Berlusconi praises Mussolini, alliance with Hitler...
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Jan 27, 2013  |  Vote 0    0

Berlusconi praises Mussolini, alliance with Hitler during Holocaust services

Guelph Mercury




In 1938, before the outbreak of the Second World War, Mussolini’s regime passed the so-called “racial laws,” barring Jews from Italy’s universities and many professions, among other bans. When Germany’s Nazi regime occupied Italy during the war, thousands from the tiny Italian Jewish community were deported to death camps.

“It is difficult now to put oneself in the shoes of who was making decisions back then,” Berlusconi said of Mussolini’s support for Hitler. “Certainly the (Italian) government then, fearing that German power would turn into a general victory, preferred to be allied with Hitler’s Germany rather than oppose it.”




Among those voicing condemnation were prominent Jewish figures abroad.

Mussolini “modelled his anti-Jewish laws after the Nazi Nuremberg Laws barring Jews from civil service,” Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said in a statement.

“It is the height of revisionism to try to reinstate an Italian dictator who helped legitimize and prop up Hitler as a ‘reincarnated good guy,’” said the rabbi, whose organization monitors anti-Semitic incidents worldwide.

Berlusconi’s praise of Mussolini constitutes “an insult to the democratic conscience of Italy,” said Rosy Bindi, a centre-left leader. “Only Berlusconi’s political cynicism, combined with the worst historic revisionism, could separate the shame of the racist laws from the Fascist dictatorship.”

Italian laws enacted following the country’s disastrous experience in the war forbid the defence of Fascism. A candidate for local elections, Gianfranco Mascia, pledged that he and his supporters will present a formal complaint on Monday to Italian prosecutors, seeking to have Berlusconi prosecuted.

Hours later, Berlusconi issued a statement saying he “regretted” that he didn’t make clear in his earlier comments that his historical analyses “are always based on condemnation of dictatorships,” the Italian news agency LaPresse reported.


Advocating aggressive nationalism, Mussolini used brutish force and populist appeal evoking ancient Rome’s glories to achieve and keep his dictatorial grip on power, starting in the early ‘20s and lasting well into the Second World War. His Fascist “blackshirt” loyalists cracked down on dissidents, through beatings and jailings.





Berlusconi is running in Feb. 24-25 parliamentary elections and has repeatedly changed his mind on whether he is seeking a fourth term as premier. Monti is also running, but polls put him far behind front-runner Pier Luigi Bersani, a centre-left leader who supported Monti’s austerity measures to save Italy from the Eurozone debt crisis.

Polls show about one-third of eligible voters are undecided.

The Associated Press

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