews in Italy. Template:Citation needed
Nazism differs from Italian fascism in that it does not view a nation as being created and developed by a state, but that a nation is created and developed outside a state.<ref name="Neocleous, Mark pp. 23-25">Neocleous, Mark. Fascism. Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. pp. 23-25.</ref> This difference is based upon the different histories of development of the German and Italian nations that formed the basis of Nazism's and Italian Fascism's respective nationalisms; the German national identity developed outside a state while Italian national identity developed through a state.<ref name="Neocleous, Mark pp. 23-25"/>
Similarities
Positions on race
Aryan race concept, white supremacism, and stances towards blacks and Slavs
Italian Fascists and the Nazis held similar positions on certain racial issues. In a 1921 speech in Bologna, Mussolini stated that "Fascism was born... out of a profound, perennial need of this our Aryan and Mediterranean race".<ref>Neocleous, Mark. Fascism. Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. p. 35</ref> Mussolini also warned of racial competition between the white race and coloured races such as in 1928:
[When the] city dies, the nation — deprived of the young life — blood of new generations — is now made up of people who are old and degenerate and cannot defend itself against a younger people which launches an attack on the now unguarded frontiers[...] This will happen, and not just to cities and nations, but on an infinitely greater scale: the whole White race, the Western race can be submerged by other coloured races which are multiplying at a rate unknown in our race.<ref>Griffen, Roger (ed.). Fascism. Oxford University Press, 1995. p. 59.</ref>
Many Italian fascists held anti-Slavist views, especially against neighbouring South Slav nations, whom the Italian fascists saw as being in competition with Italy, which had claims on territories of Yugoslavia, particularly Dalmatia.<ref>Benito Mussolini, Richard Washburn Child, Max Ascoli, Richard Lamb. My rise and fall. Da Capo Press, 1998. p. 106.</ref> Mussolini claimed that Yugoslavs posed a threat after Italy did not receive the territory along the Adriatic coast at the end of World War I, as promised by the 1915 Treaty of London. He said: "The danger of seeing the Jugo-Slavians settle along the whole Adriatic shore had caused a bringing together in Rome of the cream of our unhappy regions. Students, professors, workmen, citizens—representative men—were entreating the ministers and the professional politicians.<ref>Benito Mussolini, Richard Washburn Child, Max Ascoli, Richard Lamb. My rise and fall. Da Capo Press, 1998. pp. 105–106.</ref> Italian fascists accused Serbs of having "atavistic impulses", and of being part of a "social democratic, masonic Jewish internationalist plot".<ref>Burgwyn, H. James. Italian foreign policy in the interwar period, 1918-1940. p. 43. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997.</ref> The fascists accused Yugoslavs of conspiring together on behalf of "Grand Orient masonry and its funds".
Support of genocide and ethnic cleansing
Fascist Italy utilized genocide and concentration camps, antedating Nazi Germany.<ref>Enzo Collotti, Race Law in Italy, in: Christoph Dipper et al., Faschismus und Faschismen im Vergleich, Vierow 1998. ISBN 3-89498-045-1.</ref>
During the Pacification of Libya from 1928 to 1932, Italian authorities in the colony of Italian Libya, committed ethnic cleansing by forcibly expelling 100,000 Bedouin Cyrenaicans, half the population of Cyrenaica, from their settlements that was slated to be given to Italian settlers.<ref>Anthony L. Cardoza. Benito Mussolini: the first fascist. Pearson Longman, 2006 Pp. 109.</ref><ref>Donald Bloxham, A. Dirk Moses. The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies. Oxford, England, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. 358.</ref> From 1930 to 1931, Italian forces unleashed a wave of terror against the Cyrenaican indigenous people, 12,000 Cyrenaicans were executed from 1930 to 1931 and all the nomadic peoples of northern Cyrenaica were forcefully removed from the region and forcefully relocated to huge concentration camps in the Cyrenaican lowlands.<ref>John Wright. Libya: A Modern History. Kent, England, UK: Croom Helm, Ltd., 1983. Pp. 35.</ref> By the time the camps closed in September 1933, 40,000 of the 100,000 total internees had died in the camps.<ref>Christopher Duggan. The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796. New York, New York, USA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007. Pp. 496.</ref>
Differences
Positions on race
A major source of contention between the Nazis and the Italian Fascists was the Nazis' emphasis on a Nordic ideal of the Aryan race, and the historic antagonisms between German and Italian cultures.
