Fascism's European Empire: Italian Occupation during the Second World War (review)

The histories written about Fascist Italy tend to depict the Italians as benevolent and humane, at least relative to their government's radical right ally, Nazi Germany. Stories told by people who lived under Italian occupation, however, are dominated by memories of Italian brutality and repression. Rodogno's eloquent and comprehensive study attempts to bridge these discrepant narratives by explaining the character of Italian occupation policy and dispelling the myths that surround it. The book, which was originally written in Italian and now appears in Belton's smooth translation, deserves thorough discussion on both sides of the Atlantic.

Rodogno contends that Fascist Italy was a ruthless and racist regime bent on carving out an Italian empire at the expense of the other Mediterranean peoples. He argues that Benito Mussolini had a grand vision of a "New Mediterranean Order," in which Italians would forcefully rule over their inferior subjects in a model similar to that of imperial Japan. Although Mussolini did not plan for the elimination of other races and nations, as did his ally Adolf Hitler, his "civilizing mission" was by no means humanitarian or benevolent. Italian bureaucrats and military officers in the occupied territories faithfully worked to fulfill Mussolini's vision, doing whatever was necessary to emerge victorious in the clash of civilizations. Their methods included a vicious policy of forced Italianization, ruthless economic exploitation, and the relentless repression of the indigenous Slavs, Greeks, French, and Jews, all of whom—according to Rodogno—the Italians treated "as violently as they had treated the African natives in the colonial past" (334).

Rodogno's detailed discussion of Fascist Italy's ideological framework and occupation policies culminate in the book's final chapter on Italy's Jewish policy. He refutes such well-known scholars as Arendt and Steinberg, who argued that Fascist Italy was incapable of carrying out atrocities on the scale of Hitler's Germany because of a combination of military incompetence and Italiani brava gente—the notion that good-heartedness or humanitarianism was inherent to the Italian national character.¹ Rodogno claims instead that Italians saved Jews only when it was in their political interest to do so. Calling the notion of an innate Italian humanitarianism "absurd" and "disproved by the documents," he argues that Jews became "pawns of the game" in the occupied territories (401, 363). The Italians used Jews as leverage to prove their independence of Nazi Germany, to quell domestic unrest among non-Jews, and to assert their influence over the satellites of Vichy France and the Independent State of Croatia. Rodogno raises the interesting question of exactly how the Jews would have fared under Italy if Germany had not tried to dominate its less powerful ally. His discussions of the Italian concentration camps for Slavs, the forced repatriation of Jewish refugees, and Italian racism and antisemitism suggest that the fate awaiting Jews was by no means a charitable one.

Rodogno's arguments are controversial but convincing in their scholarly thoroughness and wide-angle perspective. The author has mastered the Italian documents, especially those of the Italian military and Foreign Service, skillfully weaving together materials from various occupation zones to create a compelling narrative on the nature of Italian rule. In the process of telling his story, Rodogno also sheds new light on the local dynamics of war in the Balkans, offering provocative insights into Italian–Chetnik collaboration and the brutality of the Albanianization project in Kosovo.

The major shortcoming of this work is Rodogno's nearly exclusive reliance on Italian sources. Supporting evidence from Croatian, Greek, Albanian, and especially German documents would have enabled him to flesh out his analysis of German–Italian interactions in the field and Fascist Italy's demise in 1943, the weakness of which he attributes to inadequate Italian documentation. Additional analysis of Mussolini's war plan and of his personal relationship with his deputies in the occupied territories would be welcome, since...