Shaping the New Man : Youth Training Regimes in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany [1 ed.] 9780299305833, 9780299305802

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Shaping the New Man

­ eorge L. Mosse Se­ G r ies in Mod­ern Eu­ro­pean Cul­t ural and In­tel­lec­tual His­t ory Se­r ies Ed­i­tors Ste­ ven E. Asch­ h eim, Stan­ l ey G. Payne, Mary ­ Louise Rob­ e rts, and David J. Sor­ k in

Ad­vi­sory Board Ofer Ashkenazi Hebrew University of Jerusalem

An­nette ­Becker Uni­ver­sité Paris X–Nan­terre

Chris­to­pher Brown­ing Uni­ver­sity of North Car­ol­ina at C ­ hapel Hill

Nat­a­lie Zemon Davis Uni­ver­sity of To­ronto

Saul ­Friedländer Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Los An­geles

Em­i­lio Gen­tile ­Università di Roma “La Sa­pienza”

Anson Ra­bin­bach Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity

John S. Tor­to­rice Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin–Mad­i­son

Joan Wal­lach Scott In­sti­tute for Ad­vanced Study

Jay Win­ter Yale Uni­ver­sity

SHAPING THE NEW MAN YOUTH TRAINING REGIMES In FASCIST ITALY AND NAZI GERMANY

ALESSIO PONZIO

The University of Wisconsin Press

The University of Wisconsin Press 1930 Monroe Street, 3rd Floor Madison, Wisconsin 53711-2059 uwpress.wisc.edu 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden London WC2E 8LU, United Kingdom eurospanbookstore.com Copyright © 2015 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System All rights reserved. Except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any format or by any means—digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise— or conveyed via the Internet or a website without written permission of the University of Wisconsin Press. Rights inquiries should be directed to [email protected]. Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ponzio, Alessio, author. Shaping the new man: youth training regimes in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany / Alessio Ponzio. pages   cm — (George L. Mosse series in modern European cultural and intellectual history) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-299-30580-2 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-299-30583-3 (e-book) 1.  Opera nazionale Balilla.   2.  Gioventù italiana del littorio. 3. Hitler-Jugend.  4. Fascism and youth—Italy—History—20th century. 5.  Fascism and youth—Germany—History—20th century. 6.  Youth movements—Italy—History—20th century. 7.  Youth movements—Germany—History—20th century. 8.  Fascism and education—Italy—History—20th century. 9.  Fascism and education—Germany—History—20th century. I. Title. II.  Series: George L. Mosse series in modern European cultural and intellectual history. DG571.P598   2015 369.40943´09043—dc23 2015008392

To Chris Luigi Melissa

Contents

ix xi xv

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations

3

Introduction 1

A Generational Apocalypse

14

2

Organizing the Youth in Fascist Italy

25

3

A New Class of Educators

48

4

And They Will Never Be Free Again, for the Rest of Their Lives

76

5

The Training of the Hitler Youth Leadership

99

6

The Relationship between the Opera Nazionale Balilla and the Hitlerjugend

118

7

The Hitlerjugend Academy of Braunschweig

138

8

A New Organization

152

9

The Relationship between the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio and the Hitlerjugend

171

Nazi and Fascist Youth Leaders and the Effects of War

199

10

213

Aftermath

227 297

Notes Index vii

Illustrations

Figures Shooting lesson Renato Ricci The Obelisk, the Mussolini Forum The Marble Stadium, the Mussolini Forum The statues of the Marble Stadium, the Mussolini Forum The Fascist Academy, the Mussolini Forum The Fascist Academy, the Mussolini Forum The Fascist Academy, the Mussolini Forum Accademisti and Avanguardisti Two Hitlerjungen and Baldur von Schirach honor the Italian Unknown Soldier in Piazza Venezia Baldur von Schirach, Renato Ricci, Giulio Ricci, and representatives of the German and Italian regimes attend the parade of the Accademisti Baldur von Schirach, Renato Ricci, Giulio Ricci, and representatives of the German and Italian regimes review the Accademisti Main façade of the Academy of Braunschweig Academy of Braunschweig as seen today from the south Academy of Braunschweig, sculpted group Loyalty Academy of Braunschweig, sculpted group Glory

ix

37 38 62 64 65 66 67 67 69 128

129

130 144 144 145 145

x

Illustrations

Academy of Braunschweig, residential buildings for the students as seen today

146

Tables Table 1.  Hierarchical structure of the Hitlerjugend Table 2.  Different instruments the Nazis had at their disposal in order to train the Hitler Youth leadership Table 3.  Italian male youth enrolled in the GIL as of May 31, 1939

107 116 158

Acknowledgments

Writing this book has been one of the most significant experiences of my life. Researching, writing, and rewriting are solitary processes, and sometimes in order to research, write, and rewrite we have to leave our family and our friends for a time. Sometimes they patiently wait for us; sometimes they do not. To realize our dreams, we have to make decisions that will change our life forever. This book has certainly changed mine. Many institutions provided me with time and space, as well as financial and intellectual support. Along with the Università Roma Tre, where I began my research, I am deeply thankful to three institutions without which I would never have been able to complete this work. First, I thank the Institut für Europäische Geschichte (IEG) in Mainz, Germany, where I began my comparative analysis of Italian Fascism and National Socialism. I thank Lutz Klinkhammer and Petra Terhoeven for encouraging me to apply for a fellowship there. I am especially grateful to Petra for her incredible support, when it seemed that no one believed in my project. I also owe Petra my gratitude for introducing me to Christof Dipper, one of the most important scholars in the field of ItalianGerman transnational history. The time I spent at the IEG was, no doubt, one of the best periods of my life. I thank Heinz Duchhardt, Irene Dingel, Kerstin Armborst-Weihs, and Joachim Berger for having accepted my application and for having supported me during my research. I am grateful to all the Stipendiaten/ friends whose company made those ten months not only very productive, but also enjoyable (the dinners on the fifth floor and in the garden were and remain unforgettable): Aleksjia Ambrosini, Mariya Baramova, Daniel Becker, Iwona Dadej, Tomek Łopatka, Edvin Pezo, Karel Plessini, Christiane Reinecke, xi

xii

Acknowledgments

Stephanie Schlesier, Julia Schmidt-Funke, Stefan Schröder, Mare Van den Eeden, and Charlotte Wilson-Ball. I thank the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, for its incredible support. It provided me, through the Herodotus fund, with extraordinarily generous resources that allowed me to devote very profitable months to my work. Without the materials to which I had access in Princeton, I would have never managed to complete this work. I am extremely thankful to all the fellows and the faculty members who made me “see” my work from a very different perspective. I also thank Andrea Worm and her family for their incredible friendship and support during my time in Princeton. Finally, I thank the Susan and Donald Newhouse Center for the Humanities at Wellesley College for supporting my work. The academic year I spent at Wellesley was an unforgettable experience. I learned a lot while completing a draft of this manuscript, thanks to the most welcoming and embracing environment in which a scholar could ever wish to work. I thank Carol Dougherty (director of the Newhouse Center) and Jane Jackson (program coordinator), as well as the other fellows for making those two semesters so memorable. Just talking and listening to them made me a better scholar: Hilton Als, Elena Creef, Paul Fisher, Nikki A. Greene, Anna Katsnelson, Mary Lewis, Ato Quayson, Robert Sobak, and Jay Turner. I also want to thank Catia Cecilia Confortini, Scott Gunther, and Ted Hufstader for their priceless friendship. In the end, a very special thanks goes to the Italian Department of Wellesley College, where I had the opportunity to meet incredible people, such as Daniela Bartalesi-Graf, Flavia Laviosa, Francesca Southerden, and David Ward, all of whom I now consider friends. This book would have never come about without the support of all the libraries and archives I visited over the course of almost a decade: Biblioteca di Storia Moderna e Contemporanea (Rome), Biblioteca Universitaria Alessan­ drina (Rome), Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale (Rome), Biblioteca dell’Istituto Luigi Sturzo (Rome), Archivio Centrale dello Stato (Rome), Archivio di Stato di Roma (Rome), Archivio del Ministero degli Affari Esteri (Rome), Archivio dell’Istituto Luce (Rome), Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts (Rome), Biblioteca della Camera dei Deputati (Rome), Biblioteca del Senato della Repubblica (Rome), Biblioteca del CONI (Rome), Archivio di Stato di Orvieto (Orvieto), Bibliothek des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte (Mainz), Bibliothek des Pädagogischen Instituts-Johannes Gutenberg Universität (Mainz), Zentralbibliothek der Johannes Gutenberg Universität (Mainz), Staats­ bibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin), Bibliothek für Bildungsgeschichtliche Forschung (Berlin), Bundes Archiv (Berlin-Lichterfelde), Auswärtiges Amt Archiv (Berlin),

Acknowledgments xiii

British Library (London), Historical Studies Library (IAS Princeton), Firestone Library (Princeton University), Marquand Library (Princeton University), Widener Library (Harvard University), and Clapp Library (Wellesley College). I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to all the librarians and archivists I met during the course of my research. But one archivist from the Archivio Centrale dello Stato in Rome deserves special thanks: Daniela Loyola. Without her support, I would have never enjoyed the possibility of reading those documents that comprise the core of this book. I want to thank the faculty of the Political Science Department of the Università Roma Tre who gave me the opportunity to discover how passionate I am about history. In particular I want to thank Luigi Goglia and Leopoldo Nuti. Heartfelt thanks go to both Renato Moro and Emilio Gentile who conveyed to me the significance of studying the Italian Fascist past, encouraged me in my work, and proofread—as did David Ward—some early drafts of this work. I am also grateful to Angela Teja, who has always been a very enthusiastic supporter of my work. I also would like to thank the Department of Women’s Studies and the Department of History at the University of Michigan and the Rackham Graduate School for their generous financial support, which made the completion of this manuscript possible. I express my deepest thanks to Raphael Kadushin, John Tortorice, Matthew Cosby, Amber Rose, Adam Mehring, and all those at the University of Wisconsin Press who believed in this work and guided me patiently toward its final publication. And I also thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. Very special thanks go to my former partner, Luigi Petraia, for having stoically and patiently supported me during most of my work. My gratitude also goes to two of my closest friends, Melissa Tiberi and Luca Balzerano, for having been there when my world was falling apart. Laura Doan deserves a place in this long list of acknowledgments for having been such a trustworthy friend and an irreplaceable advisor when I needed reassuring words. The person to whom I address my deepest gratitude is Chris Waters, who put aside his own work and sacrificed many weekends to read the entire manuscript several times. I will never forget what he did for me and for this book. He devoted so much of his precious time to reading and commenting thoroughly on my work, giving advice, making me feel sometimes sad, sometimes worried, sometimes happy, and sometimes even smart. He was the greatest advisor, the greatest friend, the greatest commentator, the greatest reader I could ever have hoped for. His critique made this work a much better one.

xiv

Acknowledgments

I thank my family, my mother, Domenica, and my father, Antonio. They have always supported me unconditionally. They allowed me to become who I am today. When I read George L. Mosse’s The Image of Man I realized what I wanted to do in my life and who I wanted to be. Having my book included in the George L. Mosse Series in Modern European Cultural and Intellectual History is for me the greatest honor. This book is dedicated to Mosse’s inspiring memory.

Abbreviations

AC AGF AS BDM EJD ENEF EYA FGC GIL GUF HJ MVSN NSDAP NSDSTB NSLB NSS OB ONB PNF

Azione Cattolica (Catholic Action) Avanguardie Giovanili Fasciste (Fascist Youth Vanguard) Avanguardia Studentesca (Student Vanguard) Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of the German Girls) Evangelische Jugend Deutschlands (Evangelical Youth of Germany) Ente Nazionale per l’Educazione Fisica (Physical Education National Office) European Youth Association Fasci Giovanili di Combattimento (Youth Fighting Fasces) Gioventù Italiana del Littorio Gruppi Universitari Fascisti (Fascist University Groups) Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (National Security Volunteer Militia) Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) Nationalsozialistiches Deutsches Studentenbund (National Socialist League of University Students) Nationalsozialistische Lehrbund (Nazi League of Teachers) Nationalsozialistisches Schülerbund (National Socialist Pupils’ League) Opera Balilla Opera Nazionale Balilla Partito Nazionale Fascista (Fascist National Party) xv

xvi

PPI PSI RSI SA SS

Abbreviations

Partito Popolare Italiano (Italian Popular Party) Partito Socialista Italiano (Italian Socialist Party) Repubblica Sociale Italiana (Italian Social Republic) Sturmabteilungen (Storm Troopers) Schutzstaffel (Defense Corps)

Shaping the New Man

Introduction The child that nature has given you is nothing but a shapeless lump, but the material is still pliable, capable of assuming any form Desiderius Erasmus, “De Pueris Statim ac Liberaliter Instituendis Declamatio”

Nine parts of Ten are what they are, Good or Evil, useful or not, by their Education John Locke, “Some Thoughts Concerning Education”

He who has the young, has the future Joseph Goebbels, “Appel an die Deutsche Jugend”

On January 15, 1943, Walt Disney released an animated short film, based on a

book by Gregor Athalwin Ziemer, entitled Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi.1 The very last scene of the cartoon depicts rows of Nazis marching off to war, among them Hans, the protagonist of the film, a nice German child transformed by the regime into a heartless Nazi soldier. Hans’s march is accompanied by a voice that solemnly affirms: Marching and hailing, hailing and marching. In him is planted no seed of laughter, hope, tolerance or mercy. For him—only hailing and marching, 3

4

Introduction

marching and hailing. The grim years of regimentation have done their work. Now he’s a good Nazi. He sees no more than the Party wants him to. He says nothing but what the Party wants him to say. And he does nothing than what the Party wants him to do. And so he marches with millions of comrades, trampling on the rights of others. For now his education is complete. His education . . . for death.

In a few lines the U.S. propaganda cartoon described how Nazi education was attempting to annihilate individuals and transform them into cold automatons. Although the cartoon’s rhetoric was clearly bombastic, overemphasizing the point it wished to make, the metaphor of the young and nameless soldiers, marching in anonymous files in the name of a blind faith, was commonly used to epitomize totalitarianism. The intention of ideally captivating all the youth, reshaping their beliefs, depriving them of freedom, and annulling their individuality was one of the principal characteristics of both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. In their processes of Nazification and Fascistization both regimes considered education as essential as coercive repression, necessary to change the habits and character of their peoples and to create disciplined societies united by a uniform national political culture. The main duty of the Fascist state, in Mussolini’s words, was to educate its citizens, giving “them a consciousness of their mission” and pressing them toward a perfect unity, transcending their own private concerns in the name of a higher interest.2 A similar belief was also expressed by the Nazis, who thought that personal liberties had to be denied and the interests of the Volksgemeinschaft (people’s community) as a whole had to replace those of the isolated individual.3 Fascists and Nazis tried to reshape their citizens according to this ideal. Youth education in all its aspects was directed to “the ultimate subordination of all individuals to the will and guidance of the state as represented and expressed” by the dictators.4 Youth education was the keystone for the fulfillment of the new societies Mussolini and Hitler had in mind. Fascists, as well as Nazis, believed that, since their ideology contained the truth that would save their nations and the world, their mission was to spread “the redeeming word” to every individual. They would pass away, but their truth had to stand forever. And the only way to perpetuate that truth was to raise up new fervent adherents. Therefore, youth had to be “courted, organized, trained, entertained, and indoctrinated.”5 New values, attitudes, and beliefs, considered essential for the future existence of the system, had to be internalized. For this purpose both regimes used all the socialization agencies they had at their disposal: family, school, and, above all, youth organizations. Perfectly internalizing the new Fascist culture, children and youth would become defenders of their political faith, ready to guarantee

Introduction 5

the regimes’ stability and continuity. Fascism and National Socialism wanted to be not mere lawgivers, but educators. They wanted to rebuild not the forms of human life, but its content.6 Mussolini projected into the future the realization of the Fascist regime and the fulfillment of the Black Shirts’ Revolution. He did not have faith in the Italians born and raised before the advent of the regime; he was aware that party activity, even though intense, could not radically change their way of being and thinking. Adults might guarantee a kind of formal and exterior consensus but not a complete adherence to Fascist ideology. The enormous attention Mussolini paid to the potential of young people was a direct consequence of his absolute lack of faith in Italy’s adult population. Adults had been irreversibly ruined by Italian liberalism; there was no hope of reforming them. Youth instead represented the hope for a better future, the transition bridge “from one epoch of civilization to another.”7 In an article published in 1938, the philosopher Alfred Hoernlé described the absence of faith in the older generations as a characteristic of all totalitarian regimes: “The middle-aged, who [grew] up in a different Weltanschauung and [were] no longer open to conviction, [were] generally left alone by these dictatorships so long as there [was] passive acquiescence and no open opposition. Death [would] in due course remove the present generation of inward dissenters, of those who [were] half-hearted and half-convinced, of doubters and critics.”8 Mussolini believed that through perseverance it would be possible to discover the most effective pedagogical system for the training of the new Italian generations in a Fascist way. The youth organizations of the regime could create, by means of long and patient work, the “new man” Mussolini desired to mould. He wanted an Italian with nothing in common with the old one. Those not born in Fascist Italy would inevitably keep within them the “world of yesterday”; only the youth born and raised under Mussolini, and thus not requiring any conversion from a previous political faith, would reveal the potentialities of the Fascist ideals, transforming a party ideology into a common culture.9 Through “a combination of indoctrination, legislation, and punitive action,” Mussolini and his followers “aimed to remold behaviors and bodies to combat domestic decadence and achieve international prestige.”10 The regeneration of the Italian people was an abiding ideal for Mussolini. In 1932, during an interview with the German journalist Emil Ludwig, the Duce explained that in his project the whole country was destined to become a great school for perpetual political education. He wanted to transform the Italian people: their habits, their way of life, their mentality, their character, and, finally, their physical makeup. Over time the regime would create a new kind of tough and strong-willed man, a fighter, a latter-day legionary of Caesar for whom nothing was impossible.11 Mussolini desired to create comrades ready to sacrifice

6

Introduction

themselves in the name of community and to replace, in the future, the Fascist political intelligentsia without altering the original ideology of the regime. Youth, according to Mussolini, were to march “toward the future . . . carrying on the Revolution and giving Italy a new spiritual mood.”12 Fascist youth activities “were intended to instill a disciplinary ethos that would become naturalized, stilling any currents of internal opposition.”13 Mussolini was far from alone in valorizing youth. Adolf Hitler also believed in youth and thought that they could determine the fate of the country. In his Mein Kampf he wrote: “Particularly our German people which today lies broken and defenseless, exposed to the kicks of all the world, needs that suggestive force that lies in self-confidence. This self-confidence must be inculcated in the young national comrade from childhood on. His whole education and training must be so ordered as to give him the conviction that he is absolutely superior to others. Through his physical strength and dexterity, he must recover his faith in the invincibility of his whole people.”14 After his rise to power, the German Führer stressed once again his conviction that only youth could transform Germany and guarantee the future of the Nazi regime. In 1933, in words reminiscent of Mussolini’s, he stated that he was “beginning with the young” because the “older ones [were] used up.” He explained: “We are rotten to the marrow. We have no unrestrained instincts left. We are cowardly and sentimental. We are bearing the burden of a humiliating past, and have in our blood the dull recollection of serfdom and servility. But my magnificent youth! Are there any finer ones anywhere in the world? Look at these young men and boys! What material! With them I can make a new world!”15 Echoing these sentiments in September 1935 at a Nuremberg party rally, Hitler proclaimed: “What we look for from our German youth is different from what people wanted in the past. In our eyes the German youth of the future must be slim and slender, swift as the greyhound, tough as leather, and hard as Krupp steel. We must educate a new type of man so that our people is not ruined by the symptoms of degeneracy of our day.”16 The exiled organization of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SOPADE) also thought that youth would be the real guarantee of National Socialist success. In a 1934 report it stated that the German youth followed the instructions of the Hitlerjugend (HJ)—the Nazi youth organization—and asked their parents to be good Nazis, giving up Marxism and reactionism, and ending contact with Jews. The youth were enthusiastic about the Nazis, the report claimed, whereas the old generations remained more skeptical. The secret of the Nazi victory would be the allegiance of the German youth.17 In short, educating the youth was, according to Fascists and Nazis, the only way to create their “new men” and fulfill the myth of a new national community. The youth, as Renato Ricci, president of the Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB)—