While Nordicist racial theories were popular amongst Germans, they were highly unpopular and deeply despised amongst Italians because Italians as a whole were not Nordic and because Nordicism was commonly used to justify claims of Germanic superiority over Latin peoples.<ref>Aaron Gillette. Racial Theories in Fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2001. Pp. 16.</ref> Italian Fascists rejected Nazi claims that Germans represented a "pure" Nordic people. Several groups of Germans have been historically identified as of the Alpine race subtype of the Caucasian race rather than the "Teutonic" Nordic race, including Austrian Germans, Swiss Germans and Germans of central and southern Germany.<ref>Roxy Harris, Ben Rampton. The Language, Ethnicity and Race Reader. Pp. 30.</ref><ref>Roxy Harris, Ben Rampton. The Language, Ethnicity and Race Reader. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2003. Pp. 30.</ref>
There was a longstanding belief in Italy dating back to ancient Rome that Germanic peoples descended from barbarian cultures and viewed non-Romanized Germanic culture as inferior to Roman culture.<ref>Aaron Gillette. Racial Theories in Fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2001. Pp. 17.</ref> Also, Italian nationalists blamed barbarian Germanic peoples for sinking Europe into the barbaric culture of the Middle Ages, and identified Italians as the people who ended the barbaric Middle Ages by restoring classical Roman culture during the Renaissance.<ref>Aaron Gillette. Racial Theories in Fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2001. Pp. 17.</ref>
The Protestant Reformation substantially influenced the history of German-Italian antagonisms.<ref>Aaron Gillette. Racial Theories in Fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2001. Pp. 11.</ref> The founder of the Protestantism, the German religious figure Martin Luther, had founded the religious movement in response to his disgust upon witnessing what he saw as the sloth and corruption of the people of the city of Rome, that he identified as being the fault of the Catholic Church.<ref>Aaron Gillette. Racial Theories in Fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2001. Pp. 11.</ref>
Italian nationalist culture identified identified Italian culture by its connection to ancient Rome, and while holding little interest in the post-Roman Germanic rulers of Italy such as Theodoric the Great.<ref>Aaron Gillette. Racial Theories in Fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2001. Pp. 16-17.</ref> Mussolini himself claimed that while Germanic tribes such as the Lombards took control of Italy after the fall of ancient Rome, and said that they arrived in small numbers of about 8,000 and quickly assimilated into Roman culture and spoke the Latin language within fifty years.<ref>Aaron Gillette. Racial Theories in Fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2001. Pp. 93.</ref> Italian nationalists sought to revive ancient Roman greatness in Italy.<ref>Aaron Gillette. Racial Theories in Fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2001. Pp. 17.</ref> Italian nationalists scornfully looked upon Nordicists and took pride in comparing the age and sophistication of ancient Roman civilization as well as the classical revival in the Renaissance, to that of Nordic societies that Italian nationalists described as "newcomers" to civilization in comparison.<ref>Aaron Gillette. Racial Theories in Fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2001. Pp. 17.</ref>
Prominent Italian nationalist Vincenzo Gioberti whose theories influenced Italian Fascism, evoked the theme of Romanita ("Roman-ness") that claimed that Western civilization owed its existence to the Romans.<ref>Aaron Gillette. Racial Theories in Fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2001. Pp. 17.</ref> and claimed that the Roman-created Catholic Church had preserved Roman culture in Italy whilst elsewhere in Europe the Germanic tribes sank Europe into the barbaric culture of the Middle Ages.<ref>Aaron Gillette. Racial Theories in Fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2001. Pp. 17.</ref> Gioberti supported racial theories of white supremacism and believed that the white race was intellectually superior to all other races.<ref>Aaron Gillette. Racial Theories in Fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2001. Pp. 17.</ref> He rejected German claims to racial and cultural supremacy, and claimed that the reason why Rome collapsed to Germanic invaders was "simply an effect of social conditions which change continually, and don't spring from their nature".<ref>Aaron Gillette. Racial Theories in Fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2001. Pp. 17.</ref> Gioberti was also not alarmed by the fact that Italy had declined in the past, saying that the history of peoples is cyclical and that peoples can revive themselves.<ref>Aaron Gillette. Racial Theories in Fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2001. Pp. 17.</ref>
