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MacGregor Knox
Fascist Italy faces the “Final Solution”, 1942/43
Keywords: Italienischer Faschismus, Ermordung der europäischen Juden, Italienisches Heer im Zweiten Weltkrieg
The notion that Italian diplomats and soldiers, as the “good guys [brava gente]” within the Axis alliance, compassionately sought to “rescue” Jews in occupied Croatia and elsewhere from mass murder in the East, is a central element in the elaborate mythology surrounding Fascist Italy′s role in the Second World War. Contemporary evidence nevertheless suggests that Italian motivation was far more complex than the myth concedes, and that Rome understood the nature of Germany′s genocidal program far earlier than once assumed. Italian concerns included (but were not limited to) Foreign Ministry aspirations to intern Jews in order to dampen conflict with its Ustasha client state, the military demands of Italy′s increasingly desperate Balkan occupation forces, fear of Allied war crimes trials, and from August 1942 onward the crumbling of Mussolini′s regime and the increasingly frantic search of his subordinates for a separate peace with the Western powers.
Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag
Print ISSN: 0042-5702
Volume: 55, 01/2007
Pages: 53 - 92