Introduction 7

the Italian Fascist youth organization—explained with reference to the German and Italian youth organizations, were “the strongest instrument” political leaders had at their disposal, and they were the only ones able to “keep alive the ideal tension necessary to perpetuate the revolutionary energies.”18 Opera Nazionale Balilla, Gioventù Italiana del Littorio (GIL)—the new Fascist youth organization that replaced the ONB in 1937—and Hitlerjugend were tasked with educating the youth and transforming them into fervent believers. Fascist and National Socialist regimes were, first and foremost, vast educational enterprises, “seeking to dominate and mould to [their] pattern the minds of growing youth, and fighting with all [their] power any rival claimant for this all important office.” Those dictatorships looked to the future, attempting “to conquer that future by rooting themselves securely in the minds of the growing generation.”19 Ideally, Fascists and Nazis wanted to “take the child in the cradle, and never again leave him one moment of freedom.”20 The training of youth and the development of policies toward youth were not only characteristic of the totalitarian regimes. They were not alone in emphasizing the importance of educating and shaping subsequent generations according to their political values. Around the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, in addition to groups such as the German Wander­ vögel, formed and led by youth and aimed at creating youth communities separate from—and in contrast with—the world of their fathers, there were also youth associations aimed at turning the youth into good future citizens directed by adults. Sir Robert Baden-Powell, for example, had founded the Boy Scout movement in order to develop among boys camaraderie, a spirit of self-sacrifice, and patriotism. The movement was militarist, but also recreational and educational. Baden-Powell wanted every British child to be a “brick in the wall” of the Empire. After World War I all over Europe political parties, religious denominations, and ethnic groups founded their own youth associations in order to attract new followers and proselytize their weltanschauung. These youth associations covered many different social strata, and most of them shared an emphasis on fitness, hiking, and camping. Young Socialists, pacifists, Catholics, or Zionists could all form groups to enjoy themselves and to consolidate cultural, political, and religious beliefs. Most youth organizations were not the product of young people’s initiatives but were frequently encouraged, supported, and guided by adults. Some of these youth associations were in tune with the national governments and with the prevailing political and religious trends, but others refused to accept the existing order and wished to change it. Youth organizations in totalitarian countries also aimed to change society, but, despite this aspiration that they shared with some of the youth associations of democratic and liberal countries, the dictatorships created something unique. Fascist and

8

Introduction

Nazi organizations were unwilling to deal with competing associations and, with the exception of the pugnacious Catholic youth, dispensed rapidly and without hesitation with all their rivals. ONB, GIL, and HJ were authoritarian and antipluralistic state youth organizations denying any kind of autonomy and free expression. They were not spontaneous and private initiatives, but totalitarian experiments in political and physical education aimed at creating a “new man:” the Italian “new Roman” and the German “racially pure Aryan.”21

Shaping the New Man places Fascism and National Socialism side by side and

examines the institutional structure, leadership, and goals of both Fascist and Nazi youth organizations. By dissecting their ideologies, rhetoric, and aspirations, it analyzes how Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany established training regimes aimed to influence the beliefs and behaviors of the following generations. This book is not only the first English-language monograph in almost thirty years on Italian Fascist youth organizations but it is also the first that focuses specifically on the training of youth leaders—particularly the institutions that educated them.22 Nazi youth education has been much more analyzed over the years. However, Shaping the New Man, exploring the efforts made by Fascists and Nazis to create institutions and “machineries” aimed at educating the youth leaders and focusing on the influence of Fascist pedagogical practices on those of the Nazis, offers new perspectives on the origin and evolution of the Hitler­ jugend. Despite their crucial importance, Fascist and Nazi youth leaders have always been pushed to the background in the historiography. The few books that discuss the history of the Italian Fascist youth organizations practically ignore them, while the publications concerning the Hitler Youth usually relegate their leaders to the footnotes or have just a few words to say about them, often as an incidental digression. This study will examine in detail the training and education of these crucial, but until now largely ignored, protagonists of the Fascist and Nazi regimes. Shaping the New Man is also an original contribution to the histories of Italian Fascism and German National Socialism for another reason. Unlike any other book, the present study provides a comparative and transnational analysis of youth organizations in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. 23 As a comparative study, the book looks at similarities and differences in the training processes of the youth leaders of Opera Nazionale Balilla, Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, and Hitlerjugend. As a transnational study, Shaping the New Man explores the institutional interactions and mutual cooperation that flourished between Mussolini’s and Hitler’s youth over a decade. In so doing the study shows how,

Introduction 9

through exchange programs, Italian and German youth learned from one another and developed an appreciation for the ideological affinity between Fascism and National Socialism. The book also highlights the changing relationship between Italian and German youth during this period, scrutinizes the emergence of youth organizations and youth policy as a tool for forging the Nazi “New Order,” and analyzes the final divergence of the Nazi and Fascist regimes due both to Italy’s defeat in the war and Nazi racial ideology. Shaping the New Man underscores how, in the long term, the “elective affinity” between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany turned out to be a rapport between two unequal partners and how, in the relationship with Hitler and the Hitlerjugend, Mussolini and the Fascist youth went from senior partners, to partners, to junior partners, to vassals, and, finally, to racial inferiors.

S

haping the New Man is divided into ten chapters. Chapter 1 describes the generational conflict that characterized German and Italian society between the end of the nineteenth century and the advent of World War I. It deals not only with the Italian Nationalists, the Italian Futurists, and the German Wandervögel, but also describes the attraction the Great War had for young people. The ideal “new man” the Fascists and the Nazis called for was born in the fin de siècle crisis and the muddy and putrid trenches of World War I. In order to understand what happened in the aftermath of the war, it is necessary to cast an eye at Italy and Germany before 1918. Chapter 2 explores the development of the Italian Fascist youth organization from the beginning of the 1920s until the celebration of the first Fascist decade in 1932. It explains how and why the Italian youth organization was created; it describes its structure, the closing down of the lay youth associations, and the difficult relationship the Opera Nazionale Balilla had with the Fascist Party and with Azione Cattolica (Catholic Action, AC), the widespread lay and nonpolitical Italian Catholic association, founded in 1905, that encouraged its members to live following Gospel precepts. Chapter 3 focuses on the ONB leadership. It explains why Renato Ricci decided to create an academy dedicated to the training of the upper echelons of the youth leadership. It also traces the internal organization of the Academy and dissects the goals it sought to achieve. The Accademia Fascista of the Mussolini Forum, however, was not enough to solve the acute problem of the shortage of youth leaders; it could train the ONB top leadership, but to carry out its educational mission in the field, in smaller towns and in primary schools, it was necessary to train other, lesser leaders. Therefore, the chapter ends with an analysis of how the youth organization trained young members and primary

10

Introduction

school teachers so that they could hold leading roles in the ONB. The chapter underlines how the totalitarian framework would have collapsed without a well-structured educational system such as this. In the fourth and fifth chapters the book shifts attention to Nazi Germany. Chapter 4 charts the development of the Nazi youth organization. It explores how Baldur von Schirach was able to take command of Nazi youth and how the Hitlerjugend dealt with the Catholic and Protestant youth groups. The last part of the chapter shows how the Hitler Youth sought to enhance its presence in German society. Chapter 5 examines the training of HJ youth leaders before and after the Machtergreifung (seizure of power). It highlights how von Schirach, by opening schools and organizing courses, attempted to solve the problem of the shortage of youth leaders in Germany. The chapter also underscores the similarities and differences between the Italian and the German training of the youth leadership. Chapter 6 offers an analysis of the relationship between the Opera Nazionale Balilla and the Hitlerjugend from 1933, the year of the Nazi seizure of power, to 1937, the year of the foundation of the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio. After a promising beginning, followed by a kind of cooling between 1934 and 1935, corresponding with the first failed annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany and its aftereffects, the relationship between Nazi and Fascist youth improved considerably, reaching the height of success in the years 1936–37. The chapter stresses how the meetings between ONB and HJ were occasions of mutual cultural and ideological exchange. The analysis of such interactions offers a unique angle from which to explore the complex nature of the Nazi–Fascist relationship and provides a means of appreciating the importance of Fascist and Nazi youth as ambassadors of the two regimes. Chapter 7 is devoted to the Hitlerjugend Academy of Braunschweig. It explains why von Schirach decided to create this institution, which aimed at training the elite leaders of the Hitler Youth; it explains the process followed to select the students; it touches on the first, and in practice only, course organized at the Academy in 1939; and, in the end, it underscores some differences and similarities existing between the HJ and the ONB academies. The chapter highlights how the contacts between the Opera Nazionale Balilla and the Hitlerjugend favored the creation of a very important institution in the pedagogical apparatus of the HJ. Chapter 8 explains why the Opera Nazionale Balilla was disbanded and replaced by the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio; it underscores how the new organization was a consequence of the “totalitarian acceleration” that occurred in Italy around 1938; it describes what happened in the Fascist youth organization after the approval of the “racist laws”; and it dissects the new tensions that

Introduction 11

emerged between the Vatican and the regime because of the Fascist educational monopoly. It also stresses the impact of these events on the organization of the Academy, now renamed the GIL Academy, and on the training of the youth leadership. In so doing, the chapter underscores how the Fascist youth organization, despite the changes it had to face, remained on the same path established by Renato Ricci, attempting to accomplish the ideal transformation of Italian society. Chapter 9 continues the narrative of the sixth chapter. It analyzes the relationship between the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio and the Hitlerjugend from 1938 until 1943. It describes how Ricci’s dismissal and the dissolution of the ONB disoriented the HJ leadership, and how good relations were slowly reestablished between GIL and HJ only between the end of 1938 and the beginning of 1939. The chapter analyzes the effects of World War II on the relationship between the youth organizations, describes the pan-European projects and events conceived by GIL and HJ in the framework of the “new continental order,” and explores how the conflict more generally changed the already shaky relationship between Italy and Germany. Chapter 10 seeks to understand how the Nazis and the Fascists faced the shortage of youth leaders in World War II. It describes the role played by the Academy of Braunschweig and by the GIL Academy during the conflict, and it offers an account of the activities carried out by the new Fascist youth organization, founded in the Italian Social Republic in September 1943, to train its leaders, in spite of several difficulties. The chapter shows how the Nazis and Fascists, having invested everything in their regimes, continued thinking about the education of youth even when the situation was, for them, precarious. The creation of young supporters of the regimes was important to the very end. The book concludes with a discussion of the transition from dictatorship to democracy in both Italy and Germany. Forgetting became central to postwar reconstruction and affected, in particular, the historiographical interpretation of the Italian regime. In Germany, around the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, former Hitlerjungen started writing their own autobiographies, and historians turned to oral history, asking members of the Nazi youth organization to talk about their past experiences. In Italy this process of remembrance and rediscovery was less successful. The Aftermath will explore this politics of postwar amnesia and will revisit the arguments made throughout the book.

R

eading Shaping the New Man it is necessary to bear in mind that the systems created by Fascists and Nazis to indoctrinate the Italian and the German peoples were not as perfect as their creators wanted to believe. In both Italy and Germany there were passionate enthusiasts, but there were also millions of people

12

Introduction

who did not “convert” to the new ideological credos.24 Mussolini and Hitler themselves, when World War II was shattering their dreams, had to recognize that, despite their efforts, the projects of forging a “new society” and a “new man” had failed.25 The marching and anonymous soldiers of Walt Disney’s cartoon with which we began were the ideal; reality was far more complex and far more diverse. The word and the deed were not always reconciled. Political and social historians often focus on different aspects and draw different conclusions about the nature of Fascist regimes. In Italy the work of political historians such as Emilio Gentile tends to focus on the totalitarian nature of Mussolini’s regime. By contrast social historians, such as Richard J. Bosworth and Paul Corner, argue that the ideas, words, and beliefs promoted by the Fascist propaganda machine contrasted sharply with ordinary Italians’ everyday lives.26 Bosworth, in particular, insists that the Fascist regime was a place of “multiple histories” and that the world in which the Italians lived “was a textured place, not a totalitarian one.” Italians retained their identities, even if the regime boasted that it was creating one Italy ready to believe, obey, and fight.27 The Fascist cultural revolution was incomplete, and Italians adapted the official ideology to their private needs: their behavior was not Fascisticized but superficially varnished of Fascist ideals.28 Similar arguments are also expressed by Victoria De Grazia, who in her seminal work on the Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro (the Fascist leisure-time organization) depicts Mussolini’s dictatorship as a “selective totalitarianism,” questions the all-encompassing centralization of the Fascist mass organizations under the immediate authority of the Duce, and describes the political consensus in the Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro as superficial and fragile.29 The lenses of magnification used by cultural, political, and social historians to peer at Fascist regimes are different. They look at them from different perspectives, using different sources, and highlighting those aspects that they consider to be more significant, depending on the questions in which they are interested. The personal testimonies discussed in the conclusion of this book will briefly show that, beyond the visions, intentions, and totalitarian claims, Italian and German youth lived their lives juggling between adaptation and dissent. However, Shaping the New Man has not been conceived as a social history of youth under the Fascist Lictor and the Swastika but, rather, as a new, detailed study of the ways in which Fascists and Nazis tried to fulfill their educational projects and as an analysis of their utter dedication to their pedagogical goals. The book, offering an institutional and political history of the youth organizations, and focusing in particular on the training of youth leaders, does not deal with everyday life and with the effectiveness of the Fascist and Nazi educational systems in instilling their spirit and values in the youth. We remain aware that

Introduction 13

the uomo nuovo and the neuer Mensch remained unattained ideals, and in the following chapters we will try to understand why the Fascists and the Nazis remained so extraordinarily committed to their training regimes. Shaping the New Man offers an analysis of how the educational machineries actually worked in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. In addition it stresses the pioneering work carried out by Mussolini’s regime in the sphere of youth education and the influence of this work on the Germans, highlighting the interactions and the cooperation that existed for more than a decade between the two countries. Finally, it is concerned with the aspirations of both regimes with respect to the shaping of loyal and obedient subjects.

1 A Generational Apocalypse B

efore becoming a playwright, Frank Wedekind had fought against his authoritarian father, who wanted him to become a lawyer. His fierce struggle resulted in Wedekind’s banishment from home. In 1891 he wrote his first play, Frühlings Erwachen (Spring’s Awakening), at the age of twenty-seven. The play was based on his own experience dealing with the conflicts between adolescent desires and adult expectations. Spring’s Awakening was the first of many German dramas presenting a sympathetic view of the rebellion of the younger generation against the older.1 At the end of the nineteenth century many youth stood up against their fathers and against the society in which they were living, expressing their own ideas. They were rebels, and their rebellion would continue into the first decades of the twentieth century. The Italian Nationalists, the Futurists, the Wandervögel, and the young volunteers who enlisted in Germany in 1914 and Italy in 1915 were all inspired by the same desire: they wanted to revolutionize society. They wanted to be active agents of change; they wanted to create a “new era” and a “new man.” The paradox is that from the cultural climate produced by this active youth arose two dictatorships that attempted to turn the new generations into passive receptors of totalitarian ideology.

European Decadence? At the turn of the twentieth century European society seemed to be confident and optimistic about the future. The glorification of modern civilization was embodied by the Universal Exposition, the celebration of science, machines, and technology that was inaugurated in Paris on April 14, 1900. The most important building was the Palais de l’Electricité, which, shining by night together with the Eiffel Tower, symbolized the triumph of reason, progress, science, and knowledge. At the beginning of the twentieth century, civilization was a synonym 14



A Generational Apocalypse

15

of modernity, and modernity was a synonym of Europe. However, several intellectuals saw, alongside the achievements of modern civilization, the worrying shadows of an advancing decadence that were blurring the splendor of the triumphant modernity epitomized by the Paris exposition.2 Several scientists, philosophers, historians, scholars, criminologists, medical experts, and artists spoke about the degeneration of European civilization, now approaching its “sunset.” They were convinced that civilizations were bound to follow a predetermined cycle: birth, growth, flowering, and decadence. As history showed, thriving civilizations had always been supplanted, at a certain point, by others. Many European intellectuals were afraid that, after the full flowering of the nineteenth century, the decadence of the twentieth century would begin. Paul Verlain perfectly synthesized this fin de siècle atmosphere in his famous words: “Je suis l’Empire à la fin de la decadence” (I am the Empire at the end of the decadence).3 The publication and the success of Max Nordau’s Degeneration (1892), a book about the moral and psychological evils afflicting the European peoples and corrupting their physical and moral sanity, was emblematic of the self-perception of some European intellectuals of that time. Nordau, a Hungarian Zionist physician, considered the European man a neurotic barbarian, unable to face modernity. Industrialization, technology, urbanization, mass society, and bureaucratization were disorienting the Europeans. Everything was changing too quickly, causing anxieties and doubts about the future. The new century would be different. It would be faster. But would it be possible to maintain such a fast pace? Would it be possible to support the weight of progress? Or was the “European Empire” running dangerously on the verge of the slide? The nineteenth century had been a new renaissance. What would the twentieth century be? After having written one of the most important chapters of human history, were the Europeans ready to repeat and better themselves? Beside the celebration of the 1900 expo, emerged then a generalized fear, a generalized malaise, further worsened by an increasing mistrust toward science. Scientists acknowledged their own limits and went so far as to deny the possibility of understanding and analyzing all the phenomena of the universe. They tolled the bell of the failure of positivism to give a full and accurate account of reality. Modernity was chaotic, and the “modern man” was puzzled by such a chaos. Several European intellectuals—including Henri-Louis Bergson, Georges Eugène Sorel, Jules Henri Poincaré, Sigmund Freud, Maurice Blondel, Max Weber, Gaetano Mosca, and Vilfredo Pareto—called into question the possibility of achieving any kind of “sure knowledge.”4 As a reaction to the failure of scientific rationality, new irrational philosophical currents emerged, exalting instinct, intuition, imagination, violence, and strength. The herald of this new trend had been Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche.5

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In his The Birth of Tragedy (1872) the German philosopher had criticized the “modern man,” the “theoretical man,” and had announced the necessity of a “new man,” able to face with determination the “new era.” He thought that the “apocalypse of modernity” was near. The final conflict between the man of the European tradition and the modern man was about to explode, generating a new Übermensch (overman) able to live in the new world. In Also sprach Zarathustra (1885), Nietzsche wrote: “Oh my brothers, do not look behind you any more, but only forward! Love the country of your children: this love will be your noble future! And through your children you will pardon yourselves for having been the sons of your fathers.”6 The reputation of the mad philosopher, who died on August 25, 1900, spread all over the European continent. In Germany and in other European countries he became a myth, an object of worship. Many youth, imbued with his ideas, considered him their own prophet. They thought of themselves as the incarnation of the “new man”; they felt they were different from their fathers, stronger than them, and therefore intent on replacing them. In the face of the specter of decadence “the young could easily be seen—and come to see themselves—as a creative resource from which renewal and rebellion would come.”7 Many educated youth saw themselves as freestanding entities, clearly distinct from the previous generation. They became aware of the cultural hiatus existing between their world and the world of their parents and grandparents, and contributed to “the creation and diffusion of the myth of the youth and the cult of youthfulness.”8

Italian Nationalists and Futurists At the turn of the twentieth century there arose in Italy a young generation of antiliberal and antisocialist intellectuals.9 Some of them were journalists for the so-called Riviste Fiorentine, a group of Florentine journals aimed at renewing Italian culture and national customs; others were members of the most iconoclastic group active in the country: the Futurists.10 These juvenile avant-gardes painted Italy as a victim, as a spineless nation, as a country dominated by weak politicians who had long ago given up on national greatness.11 The Futurists, along with the Italian Nationalists, considered the Italian political system a corrupted form of parliamentary dictatorship. They both “projected an ethos of intense distaste for the ‘smallness’ of the liberal era into which they had been born.”12 They believed in the “struggle of the healthy and vitalist youth against the corrupt and senescent old men.” They were convinced they possessed “the ethical values and moral qualities needed to bring about a mental revolution that would be the premise and condition of a political revolution.”13



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17

In 1904 Giuseppe Prezzolini, a prominent representative of this new nationalist generation, wrote that the Italian Parliament was “a lucrative academy.” The Italian deputies were five hundred rhetoricians used to make useless speeches. He explained that Italy did not move forward because of ministers and civil servants, but in spite of them. Italian politicians were “ballast” and Montecitorio—the Italian Parliament—was “the heaviest of the Italian weights.” For Prezzolini there existed two opposed “Italies.” On one side, there was the state, the “superficial,” the “exterior manifestation” of Italy. On the other, there was the nation, the “vital part” of Italy. One was “decadent, oratorical, intellectual, the other forward-looking, active, and creative.” Italy’s problem was that the decadent “first Italy” was still dominant, whereas the emerging “second Italy” was inchoate. Prezzolini thought that the role of the new generation was to “burn” and “brighten”; they were to destroy the first Italy and thus allow the second to blossom.14 This attitude was a consequence of the “post-risorgimental delusion” of the younger Italian generations who thought that the Risorgimento had been betrayed, that it had been an incomplete revolution. Moreover, the ruling class, represented by Giovanni Giolitti, the “parliamentary dictator,” was corrupt and unable to fulfill the national interests.15 The young Italian Nationalists could not accept parliamentary compromises, political patronage, or corruption. If young intellectuals in France had been shocked by the defeat of 1870, in Italy they expressed a vague but real resentment against the “post Risorgimento’s decadent caricature of the Risorgimento’s promise.”16 The defeats at Lissa and Custoza during the Third Italian War of Independence (1866), and the more serious defeats at Dogali (1887) and Adua (1896) inflicted by the Ethiopian Army, revealed the weakness of the country.17 Adua, in particular, was considered the nadir of modern Italian history. Italian honor had been deeply wounded. The “dismaying softness of modern Italians” had to be “replaced by sterner stuff.”18 The young Nationalists felt that Italy did not have to be inferior to the other European colonial powers anymore. Young intellectuals played a major role in developing new forms of radical nationalism. Overseas expansionism and national grandeur had to replace the ideal of liberty and the principle of nationality. Such young militants thought that Italy should become a major player on the international scene. The liberal ruling class had failed: it was time for a revolution that would create the “new state” and the “new man.” The last Italian territories in the hands of the Austrians, Trento and Trieste, had to be retaken; Italy had to follow the example of the German Weltpolitik. This peculiar form of nationalism has been called “modernist nationalism.” It was “the product of the myth of a Greater Italy and of the enthusiasm for modernity.” These young Nationalists considered