The Nazis' belief that the collapse of the Roman Empire was caused by racial intermixing caused resentment in Italy.<ref name=autogenerated5>Gillette, Aaron. Racial theories in fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2002. p. 44.</ref> The Nazis conception of the origins of the Aryan race in Europe included the ancient Romans and ancient Greeks as members of the Aryan race.<ref name=autogenerated10>Gillette, Aaron. Racial theories in fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2002. p. 46.</ref> However, contemporary Italy was deemed by the Nazis to not be racially pure, in that the Aryan Roman heritage had been diluted by multiple racial influences.<ref name=autogenerated5 /> Hitler believed that northern Italians were strongly Aryan.<ref>Nicholls, David. Adolf Hitler: a biographical companion. Santa Barbara, California, USA: ABC-CLIO, 2000. p. 211</ref> However he believed that Italians as a whole had been racially tainted by intermixing, especially with the black race.<ref name=autogenerated5 /> Nazi claims of racial impurity of Italians evoked resentment and rebuke by the Italian Fascists.<ref name=autogenerated5 /> At the height of antagonism between the Nazis and Italian Fascists over race, Mussolini condemned Nazi racial theory as flawed, claiming that the Germans themselves were not a pure race and noted with irony that Nazi theory on German superiority was based on the theory of non-German foreigners, such as Frenchman Arthur de Gobineau.<ref>Gillette, Aaron. Racial theories in fascist Italy. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2002. p. 45.</ref>
After hostility by Fascist Italy towards Nazi Germany surged in response to Austrian Nazis assassinated Mussolini's ally Engelbert Dollfuss in Austria, Mussolini claimed that Italy's heritage to ancient Rome linked Italians to a great civilization, while claiming that the ancient Germans of that time were uncivilized tribes that were "ignorant of writing" at a time "when Rome had Caesar, Virgil, and Augustus".<ref name=autogenerated10 /> Mussolini in an interview with German interviewer Roland Strunk in January 1936, stated that the problems in Italo-German relations were caused by "Hitler's Nordic gospel" and Italian Fascists denounced Nordicism as flawed.<ref name=autogenerated10 /> However Mussolini did not reject racism, and said in 1936, "As you know, I am a racist."<ref name=autogenerated10 />
Italian Fascism's relations towards Jewish people
Italian Fascism did not initially have a strong attachment to anti-Semitism. Until anti-Semitic legislation was adopted, a number of Italian Fascists were Jews such as Ettore Ovazza.<ref name=autogenerated3>Joshua D. Zimmerman. Jews in Italy under Fascist and Nazi rule, 1922-1945. New York, New York, USA: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. 27</ref> There were also a number of Italian Fascists who supported anti-Semitism, most notably Julius Evola, Roberto Farinacci, Paolo Orano, Giovanni Preziosi, and Gino Sottochiesa.<ref>Joshua D. Zimmerman. Jews in Italy under Fascist and Nazi rule, 1922-1945. New York, New York, USA: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. 29, 116.</ref> However until the late 1930s, there was no organized anti-Semitic policies pursued by Italy.<ref>Peter R. D'Agostino. Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism. University of North Carolina Press, 2004. ISBN:9780807855157. Pp. 212.</ref> And prior to the late 1930s, major Jewish figures and organizations praised Fascist Italy for its tolerance towards Jews.<ref>Peter R. D'Agostino. Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism. University of North Carolina Press, 2004. ISBN:9780807855157. Pp. 212.</ref>
