Becoming Il Duce: Mussolini's Fascist Revolution | Full Documentary | Episode 1

May 25, 2024 | In the fall of 1922, former teacher and journalist Benito Mussolini had only recently been elected to parliament when he seized power. His legal coup d’état, which began on 24 October in Naples, was a masterstroke. Standing before 40,000 Fascist party members, he issued an ultimatum to the fragile Italian parliamentary monarchy: “Either they hand us the power, or we will descend on Rome!” The militants, wearing black shirts and armed with clubs, headed for the capital. Following on from this legendary march on Rome, Mussolini headed up a totalitarian regime that lasted two decades.

The first episode of this portrait of Il Duce will explore how Mussolini took power and consolidated it until the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in the mid-1930s. He was a populist leader in terms of how he spoke to the Italian people, and a dictator in terms of how he exerted his power. He came from the extreme left but governed from the extreme right. Mussolini invented the new ideology of fascism and was helped in his mission by the business community who wanted an end to left-wing rule. Despite his brutality, he sought to please the Italian people, promising them a return to the grandeur of Rome. He enjoyed undeniable success for several years, both at home and abroad, until his inevitable downfall.

Documentary: Mussolini, The First Fascist – Episode 1: The Word and the Cosh (2021)
Direction: Serge de Sampigny
Production: Histodoc

'Why Aren't People More Alarmed?': As Trump Becomes More Extreme, Americans Get Used to It

Oct 19, 2024 | Donald Trump's campaign rhetoric has become so extreme that analysts and historians are openly comparing him to Hitler and Mussolini. And yet the American public seems to treat him with the same semi-seriousness that has characterized his entire political career. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, New York University history professor, and Jason Stanley, Yale University philosophy professor, discuss with Ali Velshi.

Italiens neue Faschisten | ARTE Re:

Jan 20, 2023 | Wie Neofaschisten Italien infiltrieren

Die rechtsextreme Aktivistin Desideria Raggi ist ins norditalienische Predappio gereist. Im Heimatort Mussolinis feiern Faschismus-Nostalgiker das hundertjährige Jubiläum zum Machtantritt des Duce. Auch zahlreiche junge Rechtsextreme wie Desideria Raggi pilgern zur Mussolini-Gruft. Unter vielen jungen Leuten in Italien gilt rechtsextrem sein bereits als cool. „Fascio-Rock“-Konzerte, aber auch intellektuelle „Treffen für Tradition und Identität“ finden immer häufiger statt.

Wenige Wochen später zieht der Gründer der identitären Bewegung „Festung Europa“, Emanuele Tesauro, mit einem Protest-Fackelzug von rechtsextremen Gruppen aus ganz Norditalien durch Mailand. Tesauro zählt schon lange zur militanten rechten Szene. Heute schließen sich ihm immer mehr junge Leute an. In Verona, dem historischen Nabel der italienischen Neofaschisten, bekommt ARTE Einblick in viele verborgene Treffpunkte der rechtsextremen Szene.

Gegner der Neofaschisten ist der Journalist Paolo Berizzi, der seit 20 Jahren über den italienischen Rechtsextremismus und seine europäische Vernetzung schreibt. Wegen Morddrohungen lebt er unter 24-stündigem Polizeischutz. Berizzi erwartet das Urteil im Prozess gegen einen Neofaschisten. Am Tag der Verkündung ist ARTE dabei.

Reportage (D 2022, 32 Min)
Video verfügbar bis zum 19/01/2024

Terra X History: Mussolini - Der erste Faschist | Doku (2023)

Jul 11, 2023

Benito Mussolini: The Father of Fascism | Evolution of Evil | Timeline

Jul 28, 2022 | The rise and fall of Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini, whose involvement in the creation of fascism made him a role model to Adolf Hitler and other 20th-century dictators.
This documentary is age-restricted; so it cannot be embedded on external websites. For this reason, it must be watched on YouTube itself. Please click here to watch it.

