Dear Readers,
April being the 65thanniversary of Mussolini’s death, April 28, 1945, I will focus on a few more Mussolini Italian Connections: Benito Mussolini’stransgres- sions during World War II have generally been attributed by older Italo-Americans to “male compagni” just as “nonna’s good boy” was led astray by the neighborhood “bad boy”.
And, since Mussolini’s focus was to bring “Rispetto” to Italy and make the “trains run on time” it was the popularly believed propaganda that Italy was reluctantly dragged into the WWII “imbroglio” at the urging of that “male compagno” Hitler. Unfortunately, in truth he was not entirely without blame for the pain and suffering that was inflicted upon the Italian people.
When I was a little girl, sitting with my mother and her friends, I remember overhearing conversations that ended with variations of “morto o perduto in guerra”. Now it pains me to learn from various sources and in an essay by Alexander Stille that at times, Mussolini’s war making was accomplished for the pettiest motives of personal vanity. In 1941, although the Axis powers had their hands full fighting most of Europe, Mussolini, following his own military instincts, invaded Greece.
Italian troops were pushed back into Albania, which forced Hitler to send troops to bail the Italians out. The cost of this demonstration of national greatness: 15.000 Greeks killed, 28,000 Italians dead or missing. When Hitler invaded Russia in June of 1941, Mussolini insist- ed on sending some 200,000 Italian troops too but they were completely unequipped for Russian winter.
Tens of thousands of Italians died in the campaign and tens of thousands more were taken prisoner by the Germans and died in Nazi concentration camps when Italy tried to withdraw from the war in 1943. The final results of Mussolini’s recklessness, vanity, and poor judgment: 306,000 Italian soldiers killed: 145,000 Italian civilians dead, and count- less badly wounded.
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Benito Mussolini entered the world on July 29, 1883 in the village of Dovia (near Predappio, province of Forli) in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy. He made his world exit on April 28, 1945. Mussolini’s body riddled with bullets was strung up by the heels after being caught by Italian partisans trying to sneak out of Italy disguised as a retreating German soldier, Unfortunately, his young mistress, Claretta Petacci, in a misguided attempt to “stand by her man,” chose to be with him and the pair was executed by the partisans who had found them near Lake Como.
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Benito Mussolini’s father, Alessandro, was a blacksmith and later an innkeeper. A generous and compassionate man, Alessandro was an early follower of the socialist cause and bitterly antagonistic to Church and monarchy. Mussolini’s mother, Rosa Maltoni, came from better circumstances than her husband and was an elementary school teacher.
She was a sensitive, religious woman who was determined to raise her children above the precarious lower-middle class existence she shared with her husband. Benito Mussolini was named after Benito Juarez, the Mexican revolutionary who had led the revolt against Emperor Maximilian and his wife Carlotta. At 18 Benito became a school teacher and also wrote part-time for a socialist newspaper.
In 1915, after a common law relationship, he married in a civil ceremony his wife Rachele, who had given birth (in 1910) to their first child Edda. At age 29, Mussolini had become editor of Avanti, the Italian Socialist Party newspaper and circulation tripled under his editorship. However, the World War changed him from an internationalist to an uncompromising advocate of intervention and led to his expulsion from the Socialist Party. To spread his own views on patriotism, he founded II Popolo d’ Italia, 1914.
Called into service, he went to the front as a private in the Bersaglieri corps, rose to a corporal, and then was seriously wounded by the explosion of a trench mortar. After being hospitalized he returned to Milan and organized a group of ex-servicemen into the first Fascist unit, invoking nationalist fervor against the growing strength of socialism and communism.
Excellently organized in military order the Fascists grew in political strength; they became a party of opposition, and in October 1922, inspired by the challenging oratory of their leader, a large group began the “March on Rome.” The cabinet, intimidated, resigned, and the King requested Mussolini to form a government.
The Fascist slate came into being, superimposed upon the constitutional monarchy, and vested with all political power. Mussolini believed in the power of the Fascist press. A booklet, Ten Years of Italian Progress by ENIT (Ente Nazionale Industrie Turistiche) was printed for distribution at the Chicago Century of Progress World’s Fair when Italo Balbo arrived on Saturday July 18, 1933.
Chicagoland Fra Noi columnist, Mario Avignone remembers, “We welcomed and greeted General Italo Balbo and his twentyfour silver winged Italian seaplanes as they landed on Lake Michigan, close to the Navy Pier. Thousands of people crowded along the shores of Lake Michigan to see the 24 Italian planes escorted by 40 U.S. airplanes (the First Pursuit Squadron) from the Selfridge, Michigan Air Base.
What a beautiful and historic event it was to see Italo Balbo and his 24 sea- planes that had flown nearly 7,000 miles from Orbetello, Italy.” I was not in attendance; however, I do have a copy of the 1933 booklet “Ten Years of Italian Progress” (since Mussolini’s Fascist Party took over). A few excerpts: “Everything that Fascist Italy has accomplished since 1922 would require a volume of many pages, but those of special interest to American tourists have been included.
Sport is encouraged as much as possible by the Fascist Government and it is no exaggeration to say that few countries have done so much in such a short space of time and with such zeal. The Mussolini Stadium in Rome and the National Academy for Physical Training built in recent years, are certainly among the most important in Europe.
Airlineshave not many years of history behind them as they were created at only a comparatively recent date, but they have made considerable progress and their future is an assured one. Italian airlines in 1926 amounted to only 2578 miles. Then years later, it now approximates three million miles and the number of passengers carried has risen ten fold.
Road Boardauthorized surface dressing has been applied to 5,600 miles of roads, nearly three hundred road maintenance stations have been built, almost half a million trees have been planted, and thousands of sign- posts have been set up. Shipping companies have amalgamated into one called the “Italia”, which owns the largest vessels. Thus it has been possible to convert the New York-Genoa route (which is considerably larger than the northern route) into one of the fastest crossings between America and Europe.
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Romano Mussolini (1927- 2006) the last surviving son of the “Duce” maybe more familiar to younger readers not because Romano was the son of the last Italian dictator; but due to the fact that he was a remarkable jazz pianist. He never embraced politics while he was growing up; to the chagrin of the Duce who frankly disliked the son’s musical preference: American popular jazz. Romano was born in 1927 in Carpena di Forli, in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy.
He was the third and youngest son of Benito Mussolini and Rachele Guidi who also had two daughters. After the war Romano took refuge in the Napoli area where he began to play jazz music with a small band under an alias. Eventually he returned to Rome and in the 1950’s and 60’s was in the vanguard of Italian jazz with his group, the Romano Mussolini All Stars. He often played with American greats like Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Chest Baker, when they toured Italy.
When Romano Mussolini died at the age of 79, February 3, 2006, his first wife Anna Maria Scicolonewas at his beside, as well as his daughter Alessandra, the well known political power house and star in her own right. There was also the true celebrity in the family, his sister-in-law Sofia Loren(born Scicolone).
His second marriage was to actress Carla Maria Puccini. She survives him, along with two daughters from his first marriage, Alessandra and Elisabetta, and a daughter with Ms. Puccini, Rachele. Despite his own scrupulous avoidance of politics, politicians from Italy’s right wing parties lauded the Mussolini family name and helped launch his daughter Alessandra’s political career.
In 2004 Romano broke a self- imposed silence about his father and his legacy with the publication of his memoir, “Il Duce, My Father,” in which he fondly recalled his father as a sensitive and caring man. His sister Edda Mussolini Ciano, in her book published in 1976 “My Truth” seemed to agree. Edda wrote that her father at home was a softie and that the “real dictator” was her mother Rachele.
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