Prior to the adoption of explicit anti-Semitic policies in the late 1930s, Mussolini made occasional derogatory remarks about foreign Jews outside of Italy, such as in a 1919 speech denouncing Soviet Russia, claimed that Jewish bankers in London and New York City were bound by the chains of race to Moscow and that 80% of the Soviet Union leaders were Jews.<ref name=nm35>Neocleous, Mark. Fascism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. p. 35.</ref> However Mussolini himself did not initially endorse anti-Semitic policies and met Jewish leaders assuring them that Fascist Italy had no problems with Jews, as referring to those who practiced the religion of Judaism.<ref>Peter R. D'Agostino. Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism. University of North Carolina Press, 2004. ISBN:9780807855157. Pp. 212.</ref> In a meeting with Chaim Weizmann, the President of the World Zionist Organization in 1923, Mussolini qualified that while he had no problems with the practice of Judaism, he opposed Jews in Italy recognizing themselves as a separate nation from Italians - demanding that they recognize themselves as Jewish Italians.<ref>Peter R. D'Agostino. Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism. University of North Carolina Press, 2004. ISBN:9780807855157. Pp. 212.</ref> Mussolini specifically warned Weizmann that he would not tolerate Jews living in Italy taking part in the Zionist movement.<ref>Peter R. D'Agostino. Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism. University of North Carolina Press, 2004. ISBN:9780807855157. Pp. 212.</ref> Mussolini personally viewed the Zionist movement as a British imperialist invention.<ref>Peter R. D'Agostino. Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism. University of North Carolina Press, 2004. ISBN:9780807855157. Pp. 212.</ref> In a November 1928 edition of the Italian Fascist newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia, Mussolini himself wrote a stern article titled "Religion or Nation" as referring to the Jews, in response to his aggravation over the discovery of a recent Zionist meeting held in Milan.<ref>Peter R. D'Agostino. Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism. University of North Carolina Press, 2004. ISBN:9780807855157. Pp. 212.</ref> In the article, Mussolini declared that Jews had to decide whether they were followers of religion or a nation, and implied that if Jews viewed themselves as members of a foreign faith and a foreign nation that they would be regarded as unwelcome outsiders living in Italy.<ref>Peter R. D'Agostino. Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism. University of North Carolina Press, 2004. ISBN:9780807855157. Pp. 212.</ref> Mussolini went on in the article to say "We ask the Italian Jews: are you a religion or a nation?"<ref>Peter R. D'Agostino. Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism. University of North Carolina Press, 2004. ISBN:9780807855157. Pp. 212.</ref> The article caused a massive response, with anti-Zionist Jews responding by declaring their patriotism to Italy, while Zionist Jews responded by insisting that their destiny was linked to Italy.<ref>Peter R. D'Agostino. Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism. University of North Carolina Press, 2004. ISBN:9780807855157. Pp. 212.</ref> Mussolini responded by repudiating the Zionist Jews, saying that if an autonomous Jewish state was created it would result in the problem of dual loyalties of Jews in Italy, with their national loyalty being outside of Italy.<ref>Peter R. D'Agostino. Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism. University of North Carolina Press, 2004. ISBN:9780807855157. Pp. 212-213.</ref>
During the time period of Hitler's first rise in support in 1923 prior to the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Mussolini during a conversation with Rabbi Angelo Sacerdoti of Rome, declared: "The Italian government is not anti-Semitic, nor does it practice anti-Semitism...I refused to receive the Bavarian Jew-baiter [Hitler] and the Bavarian papers printed that I had sold myself to the Jews. When they know what I am telling you now, they will say that I have become a Jew altogether."<ref>Peter R. D'Agostino. Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism. University of North Carolina Press, 2004. ISBN:9780807855157. Pp. 213.</ref>
Issues concerning Jews in Italy were addressed by the Fascist regime, one in particular was alarm by the Fascist over the presence of the Zionist movement in Italy, exemplified in Italian Fascist reactions to the creation of the Zionist newspaper Israel.<ref name=autogenerated3 /> In 1934 Farinacci addressed the issue of Zionism by denouncing Zionist Jews who did not identify as Italians, saying:
We do not exclude the possibility that there are good Jews, but it is also our right to demand clarity. Does there or does there not exist a Zionist movement in Italy? To deny it would be to lie. The existence of a newspaper in Florence [the Zionist magazine, Israel] should cut short any discussion. And so these others who claim to be anti-Zionists, what are they doing to fight the other Jews who believe that they have another Fatherland that is not Italy? So far nothing. Therefore it is necessary to decide. We have reached a point at which everyone must take a position. Because he who declares himself a Zionist has no right to hold any responsibilities or honors in our country. Roberto Farinacci, 1934.<ref>Joshua D. Zimmerman. Jews in Italy under Fascist and Nazi rule, 1922-1945. New York, New York, USA: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. 27.</ref>
However the attitude of Mussolini towards Zionism had changed towards a favourable attitude in the early 1930s. In 1933 the Italian foreign ministry (Mussolini was also foreign minister) began circulating internal policy documents arguing that a strong Jewish state would be in Italy's best interests.<ref name="Kaplan, 2005, p. 154">Kaplan, Eric (2005). The Jewish Radical Right: Revisionist Zionism and Its Ideological Legacy. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-20380-8. Pp. 154</ref> However in 1934, Fascist Italy endorsed and allied with the militant revisionist Zionist movement Betar.<ref name="kaplan156">*Kaplan, Eric (2005. The Jewish Radical Right: Revisionist Zionism and Its Ideological Legacy. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-20380-8. Pp. 156.</ref> Mussolini and Betar's leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky made an agreement to give Betar a militant training facility in Italy, the Betar Naval Academy in Civitavecchia, Italy.<ref name="kaplan156">*Kaplan, Eric (2005. The Jewish Radical Right: Revisionist Zionism and Its Ideological Legacy. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-20380-8. Pp. 156.</ref> In a clear expression of the solidarity between the Revisionist Academy and the Italian military the official publication of the Italian professional maritime schools, the Bollettino del Consorzio Scuole Profesionali per la Maestranza Maritima, stated, "In agreement of all the relevant authorities it has been confirmed that the views and the political and social inclinations of the Revisionists are known and that they are absolutely in accordance with the fascist doctrine. Therefore, as our students they will bring the Italian and fascist culture to Palestine."<ref name="Kaplan, 2005, p. 157">Kaplan, 2005, p. 157.</ref> Betar was forced to leave Italy after the Fascist regime adopted anti-Semitic racial laws in 1938.<ref name="kaplan156">*Kaplan, Eric (2005. The Jewish Radical Right: Revisionist Zionism and Its Ideological Legacy. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-20380-8. Pp. 156.</ref>
In the late 1930s, Mussolini changed Italian Fascism's position, making Italian Fascism openly anti-Semitic based on historical precedents of anti-Semitism in Italy, especially of the Roman Empire, by commemorating the Roman Siege of Jerusalem of A.D. 70.<ref>Wiley Feinstein. The civilization of the Holocaust in Italy: poets, artists, saints, anti-semites. Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp., 2003. Pp. 283.</ref> The Siege of Jerusalem involved the military confrontation of Romans versus Jerusalem's Jews in which the Romans destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem and sacked and destroyed the city. The Roman Empire itself commemorated the Siege by creating the Arch of Titus with artwork depicting the Siege, that still stands in Italy today. Mussolini and Italian Fascism also began to praise historical Italian anti-Semitism pursued by the Roman Empire, historically by Papacy, and by Christian kings in Italy.<ref>Wiley Feinstein. The civilization of the Holocaust in Italy: poets, artists, saints, anti-semites. Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp., 2003. Pp. 283.</ref> By 1937, Fascist Italy actively promoted anti-Semitism in its propaganda, especially involving the Spanish Civil War, claiming that Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Franco's Nationalist forces in Spain were in a common front against a "Jewish International".<ref>Wiley Feinstein. The civilization of the Holocaust in Italy: poets, artists, saints, anti-semites. Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp., 2003. Pp. 283-284.</ref>