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A Generational Apocalypse

modernity “an epoch of social and technical transformations dominated by the struggle between nations for the conquest of world supremacy.” Modernist nationalism was the expression of a generational revolt, of the aspirations of the young intellectuals who wanted to play a role in national politics.19 Enrico Corradini, one of the most important representatives of the Italian Nationalists, and founder in 1910 of the Italian Nationalist Association, thought that the national awakening could be attained by overcoming two obstacles: Socialism and the bourgeois ruling class. The bourgeoisie was greedy and unable to serve the myth of national greatness. It was fearful and absorbed in its own interests. It could not control and educate the masses. In the end, it had not been able to withstand the advances made by the Partito Socialista Italiano (Italian Socialist Party, PSI) and had betrayed the fatherland. 20 The Italian Nationalists thought that young people had to take the lead in the struggle against the workers movement and in the rejection of the weakness and soft heartedness of the bourgeoisie, who were too prone to accept collaboration with the Socialists.21 Giovanni Papini, another nationalist intellectual, declared that Socialism was evil, liberalism was impotent, and imperialism would be the only alternative to a revolution from the left. Socialists were strong enough to imperil and defeat the Italian elite. There were too many “progressive” liberals who were trying to come to terms with the “red” enemies. Such liberals were the most dangerous traitors of the nation. The country had to move toward a new era of greatness based on imperialism, patriotism, antisocialism, and antihumanitarianism.22 The Nationalists saw themselves as a rising generation ready to fulfill the dreams of the betrayed Risorgimento.23 The Futurists, under the leadership of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, also attacked Italian political and cultural elites. They asserted the urgency of “cleaning” society and of giving space to audacious youth, divesting the old generation of its authority. Futurists were artists and scholars, self-proclaiming bearers of a new aristocratic ethics. For them, Italy had to reject its humiliating past and present, ride the wave of modernity, and project itself toward an aggressive and imperialist future.24 In the manifesto of the movement Marinetti stated that the Futurists wanted “to exalt movements of aggression . . . the blow with the fist.” They wanted “to glorify war—the only cure for the world—and militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill.” But they also wanted “to demolish museums and libraries” and “fight morality.”25 Ultimately, the young Futurists longed for a political and cultural tabula rasa. They wanted to sweep away past and present, and hoped that a new age could dawn. Italian Nationalists and Futurists were heralds of the so-called Italianismo. They were convinced not only that Italy was destined to play a leading role in



A Generational Apocalypse

19

the twentieth century, but also that only war and violence could unite the country under the leadership of a new political class. They were persuaded that there was no time to waste; the possibility of regenerating society would vanish with their youth, as Marinetti wrote in Le Figarò on February 20, 1909: “Grasp picks, axes and hammers and demolish, demolish, demolish without mercy the revered cities. Among us the oldest are in their thirties: we have only a decade to fulfill our work. When we are forty, other men, younger and stronger, will throw us into a wastepaper basket, as useless manuscripts.”26 The Futurists were fascinated by speed, movement, machines, airplanes, thundering noises, and the frenzy of the modern cities. Living in a country where the industrialization process was still in its infancy, they longed for a new era dominated by technology. They thought that the liberal Italian elites were afraid of modernity and that the triumph of a new technological era would coincide with their definitive disappearance.27 In Germany, by contrast, the strongest industrial, economic, commercial, and military power of Europe at the end of the nineteenth century, there emerged a youth movement characterized by a marked antimodernist attitude: the Wandervögel (“migratory birds”).28

The Wandervögel The movement appeared as a reaction against industrialization and urbanization. Youth coming from middle-class urban families joined the new movement founded in Berlin (Steglitz) in 1897 by Hermann Hoffmann, a young philosophy student. In 1901 the movement was an association spread all over the country but particularly active in Brandenburg, Thuringia, Lower Saxony, and Hesse. In 1914 the movement had more than twenty-five thousand members in some eight hundred local branches. It was not, however, a united movement: there were several competing leagues. All of them had the firm intention of changing German society, challenging its vices (like alcohol and smoking), repudiating modern urban culture, and promoting the rediscovery of German traditions. The “migratory birds” took flight from the “asphalt culture” of the large cities, opposed the materialistic view of the world, and showed a passionate love for nature. They plunged into the primitive and searched for communion with simple folk. They studied the past of the nation.29 They tramped and hiked, exploring the intimate charm of the landscape and the forgotten villages and farms, discovering rustic arts, handicrafts, and folklore. They came back into contact with the world and mentality of country folk their fathers or grandfathers had left.30 The Wandervögel wanted to escape from the weak and pathetic world of the bourgeoisie and wanted to have “their own realm, their own teachers,

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A Generational Apocalypse

their own organizational form, their own dress, their own music, their own mores, and their own values.”31 The Wandervögel movement was not radical or politicized. They proposed a conservative revolution; they were against the modern and industrial Gesellschaft (society), and wanted to go back to an ideal, mythologized, and rural Gemeinschaft (community). They opposed “the materialism and the bourgeois complacency that characterized the new German Empire’s rapid industrialization.”32 The German “migratory birds” longed for a radical national rebirth. They rose up against social conventions, against the traditional school system, against the authoritarian state, against oppressive families—in short, against everything that could hamper their autonomy and spontaneity.33 The desire for independence by German youth found expression in excursions, summer camps, dancing around flaring bonfires, physical exercises, music, and songs. The Wandervögel viewed nudism, sunbathing, and outdoor dancing as antidotes to any kind of social oppression.34 They thought that in this way they could escape from the hypocrisy of the adult world and lay the foundation for a better Germany.35 In the beginning girls were excluded, although after 1907 some groups invited them to attend their excursions. Thus, the Wandervögel movement was almost exclusively a male movement for youth between twelve and eighteen years of age, led by leaders barely much older. The social and gender solidarity among them often resulted in homoerotic friendships.36 In October 1913 at Hohe Meissner, near Kassel (Hesse), at least three thousand “migratory birds” contested the official ceremonies of the centenary of the Battle of the Nations against Napoleon, considered the birth of the new German nation. The young people, who had gathered on this mountain, called themselves Freie Deutsche Jugend (Free German Youth) and pledged to create an autonomous Jugendkultur, free of all adult authority, and promised to mold their lives in the name of determination, responsibility, and truth for the good of the German nation. The youth who had wandered together, who had sung together, who had danced together, felt they were strongly united under the umbrella of the Deutsches Vaterland.

Youth and War Experience Eight months after the Hohe Meissner meeting, the Great War broke out. Several Wandervögel took part at the parades of July and August 1914. They marched together with their leaders, sang patriotic songs, and volunteered to “fly” toward the battlefields.37 Members of the bourgeois youth movement devoted themselves so enthusiastically to the war effort because they considered the conflict a great opportunity: first, to obtain their eagerly awaited personal



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independence; second, for personal growth and a chance to develop their personalities; and third, to leave their ordinary and oppressive lives behind.38 In 1914 fighting a war still had an aura of fear and courage. Its violent nature was still believed to be the true touchstone of a man.39 War was a rite of passage, a “male baptism,” as the writer Otto Braun explained in his diary after he had volunteered for the German Army: “I believe that this war is a challenge for our time and for each individual, a test by fire, that we may ripen into manhood, and become men able to cope with the coming stupendous years and events.”40 War gave youth a goal, a meaning. A number of young men volunteered because of their sense of duty or because they thought it was the best way to show their patriotism. Many youth, especially in the youth movement, believed that war would move German society away from bourgeois materialism, greed, and egotism, back to humility, sacrifice, comradeship, and courage.41 The declaration of war created “unanimity of fate.” It “effaced the boundaries of individuality and privacy” making “possible a more intense and immediate sociability.”42 The war, as a purifying fire, would regenerate individuals and nations, creating a better world. It would bring the renewal prophesied by Nietzsche.43 Such enthusiasm for war was not typical only of the German youth.44 A special kind of war excitement flared up all over Europe. In this context, therefore, the proclamation of Italian neutrality on August 2, 1914, was a disappointment for many young Italian intellectuals of different political orientations. They considered Italian participation an inescapable choice. Some democrats, like the historian Gaetano Salvemini, thought that war was the only way to liquidate the last vestiges of the Habsburg empire and fulfill Mazzini’s dream of a European continent formed by free and democratic countries. Others, like the nationalist writer Ardengo Soffici, considered war the only way to teach the German empire a lesson. Still others with nationalist inclinations, such as Prezzolini and the Triestine writer Scipio Slataper, felt that Italy had no choice: if it wanted to become a great European power, it had to take to the field. But, above all, the greatest portion of these young intellectuals thought that the war could be a once-in-a-life-time opportunity to destroy Giolitti’s regime and open the way toward a new future.45 For the younger Italian generation war and violence were the only way to sweep away a society they completely rejected. They wanted to purge “Italy of every smallness, laziness, corruption, and cowardice through a war that would spill blood as in a purification ritual.”46 In Papini’s words, the coming of the world war represented a “tithe of the soul for the recleansing of the earth . . . a warm bath of black blood.”47 In March 1915 a young interventionist, Paolo Marconi, wrote in his diary: “We come out of a generation of bastards who failed to make Italy and did not know how to make Italians. Down with the old men!. . . . The new generation enters upon the

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scene with a new spirit and intends to lead a new life.”48 The myth of national regeneration pushed thousands of young students to take to the streets in the so-called radiose giornate (bright days) of May 1915, demonstrating in favor of the war. On May 23, 1915, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary.49 However, for Italy the war was not only an occasion of “national rebirth.” The interventionists thought it could also be a test to prove the maturity of the young Italian nation. The conflict would be the “rite of passage” of the entire Italian society from adolescence to adulthood.50 Changing society was seen as a necessity not only by Nationalists and Futurists, but also by many young Italian Socialists. The best interpreter of this need was Benito Mussolini, director since 1912 of the Socialist mouthpiece Avanti! He wanted to renew Italian Socialism but did not believe in the Marxist idea of revolution as the result of a long and complex historical process. Rather, it was an “act of faith” carried out by a small number of strong believers. He was persuaded that it was necessary to launch a more aggressive and frontal attack against the bourgeois state. Step one, though, was a generational struggle within the Socialist Party. The collision between old and young Socialists let to a conflict between the moderate wing and the revolutionary one, between the riformisti and the massimalisti. The first wanted to reform Italian society gradually and cooperate, for the time being, with the liberal ruling class; the latter wanted to change Italian society by means of violent revolution. Mussolini, as leader of the Italian Federation of Socialist Youth, was against the riformisti.51 He thought that they wanted to introduce the proletariat to the bourgeois system, abandoning the revolutionary spirit.52 In 1912, at the Congress of Reggio Emilia, the revolutionary faction led by Mussolini, which had become the dominant faction of the PSI, overcame the moderate one. As a result, a number of riformisti were expelled from the party.53 If the reformists still believed in the coming of Socialism through a phase of progressive democracy, Mussolini was of the opinion that the Italian Socialists would only be wasting their time. The world would not progress by itself. Only a revolution would change it.54 Not by chance, when war broke out, the revolutionary Socialists, the Futurists, and the Nationalists were on the same interventionist side. The Great War created the conditions that allowed the idea of generation to become an ideological weapon that could unite all young people under the same banner. War was an opportunity to speed up the assumption of power by a new elite.55 At first Mussolini supported the neutralist position of the Socialist Party, but then he understood the contradiction existing between his thinking and his actions. He understood that this war could be the beginning of the revolution he desired. Expelled from the PSI in fall 1914 because of his support for intervention in the war, Mussolini decided to jettison any kind of ideological conditioning and emerged as one of the most active leaders of the interventionist movement, as



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we can read in an article he published in 1915 in his new newspaper, Il Popolo d’Italia: “I do not care about the wicked and about idiots. Let the first remain in their filth, and the last choke in their intellectual nullity. I go ahead! Taking up the march after a brief pause, it is to you, oh young people of Italy, to whom I direct my appeal. Young people from the factories and from the universities, young of age and young of spirit, young people who belong to the generation destined to ‘make’ history, it is to you whom I direct my invitation: . . . War!”56 Only during the conflict itself did many youth, packed off to war “with flowers in their rifles and patriotic songs on their lips,” come to realize that the conflict, the “rite of passage” they longed for, was in reality an incommensurable tragedy.57 In Ernst Toller’s words: “Instead of heroes, there were only victims; conscripts instead of volunteers. . . . All of us were cogs in a great machine which sometimes rolled forward, nobody knew where, sometimes backward, nobody knew why. We had lost our enthusiasm, our courage, the very sense of our identity.”58 The “1914 ecstasy” turned into distress, fear, desperation, and death. The purifying fire became a destructive blaze that left behind ruins and corpses. The enthusiasm of callow youth faded prematurely. Apathy, resignation, indifference, barbarization, and repudiation of war became widespread. The war of position in the trenches frayed their nerves. It entailed disease, hunger, frost, stenches, lice, lack of sleep, laments, and tears. They were oppressed by the technology of the war (machine guns, panzers, airplanes, artillery, poisonous gases, and flamethrowers), but also by their officers. In the face of all this, many soldiers had only one desire: peace.59 But if some people considered the war horror, catastrophe, brutalization, fear, loss of innocence and sensitivity, there were others who still looked at it as an opportunity, a privilege, and a revelation. Toward the war experience there was an ambivalent attitude. If some were disillusioned, others were enthusiastic about the years they spent in the trenches.60 Ernst Jünger, a German soldier and writer, well-known for his book about the Great War, Storm of Steel, in spite of the horrors he witnessed and the scars he bored on his body and on his mind, maintained his enthusiasm for the war up to the final exhausting days of the conflict.61 Many youth—especially officers—thought that such a bloodbath had been an epochal watershed that had projected the whole of mankind toward a new era. When war ended, those young soldiers did not cast aside their weapons; they tried to realize the revolutionary myths that had matured in the trenches. They had acquired a liking for command, they wanted to assume political leadership, and they wanted to lead their comrades and transform their generational apocalypse into a national palingenesis, and their country into an uncharted future.62 Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz, a German veteran, maintained that the war did not end in 1918. He wrote: “Those people told us the war was over.

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A Generational Apocalypse

That was a laugh. We ourselves are the war: Its flame burns strongly in us. It envelops our whole being and fascinates us with the enticing urge to destroy. We obeyed . . . and marched onto the battlefields of the post-war world just as we had gone into battle on the western front.”63 And in June 1919 Giuseppe Bottai, born in 1895 and destined to become one of the most important representatives of the Fascist regime, wrote similarly: “The war, as far as we are concerned, did not end on November 4, 1918. The signatures on scraps of paper (coming from either Anglo-Saxon or Latin pulp) are of no interest to us. We know that peace can be built on the vigilant, firm, tireless will of us fighting men. Let’s go into the streets. We feel that our duty is to not remain quiet but to yell, to scream into the ears of this sleepy and forgetful country . . . We cannot renounce politics. It is our duty, our daily bread.”64 The Great War, as Eric J. Leed once put it, had been the “first holocaust,” and those who had internalized the war, “its peculiar relationship between victims and victimizers,” were destined to play a major role in the postwar political brutalization.65 For many soldiers “the war remained the decisive formative experience of their lives and they were unable to free themselves from its spell. Their experience in the liminal, troglodyte world of the trenches scarred and embittered them and made their reintegration into civilian society difficult.” They were “men unable or unwilling to demobilize psychologically.”66 The Freikorps (Free Corps), officers and men who continued fighting in Germany between 1919 and 1921 against the Bolsheviks and against the Poles, carried the wartime traditions, and the wartime camaraderie, into the Weimar Republic.67 Becoming a member of the Freikorps was, however, only one of the possible outcomes of the front experience. The youth who had faced the war interpreted such a terrible event in very different ways. Some people were weakened; some others were strengthened by the conflict. Some people drifted toward the Right, others toward the Left. Some savored the taste of war; others became fervent pacifists. Some fell into a terrible state of depression; others thought they had to live for those who died. Some became more compassionate, others crueler. We cannot identify a unitary pattern of responses. But the war surely did one thing. It fortified and spread the consciousness of a new generation, and it created a remarkable sense of rupture with the past. It changed the identity of the soldiers.68 All those “who lived through the war could never rid themselves of the belief that one world had ended and another begun.” They felt that a new world came into being there, “amid the fire and flame” of the Great War.69 The “new man” Italian and German youth had called for came out from the trenches of World War I. But if the Nazis had to wait until 1933 to start their revolution, the Fascists began their attack against the Italian liberal system as soon as the war ended.

2 Organizing the Youth in Fascist Italy M

any young Italian survivors came back from the battlefields persuaded that the Great War had been the beginning of a new age. They had survived a great ordeal and believed that because of this they had achieved a more important place in Italian society. They saw themselves as members of a new “war aristocracy” whose mission was to regenerate the nation by means of radical political and institutional changes. After having fought against the Central Powers, it was necessary to continue fighting against the “internal enemies”: against the prewar liberal elite and against the antinational Socialists. Mussolini’s Fascists, one of the most important groups to emerge in Italy after the Great War to assert veterans’ rights, attacked what they took to be the senescence of “liberal Italy” and wanted to rejuvenate the nation, casting out the old establishment. Elizabeth Harvey has argued that Italian Fascism seemed “to fit the characterization of a ‘revolt of youth’”; it was the result of a heterogeneous combination of young veterans, Futurists, and university students who considered themselves the “shock troops of the nation.” The growth and success of Fascism from 1920 onward was largely brought about by the violent actions of young men, sponsored by landowners who admired their zeal “for intimidating, beating up, and killing.”1 Once Benito Mussolini had come to power, youth were needed to guarantee the success of the Revolution. No longer did they have to fight against values and enemies of the old liberal regime; instead they had to be tools of the new regime, educated and indoctrinated according to Fascist ideology. They were the future of the regime, the guarantee of its existence, and therefore could no longer be antisystemic rebels. Fascist youth, after having enjoyed a certain degree of power and freedom at the beginning of the Black Shirts’ movement, suddenly found themselves to be followers of a preconceived party ideology. According to the Fascist leadership, youth were compelled to accept the truths imposed by 25

26



Organizing the Youth in Fascist Italy

the regime, doomed to assimilate values foisted by a preordained training system.