The Origins of Mussolini's Italy | Secrets of War | Timeline

Jan 10, 2021 | An inside look at fascist Italy. Starting with Mussolini's rise to power, the unknown stories of the shadowy figures who protected "Il Duce" and the tenuous Axis relationship with Nazi Germany.

Italiens neue Faschisten | ARTE Re:

Jan 20, 2023 | Wie Neofaschisten Italien infiltrieren Die rechtsextreme Aktivistin Desideria Raggi ist ins norditalienische Predappio gereist. Im Heimatort Mussolinis feiern Faschismus-Nostalgiker das hundertjährige Jubiläum zum Machtantritt des Duce. Auch zahlreiche junge Rechtsextreme wie Desideria Raggi pilgern zur Mussolini-Gruft. Unter vielen jungen Leuten in Italien gilt rechtsextrem sein bereits als cool. „Fascio-Rock“-Konzerte, aber auch intellektuelle „Treffen für Tradition und Identität“ finden immer häufiger statt.

Wenige Wochen später zieht der Gründer der identitären Bewegung „Festung Europa“, Emanuele Tesauro, mit einem Protest-Fackelzug von rechtsextremen Gruppen aus ganz Norditalien durch Mailand. Tesauro zählt schon lange zur militanten rechten Szene. Heute schließen sich ihm immer mehr junge Leute an. In Verona, dem historischen Nabel der italienischen Neofaschisten, bekommt ARTE Einblick in viele verborgene Treffpunkte der rechtsextremen Szene.

Gegner der Neofaschisten ist der Journalist Paolo Berizzi, der seit 20 Jahren über den italienischen Rechtsextremismus und seine europäische Vernetzung schreibt. Wegen Morddrohungen lebt er unter 24-stündigem Polizeischutz. Berizzi erwartet das Urteil im Prozess gegen einen Neofaschisten. Am Tag der Verkündung ist ARTE dabei.

Reportage (D 2022, 32 Min)
Video verfügbar bis zum 19/01/2024

Der starke Mann führt Italien in den Abgrund – vor hundert Jahren übernahm Benito Mussolini die Macht

NEUE ZÜRCHER ZEITUNG: Der Duce versprach eine Revolution, sie endete in der Katastrophe. In Propagandafilmen und auf Propagandafotos wird das Wesen des Faschismus sichtbar.

Der «Duce» spricht zu seinem Volk, Rom 1938. | Imago
Der Führer

Das ist ein Mann! Benito Mussolini reitet, ficht, schwimmt, sogar fliegen kann er. Der Duce zeigt sich gerne in Sportlerpose, mit nacktem Oberkörper auf dem Traktor, mit Fliegerhaube im Cockpit. Immer ist er der Stärkste und der Beste. Er verkörpert die neue Zeit, die Zeit des Faschismus, eine Zeit der Kraft, der Motoren, der Schnelligkeit, auch eine Zeit des Kampfs, des Muts und des Übermuts. Die Männer bewundern diesen Mann, die Frauen himmeln ihn an. Korbweise erhält Mussolini Fanpost und Liebesbriefe aus allen Gegenden Italiens.

Mussolini, Sohn einer Lehrerin und eines Spenglers, ist der Erfinder des Faschismus. Seine politische Karriere beginnt er als sozialistischer Agitator und Journalist. Der Pazifist wird 1915 zum Kriegshetzer, das ist seine Wende. Die neue Ideologie entwickelt er über Jahre hinweg, von Tag zu Tag, von Artikel zu Artikel, von Rede zu Rede, aus der Praxis heraus, je nach Laune und Umständen. Sie ist nichts weiter als eine Sammlung von Sprüchen zu Arbeit und Pflicht, Ordnung und Gehorsam, Volk und Grösse. Die «Aktion» bestimmt die Richtung. Die Theorie erledigen andere. Mit Videos » | Andres Wysling, Rom | Freitag, 14. Oktober 2022

Biography: Benito Mussolini

A Look at How a Racial Theorist Tied to Mussolini & Hitler Influenced Steve Bannon

Journalist Joshua Green talks about two men who influenced Steve Bannon’s philosophy: the Italian philosopher Julius Evola, whose ideas became the basis of fascist racial theory, and René Guénon, who developed an anti-modernism philosophy called "Traditionalism." Green writes about Evola and Guénon in his new book, "Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency."

