page_title: Benito Mussolini
section_title: Mussolini's views on antisemitism and race
hierarchical_section_title: Benito Mussolini / Mussolini's views on antisemitism and race
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Corriere della Sera: prima pagina del giorno in cui passarono le leggi razziali, nel 1938. English: Front page of Corriere della Sera the day Italian racial laws were enacted by the Fascist regime, in 1938.
context_page_description: Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the fascist coup d'état in 1922 to his deposition in 1943, and Duce of Italian Fascism from the establishment of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento in 1919 to his execution in 1945 during the Italian Civil War. As dictator of Italy and founder of fascism, Mussolini inspired far-right totalitarian rulers such as Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, and António de Oliveira Salazar.
  Mussolini was originally a socialist politician and a journalist at the Avanti! newspaper. In 1912, he became a member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party, but was expelled from the PSI for advocating military intervention in World War I, in opposition to the party's stance on neutrality. In 1914, Mussolini founded a new journal, Il Popolo d'Italia, and served in the Royal Italian Army during the war until he was wounded and discharged in 1917.
context_section_description: Although Mussolini had initially disregarded biological racism, he was a firm believer in national traits and made several generalizations about the Jews. Nevertheless, Mussolini considered Italian Jews to be Italians. Mussolini's antisemitic remarks in the late 1910s and early 1920s were more suited to the moment rather than a sincere belief in them. Mussolini blamed the Russian Revolution of 1917 on "Jewish vengeance" against Christianity with the remark "Race does not betray race ... Bolshevism is being defended by the international plutocracy. That is the real truth". Yet, within a few weeks, he contradicted himself with the remark "Bolshevism is not, as people believe, a Jewish phenomenon. The truth is that Bolshevism is leading to the utter ruin of the Jews of Eastern Europe".
  In the early 1920s, Mussolini stated that Fascism would never raise a "Jewish Question" and in an article he wrote he stated "Italy knows no antisemitism and we believe that it will never know it," and then elaborated, "let us hope that Italian Jews will continue to be sensible enough so as not to give rise to antisemitism in the only country where it has never existed." In 1932, Mussolini during a conversation with Emil Ludwig described antisemitism as a "German vice" and stated that "There was 'no Jewish Question' in Italy and could not be one in a country with a healthy system of government." On several occasions, Mussolini spoke positively about Jews and the Zionist movement, although Fascism remained suspicious of Zionism after the Fascist Party gained power. In 1934, Mussolini supported the establishment of the Betar Naval Academy in Civitavecchia to train Zionist cadets under the direction of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, arguing that a Jewish state would be in Italy's interest. 
  Until 1938 Mussolini had denied any antisemitism within the Fascist Party.
  The relationship between Mussolini and Adolf Hitler was a contentious one early on. While Hitler cited Mussolini as an influence and privately expressed great admiration for him, Mussolini had little regard for Hitler, especially after the Nazis had assassinated his friend and ally, Engelbert Dollfuss, the Austrofascist dictator of Austria in 1934.
  With the assassination of Dollfuss, Mussolini attempted to distance himself from Hitler by rejecting much of the racialism (particularly Nordicism and Germanicism) and antisemitism espoused by the German radical. Mussolini during this period rejected biological racism, at least in the Nazi sense, and instead emphasized "Italianizing" the parts of the Italian Empire he had desired to build. He declared that the ideas of eugenics and the racially charged concept of an Aryan nation were not possible. Mussolini dismissed the idea of a master race as "arrant nonsense, stupid and idiotic."
  When discussing the Nazi decree that the German people must carry a passport with either Aryan or Jewish racial affiliation marked on it, in 1934, Mussolini wondered how they would designate membership in the "Germanic race":
  But which race? Does there exist a German race? Has it ever existed? Will it ever exist? Reality, myth, or hoax of the theorists?
  Ah well, we respond, a Germanic race does not exist. Various movements. Curiosity. Stupor. We repeat. Does not exist. We don't say so. Scientists say so. Hitler says so.
  When German-Jewish journalist Emil Ludwig asked about his views on race in 1933, Mussolini exclaimed:
  Race! It is a feeling, not a reality: ninety-five percent, at least, is a feeling. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today. Amusingly enough, not one of those who have proclaimed the "nobility" of the Teutonic race was himself a Teuton. Gobineau was a Frenchman, (Houston Stewart) Chamberlain, an Englishman; Woltmann, a Jew; Lapouge, another Frenchman.
  In a speech given in Bari in 1934, he reiterated his attitude towards the German ideology of Master race:
  Thirty centuries of history allow us to look with supreme pity on certain doctrines which are preached beyond the Alps by the descendants of those who were 
caption: Front page of the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on 11 November 1938: the fascist regime has approved the racial laws.
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