From Movement to Party In the beginning of March 1919 Mussolini wrote an article in Il Popolo d’Italia inviting the “representatives of new Italy” to take part in the foundation of a new political movement: the Fasci di Combattimento (Fighting Fasces). On March 23 the first official Fascist meeting took place in Piazza San Sepolcro in Milan. It was a small rally of veterans of various ideological tendencies.2 The meeting was attended by some students who thought that Mussolini could take care of their interests and treat them as potential partners and political interlocutors.3 The political program worked out during the San Sepolcro meeting called for progressive social reforms and blended nationalism, antisocialism, antimonarchism, and anticlericalism. The Fasci did not see themselves representing a specific social class but rather an amalgam of classes bound by a common mentality that combined nationalist and Socialist ideas and that demanded a purification of politics and the renewal of national customs. Italy needed new talents and new energy in order to complete the “national revolution” begun with the war intervention of 1915. Giuseppe Bottai wrote in 1919 that the “young veterans were convinced of being the salt of the new Italy.” They knew that they had to change everything “even though they did not know how.”4 A generational clash between those youth who wanted to knock down the existing sociopolitical system and the liberal elite, which was trying strenuously to defend it, was under way.5 Several young survivors, disappointed by liberalism and parliamentarism, could have been a rich soil for Socialist propaganda, but the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), because of its antinational attitude and because of its hostility and mistrust toward all former soldiers, was not able to seize this opportunity. Mussolini instead convinced some of these disoriented youth to join the Fascist movement, claiming it was the only organization suitable for representing the communauté d’empreinte created by the war.6 Between March and April 1919, high school and university students contributed to the creation of the first Fascist groups all over Italy.7 The political movement desired by Mussolini rode the “youth myth.” “Youth” was a social category, but also a political slogan that merged the aspirations of the veterans with the aspirations of a larger social coalition that was seeking a third way between socialism and liberalism.8 Many Italian youth, survivors or not, were convinced that they were a well-defined social entity, qualitatively and ideologically different from the society of the doddering “liberal state.”9 Fascism was able to attract the youth of the trenches and of the schools because, as



Organizing the Youth in Fascist Italy

27

Mussolini explained, in the Fasci there was “not the mildew of the old ideas, the venerable beard of the old men, the hierarchy of conventional values,” but youthfulness, impetuousness, and faith.10 Like the prewar Nationalists and Futurists, Fascists thought that young people possessed special regenerative qualities. They were not corrupted; they were not governed by mere material interests; they were inspired by pure ideals; and they were the only ones able to build a really “new” future for the Italian nation. The youth thought that the prewar leaders, who did not experience “the hellish world of the trenches,” had to stand aside.11 As a young Fascist, Mario Piazzesi, wrote in June 1920, Fascism seemed to be pure air for those who, coming of age on the battlefields, were not able to understand anymore the behavior of the old rulers.12 However, to be Fascist and to fight against the Socialists on the streets it was not necessary to have been a combatant. The Fascist movement also accepted as members those who for legitimate reasons had been unable to participate in the war, such as those who were too young to have taken part in the conflict. They considered the Fascist war against the national enemies a surrogate of the war experience, an opportunity to demonstrate their juvenile vigor against the representatives of the workers’ organizations.13 These very young people, attracted by the “myth of war,” now had the opportunity to become protagonists of the national “rebirth.” The myth of the Great War, in fact, not only attracted those who had gone through this experience but also their younger “brothers.” Fighting, suffering, and surviving in the trenches soared to epic heights. The Great War became a myth in itself, a meaningful and sacred event. Such a myth arose to legitimize the war experience and conceal what the war had really been. The war was refashioned into a sacred and mythical experience with its own saints and martyrs.14 All those who took part in the conflict, all those who died, all those who survived, became some kind of mythical heroes. And their sons and brothers thought they could achieve their own glory and become part of this mythical experience, fighting in paramilitary groups, such as the Italian Fascist squads (squadre).15 The political mobilization of the Italian students in 1919 was favored by a strong revival of patriotic and irredentist feelings. The old political elites, according to the students, were demonstrating their inadequacies at the negotiating table in Versailles. In several Italian universities and high schools, demonstrations took place in support of the annexation to Italy of Fiume and Dalmatia. Between April and May the refusal of these Italian demands at the peace conference in Paris led to further protests. In September, two months before the first Italian postwar elections, many youth followed Gabriele D’Annunzio in his march to Fiume, seizing control of the city by force and thereby repudiating European and American diplomacy.16

28



Organizing the Youth in Fascist Italy

The first postwar elections took place on November 16, 1919. The old liberal groups that had ruled the country for six decades lost out to both the Socialist Party (the PSI, which had now become the largest Italian party), and the Partito Popolare Italiano (Italian Popular Party, PPI), founded a few months before the election with the support of the Vatican in order to oppose the Socialist advance. The Fascist movement made little headway. With only five thousand votes, it proved to have a very marginal role in national political life.17 On January 20, 1920, two months after the electoral debacle of the Fasci, a group of Fascist Milanese students decided to establish its own organization. The association, named Avanguardia Studentesca (Student Vanguard, AS), gathered high school and university students with the goal of promoting Fascism and countering Socialist and Catholic students, teachers, and professors. Groups affiliated with the AS arose in several Milanese schools. One month later a Fascist Avanguardia Studentesca was established in Pavia, and on March 12, 1920, a student, Luigi Freddi, was appointed as first general secretary of all the Avanguardie Studentesche branches. The idea was to transform the AS, a local organization, into a national one. Under the spur of Milan and Pavia, between March and April four other Avanguardie were established in Parma, Genoa, Cremona, and Verona. In April the secretary invited all Italian students who supported the Fascist ideals and were eager to found new sections of the movement to contact the Milanese Avanguardia.18 In May 1920 the second Fascist National Congress was organized in Milan. The aim of the meeting was to understand if Fascism was recovering from the electoral blow of 1919. According to the Fascist representatives, the movement was particularly active among the students. By that time the AS had been established in thirteen towns, and another three sections were about to be opened. At the congress, together with every delegate of the Fighting Fasces there were two representatives of the Avanguardie. This was a clear sign of the importance they had inside the movement. In many towns the AS had more members than the Fasces, and they were considered the propelling force of the movement.19 When the National Congress ended, the representatives of the AS got together for their own first national meeting. On this occasion they reasserted their complete support for the Fascist program and promised to undertake a no-holdsbarred fight against Catholic and Socialist students.20 If Fascism was slow to generate substantial support, Socialism seemed to forge ahead, worrying the Italian middle class, afraid that the Socialists were preparing the revolution.21 In 1919–20 the “red leagues,” the agrarian Socialist unions aspiring to abolish private property, occupied various land tenures. Landowners, local governments, and the state were impotent against them. After having suffered passively, many landowners, farmers, and tenants decided



Organizing the Youth in Fascist Italy

29

to break the power of the agrarian leagues, funding private organizations to repress them. The Fascists, who were having a difficult time after the election of 1919, seized this opportunity and transformed themselves into defenders of the landed bourgeoisie.22 Groups formed by youth and war veterans gathered around the local Fasces and went into action. Riding the rising antisocialist wave, the Fascist movement, established and developed in the cities and towns of northern Italy, rapidly changed its nature, becoming the guardian of “agrarian capitalism.”23 Having inflicted the first defeats against the Socialists, Fascists attracted an increasing number of young supporters spurred on by patriotism and the spirit of adventure. They were looking for new channels of political and social advance and considered the punitive expeditions against the Socialists a way to continue the national regeneration begun in the trenches a few years before. Those youth, together with former soldiers, between 1920 and 1921 gave life to the socalled Fascismo agrario (agrarian Fascism), a brutal middle-class movement that Mussolini controlled with difficulty. Not only were the members of the AS in towns and cities young, but so were several members of agrarian Fascism. In a short time the Po Valley, epicenter of the Socialist revolt, filled up with new Fascist groups. The nationalist and antisocialist “agrarian Fascists” wanted to protect their own class interests, putting aside the radical program of 1919 and concentrating on an exclusive and ruthless fight against the Socialists. Landowners and businessmen eagerly financed the Fascist squads.24 Fascist rural triumphs were the result of the use of violence.25 However, for Mussolini the success obtained by the action squads was not enough. He knew that agrarian Fascism was the sum of disconnected local initiatives, and he was convinced that once the Fascist Squadre d’Azione (Action Squads) had marginalized the “red danger,” they would be dismissed by the landowners and the liberal ruling class. Thus, to guarantee a successful future, Mussolini and the leading Milanese group that supported him decided to transform the chaotic Fascist movement into a modern mass party.26 Mussolini had to face those who did not share his “parliamentarian strategy.” The local leaders of agrarian Fascism, also known as ras, and their followers, most of them quite young, did not think Fascism had to fit in with the system. On the contrary, they wanted to subvert it. They thought that Fascism was not a party, but a revolution that was trying to create a new state, changing the rotten and agonizing Italian society and sweeping away the enslaved and cowardly authority of the liberal state.27 While Mussolini was striking up relations with traditional political and economic elites, and while agrarian Fascism was disapproving of these moves, the AS, though not enthusiastic about collaborating with “the cowards, the pacifists, the fakers, and the bureaucrats of the Parliament of Rome,”28 thought that

30



Organizing the Youth in Fascist Italy

they had to support Mussolini, guaranteeing the unity of the Fascist movement.29 Thus, even though not particularly pleased, the AS did not oppose the creation of the so-called blocchi nazionali (national blocks) for the elections of May 1921.30 The AS realized that temporary compromises would be necessary to achieve the ultimate aim: national rebirth. They convinced themselves that, by obtaining seats in Parliament, it would be easier to overturn the institutions from the inside. The Fascist movement, even though officially acknowledged by the liberal elite, did not abandon its illegal methods. During the electoral campaign, intimidation and violence against political opponents escalated. The electoral results disappointed the liberal elites, while Fascists could celebrate the entrance of their first thirty-five representatives, led by Mussolini, into Parliament. After the election Bolshevism did not seem to be a menace anymore. The Fascist movement did not have to be simply a radical opponent of Socialists and Communists; rather, it had to become a political party interested in order, justice and the well-being of all social classes. Given this new strategic goal, Mussolini decided to accept the “truce” promoted by the new prime minister, Ivanoe Bonomi, to stop definitively the civil war between Socialists and Fascists, signing in August 1921 the Appeasement Pact (Patto di Pacificazione) with the PSI. Fascists and Socialists committed themselves to disband their paramilitary squads. The AS decided to support this pact; they thought it could relaunch a new project of national rebirth overcoming the local interests of the agrarian Fascists. But the leaders of “agrarian Fascism” did not share Mussolini’s ideas at all and tried to sabotage the pact, considering it a betrayal.31 In November 1921, at the third Fascist Congress, Fascist leaders decided to transform the movement into a genuine political party. Mussolini thought that through this transformation Fascism would appear no more as an unstable and undisciplined rally of madcaps.32 The leaders of the provincial squadrismo were against this decision. As a squadrista explained, there was the danger that Fascism could “be infected by the political filth of the Roman institutions.”33 Mussolini knew he still needed the agrarian Fascists and their squads to keep his enemies restrained. Therefore, to win their approval, he disavowed the Appeasement Pact. The agrarian squads, in return, accepted the creation of the Partito Nazionale Fascista (Fascist National Party, PNF).

From Avanguardia Studentesca to Avanguardia Giovanile Fascista The AS, like the agrarian squadristi, decided to support Mussolini’s decision to transform the Fascist movement into a party. Freddi, as national leader of the AS, in an article published by the Popolo d’Italia in September 1921, explained



Organizing the Youth in Fascist Italy

31

that, by founding a party, Mussolini was passing from a “negative” to a “positive” phase of Fascist historical development. After a period of violence, aimed at annihilating the Bolsheviks, a new phase of reflection and political elaboration was beginning. After a period of blind fury, the Fascists needed to follow a path that would lead them to power.34 Another move of Mussolini’s strategy was the transformation of the AS into a new organization, fully subject to the party. The presence of the agrarian Fascists, and the pressure exerted by their leaders, was already an annoying problem. Too many tensions, too many divisions, too many distinct strands would bring Fascism to an end. Therefore, the independence of the AS also had to be sacrificed in order to eliminate a further element of tension. Mussolini did not need young potential loose cannons, but young supporters. From then on, the youth organization needed to have two fundamental functions: to take care of the young adherents, and to advance the penetration of Fascist ideology among all those Italian youth who did not have yet a clear political orientation.35 In December 1921 the National Fascist Council abolished the Avanguardie and created in their place two new organizations: the Gruppi Universitari Fascisti (Fascist University Groups, GUF), destined to gather together the university students, and the Avanguardie Giovanili Fasciste (AGF), aimed at bringing together all Fascist youth, from fifteen to eighteen years of age, without taking into consideration their social origin, study level, or occupation. Unlike the AS, the new AGF and GUF depended on the party; in this way the party could control the youth and limit their autonomy. The Avanguardie Giovanili Fasciste soon began to organize a National Congress to formalize their own statute. The PNF leaders, however, afraid that some youth, opposed to the transformation of the AS, might use the congress podium to attack the Fascist Party and its goals, canceled the meeting. The party itself then drafted and published a statute for the Avanguardie that confirmed the subordination of all Fascist youth groups to the PNF. According to the statute of January 1922, the AGF had to support the party, carrying out, above all, a propaganda function. The transformation of the Avanguardie Studentesche into Avanguardie Giovanili Fasciste had been for Mussolini a strategic choice. The autonomy of the old AS was now over; its members had been useful as a street army, along with the Fascist squads, but now Mussolini needed something different for the youngest Italian generations. He needed a useful instrument of education.36 One year after the creation of the AGF, and two months after the March on Rome—the march on the Italian capital that epitomized Benito Mussolini’s seizure of power—the first National Congress of the Avanguardie Giovanili was called in Florence. It was, in actuality, a youth rally to celebrate the recent appointment of Mussolini as prime minister. The meeting was attended by

32



Organizing the Youth in Fascist Italy

provincial and regional secretaries of the Avanguardie and consisted of a succession of celebratory speeches and propaganda demonstrations, lacking any kind of real political debate.37 In an article published in December 1922 the aims of the Avanguardie were put down in black and white by the vice-secretary of the Fascist Party, Giuseppe Bastianini. He wrote that the high function of the Avanguardie was encapsulated by one verb: to educate. The Avanguardie, he underlined, did not have to deal with politics but to engage in patriotism, physical, and moral education. The AGF would set up gymnastic squads and would institute gyms, reading rooms, educational, historical and moral conferences, entertainments, and excursions. Only in this way, Bastianini concluded, by tempering their characters and their muscles, their faith and their arms, would the Italian youth, once they became adults, become useful for the fatherland.38 Writing that the Avanguardie did not have to “deal with politics,” Bastianini meant that, from then on, they did not have to express their own ideas but instead had to be educated according to the principles ordained by the PNF leadership. In this way, the party transformed “an autonomous and rebellious element of the Fascist movement into an obedient instrument” aimed at organizing the youth.39 Discipline, tranquility, obedience, and respect for authority— these were the new watchwords of the young Fascist militants.40

From Prime Minister to Duce After the march of October 28, 1922, Mussolini played a waiting game. Having only thirty-five deputies, he had to accept compromises with the old liberal elite and wait for the right moment to get rid of them. Between 1922 and 1924 Fascists formed coalition governments, tried to solve internal “blood-feuds,” and became more “respectable” in the eyes of their allies by abolishing the action squads in January 1923, transforming them into a kind of legal armed force, the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (National Security Volunteer Militia, MVSN).41 The institution of the Militia, however, did not stop the illegal violence against opponents.42 Thanks to their anti-Bolshevik actions, and having abandoned their primal anticlericalism, Fascists had gained Catholic support.43 The first election after the March of 1922 took place on April 6, 1924, under the Acerbo Law.44 The aim of this election was to guarantee Mussolini an absolute majority inside Parliament and to reduce the power of his allies. The Fascists, along with several liberal and Catholic candidates, formed a strong and close-knit list. The anti-Fascist parties, on the other hand, were deeply divided. The Fascist victory was sensational. Widespread violence, intimidation, and



Organizing the Youth in Fascist Italy

33

vote rigging had altered the popular will, as the Socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti explained in his speech to the new Parliament on May 30, 1924. Ten days after his accusatory address, Matteotti was kidnapped. The disappearance of the deputy caused a sensation throughout the country. The opposition parties were not able, however, to obtain a parliamentary majority, or to organize any protest rally. As a consequence, several parlamentarians decided to leave the Chamber of Deputies and to stop attending the parliamentary sessions.45 On August 16, 1924, Matteotti’s corpse was found. His murder sparked widespread criticism of Fascism. The opposition parties were not able to exploit the moment, however, as the Fascist diehards started threatening Mussolini. He had to put an end to any kind of collaboration, opting for a single-party government and beginning a new Fascist era, otherwise his leadership would not be guaranteed. On January 3, 1925, making a famous speech in Parliament, Mussolini marked the very beginning of the Fascist dictatorship.46 In the following days a wave of arrests, searches, and sequestrations poured down on opposition parties and their newspapers. The speech of January 3 marked the end of the first phase of Fascism in power, initiated with the March on Rome, and the beginning of the second phase.47 Between 1925 and 1926 several legislative measures, known as leggi fascistissime, were promulgated, sanctioning the complete subordination of the executive and legislative powers to Mussolini. The anti-Fascist parties were definitively disbanded, and all publications opposed to the regime were suppressed. Italians had to decide: be Fascist or be anti-Fascist. There were no other options.48 At that point Mussolini committed himself decisively to the creation of the totalitarian state and put an end to the internal freedom of the PNF: the different ideological positions expressed by several members of the party had to be suppressed by the new party secretary, Augusto Turati, appointed on March 30, 1926. According to Mussolini’s plans, Turati had not only to reduce the conflicts between diehards and moderates, and between old and new Fascists, but he also had to transform the party into a real revolutionary instrument. From now on it did not have to challenge Mussolini’s decisions. Under Turati’s secretariat the regime ran a broad purge that lasted three years. About sixty thousand members of the Fascist Party were expelled. After 1927 party membership was closed. New members of the PNF could be recruited only from among youth who were older than eighteen and had been members of the Avanguardie. 49 The Fascist state could not be created just granting party cards to everybody. The party now had to be “an army of believers and fighters under the orders of the Duce,”50 a “nervous system” through which the will of Mussolini penetrated the nation.51

34



Organizing the Youth in Fascist Italy

The Creation of the ONB The education of the younger Italian generations was one of the fundamental elements of Mussolini’s political project. The family and the schools were not suitable for carrying out the Fascist educational process. The family was too rooted in tradition, whereas the schools, despite the reform of the Italian educational system carried out in 1923 by Giovanni Gentile, taught and yet did not educate.52 In schools, students and pupils could learn reading, writing, and counting. They could learn Italian history and geography; study Latin, Greek, and philosophy; or practice gymnastics, but they could not be politically indoctrinated. Fascists thought that Italian youth had to be acquainted with the political aims and principles of the regime and were convinced that the best agency to carry out the “Fascist educational revolution” was not the school. The old teachers, who had been born, raised, and trained in “liberal Italy,” could not educate the Italian youth in the principles of the new Fascist culture. Moreover, the educational aspirations of the regime were not limited only to the students; rather, the Fascists wanted to absorb to the greatest possible extent the Italian youth, independently of the social status, into the new Fascist regime. Therefore, the Fascist youth organizations were considered the only way to guarantee the political and physical training of the entire Italian juvenile population. Between 1923 and 1925, given the still uncertain political climate, Fascist youth organizations did not have any educational monopoly. Ruling the country together with Catholics, Liberals, and Nationalists, Mussolini could not disband their youth organizations—in 1924, for example, the state subsidized the Catholic Scouts so that they could take part at the second world scouting jamboree organized in Copenhagen. Fascists had to wait four years after the March on Rome before beginning their totalitarian educational project.53 At the beginning of 1923 the Gran Consiglio del Fascismo (Grand Council of Fascism), the supreme body of the PNF, stated that children between eight and thirteen years of age could be members of the Gruppi Balilla (Balilla Groups), youth from fourteen to sixteen could be part of the Avanguardie Fasciste, and youth older than seventeen could become members of PNF and MVSN. Dividing the youth into children, adolescents, and young adults, Fascists could offer different levels of physical and military education, and could proffer activities suitable for the different age groups.54 One year after the March on Rome, organized Fascist youth was still not very widespread: in 1923 the Avanguardie Giovanili had only thirty-six thousand members. A secret report about the conditions of the AGF highlighted that the organization had no financial means and that a dangerous “hostile propaganda” campaign carried out by



Organizing the Youth in Fascist Italy

35

“other organizations supported by political parties adverse to Fascism” was undermining the development of the Avanguardie.55 The leadership of the Fascist youth organizations tried to intensify recreational and propaganda activities to increase membership, but, in spite of this, in 1924 membership in the Fascist youth organizations did not expand as Fascists had hoped. There were 50,729 Avanguardisti, whereas the members of the Balilla groups numbered only 3,078.56 Just one year later, however, in 1925, Avanguardisti and Balilla membership was respectively 145,000 and 43,000.57 The growth was astonishing, and it depended arguably on the new political climate that commenced after the “speech of January 3.”58 At the fourth congress of the PNF, in June 1925, Mussolini proclaimed that Fascism had to become a “way of life.” As a matter of fact, he argued, everybody recognized the existence of two “ideal typical” Italians: the Italians of the Roman age and the Italians of the Renaissance. From now on, Mussolini insisted, everybody would have to consider the existence of a third ideal type: the Italians born and raised in Fascist Italy. They had to be representatives of the third phase of the great Italian story. Mussolini thought that only by creating a new way of life could Fascism become an indelible part of Italian history; otherwise it was likely to be a temporary phenomenon. Fascism was a forward-looking regime, and the Fascists knew that only the new generations, with time, could attain the all-desired national greatness that Italy had lost over the centuries and that Mussolini craved to recover.59 In early 1926 Fascists decided to improve and change their youth organization.60 If they wanted to realize the “Third Rome,” if they wanted to reshape the Italian people, Fascists needed to invent something completely new. The organization they wanted to create was not designed to be a mere party organization, an organization for some sections of the population, but an organization that had to incorporate ideally all Italian youth. Fascists did not know how to give shape to their pedagogical experiment, and they did not have any precedents for what they hoped to achieve. On January 30, 1926, the deputy Roberto Forni introduced a draft bill aimed at creating the Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB), the new Fascist youth mass organization. The Opera had to rationalize and improve the educational activities carried out by the already existing Balilla groups and Avanguardie Giovanili, and favor the creation of new youth sections. Forni thought that it would also serve to preserve the youth from all other corrupting political ideologies and that it would prepare young Italians to accomplish their duties for national greatness.61 Less than three months later, on April 3, 1926, Parliament approved the final measure. According to this law (no. 2,247) the new organization had to become the “real school” of the regime and had to have an absolute monopoly over male education in all

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Organizing the Youth in Fascist Italy

extracurricular and extrafamiliar activities. The ONB, the new Fascist “state youth organization,” had to train and lead youth until they reached the age of Militia and party membership.62 Only in November 1929 were girls allowed into the organization as Piccole Italiane (8–14 years) and Giovani Italiane (15–18 years).63 The law of April 1926 and the procedures to enforce it, approved in their final version on January 9, 1927, were a real turning point in the history of Fascist youth education. These laws specified how the youth organization had to be structured and how it had to operate. The ONB had to provide for the youth sport, physical, spiritual, cultural, and professional education, but also religious assistance and, above all, military training. The ONB had to provide for the premilitary education of the new generations by means of lectures, exercises, excursions, marches, first aid training and practice, preparatory war drills, and exercises without arms (for the Balilla) and with muskets and bayonets (for the Avanguardisti), and they made the youth visit barracks, arsenals, arms factories, and battlefields.64 The youth had to perform the Roman salute to greet their superiors and had to assimilate such values and attitudes as respect and pride of wearing the Fascist uniform.65 “In every respect,” explained an American book published in 1929, Balilla and Avanguardisti were “made to appear as small editions of adult Fascists.”66 The premilitary training of the Italian youth was ideally intended to sweep away “ideas of universal and perpetual peace from the minds of these children.”67 Military training in the ONB began at eight years of age and ended at seventeen, when the youth continued their military preparation under the supervision of the Militia.68 Moral education inside the ONB units was also militarily oriented. The youth had to listen to accounts of the most important events of the Italian Risorgimento, of the Libyan war and of the Great War, in addition to accounts of the Roman Empire and the Fascist Revolution.69 The ONB reconfirmed the age division fixed by the Gran Consiglio in 1923.70 Avanguardisti, as well as Balilla, were hierarchically organized, according to the Roman Army division, in squads, maniples, centuries, cohorts, and legions. In all these units the youth were trained and educated by officials of the MVSN. At the national level the ONB was led by a Central Council, consisting of a president, a vice-president, and twenty-three advisers. The law also provided for the creation of an Executive Council, comprising the president, the vicepresident, and five advisers. If necessary, the Executive Council had to make urgent decisions in place of the Central Council. On a local level there were provincial and communal committees. In 1926 Renato Ricci, vice-secretary of Fascist Party since 1924, was appointed president of the organization. His political loyalty, his interest in youth education, his age (in 1926 he was thirty-four