Fascism: Mussolini in Power

Part 2
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Mussolini Cult Alive and Well in Italy
SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Every year, thousands of people in Italy hang a fresh calendar of images depicting Benito Mussolini on their wall, just one of many indications that the cult of "Il Duce" is alive and well in the country. Many still consider the fascist dictator to have been an honorable man, and it is a weakness that politicians such as Silvio Berlusconi have been able to exploit.

Decked out in army fatigues, his hand raised in fascist salute, he emblazons newsstands, lies ready in bookshops and is splashed across countless websites: Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator and founder of fascism known simply as "Il Duce", enjoys massive popularity in Italy as a calendar pin-up. One month he's in a steel helmet, his chin jutting sharply forward, the next he's clutching a Roman short sword, the famous chin still at attention. His valiant, steel-helmeted soldiers also march on annually, in color or black and white, accompanied by fascist symbols like the swastika.

Foreign tourists, especially Germans, are shocked when they see these openly flaunted calendars. Yet even in 2013, the former Italian dictator has a loyal fan base at home. And they're not just buying calendars. » | Hans-Jürgen Schlamp in Rome | Tuesday, January 08, 2013

Le Premier ministre turc compare le président syrien Assad à Hitler

TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: Le Premier ministre turc Recep Tayyip Erdogan a de nouveau critiqué le président syrien Bachar al-Assad, comparant son attitude à celle des dictateurs comme Adolf Hitler ou Benito Mussolini.

Le Premier ministre turc Recep Tayyip Erdogan a demandé mardi la démission du président syrien Bachar al-Assad afin de «prévenir davantage d’effusion de sang» dans le pays. Damas a de son côté qualifié de «déclaration de guerre» un projet de résolution de l’Onu condamnant la répression de la contestation.

«Pour le salut de ton peuple, de ton pays et de la région, quitte désormais le pouvoir», a dit le chef du gouvernement turc devant le groupe parlementaire de son Parti de la justice et du développement (AKP). M. Erdogan, qui était un ami personnel du dirigeant syrien, avait déjà annoncé avoir rompu avec le régime de Damas, mais c’est la première fois qu’il demande ouvertement le départ de M. Assad.

M. Erdogan a aussi de nouveau critiqué M. Assad, qui s’est dit «tout à fait» prêt à combattre et à mourir s’il devait affronter des forces étrangères, comparant son attitude à celle des dictateurs comme Adolf Hitler ou Benito Mussolini. » | AFP | mardi 22 novembre 2011

Winston Churchill 'Ordered Assassination of Mussolini to Protect Compromising Letters’
THE TELEGRAPH: Winston Churchill ordered the assassination of Benito Mussolini as part of a plot to destroy potentially compromising secret letters he had sent the Italian dictator, a leading French historian has suggested.

Pierre Milza, an expert on fascist Italy, theorizes that the wartime prime minister may have wanted Mussolini dead to prevent the letters, in which Churchill expressed his admiration for his Italian counterpart before the outbreak of the Second World War, coming to light.

“There is no doubt, judging by his public declarations back in the 1920s and early 1930s, that Churchill was a fan of Mussolini. Roosevelt too,” Mr Milza said.

“Churchill even once said: 'Fascism has rendered a service to the entire world... If I were Italian, I am sure I would have been with you entirely’.

“But that was understandable in 1927, as then a fascist did not mean a friend of Hitler and accomplice to genocide. But when you are head of state and legitimate war hero of the British people, you don’t really want all that put up in lights.” >>> Henry Samuel, Paris | Thursday, September 02, 2010

Silvio Berlusconi
Compares Himself to Mussolini
THE TELEGRAPH: Silvio Berlusconi has compared himself to Benito Mussolini, complaining that like the Second World War leader he does not have enough real power.

The Italian prime minister said he empathised with Il Duce, who had complained that he lacked real authority and that true power lay with officials in his fascist administration.

