Mussolini and Hitler: The Forging of the Fascist Alliance by Christian Goeschel (review)

Among the most memorable scenes in Charlie Chaplin's 1940 film The Great Dictator were those involving the relationship between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, immortalized by Chaplin as Adenoid Hynkel, dictator of Tomania, and Benzino Napaloni, dictator of Bacteria. While Chaplin's satirical images have shaped popular perceptions for decades, scholars have given the Hitler-Mussolini relationship surprisingly little direct attention. Christian Goeschel's impressive book makes significant progress toward rectifying that deficit.

At the heart of Goeschel's analysis are the public overtures and heavily choreographed personal meetings that took place between the two dictators. The first indirect contact between them dates to 1922, on the eve of Mussolini's accession to power, and the relationship was deeply unequal in its first decade. Despite the fact that large numbers of German nationalists despised Italians for their perceived treachery in siding with Germany's enemies during World War I, Hitler idealized Mussolini as a model statesman throughout the 1920s, partly as the result of overestimating the extent of the Duce's political power. Mussolini's early opinion of Hitler was largely dismissive. Even after his appointment as chancellor in January 1933, Hitler felt the need to maintain an obsequious tone in his official communications with Mussolini. The first in-person meeting between the two took place in Venice in June 1934. In the well-staged reception ceremony that greeted Hitler's plane, Mussolini, clad strikingly in military uniform and boots, adopted the dominant pose of an established strong-man receiving a junior partner, whereas Hitler, wearing a beige trench coat, striped trousers and a crumpled fedora, was clearly awkward and uncomfortable—appearing, as one diplomatic observer put it, like "a peasant who wears his best clothes to go into town" (46). While Hitler greeted Mussolini with the Nazi salute, a clear sign of respect, Mussolini responded with a mere handshake, refusing to greet Hitler with the fascist salute, which would have been interpreted as a demonstration of equality.

By the time of their next personal encounter, Mussolini's highly publicized visit to Germany in September 1937, the power dynamics of the relationship had shifted considerably. Whereas Mussolini's position was still dependent, in large part, on the support of the monarchy and other traditional power blocs within Italian society, Hitler had succeeded in neutralizing most of his domestic opposition, had greatly expanded and modernized the German military, and had remilitarized the Rhineland. Riding a powerful wave of renewed economic dynamism, it was now Hitler who represented the emerging fascist order in the eyes of the world. The 1937 Mussolini visit was then followed by fifteen other personal meetings over the next seven years. Goeschel is perhaps at his best when recounting, often in humorous detail, the gaudy pomp of these encounters, especially those that took place during peacetime. There were frequent disagreements between the Italian and German planning committees regarding the itineraries, staging, press coverage, and propagandistic marketing of the various meetings. Significant attention was devoted to the optics of crowd size at the public receptions and welcoming ceremonies, leading Hitler on one occasion to excoriate Himmler, whose SS was responsible for security, for cordoning off too many streets along the route of a reception parade and thereby creating the image of public indifference and lackluster crowd participation. The later meetings between Mussolini and Hitler were overshadowed by the shifting fortunes of World War II. Their final personal meeting took place, remarkably, on the afternoon of July 20, 1944, the very day on which Hitler narrowly survived assassination in the bombing of his military headquarters in East Prussia. Both dictators met their inglorious ends—Hitler by his own hand and Mussolini at the hands of Italian partisans—just days apart in late April 1945.

The value of this work goes far beyond its detailed recounting of the encounters between Hitler and Mussolini. Goeschel argues persuasively that the nature of...