Organizing the Youth in Fascist Italy

37

Shooting lesson (ACS, Carte Ricci, s. 8, picture 194, Authorization 1198/2014)

years old), and his physical good shape were all reasons that made the Duce choose him to be the leader of the Fascist youth organization.71 Disregarding the law, Mussolini gave him the possibility of leading the youth organization all alone; the Central Council and the Executive Council were never instituted. Ricci was the liege lord of the Opera. As a result, the ONB did not depend directly on the Fascist Party anymore. Mussolini, given the strains existing inside the PNF since its foundation, and given the purge action Turati was carrying out inside the party, preferred to entrust the Opera to a reliable person.72

Renato Ricci (ACS, Carte Ricci, s. 8, picture 1129, Authorization 1198/2014)



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39

Toward the Totalitarian Control of the Youth In the early 1920s there were several Italian youth organizations: Catholic associations related to the Azione Cattolica (the Italian Catholic Youth Society, the Italian Catholic University Federation, the Catholic Female Youth, the Italian Catholic Scout Association—or Catholic Boy Scouts—and the Federation of the Italian Catholic Sport Associations);73 lay organizations (the Young Italian Explorers—or lay Boy Scouts—the Republican Youth Federation, and the Socialist Youth Federation, an organization that in 1921 had fifty-six thousand members);74 and various sports clubs. If the regime wanted to guarantee the ONB a monopoly, it had to disband all these youth associations. However, Mussolini, who did not have any hesitation in closing down lay youth associations, did not want to collide with the papacy. Therefore, the destiny of the Catholic youth associations was different. In August 1926 diplomatic talks began between the Italian state and the Holy See in order to put an end to the age-old “Roman question.”75 Mussolini was afraid that the institution of the ONB could damage negotiations with the Vatican. For this reason law 2,247, which officially instituted the ONB, did not come into force immediately. But in fall 1926 the last existing traces of the liberal past were eradicated. Among the legislative measures adopted to reinforce the Fascist regime, Parliament approved, in November 1926, the implementation procedures of the ONB law. Article 71 of the procedural law forbade the creation of new Boy Scout units, and article 72 ordered the dissolution of all youth organizations, other than the ONB, in all communes with fewer than ten thousand inhabitants. The Holy See objected immediately to such measures and threatened to stop the negotiations for the Concordat if Mussolini did not guarantee the preservation of the Catholic youth organizations.76 The Fascist regime did not want to stop the diplomatic talks and therefore came to a compromise, approving two important decrees that revised the procedures previously endorsed. Decrees 5 and 6 of January 1927 confirmed that all youth organizations, with the exception of the ONB, had to be dissolved by the prefects. But, they also stated that the organizations connected to the Catholic Church and the sport associations affiliated with the Italian National Olympic Committee, which at that time was already under PNF control, could continue to carry out their activities.77 With respect to the Catholic Boy Scouts, considered potential competitors with the Fascist youth organization, the law was less permissive. Decree 5 established that the Catholic Boy Scouts could found new units only in communes with more than twenty thousand inhabitants and in main provincial towns. The creation of new units had to be approved by ONB local leaders. Moreover, old and new groups had to show on their pennants

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and banners the Fascist Lictor and the initials “ONB.” In this way, the Catholic Boy Scouts would begin a kind of Fascistization process. On January 24, 1927, in order to protect the Italian Catholic Youth Society, the pope, afraid of possible further initiatives against the Catholic youth, separated it clearly from the Italian Catholic Scout Association. Moreover, he dissolved immediately the Boy Scout units in all communes with fewer than twenty thousand inhabitants. He did not want to clash with the Fascists, and he hoped these would be their last requests.78 After the dissolution of the Boy Scout units, many young people became members of the Italian Catholic Youth Society. They hoped that in the future they could build up their units again. Others tried to get around the law by founding “hiking groups” in local parish churches and organizing secret Boy Scout activities. But the majority of the youth, after the closing of the Catholic Boy Scout sections, joined the ONB.79 After one year of peace a new attack was launched against the Catholic youth in spring 1928. Decree number 696 of April 9, 1928, forbade any organization that intended to promote the instruction, the vocational and artistic training, or the physical, moral, and spiritual education of the youth, with the exception of the organizations depending on the ONB. The same decree stated that prefects would order within thirty days the dissolution of all the youth organizations affected by this ban. The decree caused new alarm in the Vatican. Reading it, it was not clear if the regime wanted to eliminate the last still existing Catholic Scout units or if it also wanted to attack the youth groups of the Catholic Action. On April 14, 1928, the Jesuit Pietro Tacchi Venturi, who was a kind of unofficial liaison between Mussolini and the pope for the fulfillment of the Concordat, informed the Duce that, failing any declaration appeasing the Catholic Action, the pope would be bound to proclaim a solemn document against the new initiative of the Fascist regime. As a first warning sign, on April 15 the Vatican interrupted the negotiations concerning the Concordat. Mussolini summoned Tacchi Venturi and explained that the new decree referred only “to semi-military youth organizations antithetical to the Balilla,” that is, to the Boy Scouts. The Italian Catholic Scout Association, at first provisionally tolerated, had to be disbanded once and for all.80 Every doubt was cleared up in a communication sent to the prefects. It explained how they had to interpret decree 696. Only the organizations that somehow countered the activities of the ONB, stated the communication, had to be closed down. The decidedly religious and spiritual organizations—Catholic Action and its youth branches (the Italian Catholic Youth Society, the Italian Catholic University Federation, and the Catholic Female Youth)—could continue to carry out their activities throughout Italy.81



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The diplomatic talks were cordial, and on February 11, 1929, the Lateran Pacts were signed. One of the articles of the Concordat, the forty-third, stated that the Italian state recognized the organizations dependent on the Italian Catholic Action if they were both nonpolitical and strictly subservient to ecclesiastical authorities.82 The Catholic Action, feeling protected by the Lateran Pacts, became extremely active. It opened new private schools, launched new magazines and newspapers, and intensified its propaganda activity.83 The Fascist reaction was obviously inevitable. Mussolini, strengthened by the Concordat and by the successful “elections” of March, explained in a speech on May 13, 1929, that Catholic activism had reached inadmissible levels.84 It seemed that the Catholics were about to proclaim a crusade against the regime. The Duce did not want to be “blackmailed” by the Vatican anymore and became more and more unequivocal about his attitude toward the youth: the Fascist youth organization was fated to become the most important educational agency of the Fascist totalitarian system. The Catholic Action had to understand once and for all that the regime wanted to be solely responsible for organized youth in Italy. All Catholic groups that carried out a task similar to, or in competition with, the ONB, as had been the case with the Catholic Boy Scouts, were destined to disappear. The religious dimension of youth education was now viewed as a complementary, but subordinate, feature of Fascist pedagogy. The regime could not push aside the Church, but the pope and the Catholic hierarchy had to comprehend that they could only have a low profile role in the Fascist state. About this point Mussolini was insistent: “The Fascist state asserts at full its own ethics. It is Catholic, but it is Fascist. Rather, it is above all, exclusively, essentially Fascist. Catholicism completes it and we openly admit it, but nobody can shift the ground.”85 To this the pope took emphatic exception. Talking to the students of the College of Mondragone on May 14 he criticized the idea of a state monopoly of education. He stated that the Vatican would never accept that the Italian state could oppress, lessen, or deny the rights nature and God had given to the family and to the Church in the domain of education.86 Mussolini, talking before the Senate on May 25, replied that the education of the youth in order to turn them into soldiers was a complete monopoly of the Fascist state.87 To stress the importance of the new role of the state in the production of Fascist youth, the regime organized in Rome in the summer of 1929 the first Campo DUX, a gymnastic, military, and ideological contest aimed at assessing the technical level reached by Avanguardisti groups from all over Italy.88 The best youth of every provincial committee were sent to the capital. Here they had to display the results achieved by Fascism in molding the Italian “soldier-citizens.”89 Youth lived together in the Campo DUX for several days according to a strict military discipline, taking

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part in sport and military competitions and singing songs about “banners soaked with blood,” daggers, hand grenades, and the fatherland. World War I was clearly the underlying theme of their repertoire.90 Also the “commandments” the Avanguardisti taking part in the Campo DUX had to learn by rote were full of allusions to the militarization of youth education and to World War I, the event that Fascism considered the beginning of the new era.91 Taking a clear stand on such youth education, the pope issued on December 31, 1929, an important encyclical entitled Divini Illius Magistri, also known as On Christian Education. Pius XI was extremely critical of Fascist pedagogical policy. Youth education belonged to family, Church, and state. Between them had to exist a well-ordered harmony. The state had its own role to play, but it did not have to marginalize the role of the Church or of the family. The pope, criticizing the Fascist youth organization, explained that the Church and its followers had to stand out against the “false and exaggerated” nationalism that could threaten “true peace and prosperity.” The pope did not want to condemn what was good in the spirit of discipline and legitimate bravery, but condemned the excesses that had not to be confused “with courage nor with the noble sentiment of military valor in defense of country and public order.” The aim of ecclesiastical authority, the pope explained, was to form good Christians by the use of spiritual means, but, in doing this, the Church would also help to form good citizens, preparing them to meet their obligations as members of civil society. In the City of God, Pius XI asserted, “a good citizen and an upright man [were] absolutely one and the same thing.” It was a grave error to separate things so closely united and to think that good citizens could be produced by methods other than those used to form good Christians. It was “impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquility by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity.” As a consequence, a state education aimed at creating a “pagan” warrior, as Mussolini desired, would never be accepted by the Catholic Church.92 The year of reconciliation between the Italian state and the Catholic Church ended, showing clear signs of tension between them. 1930 was also a turbulent year and, though hidden to many by outward signs of peace, the struggle between Fascist and Catholic youth continued.93 There were indeed no open and dramatic conflicts, but the rivalry between Church and state for the control over the young Italians was keener than ever. The growth of enrollment in the Italian Catholic Youth Society from 600,000 to 692,000 members between 1928 and 1930 irritated the Fascists.94 The regime went on sequestering newspapers and magazines, closing Catholic clubs, and inquiring into Catholic Action leaders. Fascists were ready to tolerate some Catholic organizations, but only if they were disposed to restrict themselves to religious education and



Organizing the Youth in Fascist Italy

43

religious assistance. The youth had to be Fascist without exceptions. As an Austrian newspaper wrote in 1930, Mussolini’s regime hoped to bring up a new generation of youth prepared to use muskets, devoted to the Fascist idea, and ready to destroy the world if the Duce ordered it.95

The Crisis of 1931 The growing tension between Catholic Action and the Fascists exploded again in the spring and summer of 1931.96 The prelude to the clash was the violent press campaign against Catholic Action. According to Fascist newspapers, in spite of appearances, Catholic Action was a cover for PPI—the disbanded Catholic Party—and engaged in illegal union activity. Fascists attacked the male Catholic youth organizations in particular. The Italian Catholic University Federation was accused of plotting against Fascism and against Fascist University Groups. Giovanni Giuriati and Carlo Scorza, at that time respectively PNF secretary and GUF national secretary, began a violent campaign against Catholic youth. In many Italian universities Catholic and Fascist students came to blows. The pope openly defended his young supporters, and on May 29, 1931, the Holy See broke diplomatic relations with Italy. On the same day Mussolini ordered prefects to dissolve the last existing non-Fascist youth associations. On May 30 the offices of the chiefs of these associations were searched. As a consequence, the leaders of the Italian Catholic Youth Society and of the Italian Catholic University Federation went to the Vatican asking for papal protection. In these weeks Fascist youth attacked Catholic youth, damaged Church property, rioted in the streets, and scrawled anticlerical slogans everywhere. Catholics also engaged in the war of wall slogans and the distribution of leaflets. Several priests and bishops protested publicly and encouraged Catholic youth to withstand the Fascist attacks.97 Pius XI tried to help the organizations, and on June 29, 1931, he published his second encyclical about youth education, entitled Non abbiamo bisogno (We don’t need). The document, exceptionally written in Italian, accused Fascism of having exploited for its own benefit the Conciliation of 1929. But the pope used it also to unmask the totalitarian nature of Mussolini’s regime. The Fascist regime, Pius XI maintained, was different from all other authoritarian political systems: it was transforming Italians into followers of a new divinity. The pope, after having listed oppressions and persecutions experienced by Catholic organizations in recent years, declared that Fascists wanted to “monopolize completely the young, from their tenderest years up to manhood and womanhood, for the exclusive advantage of a Party and of a regime based on an ideology which clearly resolves itself into a true, a real pagan worship of the state—the

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‘Statolatry’ which is no less in contrast with the natural rights of the family than it is in contradiction with the supernatural rights of the Church.”98 Flinging his accusation at Mussolini’s regime, the pope also stated that recent events “proved beyond the shadow of doubt that a few years have been sufficient to cause the loss and the destruction of the true religious sentiment and of education.” The Fascists had not wasted their time and had been able to impose a conception of the state that made the rising generations belong to it entirely, without any exception. The Catholic hierarchy could not accept this. Pius XI refused the claim that the Church and the pope had to limit themselves to the external practices of religion and that education belonged solely to the state. And he also expressed a negative opinion of the oath the Balilla had to take in order to become members of the ONB. He would not accept that little boys and girls were obliged to promise that they would execute without discussion commands imposed by an authority that could “give orders against all truth and justice and in disregard of the rights of the Church.” He could not tolerate that these children had to swear to serve with all their strength, even to the shedding of blood, the cause of a revolution that snatched the young from the Church and from Jesus Christ, and which inculcated in its own young people hatred, violence, and irreverence without respecting even the person of the pope.99 Fascist reactions against the Non abbiamo bisogno were extremely violent. A Florentine Fascist group, for example, publicized a declaration under the title “Svaticanamento” in which they asked the Duce to terminate the Concordat and to capture and condemn the pope, labeled an “Italian renegade.”100 But Pius XI and Mussolini could not afford an irreversible break. Fascism and the Church needed each other. In spite of the tough words expressed against Mussolini’s regime, Pius XI recognized that Fascists did what all the previous governments had not done: they came to an agreement with the papacy recognizing the full sovereignty of the Holy See in the Vatican City, regulating the position of the Catholic Church in the Italian state, and compensating the pope for the loss of territories and properties that had occurred since 1870. Moreover, the Roman Curia was aware that Fascism was, without doubt, a bulwark against red atheism and agnostic liberalism.101 Mussolini, on the other hand, was persuaded that by maintaining good relations with the papacy he could consolidate his support amongst the Italian Catholics and guarantee a wide popular backing for his regime. The art of compromise thus prevented a complete break.102 Making peace was better for both institutions, and in September 1931 Pius XI and Mussolini reconciled. To guarantee the political neutrality of the Catholic Action, former members of the disbanded PPI were excluded from leading roles in the organization. In addition, rooms, registers, and banners



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45

were returned to the Catholic organizations with the understanding that they would abstain from union, political, and sport activities and devote themselves solely to spiritual matters.103 However, the words of Pius XI could not easily be erased. His declarations had been extremely important, for he had recognized the dangerousness and the seriousness of the totalitarian educational system the Fascist regime was attempting to implement.104 When the crisis ended, Renato Ricci, having hampered for years the activities of the Catholic chaplains inside his organization, decided to promote and fund their activities.105 The papal encyclicals of 1929 and 1931 had been extremely critical, and the regime wanted to reassure Italian families that youth would get an appropriate religious education inside the Fascist youth organization. The regime started a kind of competition with the Catholic Action: if youth could get a religious education inside the Fascist organization it would be useless for them to attend the Italian Catholic Youth Society. Nevertheless, ONB chaplains were selected by the leaders of the Fascist youth organization, and ultimately very little time was devoted to religious education: “religion lessons” were sporadic (twenty lessons each year) and very short (thirty minutes each).106 Talking about the role of religion in the Fascist youth organizations Herman Finer noted: “For what does it avail a boy . . . to be spoken to by the chaplains provided for each cohort in terms of the Prince of Peace, the Son of God who let Himself be Crucified to save others, and the gentle Madonna— what meaning can this have when more than 90 percent of his time is spent learning the meaning of virility, energy, ambition, conquest, and the totalitarian service to the Duce?”107 ONB meetings, excursions, and military exercises were usually organized on Sundays. As a rule, they would begin after 10 o’clock, but very often this rule was not respected. And, as a consequence, Balilla and Avanguardisti often missed the Mass.108

An Internal Crisis In the spring and summer of 1931 Fascism also had to face an internal crisis.109 The high echelons of the Fascist Party did not like the way Mussolini had decided to organize the ONB. Party leaders wanted the PNF to be the one and only youth educational agency, reassuming the role it had lost in 1926. They were not enthusiastic about the Opera Nazionale Balilla because it was an organization dependent on the Ministry of Education—a state agency they considered not Fascist but Fascistized—and because it was in the hands of only one man: Renato Ricci.110 As a consequence the PNF leaders decided to create another organization that, they hoped, would assess and deepen the preparation of the Italian youth before their admission to the party. After leaving the ONB, but

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Organizing the Youth in Fascist Italy

before becoming members of PNF and the Militia, the Italian youth were required to undertake an additional period of military and political training under the auspices of the Partito Fascista. For this reason a new youth organization was created on October 8, 1930: the Fasci Giovanili di Combattimento (Youth Fighting Fasces, FGC). It brought together the youth, known as Giovani Fascisti (Young Fascists), between the age of eighteen and twenty-one. The foundation of the FGC, a party-run youth organization, bothered Ricci. He considered it an expression of mistrust with respect to the educational value of his organization. The party also implemented another initiative that further worried the president of the ONB.111 From the middle of the 1920s, instead of becoming ONB members, some high school students had enrolled in Fascist University Groups. This situation, even though it took some students away from the effective control of the ONB, did not cause any real conflict between the Opera and the Fascist University Groups given that it was only a sporadic phenomenon. But on May 22, 1931, the national secretariat of the GUF, Carlo Scorza, issued a newsletter inviting the local leaders of the organization to create a special “high school student section” in every university group. According to this proposal all high school students who were attending the last four years of school had to leave the ONB and become members of the GUF, an organization led by the PNF. Scorza claimed that in this way the enrollment of the youth in the Fascist Party would be guaranteed, avoiding the dispersion of members that seemed to take place in the passage from the ONB to the PNF.112 Scorza’s proposal fueled Ricci’s immediate reaction. In a letter to Mussolini he stated that the fulfillment of this absurd measure would damage the Opera and would be a proof of evident mistrust toward the Balilla leaders, who had been devoting themselves with passion and sacrifice to the education of the youth. If youth who had been members of the ONB did not become members of the party, according to Ricci, it was not a result of ONB inefficiency, as Scorza maintained. The problem was the party, because it was not equipped to continue the “magnificent assistance” offered by the Opera educators. The party leadership, Ricci asserted, in spite of its criticism, was perfectly aware of the good preparation offered by the ONB. Otherwise it would be hard to understand why the PNF obliged many Avanguardisti to take part in parades, marches, and physical education displays pretending to be Giovani Fascisti. Ricci countered Scorza’s proposal also because he thought it could cause class divisions; if all high school students had to leave the ONB and become members of the GUF, all bourgeois adolescents studying at high schools would be educated by the party, while working-class youth would be educated by the ONB. The regime wanted to transcend class divisions, and therefore, Ricci maintained,



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Scorza was proposing something contrary to Fascist ideology.113 In his answer the GUF secretariat stated once again that the Balilla organization was not able to ferry new blood to the party. Mussolini, however, rejected Scorza’s proposal and confirmed that high school students had to be members of the ONB.114 The Gruppi Universitari Fascisti, however, did not desist: Scorza invited them to intensify their efforts to recruit as many high school students as possible. As a result, in the beginning of the 1931–32 school year, the GUF secretary of Rome sent a letter to all high school principals of the city inviting the students to leave the ONB and become members of the GUF. Ricci, annoyed by this new move, wrote a letter to the PNF secretary, Giovanni Giuriati, stigmatizing the behavior of the party for not following Mussolini’s guidelines and for trying once again to damage the ONB.115 Only in 1932 did Achille Starace, as new party secretary, put an end to this “power struggle” between GUF and ONB, prohibiting high school students from becoming GUF members.116 Ricci won a battle against his enemies inside the party, but not the war. This clash between two potentates—Ricci and the PNF—over the control of youth education would continue, eventually leading to the demise of the Opera Nazionale Balilla.117 In one decade the role of youth changed completely in the Fascist system. After having played an active role in the rise and success of the Black Shirts’ movement, youth were relegated to a passive role. A permanent revolution of youth was the last thing Mussolini wanted. The youth organizations set up by the Fascist regime had to inculcate Fascist values in their members and create a show of regimented young bodies to enhance the image of the regime.118 In a decade different organizations were established: Opera Nazionale Balilla, Fasci Giovanili di Combattimento, and Gruppi Universitari Fascisti. Despite the hostilities, personal animosities, and jealousies that characterized the relationship between Ricci, the ONB president, and party leaders, ONB, FGC, and GUF had the same goal: they had to be laboratories for the creation of Mussolini’s “new men.” The autonomous youth—Futurists, Nationalists, war survivors, Avanguardie Studentesche, and squadristi—after ten years of dictatorship were a memory. The Fascist Revolution kept the youth in line. The new generations had to guarantee the regime without challenging it. In the ideal Fascist project the youth had to follow the directives and the ideological goals dictated by Mussolini. But in order to transform children and adolescents into the “new Italians” that Fascism desired the Opera needed well-trained instructors and leaders.