Mr Berlusconi said he had recently been reading Mussolini's diaries, which had led him to reflect on the challenges of governing Italy in the 21st century.

"I will dare to quote you a phrase from someone considered a dictator, a great, powerful dictator, Benito Mussolini," the 73-year-old media tycoon told a news conference at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris.

"In his diary, I recently read this phrase. 'They say I have power. It isn't true. Maybe my party officials do. But I don't know. All I can do is say to my horse go right or left. And I have to be happy with that.'" >>> Nick Squires in Rome | Friday, May 28, 2010

Mussolini Audio Is Italy’s No. 2 iPhone Application
BLOOMBERG.COM: A collection of speeches by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini is Italy’s second-most downloaded iPhone application on Holocaust Memorial Day.

The application, called iMussolini, is available on Apple’s online store for 79 euro cents ($1.11). It has been downloaded more than a video game based on the blockbuster film Avatar, according to Apple Inc.’s Italian iTunes store. A wallpaper application is the most downloaded item.

The Mussolini application makes 100 of the so-called Duce’s speeches available on the iPhone. Mussolini ruled Italy from 1922 until his death in 1945 at the end of World War II. His granddaughter, Alessandra Mussolini, is a politician and ally of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government. >>> Flavia Krause-Jackson | Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The March of Mussolini into Italy's Mainstream
NAME: After carrying the dictator's torch for 60 years, the far-right National Alliance is to merge with Silvio Berlusconi's party. So is this the end of fascism in Italy? Quite the reverse. Peter Popham reports

'Il Duce': Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini
The flames are going out all over Italy. Tomorrow, the flame which for more than 60 years has been the symbol of neo-Fascist continuity with Mussolini, will disappear from mainstream politics. The National Alliance, the last important home of that inheritance, is "fusing" with Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party to give the governing bloc a single identity and a single unchallenged leader.

The change has been a long time coming – 15 years and more. Mr Berlusconi broke the great taboo of Italian post-war politics after he won his first general election victory in 1994 and incorporating four members of the National Alliance into his coalition.

Embracing the Fascists and neo-Fascists was taboo for good reason. For one thing, their return after they had led the nation to ruin in the war was banned by the new Constitution, whose Article 139 states, "the re-organisation, under whatever form, of the dissolved Fascist party, is forbidden."

That veto had been honoured in the breach rather than the observance since 1946, when Giorgio Almirante, the leader of the Italian Social Movement, picked up the baton of Mussolini where he had left it at his death and led the new party into parliament. But the neo-Fascists remained in parliamentary limbo, far from power. Berlusconi blew that inhibition away.

Under the wily leadership of Gianfranco Fini the "post-Fascists" have been gaining ground since. Tall, bespectacled, buttoned up, the opposite of Berlusconi in every way, the Alliance's leader impressed the Eurocrats with his democratic credentials when he was brought in to lend a hand at drafting the EU's new Constitution.

He leaned over backwards to break his party's connection to anti-Semitism, paying repeated official visits to Israel where he was photographed in a skull cap at the Wailing Wall. On one visit, in 2003, he went so far as to condemn Mussolini and the race laws passed in 1938 which barred Jews from school and resulted in thousands being deported to the death camps.

"I've certainly changed my ideas about Mussolini," he said at the time. "And to condemn [the race laws] means to take responsibility for them." Statesmanlike: the word stuck to him like lint. Party hardliners such as Alessandra Mussolini, the glamorous granddaughter of Il Duce, were furious and split away to form fascist micro-parties of their own. But Mr Fini's strategy prevailed. Under Mr Berlusconi's patronage, he became foreign minister then deputy prime minister and now speaker of the lower house, a more prestigious job than its British equivalent. As Berlusconi's unquestioned number two in the new "fused" party, he is also his heir-apparent. >>> Peter Popham | Friday, March 20, 2009

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – Italy) >>>

Italiens Rechte schart sich hinter Silvio Berlusconi
BASLER ZEITUNG: Die postfaschistische Alleanza Nazionale löst sich auf, um mit Berlusconis Partei Forza Italia zu fusionieren. AN-Chef Fini bringt sich damit als Berlusconis Nachfolger in Stellung.