3 A New Class of Educators T

he ideal aim of the Opera Nazionale Balilla was to transform Italian youth into Fascist believers, shaping their bodies and their souls according to Fascist ideology, immersing them fully in a new Fascist culture. This radical transformation could take place only by means of a well-framed educational process. Every local committee of the ONB, in addition to its sport and military activities, organized educational tours, film screenings, concerts, political conferences, and choral singing lessons. In the case del Balilla (Balilla houses), the structures in which the Fascist youth gathered, there were not only sporting facilities, but also libraries, theaters, reading rooms, and rooms for radio listening. In the fall and winter, youth prepared for the spring gymnastic displays; in the summer they enjoyed study trips, cruises, holidays, and military camps. Poor and rich, students and workers, city dwellers and youth from the countryside—all were called to assemble in the same organization, undergoing the same experiences. However, in order to succeed, Fascists needed not only excellent facilities but also skilled instructors and leaders, well prepared from a technical, political, and professional point of view.1 Renato Ricci recognized the crucial importance of youth leaders for his organization; indeed, as soon as he detected them, he removed those who had revealed themselves to be deficient in leadership skills, assigning command functions only to those reliable from a political point of view. Moreover, as he wanted to be sure that Balilla and Avanguardisti were in the hands of men of proven Fascist faith, he presided over the establishment of a training system to manufacture the best possible ONB leaders.2 This chapter will discuss how the Opera Nazionale Balilla grew in prestige, spreading its tentacles to incorporate ever-widening aspects of education in Italy. Above all, it will focus on how the ONB selected and trained its educators, concentrating in particular on the Accademia Fascista di Educazione Fisica (Fascist Academy of Physical Education).3 We will argue that, although originally 48



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established to prepare Italian teachers of physical education, the Academy was used by the Fascist youth organization for a more important goal: the education of the top leadership of the ONB. The chapter will also pay attention to a trip organized by this Academy in the United States in order to highlight how the regime used its youth organization as a propaganda tool abroad. Furthermore, it will examine the Academy from an architectural perspective, given that the facilities of the Accademia Fascista not only impressed the Nazis but were also used by the Fascists as a means to glorify the regime and its founder. Reading the history of the Accademia, we can understand the regime’s struggle to identify pedagogical models and ideals that would fulfill its totalitarian project.

A New Institution In 1923 the minister of public instruction, Giovanni Gentile, reforming the Italian school system in order to hold down public expenditure as demanded by Mussolini, decided to entrust the management of physical education in the schools to a private institution.4 For this purpose the Ente Nazionale per l’Educazione Fisica (Physical Education National Office, ENEF) was established, a private corporation aimed at managing sport and gymnastics in the Italian schools. Moreover, the state-run Istituti di Magistero di Educazione Fisica of Turin, Rome, and Naples—the teacher training colleges where the physical education teachers were trained—were also closed, another cost-saving measure of Gentile’s reform. As a consequence, after Gentile’s changes came into force, there were no public institutions aimed at training physical education teachers in Italy.5 One task of the ENEF was to find a way to replace the closed colleges of Rome, Turin, and Naples without wasting too much money. After four years of unsuccessful activity the ENEF was terminated. Francesco Saverio Grazioli, general in the Italian Army and ENEF director since July 1926, announced in a letter to Mussolini on September 12, 1927, that in a meeting with Ricci, Augusto Turati (secretary of the Fascist National Party), Lando Ferretti (president of the Italian Olympic National Committee), and Pietro Fedele (minister of public instruction), a decision had been made to assign the functions of the Physical Education National Office to the ONB. In the same letter Grazioli put forward his own proposal for the training of the physical education instructors. The general suggested that the teacher training colleges closed in 1923 should be replaced. He also suggested constructing a school for gymnastics teachers beside the Farnesina Military Academy for Physical Education, a center aimed at training the sport and gymnastic instructors of the Italian Army. In this way both institutes could use the same sports fields, the same gymnasium, and the same fencing hall, saving money in the process.6

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Mussolini, not completely persuaded by Grazioli’s proposal, decided to seek advice.7 Ricci, as future manager of physical education in the schools, drawing on Grazioli’s plan, seized the opportunity and submitted his own prospectus. He suggested how the new school of physical education should be organized. The institute proposed by Ricci had to be separated from the Military Academy and had to guarantee the training of politically oriented physical education teachers, who had to replace all those trained and educated in the pre-Fascist teacher training colleges.8 Ricci’s proposal was approved, and in January 1928 the creation of the Scuola Superiore Fascista per l’Educazione Ginnico-Sportiva (Fascist Advanced Institute for Sport and Physical Education) was announced.9 According to the regulations of the Scuola Superiore, the course would last three years: two obligatory and one optional. After a two-year course students received a qualification to teach gymnastics. Only those who obtained the diploma with an average of at least eight out of ten could register for the third year. After attending this optional course, students could obtain leading and inspectorial functions in the Opera Nazionale Balilla. However, the third year was never officially organized, probably because of the ONB’s urgent requirement of new manpower. In short, the ONB Institute became for all intents and purposes a biennial school.10 The first course began on February 5, 1928. As the Fascist Advanced School for Sport and Physical Education of Rome (the official title of the ONB Institute) did not have its own seat yet, the opening took place at the Farnesina Military Academy for Physical Education. This Institute would provide hospitality to the new school until the inauguration of its own facilities in November 1932. Newspapers, school journals, and magazines related to the Fascist youth organizations wrote reams and reams about the opening of the new Fascist institution. They listed the personalities present at the ceremony, described every gesture of Mussolini and Ricci, and reported on the speech delivered by the ONB president. In his words it was clear that Ricci wanted the Institute to be something more than a school for physical education teachers; he underscored in fact that the new Institute would be a milestone in the Fascist education, initiating the rebirth of the future youth of the Italian Fascist state.11 Ricci, worried about the shortage of competent instructors and leaders for his organization, decided to establish from scratch a group of educators closely related to the Opera Nazionale Balilla. He wanted to solve once and for all the “leader question” and to manage his organization independently, without relying on the needs and terms set out by other Fascist bodies, such as the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale.12 The recently established Fascist School for Sport and Physical Education of Rome was opened at the right



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time; it was considered to be the best solution for this problem. Ricci thought that it could become the main center for the training of the ONB leaders. Since the fall of 1928, the ONB School, renamed in November the Accademia Fascista di Educazione Fisica, had extended its functions. It was no longer just a school for gymnastics and sport; above all, it was a center aimed at training the leaders of the Fascist youth organization. By means of moral, political, military, and sport training, the Institute would guarantee to the Fascist youth organization the leaders and instructors it needed.13 The academists had to become the official spokesmen of Fascism in front of Balilla and Avanguardisti, developing the youth’s loyalty to the regime, its ideology, its principles, and its aims. Fascist propaganda asserted that they had to be “missionaries of the new doctrine,” and “apostles” of the Fascist credo.14 From 1929 on, the political relevance of the Institute became more evident. From then on it was clear that to be admitted to the Academy it was not necessary to be a gymnast or a sportsman. It was, however, very important to have been a capable member of the Fascist organizations.15 The core curriculum of the Institute also changed. Technical and professional subjects (anatomy, physiology, kinesiology, first aid, traumatology, hygiene, history of physical education, art, and singing) did not disappear; nevertheless, the number of hours dedicated to political and social education, to psychology, and to literary, philosophical, and historical subjects increased. These were all considered crucial for the training of the future Fascist youth leaders. Their physical and technical preparation was essential, because sports and physical education played a central role in the overall preparation of Balilla and Avanguardisti, and because many students who graduated from the Academy would become physical education instructors in the Italian schools. But the academists also had to be able to manage a group, and hence they needed a smattering of sociology; they had to know how to deal with children and adolescents, and hence they needed elements of psychology; they had to be political educators, and hence they had to attend classes in political education. In the end, they had to know what to say to glorify the Italian past and to extol the Italian present, and hence they had to devote time to liberal arts.16 Thus, while in the beginning the Academy had been conceived only as an institute aimed at “remedying the qualitative deficiency of physical education teachers” and at alleviating their shortage, it soon became an institute with more ambitious objectives. In principle, Fascists expected it to be the Academy of the ONB leaders, of the “educators in the most complete sense of the word,” ready “under the aegis of a severe and rigidly military discipline” to become the totalitarian trainers of the youth units, “valiant organizers and educators as demanded by the wider and wider needs of the Revolution.”17

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The students graduated after having studied and lived for two years in this peculiar boarding school. Once they finished the Academy they carried out a task according to the capacities they had demonstrated during the course. Some of them became physical education teachers and sports/gymnastics instructors in the regime’s youth organization and in Italian schools. Others undertook political and administrative roles inside the ONB.18 Often the new graduates replaced individuals who lacked their training. Some of the people who lost their jobs because of these young academists criticized the choice made by the regime. They could not accept their dismissal after having given to the Opera as “long-time Fascists and organizers . . . all their enthusiasm and all their intelligence.” They did not want to be replaced by what they viewed as inexperienced youth, losing their function inside the Opera Nazionale Balilla. They felt they had been betrayed by Ricci, but they also believed that such replacements would have negative consequences for the Fascist youth organization in general. They were afraid that the new leaders would not be taken seriously because of their age and that, as a consequence, public opinion would mistrust the ONB.19 At the end of 1929, in order to guarantee for the future youth leaders a longer education and to differentiate the training path of the physical education teachers from that of the ONB leaders, Ricci proposed to modify the Academy statute. The reform was approved by the National Education High Council in October 1929. It stated that, after attending the Fascist Institute for two years, students would achieve a qualification as physical education teachers. After continuing their studies for two more years, the students could hold managerial functions in the organization. However, the reform was nipped in the bud and nothing changed. The ONB, facing a terrible staff shortage, could not leave its potential leaders in the Academy for four years; it needed leaders for Balilla and Avanguardisti units as soon as possible.20 After this unsuccessful reform, the ONB Institute kept its internal organization unchanged. The Academy was legally acknowledged only four years after its foundation by royal decree 1,227 of August 28, 1931—and then only as a narrow, physical education training institute. According to the decree, the Institute had three principal aims: to guarantee adequate training for the physical education teachers of all Italian schools; to promote the development of the biological sciences as applied to physical education; and, finally, to improve the scientific and technical knowledge of physical education teachers and, in general, of all the Italian people operating in the field of physical education. This measure was criticized by Ricci. Indeed, in his report about the activities carried out by the ONB in 1930 and 1931, he noted that the royal decree 1,227, also known as “Provisions on Higher Education,” “diverted the real



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essence” of the Academy, “decreasing its function and assimilating it to the old and criticized teacher training colleges of physical education,” not recognizing its role as the “Fascist school of the Opera Balilla leaders.”21 A few months before the royal decree became law, the ONB president wrote a letter to national education minister Balbino Giuliano requesting a modification of the legislative measure so that it would clearly emerge from the new law that the Institute had as a central aim, in addition to the formation of physical education experts, “the training of instructors and leaders of the Opera Nazionale Balilla.” The minister of national education, answering Ricci’s letter, confirmed that he completely approved his request. The Academy was destined de jure, according to the new law 812 of June 16, 1932, to train the Opera Nazionale Balilla leaders, after having carried out this task, de facto, for four years.22 In Italy the figure of a youth educator outside of the institutional context of school, Church, and family was something completely original. The youth leaders trained by the Fascist Academy were an absolute novelty. If in Germany, even before the foundation of the Hitler Youth, there existed in the pre-Nazi Jugendbewegung the so-called Jugendführer—the leaders of the numerous German youth associations—in Italy the concept of “youth leader” was, before the foundation of the ONB, nonexistent. From this derived the misunderstanding about the function of the Fascist Academy and the role of its students. After 1932, however, thanks to the promulgation of the new law and thanks, above all, to the activity carried out for more than four years by the ONB Institute, the purpose of the Academy was becoming clear.

In MacFadden’s Court: The Fascist Academy in America Even though the focus here is on the political dimension of the Fascist Academy, the Institute also aimed to promote the development of a scientifically grounded “body culture.” Fascists did not want to improvise; they wanted to reshape the bodies of the “new Italians” following scientifically grounded methods. Many professors of the Medical School of the University of Rome ran courses at the Academy and conducted scientific experiments using the students as “laboratory animals.” They measured their respiratory capacity, their cardiac power, strength and flexibility of their muscles, their blood circulation, and their blood pressure. Then they tried to understand what kind of physical exercises could improve the health of the academists. By means of the collaboration between students and doctors, the Academy tried to find out the best types of training that the ONB could use to reshape millions of young Italians. Results of the research were published over the years in the Academy’s scientific review,

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Rivista di scienze applicate all’educazione fisica e giovanile (Review of Sciences Applied to Physical and Youth Education). The review not only highlighted the strict link between medicine and gymnastics and other sporting activities, and the connection between physical education and the endocrine system, but was also used as a propaganda instrument, underscoring how Fascist youth education was training Italian youth following the most modern and scientifically oriented educational methods.23 The curriculum of the Institute included several scientific subjects. The students studied anatomy and had to become familiar with the human body and its functioning. They had to know the consequences of every movement, every exercise, and every sport. In tune with the eugenic policies of the regime, discussed by Mussolini in the “Discorso dell’Ascensione” (Ascension Day Speech) of May 26, 1927, and aimed at increasing the Italian population and improving its health, the Institute had to provide the Fascist youth organization with leaders capable of perfecting the functioning of Italians’ bodies following scientifically tested methods.24 Ricci wanted a modern, cutting edge Academy in which scientists collaborated with gymnasts to determine the best training methods and gymnasts learned how to apply them. This quest to be modern, coupled with the excellent relationship existing at the time between Italy and the United States and the desire to use the academists as propaganda tools, took some students of the Fascist Academy to Bernarr Macfadden’s court.25 During the interwar period the United States was preoccupied by restoring the European economy and containing the Bolshevik threat.26 American policymakers longed for order and stability and, even though Fascism contradicted American ideals, they welcomed Mussolini’s coming to power. The American ruling class thought that he was the only leader able to guarantee social order, prosperity, and prospects of increased trade between Italy and the United States. The alternative, they were confident, would be political chaos. The American press exhibited a great interest in Fascism and Mussolini. Soon after the March on Rome many reporters flocked to Italy to file reports on Mussolini’s achievements. The Italian dictator became a popular celebrity in the American press and in popular opinion. American journalists, along with politicians and businessmen, sang Mussolini’s praises throughout the 1920s and for most of the 1930s. According to David Schmitz, Italian–American relations were never more cordial than they were during the years of Herbert Hoover’s presidency (1929–33).27 During the summer and autumn of 1930 an American expert on physical education, Bernarr Macfadden, traveled to Europe as a member of the Committee on Child Health and Welfare, created by Hoover to gather ideas and information about European activity in the field of wellness and training in



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gymnastics and other sports. Italy was one of the countries he visited. The American arrived in Rome on September 13, 1930. Thomas B. Morgan, a commentator and director of the Roman office of the United Press, decided to tell the story of Macfadden’s journey in Italy and discuss the implications of his stay in a book entitled Italian Physical Culture Demonstration. In his publication he wanted to achieve two goals: to extol the virtues of Macfadden’s method and to praise the Fascist efforts in reshaping the Italians.28 Macfadden, a genius at self-advertisement, spent his whole life promoting his ideas about health, food, physical education, and sexual behavior. He was one of America’s greatest promoters of a healthy way of life. In 1898 he founded his first magazine about body care, entitled Physical Culture. His first editorial was “Weakness Is a Crime,” and from February 1900 onward the cover of each issue bore the legend “Weakness is a crime; don’t be a criminal.” Given his enormous success, Macfadden published many other popular magazines. He accumulated a fortune and for over fifty years was considered the father of physical culture. Robert Ernst, in his book about Macfadden’s life, wrote that his ego was overwhelming, that he craved publicity and reveled in adulation. He always sought out those who could call wider attention to himself and his work in the United States and abroad. He thought that international recognition and publicity could further improve his image in the United States, and he was particularly fascinated by Mussolini.29 According to Ernst, Macfadden, keen on law and order, strong leadership, and energetic action, considered Mussolini a “governmental genius.” He admired the Italian “strongman” because he had saved the country from Communism and because he had been the first head of state to create an Undersecretary of State for Physical Education.30 Macfadden declared Mussolini a “natural born Emperor,”31 and in his biography, written by one of his four wives, Mary Williamson Macfadden, we learn that he “considered Il Duce as the strongest man in power in the world, as well as the chief exponent of physical culture in Europe.”32 Moreover, in an article published in Physical Culture in March 1927, Fascism was described as “a muscular creed” and Mussolini as “the Macfadden of Italy.”33 In his meeting with the Duce, in September 1930, Macfadden explained that by following his directives the physical character of the Italian population would markedly improve. Moreover, with the support of U.S. policymakers, always eager to find new ways to strengthen the Italian–American relationship, he invited the dictator to send a group of young people to the United States for six months—at no cost to the Italians. Attending a course of physical training under Macfadden’s direction, they would learn his method. Inviting the Fascists to his health resorts, Macfadden wanted not only to advance his claim for honor and recognition, but also, and above all, to “sell” his method to Fascist Italy.34

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The best candidates for this visit were, obviously, the students of the ONB Academy of Physical and Youth Education. The boys were to be ready for departure at the beginning of February. The president of the ONB decided to hold a contest to choose the best students. To compete for one of the places it was necessary for the recruits to be in excellent physical condition, as well as to possess a basic knowledge of English and to demonstrate a good capacity for adaptation. By mid-January the initial list of one hundred students was drafted, and after a further process of selection forty-two of them were considered to have met the required criteria.35 On February 14, 1931, the students embarked on their journey, leaving from Naples. A few days later, on February 23, the youth were welcomed in New York by hundreds of Italian immigrants, by General Consul Emanuele Grazzi, by journalists, photographers, cameramen, and obviously by Macfadden.36 One of the Italian American newspapers of New York, Il progresso Italo-Americano, published an article about their arrival, noting that these very elegant and brave young men made a magnificent impression on all those present at their arrival. Moreover, underlining the Fascist commitment to the creation of a truly united Italy, the article also commented on how these youth came from every Italian region—from Sicily to the provinces reclaimed during World War I, that is Trento, Gorizia, and Trieste. The general consul, according to the newspaper, welcomed the students on behalf of the Italian community of New York and reminded them of their responsibility as representatives of the new Italian youth. The article ended with the words of MacFadden, who not only highlighted how Italy was the only nation in the world where the state had grasped the importance of physical education to the nation’s future, but who also praised Mussolini, underlining how he had been able to completely transform Italy in just a few years.37 The day after their arrival New York mayor Jimmy Walker granted them an audience. According to Il progresso Italo-Americano, the academists were welcomed by more than ten thousand people at City Hall. Macfadden introduced every single student to Walker, explaining the reasons for their stay in America. Together with them were the Italian vice consul, Silvio Daneo, and the Romebased press officer, Thomas Morgan, who would act as their interpreter during the whole trip. In his speech the mayor praised the Italian government and commended Italian Fascism. Moreover, ending his speech, Walker cried out: “Evviva il Duce!” (Long life to the Duce).38 From New York the students went to Washington for a three-day visit. Here they enjoyed a reception organized by the Italian ambassador, Giacomo De Martino, and on February 27 met the president of the United States, Herbert Hoover, at the White House. Il progresso Italo-Americano, talking briefly about this event, wrote that the president welcomed



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the students warmly in the Oval Office and chatted cordially with those who could speak English.39 On February 28 they returned to New York, and in the following days the students of the Academy began their first physical exams at the gymnasium of the Manhattan Congregational Church. The objective of the tests was to evaluate their physical condition before the six months of training, which would then demonstrate the physical advantages acquired thanks to the “Macfadden system.” In New York the students began their athletic preparation and attended language classes to improve their knowledge of English. In the city they had a very busy life. They visited universities and sports facilities and were invited to balls, movie screenings, dinners, stage shows, and sporting competitions. Macfadden was proud of displaying them, and they were proud of representing Fascist Italy in the United States. But all of these events proved to be tiring. On March 22, so that they could avoid these distractions and concentrate more on their training, the students moved to Macfadden’s center for physical education in Dansville, near New York, and remained there for a couple of months, following a special diet, practicing gymnastics, learning baseball, attending English classes, and performing gymnastic displays in public. The students still had to take part in local social life, meeting, for example, Italian immigrants living in the vicinity, but Dansville was certainly not New York City. On May 25 they moved again, going to Lebanon, Tennessee. Here, at Castle Heights Military Academy, they passed the rest of their stay. Their activities focused in particular on the practice of sports, exercises in the gym (including balance exercises), and games. As Macfadden’s method prescribed, the young men had to follow a healthy diet and a very disciplined and regulated lifestyle—reducing, as much as they could, cigarettes and alcohol—and had to focus on strengthening the body. Once the swimming pool was opened, expert swimmers refined their techniques while the beginners learned to swim. Some sports practiced by them acquired an “American touch,” including basketball, tennis, track and field, wrestling, and boxing. In tennis the young men demonstrated good technique, and they were trained in the basic rules of American football. They had previously enjoyed little experience of baseball, but according to Macfadden the Italians were very much attracted to the sport. The sport at which the Italian boys excelled and which they loved most was wrestling, however, although they also showed good skills in boxing.40 In July the students had to return to Italy. Before their departure Macfadden organized a banquet where several prominent figures of the Italian American community were present. Generoso Pope, owner of Il progresso Italo-Americano, thanked Macfadden in the name of the Italians of the United States for what he did for the students of the Accademia and then, turning to the academists,

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added that he would like to go together with them to Italy just to admire how it had changed. The Italian consul, Magno Santovincenzo, said that the Italian nation would be always thankful to Macfadden, and he underscored how such initiatives were essential in order to cement the relationship between Italy and the United States. Talking then to the students of the Fascist Academy he said: “Young comrades! Your burning youth, your patriotic spirit, have been a torch of Italianitá (Italian spirit) that illuminated the hearts of our immigrants.” Santovincenzo thanked the academists because they brought to the Italians of America “the smile of their flourishing youth,” and because they not only demonstrated that Italy was stronger than ever, but also taught the immigrants that they did not have to be ashamed of being Italians, but proud. At the end of the dinner all the young men received a certificate recognizing their achievements in the United States and eight volumes that dealt with Macfadden’s educational system.41 After spending six months in the United States, the students of the Fascist Academy of Physical Education returned to their usual activities, thanking Mussolini for the important opportunity afforded them.42 The students, returning to the Institute after this long period abroad, were expected to improve the Italian gymnastic-sport method from a technical point of view; they had enjoyed the opportunity to observe closely the methods of training adopted by the American gymnastic-sport organizations and could now teach them in Italy. The forty-two young men who had experienced the good fortune to go to the United States, by being in close contact with their classmates and by continuing their training in the Academy, could give advice and suggestions to all of those who had not enjoyed the same opportunity. The experience of a few could be shared by many, also permitting the introduction of new sports like baseball and hockey.43 For the students of the Fascist Academy, who had most probably never left Italian territory, living in the United States for six months, attending a course of physical training under the guidance of a renowned “health guru,” and obtaining an American certificate of proficiency in physical education, was a memorable experience. Thanks to this journey, the students had the opportunity not only to learn new methods and techniques they could utilize educating Italian children and adolescents, but they also carried out an important propaganda function. The students of the Academy, wearing their elegant uniforms and showing their fit bodies, demonstrated the strength of the Fascist regime to the Americans, to the Italian immigrants, and to the world. The message they carried to the United States was that, in a few years, Mussolini had been able to regenerate the youth of Italy. They showed to the Italians who had left the country years before that Fascist Italy was something different from the country



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they had left behind. The students of the Fascist Academy of Physical Education of Rome, young ambassadors of the Fascist regime, became a metaphor for the resurrection of the Italian nation.

The Mussolini Forum Since his very first appearance on the Italian political scene, Mussolini stressed the need for the rebirth of the Italian nation after centuries of darkness. The Italian resurrection entailed not only the creation of the “new Italians” but also the foundation of a “new Italy.” Therefore, the country also needed to be reconstructed from an architectural point of view. The rebirth of Rome, in particular, had to have a great metaphorical importance; Rome had to be the symbol of the new Fascist era. Mussolini thought that the regime had to tear down all those medieval and Renaissance buildings that blocked the view of the remains of the glorious Roman past, and, moreover, that it had to construct new edifices to make the regime eternal. The Duce, like the Roman emperors who had come before him, would have his own “Forum.”44 After 1927 Ricci entrusted to a young architect, Enrico Del Debbio, the task of planning the building of the ONB Academy.45 In the beginning he decided to build a modern institute with a modest sports ground for the training of the students.46 But then the Opera Nazionale Balilla decided to expand the original project, carrying out something more monumental. The Academy had to be the place where the physical and political future of the country was taking shape; it had to represent architecturally the rebirth of the Italian people after centuries of submission and weakness.47 Thus, the idea of the Forum was conceived. The president of the ONB decided to place the Institute in a big sports complex, equipped with swimming pools, tracks, and pitches. Moreover, Ricci decided in place of the previously planned sports ground to construct a beautiful, expensive stadium, made completely of marble and decorated with statues with classical Roman overtones.48 To build the sports ground as initially conceived would have cost 400,000 lire, but total costs for the Marble Stadium amounted to 15.3 million lire.49 Ricci decided to create a center that would be completely at the disposal of the youth organization and that would celebrate youth and attract the admiration of the world.50 The complex, once completed, according to a report presented to Mussolini by Ricci in 1935, would, because of its size, its goals, and its technical equipment, be “the biggest, the most original and the most perfect physical education complex ever projected and ever enacted in the world.”51 At the end of 1928 Del Debbio presented his first set of designs.52 According to his plan, inside the sports complex there would be a theater, a roller-skating

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rink, an uncovered swimming pool, a covered swimming pool, and several gardens. Alongside the ONB Institute the construction of a “twin building” was envisioned, originally designed as the seat of the Female Academy of the ONB or of the new Military Academy for Physical Education.53 Between the “twin buildings” there was to be a long and wide promenade that would take the visitors to the entrance of the main stadium. Around the Marble Stadium that would be built behind the ONB Institute there would be volleyball and tennis courts. Already in 1929 Del Debbio submitted a set of revised plans. For the first time, describing the sports complex, he used the term “Foro Mussolini” (Mussolini Forum), the name that would be used from then on to indicate this place. In the revised plans Del Debbio proposed to build a new bridge across the Tiber, just in front of the Forum, and changed the position of several playgrounds. However, the position of the main structures (the Academy, the Marble Stadium, and the main stadium) with respect to the previous project was not changed.54 Despite optimistic expectations, prodigious efforts, and the large number of workers, the construction of the Forum was not easy.55 It was a hard battle against natural elements, like the flooding of the Tiber, and against the marshy ground, which was absolutely unsuitable for the works planned. The building was also delayed by several conflicts among the ONB, the construction company, and the ministries that had to pay for the works. The Forum entailed a great financial sacrifice for the Opera. Moreover, some people thought the sports complex was a necessity, while others considered it a waste of money.56 In the end, the project, which was begun in August 1928 and according to the contract signed by the ONB and the builder had to be finished by March 1, 1929, was completed only in 1932.57 On November 4, 1932, in order to celebrate in the most spectacular way the anniversary of the Italian victory in the Great War and the tenth anniversary of the Fascist Revolution, the first works of the Mussolini Forum were unveiled: the Obelisk, the Cypresses Stadium, the Marble Stadium, and the Academy.58 One of the students, remembering that day, wrote: Inauguration of the Mussolini Forum. In the evening the joy that wrapped us in the afternoon is still alive. Thirty, forty, fifty thousand spectators in the Marble Stadium crowned by huge statues, representing athletes in gymnastic and sport attitudes. . . . Thirty, forty, fifty thousand spectators and outside, from Ponte Milvio and Piazza Risorgimento, the influx of new spectators was suddenly stopped.



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If they had not stopped it, we would have had an audience of one hundred thousand people, maybe more! The Monolith is uncovered in the presence of Mussolini. The Forum is inaugurated. Our Academy, superb and magnificent, worthy of the Forum, is ready!!! One of my comrades offers to the Duce the golden key of the Forum; one of my comrades of the Female Academy of Orvieto offers a big bunch of flowers. The gymnastic display took place. Insuperable. Modesty apart!!! And then I don’t understand anything, I can’t see anything! I don’t easily lose my composure . . . But when it is about our Duce I don’t understand anything, I don’t see anything! And I jump and I shout at the top of my lungs DUCE-DUCEDUCE!!!!!59

Looking at the works unveiled on November 4, the only one Del Debbio did not design was the Obelisk. It became one of the symbols of the Fascist youth organization, and it was used, for example, to decorate school report cards and ONB membership cards.60 Built using Carrara marble, according to a design by Costantino Costantini, the monument was more than 17 meters high (about 55 feet) and weighed about 650 tons (about 1,433,004 pounds).61 In 1934 the Opera Nazionale Balilla published a picture book entitled L’Obelisco Mussolini (Mussolini’s Obelisk). It described in twenty-three plates the transport of the Obelisk, its long travel from Carrara to Rome, and its erection. The book tried to transform this journey into a kind of epic enterprise, a collective event, one of the many that characterized the life of the Italian population during the Fascist Ventennio. The Obelisk arrived in Rome in several stages, welcomed along its route by joyful demonstrations of enthusiasm.62 The foreign press also paid attention to this new monument. In an article published in the New York Times we read that the Obelisk was made of the “largest block of marble ever excavated” and that it was “transported to Rome by sea on a special-constructed float after having been dragged from the mountain top by 100 pairs of oxen.”63 And in another article published two months before the inauguration of the Forum, the Obelisk was defined as “an object of surpassing beauty” and as “one of the notable monuments of modern times.”64 Fascist propaganda celebrated the monument by means of newsreels, articles, and pictures, glorifying the epic of the “monolith,” erected in Rome to honor Fascism, its creator, and his deeds.65 It was the fourteenth obelisk of Rome. After the obelisks erected by the Romans, and the ones raised by the

The Obelisk, the Mussolini Forum (ACS, Carte Ricci, s. 5, picture 705, Authorization 1198/2014)



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popes, Mussolini considered this one the first obelisk of the new Fascist Rome. Under the base of the Obelisk some commemorative gold medals coined for this occasion were placed, along with the “Codice del Foro Mussolini” (Code of the Mussolini Forum), a long manuscript written in Latin that recalled briefly the history of the Great War, the first years of the ONB, the construction of the Forum, and the transport of the Obelisk. The regime, using Latin, tried to connect the new Forum with its ancient Roman counterparts, Mussolini with the Roman emperors, the new Rome the regime was building with the ancient Rome that had mastered the world. In the Code of the Mussolini Forum, Fascists also tried to underline the connection existing between World War I and the Fascist regime, between the soldiers who fought in the trenches and the new generations the Opera Nazionale Balilla was educating.66 Among the first works unveiled, Ricci was extremely proud of the Marble Stadium (or Mussolini’s Stadium), built using 4,000 cubic meters (141,240 cubic feet) of marble blocks.67 It was smaller than a regulation-size soccer pitch, as Ricci did not want it to be used for big sporting events and soccer matches. The tiers could host up to twenty thousand spectators. The ONB president conceived of its main use being the everyday training of the academists. However, the stadium, considered by the New York Times the most beautiful in the world, would play a central role in the collective events organized by the regime and the youth organizations.68 It became a theater more than a sports pitch, a place where the regime showed itself off by means of youth music and gymnastic displays. In short, it became the site of the regime’s collective rituals.69 The central entrance to the stadium was decorated by a big black-and-white mosaic depicting eight athletes, exalting the beauty and the perfection of the body. 70 All around the stadium there were several marble statues.71 Every Italian province donated one of them. For this reason, on the base of every statue there was, and still is, the name of the province that gave it as a present to the ONB. The statues had to be models of perfection for the academists who trained there every day. The so-called Cypresses Stadium was projected for completion later than the Academy and the Marble Stadium. It had to host, according to regime propaganda, a hundred thousand spectators. It had to be used for soccer and rugby matches and for track-and-field events. The stadium, referred to later by many different names and known nowadays as “Stadio Olimpico” (Olympic Stadium), was called in the beginning Cypresses Stadium because it did not have any enclosure; it was surrounded simply by several cypress trees. Only in 1937 did the architect Luigi Moretti design a “real” travertine stadium. Unlike the other works unveiled on November 4, 1932, the stadium, built nearby Monte Mario, a hill just behind the sports complex, was continuously modified until the 1990s.72

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The Marble Stadium, the Mussolini Forum (ACS, Carte Ricci, s. 5, picture 706, Authorization 1198/2014)

The most important building of the Forum was, without doubt, the Academy. It was conceived as a monumental work, and according to the Fascists it had to be “the living symbol of the new Fascist educational spirit.”73 A propaganda book bombastically claimed that from here, “after having toughened muscles and spirit in gyms, tracks, stadiums and lecture-halls of the grand Academy,” the new Fascist educators, whose job was to transform “the youth of Italy into true soldiers capable of completely fulfilling the chief ’s commandment,” would flow out all over the country.74 The construction of the building was completed on October 15, 1932, and cost 28.2 milion lire, about 19 milion more than the sum budgeted in 1928. From an architectural point of view Del Debbio wanted it to be a kind of link between Imperial Rome and Fascist Italy. Therefore, he decided to construct a Pompeian-red building, decorated with Carrara marble elements and statues, but featuring at the same time a modern and powerful structure, functional and without frills. In this way, Del Debbio followed Mussolini’s architectural preferences: he built a structure aesthetically rooted in Imperial Rome but for all intents and purposes a modernist building reflective of the modernity of the



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The statues of the Marble Stadium, the Mussolini Forum (ACS, Carte Ricci, s. 5, picture 693, Authorization 1198/2014)

Fascist regime itself.75 Ugo Ojetti, a prominent Italian journalist, underlined how Del Debbio had been able to blend “old” and “new.” He wrote: “How long has it been since Rome admired such a terrific work? So vast, so rich and coherent, so beautiful and useful, so Roman, so imperial?” A work that, in spite of its “Romanness,” was also to be considered, according to Ojetti, an epitome of modernity: large, but at the same time clear-cut and practical.76

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The Fascist Academy, the Mussolini Forum (ACS, Carte Ricci, s. 5, picture 704, Authorization 1198/2014)

Inside the Institute there was a large gym; rooms for boxing, fencing, and Greco-Roman wrestling; locker rooms; lecture halls; scientific laboratories; and administrative offices.77 The Academy was a boarding institute and therefore had a big refectory, meeting rooms, a parlor, a music room, libraries, study halls, an infirmary, apartments for the instructors, and a huge 1,200-squaremeter (12,912-square-foot) dorm for the students. The Institute did not include any Catholic chapel, but it did have a shrine dedicated to Mussolini’s brother, Arnaldo, who had died in 1931, used by the students for Fascist commemorative rituals and to celebrate the beginning of the academic year. Catholic religion, according to official Fascist records, played no role in the education of the Fascist youth leaders, but it was important for them to honor Mussolini’s beloved brother. He had always been at the Duce’s side; he had supported him and had worked together with him to fulfill the Fascist Revolution. But above all he had been a political ideologue who a few months before his death had founded the Scuola di Mistica Fascista (School of Fascist Mystique), an institution for gifted university students aimed at training the future political leaders of the regime. Arnaldo, first “apostle” of Mussolini’s ideology and passionate supporter of the importance of youth education, was for the students of the Academy a natural object of veneration.78

The Fascist Academy, the Mussolini Forum (ACS, Carte Ricci, s. 5, picture 703, Authorization 1198/2014)

The Fascist Academy, the Mussolini Forum (ACS, Carte Ricci, s. 5, picture 702, Authorization 1198/2014)

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Living in the Forum, in the shadow of Mussolini’s Obelisk, having at their disposal modern and well-functioning facilities, surrounded by buildings and mosaics inspired by ancient Rome, practicing sports and gymnastics encircled by the statues of the Marble Stadium, the academists worked hard to become ideally upstanding citizens of the Third Rome, advocates of the new Fascist credo, and educators of the nascent Fascist generations.

Missionaries of the New Doctrine In 1933 the organization of the Academy and the role of the academists were outlined more clearly. In the summer two important measures came into force. On August 31, 1933, a new law was approved for all Italian “Special Institutes of Advanced Studies” (royal decree 1,592), including the Academy. This legislative measure determined the business of the Academy for the next six years and ratified once and for all the idea that the Institute was not simply destined to train physical education teachers. It sanctioned that the Academy was the center where political and pedagogical leaders of the Fascist youth organization were trained. The second important measure approved was the “Order of the Opera Nazionale Balilla Staff.” It stated that the administrative officers of the ONB had to be recruited, as a rule, from among the graduates of the Fascist Academy. Attending the Academy and completing the nine-month apprenticeship at the ONB Roman provincial committee, the academists were taken on as officers of the Opera Nazionale Balilla.79 Those who obtained a leading role in the ONB were exempted totally or partially from teaching and got special allowances, dependent on the province where they had been assigned.80 To become Balilla and Avanguardisti officers it was necessary to be MVSN officers. For this reason every academist was appointed capo manipolo fuori quadro of the Militia. To be fuori quadro meant that, though they wore the MVSN uniform, the acade­ mists were considered in service only to the ONB and could not lead ordinary MVSN units.81 In this way Ricci was able to avoid the transfers that had initially prevented the ONB from forming a stable group of leaders for the Fascist youth organization. To be admitted at the Academy it was necessary to have a high school diploma, to pass a physical examination, and to write an essay about Italian policy. Moreover, as a booklet written about the Accademia stated, it was also necessary to come from a “politically reliable” family and to demonstrate that one had a “Fascist soul and faith.” The guarantors of such political purity were the local leaders of the Fascist Party who had to write, sign, and send to the selection committee of the Academy official reports about the candidates and their families.82 After April 1929, in addition to the compulsory requirements



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Accademisti and Avanguardisti (ACS, Carte Ricci, s. 8, picture 1142, Authorization 1198/2014)

necessary for entrance to the Institute, some “preferential conditions” were added that guaranteed a higher score in the selection process: to have been an officer in the army or in the MVSN; to be the son of a disabled ex-serviceman, of a “Great War fallen,” or of a “Fascist Revolution veteran”; to have been a teacher; or to have held a minor office in the ONB.83 Courses were not free. However, it was possible not only to receive fellowships and exemptions from payment, but also to pay for the entire course by means of a salary deduction after subsequent hiring.84 The Fascist Academy, described in a 1933 ONB publication as “an Institute, militarily organized and based on the most modern didactic and pedagogical principles,” offered scientific, humanistic, political, professional, and technical classes “aimed at developing the moral, intellectual and physical attitudes of the youth devoted to the noble profession of Fascist educator,” 85 youth who had decided to train children and adolescents and to teach them how to become the “new Italians” Mussolini wanted them to be. The Academy wanted to train perfectly skilled, complete, and versatile instructors and leaders. They had to be ready to teach gymnastics and sports, to organize summer camps and gymnastic displays, to give lectures about Italian history, the Fascist regime, and Fascist ideology; they had to be a model for their young subordinates; and they had to be ready to joke, educate, punish, and comfort. They had to be leaders, but they also had to be comrades.86 One of the academists, talking about the

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students the Institute was forming, stated that the Opera Balilla could expect incredible things from them. He explained that the students of the Forum felt “in their souls the faith of their mission with all the enthusiasm of their youth and of their Fascist strength.” They were “torches inflamed by the heat of their passion.” Their mission was “to inflame by means of their fire the new Italians” and to mould them following the ideals of the Fascist Era, drawing inspiration from Mussolini.87 According to Fascist propaganda, every student in the Academy, chosen from among the best Fascist youth, was prepared “to become an excellent officer of the Opera Balilla,” completely aware of his mission.88 Living together in this boarding institute for two years, the academists would become true comrades, fully conscious of their educational role.89 Fascists asserted that the youth of the Academy, wearing the same uniforms, living in harmony with their companions and instructors, training together, performing together, spending the summer together in the holiday camps, understanding themselves to be the fittest youth of Italy and the best representatives of the Fascist nation, developed a real esprit de corps that transcended any barriers of class or region that had once existed between them. One of the academists, idealizing his own personal experience, wrote: “By now we all have the same character, we all think in the same way. Our march follows the same route, with the same difficulties and with the same satisfactions.”90 Such camaraderie was not broken by the end of the regime, and in the years following World War II the former students of the Academy gathered, and continued to go on gathering, to remember their youth, their shared experience, the regime, and to commemorate all those former students who had passed away.91 Fascist publications underlined the political relevance of the Academy and of its students, a relevance for a long time completely ignored by subsequent historiography. The Fascist Academy was presented in books and articles as “the most vigorous and important melting pot for the creation of the Opera Nazionale Balilla managers,” and as a place “saturated with Fascist faith.”92 Here all differences would disappear, Fascists claimed, and the Academy would carry out a process of sociopolitical homogenization of its students. The academists were presented in books and articles as the perfect incarnation of the ideal Fascist “new men.” They were described as “untiring, bright, enthusiastic, always ready to sacrifice themselves, obedient, and silent.” They were “the best sons” of Fascist Italy, “the best fruit of the Revolution,” destined to transform into believers subsequent Italian generations. They were supposed to possess “moral probity,” “organizational capacities,” and “conscious discipline.”93 In both private and public life the academists had to be living examples for everybody: they had to be “the most perfect voice of the organization.” The



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Opera Nazionale Balilla officers, in Ricci’s projects, had to feel deep in their consciences that through educating the youth, affecting their habits of life and patterns of thought, they were building the Italian future and guaranteeing the existence of the regime.94