Zum letzten Mal wird am Wochenende in Rom jene politische Formation zusammentreten, deren Exponenten sich einst als die Erben von Benito Mussolini verstanden hatten. Die Alleanza Nazionale (AN) löst sich auf, um am darauffolgenden Wochenende endgültig mit Silvio Berlusconis Forza Italia zu verschmelzen. Damit wird vollzogen, was Berlusconi bereits vor den Parlamentswahlen im April vergangenen Jahres angekündigt hatte: Unter Zugzwang gesetzt durch die neue Mitte-Links-Partei von Walter Veltroni, sollte auch rechts der Mitte eine neue starke Partei entstehen. >>> Von Kordula Doerfler, Rom, Tages Anzeiger | Freitag, 20. März 2009

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Taschenbuch und Gebundene Ausgabe) – Versandkostenfrei innerhalb der Schweiz >>>

Cash to Name Babies for [after] Mussolini
Photo of Benito Mussolini courtesy of The Telegraph
BBC: A far-right Italian party is offering 1,500 euros ($1,900) to parents who name their children after the fascist dictator Mussolini or his wife.

The small Movimento Sociale-Fiamma Tricolore (MS-FT) party denies its gesture is racist and says the names Benito and Rachele are merely "nice".

The party also wants parents to buy cribs, clothes and food with the money.

The cash incentive is available in five areas of southern Italy and is designed to help the region's low birth rate. >>> By Duncan Kennedy, BBC News, Rome | November 24, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – Italy)

As Europe Slumps, Is the Far Right Rising?
TIMESONLINE: The death of Jörg Haider has cast a light on the resurgence of facsist politics in Austria and Italy

The death of the Austrian far-right politician Jörg Haider has again focused world attention on his country's ambivalent attitude to its Nazi past. The son of an SS officer, Haider won notoriety by praising Hitler's welfare policies and describing concentration camps as work camps. None of this seemed to bother Austrian voters, who gave him and his fellow-travellers a third of the vote in the last elections.

In Italy, too, right-wing politicians have recently showed signs of a positive attitude to the fascist regime run by Mussolini from 1922 to 1945. The election of Gianni Alemanno as Mayor of Rome was greeted by supporters shouting “Duce! Duce!” - the name taken by Mussolini and Hitler, while the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has declared that his movement is “the new Falange”, in a reference to the Spanish fascists of Franco's day.

What drives the radical politicians of the new Right is, in the first place, hostility to immigrants, a feeling that is likely to get worse as the European economy slides into recession. Added to this are fears of the collapse of law and order. The rhetoric of fascism provides a handy symbol for the far Right's determination to deal firmly with immigrants and criminals. It contrasts with the complacency of conventional politicians in Italy and Austria who for decades after the Second World War cosily arranged everything for their own benefit in coalition governments built on political compromise.

This collapsed in Italy a few years ago, and seems to be collapsing in Austria today. In both countries, support for the far Right offers voters the most obvious means of giving voice to their protest and disillusion.

Such rhetoric arouses little public hostility because Austrians and Italians have never felt guilty about their fascist past, as the Germans have. In Germany today you will see former concentration camps turned into sombre monuments to the murderous cruelty of Nazism; small brass plates in the pavement outside houses and shops whose Jewish owners were driven out in the 1930s, with the names of those owners inscribed on them; a monument to Jewish victims of Nazism installed at the centre of the capital city, Berlin. The Nazi past is everywhere, and people's rejection of it is universal and comprehensive.

True, in parts of the former East Germany, the far Right has made some headway, building on popular resentment, especially among the young and unemployed, of the economic shock therapy administered after its absorption into the West in 1990. But it has always remained on the fringes of politics, completely ostracised by the mainstream.

Not so in Italy and Austria, where the far Right is an acceptable coalition partner for leading parties, and few seem troubled by its positive references to the national past. As Europe Slumps, Is the Far Right Rising? >>> Richard J. Evans | October 14, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Hardcover (US) Barnes & Noble >>>