Middle and Lesser Leaders In 1930, in his report about the activities of the Opera Nazionale Balilla, Renato Ricci underlined how his organization was carrying out with dedication and absolute rigor the selection of the youth leaders. The ONB could not choose its instructors lightly: a bad leader would have negative effects on his followers. Ricci wanted to have “a class of leaders perfectly conscious of the importance of their tasks and able to guarantee moral prestige, politically aware management, and organizational capacities.” The ONB president knew that his organization had a long way to go before having at its disposal the ideal youth leaders Fascism needed, but he was also proud of the achievements attained in a very short period of time. He believed that the ONB had, in general, “noble-minded leaders” who were assisting “jealously and with care the children, following scrupulously the regime’s guidelines.” He knew that there were also slackers, but they “would disappear inevitably, because of natural selection.”95 And yet to find politically and technically valuable youth leaders was not easy. The academists were the “primal, solid and permanent [nucleus] of the Opera Balilla leading class” from a political and military point of view, but they were not sufficient.96 The ONB president, who had conceived of the Mussolini Forum Academy as the most important center for the theoretical study of sport and physical education, and for the training of youth educators and gymnastic teachers, realized that the Academy could not alone address the shortage of leaders in the movement as a whole.97 The Institute could train the ONB high leadership, but to carry out the educational project in the field, in smaller towns and in primary schools, it was necessary to train “little bosses” and primary school teachers.98 In the future the ONB wanted to overhaul completely the teacher-training colleges so that male elementary school teachers would be prepared to become educators, gym instructors, and Balilla leaders during their education at these institutions.99 However, for the moment, it was necessary to face contingent issues: to remove school teachers who were considered too old; to reduce, to the greatest possible extent, the number of female elementary school teachers, who were considered less appropriate for the indoctrination of the youth according to the Fascist warlike ideology; and to prepare the young male teachers to function perfectly as youth leaders of the ONB.100 Such initiatives were developed

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in order to disseminate Fascist ideology beginning in the elementary school. The elementary teachers were among the first people Italian children met outside their family units; therefore they had to be political propagandists; they had to educate the students to the values and ideals of the regime; they had to train them and they had to counter the heterodox ideas embraced at home. In short, they had to do in the classroom what the ONB did outside of it. So, ideally, elementary teachers and Balilla leaders needed to be the same people. The most important way to transform school teachers into youth leaders, and at the same time to expand in the fastest possible way the ONB leadership, was through the organization of “physical education and Fascist culture” courses managed by students and staff of the Fascist Academy for the elementary school teachers.101 These courses, “lively filiations of the Academy,” had to offer, in the shortest possible time, the basics of gymnastics, sport, first aid, and history, along with the laws and institutions of Fascism—all subjects studied at the Mussolini Forum Institute in a complete course.102 After one month of physical and political training, teachers would return to their towns and villages and assume leading roles in the ONB communal committees and manage Sunday musters, gymnastic displays, camping trips, and ONB summer camps.103 The first national “practical and theoretical informative course” for female and male primary school teachers took place in Rome from August 14 until September 15, 1929.104 Objectively, there were still many female primary school teachers, and the regime could not eliminate them. The departure of all the maestre from the schools would paralyze the Italian school system, and the regime, therefore, found it necessary to train them to lead the female units of the ONB, and the Balilla units in all those activities that did not involve military or physical education. After 1931 school inspectors and students who were attending the last year in a teacher-training school could also attend the national short courses.105 After 1933 courses were specifically targeted at individuals divided according to gender, physical training, and the role they carried out in the schools in which they worked. Taking part in such courses, teachers could achieve scores that would result in promotions and better relocations; as a consequence, we may well imagine that the “physical education and Fascist culture” courses did not meet with special resistance.106 The courses held by the ONB were similar to those organized by the Nazi League of Teachers that we will touch on later. In both cases the motivation at the base of the teachers’ attendance was, we may suppose, opportunism rather than ideological conviction. Neither Italian nor German teachers wanted to lose their positions and considered the training camps a way of advancing their careers.



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The Fascists thought that the distance between the schools and the ONB would soon be reduced, that both institutions would put into effect “the totalitarian education the Duce desired” thanks to the creation of a new breed of professionals, able to be at the same time good school teachers and perfect ONB leaders.107 In order to fulfill this aim, the Opera Nazionale Balilla decided in 1929 to create an ad hoc “pilot” institute: the Accademia Littoria (Lictor Academy). In the Fascist plans it was to be the first teacher-training college completely managed by the ONB. In this Institute students would follow the same program of the ordinary male teacher-training colleges, supplemented by an intense sport and gymnastics curriculum and instruction for becoming ONB leaders. The Institute was located, like the major Academy of Physical and Youth Education, in the Mussolini Forum. The Accademia Littoria was an experiment, but the ONB hoped to create many institutes like this, or even to obtain from the National Education Ministry the management of all Italian teacher-training colleges. However, the Fascist youth organizations, the ONB first and the GIL later, were not able to supersede the National Education Ministry. To the Fascist youth organization were assigned only a few schools for the education of the elementary school teachers. We could hypothesize that in the future the Ministry might transfer the training of schoolteachers to the Fascist youth organization, but until the end of the regime the teacher-training colleges remained customarily under the control of the minister of education.108 Balilla and Avanguardisti units were led not only by students who had graduated from the Academy of Physical and Youth Education and by elementary school teachers, but also by very young leaders chosen from inside the units themselves. The best members of the youth organization were selected to rule the minor units. They began their cursus honorum (career path) inside the Fascist youth organization as capi squadra (squad leaders), in control of squads composed of six ONB members. This rank was assigned to young members of the organization who had taken part in appropriate courses carried out by ONB local committees.109 The first courses were organized in the summer of 1929 by many communal committees and in Rome, where eight hundred youth coming from 270 communes of central and southern Italy gathered.110 The aim of these courses was, as the official journal of the ONB stated, to train the youth, transforming them into “military and sport leaders of Opera Balilla little units and to enable them to exert command and responsibility functions.”111 A course to obtain higher rank as capo centuria, an intermediate role between capo squadra and capo manipolo, the rank possessed by the students of the Academy, was organized for the first time at the Mussolini Forum between August and September 1930. Only the best members of the local commands could take

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part.112 The aim of the academists, who had to train the young leaders gathered in Rome, was “to saturate them with high political passion” and with “the fundamental truths of Fascism.”113 They taught the young leaders what they had themselves learned in the Academy, trying to give these budding little “bosses” all the tools necessary to indoctrinate, guide, and coach their peers. During the course, in order to broaden what they had studied to become squad leaders, the young recruits were given lessons about Fascist legislation and Fascist doctrine, the history of Roman art, topography, premilitary training, personal hygiene, first aid, and physical education.114 What was the logic? Why these topics? Why, for example, Fascist legislation? The idea was to train these young leaders so that they could point to the magnificent accomplishments of the Fascist regime, contrasting them with the failures of Liberal Italy and thereby suggesting how the laws passed after October 1922 were all aimed at the improvement of the lives of the Italians. They had to explain to their subordinates the main features of Fascist ideology; therefore, they were compelled to attend formal courses in which they learned the evolution of Fascist doctrine. They were taught about Roman art history in order to appreciate the importance and the grandness of their “fathers” and to make them, and consequently their fellows, feel prouder of their cultural roots. But these youth were also expected to organize military camps and war games; therefore they needed to be given notions of topography and premilitary training. In the end, endorsing the Latin motto Mens sana in corpore sano, and considering sport and gymnastics to be essential components for the shaping of the “new Italians,” it was logical that the Fascist youth organization gave to their young youth leaders notions of personal hygiene, first aid, and physical education. Through such courses the ONB wanted to develop the very structure of its own leadership. Fascists wanted to entrust to very young leaders major responsibilities and important functions— above all in small villages and towns where the regime had difficulty making its presence felt.115 The Opera, after having spent time, energy, and money to mould these youth, did not want to lose them. For this reason, on the strength of the arrangements made with the MVSN in 1930, the youth organization ordered that all the youth who had attained the rank of squad leader or centuria leader, once they reached their majority, did not have to become members of the Militia but had to remain in the ONB. In this way they were given the opportunity to build a career within the youth organization. The youth could become squad leaders, once they passed the local exams, and then, after attending the national courses in Rome, capi centuria or, after 1931, cadetti, a new leadership rank reserved only to youth having a certificate of completion for junior high school.116 To persuade Italian youth to assume leading roles in the ONB, the organization committed



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itself to choosing its own clerical staff, both on the local and national levels, favoring squad-leaders, centuria leaders, and cadetti. Moreover, centuria leaders and cadetti were assured a higher score not only in the selection process to gain entrance to the Foro Mussolini Academy, but also in the national exam to become civil servants. Moreover, the ONB—each year organizing cruises and excursions, and offering to its members special fellowships to attend schools or professional training courses—reserved many places for centuria leaders and cadetti.117 The educational path designed by the regime to lead Italian youth to acquire role models in accordance with the Fascist culture was not a marginal or incidental feature of Mussolini’s political system; instead it was one of its central propelling factors. The task of the academists, and of the middle and minor leaders of the youth organization, was to accustom the younger generations to the values and ideals of the Fascist totalitarian regime. Youth leaders were indispensable for the success of the educational experiment conducted by the ONB and the regime needed a lot of them. But quantity was not everything; the youth leaders had to be, first and foremost, perfectly equipped for such a vital task. The Academy and the summer crash courses were designed so that they could form leaders ready to meet the needs of the Opera. Educating Balilla and Avanguardisti, Italian Fascism tried to guarantee the continuance of the Black Shirts’ Revolution, transforming Italians into the new “Romans of modernity,” destined to conquer, in Mussolini’s plans, a new empire, and to transform Italy once again into a faro della civiltà (beacon of civilization) of the world. The academists, presented in newsreels and pictures as marching soldiers, displayed abroad and on special occasions, had to represent the personification of the “new Mussolinian man.” In Ricci’s mind the Academy had to be “a forge of educators and political leaders fated, or better still, devoted to the most gigantic state educational experiment” ever tried. They had to make the Italians rediscover the pride and power that had disappeared after the fall of the Roman Empire.118 In 1933, year XI of the Fascist Era, while the Italian youth organization was celebrating its seventh anniversary and the Fascist Academy was beginning its sixth academic year, in Germany a new political and institutional order was emerging, an order that would not only revolutionize the life of the German people but also change world history. Adolf Hitler, after having lived on the outskirts of official German politics for more than a decade, was appointed Reichskanzler. Germany and Italy were two different countries, with different histories and different problems, but under both Hitler and Mussolini, both nations aimed to consolidate a new political-ideological system based on violence, war, chauvinistic power, national rebirth, and youth indoctrination.

4 And They Will Never Be Free Again, for the Rest of Their Lives I

n Germany, as in Italy, the end of World War I meant the beginning of an internecine conflict among political enemies. Wartime attitudes continued brutalizing politics and heightening indifference to human life. The Freikorps—paramilitary units spontaneously formed after the war to put down Communist uprisings— symbolized the continuation of wartime camaraderie in peacetime. The “myth of war” shaped the identity of several radical groups that arose in postwar Germany. One of these groups, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, would change the course of history.1 Both Fascists and Nazis glorified the war and considered it the beginning of the Italian and German national rebirth. Moreover, both Mussolini and Hitler entrusted the task of guaranteeing the full realization of their revolutions to the younger generation. And in Germany, as in Italy, to fulfil this task the youth had to be educated. In general, the Nazi youth organization had a trajectory not unlike that of the Fascists. But the Hitlerjugend (HJ) in Germany and its Italian counterpart, the ONB, followed somewhat distinct paths. Just as the history of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party, NSDAP) differed from that of the PNF, so too were there variations in the traditions of Italian and German youth associationalism, leading to diverse policies of youth training under the totalitarian dictatorships.

The Origins of the National Socialist Youth Movement: The Jugendbund der NSDAP When in 1920 Hitler announced at the Hofbräuhaus in Munich the program of the German Labor Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), predecessor of the 76



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NSDAP, leftist protesters tried to shout him down.2 After this incident Hitler decided to create a permanent group of guards who had to serve as Schutzstaffel (Defense Corps, SS) and protect him and other members of the party. By September 1921 the name Sturmabteilungen (Storm Troopers, SA) began to be informally used for this corps.3 The nucleus of these “assault troops” was soon joined by younger recruits. Only at the end of 1922, however, did Rudolf Heß, a veteran army lieutenant, form an SA student battalion as part of the Storm Trooper regiment in Munich.4 Hitler, urged by Gustav Adolf Lenk, a Nazi supporter who was too young to become a member of the party or of the SA, began to consider the possibility of creating a Nazi youth organization for those under eighteen years of age.5 Such an organization might train the youth before they became members of the Sturmabteilungen and, at the same time, ensure publicity for the movement among the younger generations.6 The foundation of the first National Socialist youth group, the Jugendbund der NSDAP, took place at the beginning of 1922. On March 8, the Völkischer Beobachter—the official newspaper of the Nazi Party—published Hitler’s proclamation. He explained that the youth association had been established as a reservoir to bring together and organize the followers who, because of their age, could not yet become members of the SA and the NSDAP. The Jugendbund der NSDAP would have its own statutes, but to avoid tensions, misunderstandings, and divisions, it would “instruct its members in the same spirit as in the party.” The youth organization Hitler was founding had to prepare young Nazis to face “the difficult tasks of the future.” The youth had to realize that the future rested on their shoulders and that the rebirth of Germany depended on the defeat of Communism, the overthrow of the detested Weimar Republic, and the creation of a “new state” that the youth had to protect and develop. In the final part of his proclamation, underlining the necessity of creating a racial community based on blood ties rather than class division, Hitler invited all the Aryan youth to join the Nazi organization. Two months later, on May 13, 1922, the official inaugural meeting of the Nazi youth section was held. On this occasion Lenk, now the Führer of the Jugendbund der NSDAP, spoke, as did Hitler, urging his young followers to protect the purity of the German race.7 Like the Avanguardie Fasciste, the Nazi youth group was structured as a paramilitary organization. The statute of the Jugendbund was published a few days after the official foundation. The fee-free organization would welcome all Aryan youth between fourteen and eighteen years of age, without taking into consideration class, occupation, or social status. The statute stipulated that the “spirit” of youth had to be cultivated via several types of events. Lectures, discussions, and talks would take place once a week, whereas every second Sunday of the month was to be devoted to hiking in the countryside, discovering the

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beauty of the Vaterland. Moreover, to prevent young members from reading “trashy literature,” the youth league would establish its own libraries. The Jugendbund had to guarantee new recruits for the adult Nazi organizations; hence all members, once they reached the age of eighteen, had to leave the youth league in order to join the SA. The proclaimed aim of the Jugendbund der NSDAP was to reawaken the Germanic Volk and reject those values originating from “Jewry and Mammon.” Blood had to prevail over class. The members of the Nazi youth group did not have to distinguish between apprentices and students, but between German and non-German. The Jugendbund had to create a new anti-Jewish, Aryan Volksgemeinschaft. Like the Avanguardie Fasciste the Jugendbund did not take into consideration the social origin, study level, or occupation of its members, but unlike its Italian counterpart it put anti-Semitism from the very beginning at the core of its ideology.8 Munich was the focal point of the Jugendbund, but branches were also established in other parts of Germany. Many of them had very few members. The Nazi youth was essentially, like the NSDAP itself, a Bavarian phenomenon. Lenk did his best to attract new members, but it was not easy—largely on account of the many other associations for youth in Germany.9 The number of youth groups already existing in Germany before the outbreak of the war was unparalleled: in no other country of the world were autonomous youth associations so widespread.10 In part because of this the Nazis—absolute newcomers to the world of youth organizations—had huge problems recruiting novices. They had to face the cutthroat competition of several existing youth associations, heirs of the prewar youth movement, and of the youth sections founded by other parties after World War I. Those parties looked at youth as potential voters and considered their youth branches powerful propaganda instruments, useful for reaching out to new constituencies and shoring up their legitimacy.11 All the different German youth groups joined together in 1921 in the Reichsaus­ schuß Deutscher Jugendverbände (Committee of the German Youth Organizations). Some of these groups—largely those identifying themselves as part of the “apolitical” prewar Wandervögel movement—after having joined the Reichs­ ausschuß decided to create inside of it a large unitary association: the Bündische Jugend.12 The Nazis were very slow in giving shape to their own youth section. Hitler’s Jugendbund made its first public appearance, as one of the many German youth associations, only in October 1922, at a Nazi political rally in Coburg. In January 1923 the Jugendbund had thirty-nine local branches and about twelve hundred members.13 On November 8 and 9, 1923, a National Socialist insurrection, inspired by Mussolini’s March on Rome, was organized in Munich. The Jugendbund did not participate officially, although individual members,



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including Lenk and his brothers, were active as demonstrators. Moreover, on the march to the Feldherrnhalle a Jugendbund member, Kurt Neubauer, was shot dead. After the failed Putsch of November, the youth organization, as well as the party and the SA, was banned. November 9 marked the end of the first phase of National Socialism and of its first foray into youth organizations.14 Whereas in Italy youth had been the cornerstone of the Fascist movement from the very beginning, in Germany the youth joined the movement later. As early as 1919 Mussolini summoned up the new Italian generations, while in Germany Anton Drexler, founder of the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, and Hitler at first called upon the workers and only subsequently upon the German youth. Moreover, youth also played very different roles in Fascist and Nazi ideology. If in Mussolini’s Fighting Fasces, as we have seen, the “youth” and the “myth of youth” were central components of the regime’s ideology, in the Nazi movement the central myth was “race.” Youth were important to carry out the political fight against the Weimar Republic, the Socialist and the Communist Parties, and against the Jews, but they were not for Hitler a myth per se; rather, they were an instrument the Nazis could use to realize their ultimate goal: the creation of a racially pure new Germany. The cult of youth, which would figure prominently in Nazi propaganda just before and after the seizure of power in 1933, was not one of the main constitutive elements of National Socialism in its early days. The National Socialists’ general lack of interest in youth was a paradox, given that in the following years the NSDAP would proclaim itself as the “party of youth.” Compared to the other German parties that created youth sections between 1918 and 1919—and to the Fighting Fasces in Italy—the National Socialists came late to an understanding of the importance of the new generation for their movement.15

Anarchy Hitler, one of the organizers of the Putsch, was put on trial. The legal action against him turned out to have an enormous propaganda potential. National Socialism was publicized throughout Germany and National Socialist ideology began to attract supporters from all over the country. Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison at the fortress of Landsberg am Lech. Without him, the NSDAP was compelled to operate underground and lacked a strong unitary leader, and Hitler’s supporters established many political groups ideologically close to National Socialism but in practicality separated from one another. The Nazi youth movement also splintered into smaller groups. Among them the Nazi Jugendbund of Plauen (Saxony) was destined to play a very important role in the development of the Hitlerjugend.16

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Formed by eight members and led by a law student named Kurt Gruber, the Plauen group, in spite of the prohibition of the NSDAP following the 1923 Putsch, continued its activities under the cover name of Wandersportverein Vogtland. In 1924 it had about forty members. The group was reinforced by its fusion with another organization of Markneukirchen, a nearby town, the Deutscher Jugendbund. In both cases the young Nazis tried to conceal their political identities using names referable to the prewar apolitical youth groups. Gruber enjoyed considerable success in Saxony because of his personal capacities but also because of the financial support he received from a local textile manufacturer, Martin Mutschmann. He allowed Gruber to work as a full-time leader of his organization, rent office premises in Plauen, and publish his own newspaper. In December 1924 there were fifty-six branches in Saxony with 2,500 members. In 1925 Gruber’s group, now known as the Großdeutsche Jugendbewegung (Greater German Youth Movement)—a völkisch and antiSemitic group glorifying körperliche Tüchtigkeit (physical efficiency) and classless Kameradschaftlichkeit (comradeship)—spread outside of Saxony to Mecklenburg, Franconia, Rheineland, and Rheinpfalz. Nevertheless, there were, throughout Germany, several other Nazi youth groups competing with Gruber’s. The atom­ i­zation of the Nazi youth mirrored perfectly the atomization of the party.17 Once he had been released on December 20, 1924, Hitler found a party adrift. During his detention the NSDAP, renamed the Großdeutsche Volks­ge­ mein­schaft, had been theoretically under Alfred Rosenberg’s leadership. But the NSDAP had fragmented, and Hitler saw his goal as one of demonstrating the indispensability of his leadership, pulling the various groups back together. It was easy enough for him to recover full control of the NSDAP in Munich, and throughout Bavaria, but in northwestern Germany he encountered difficulties. Here a group of “social-revolutionary” Nazis, led by Gregor and Otto Strasser and Joseph Goebbels, offered a different interpretation of National Socialism. Whereas Hitler, following the strategy already undertaken in 1923, was trying to establish good relations with influential and wealthy patrons— German businessmen and industrial tycoons—Goebbels and the Strasser brothers wanted to fight against capitalism and the bourgeoisie.18 Alarmed by the growing popularity of his rivals, Hitler summoned all the local leaders of his party to Bamberg on February 14, 1926. At the same time that Mussolini was putting an end to the internal freedom of the Fascist Party, silencing the different ideological positions expressed by other main figures of the PNF, Hitler invited his supporters to submit themselves unconditionally to his authority and political program. Following the same political strategy adopted a few years earlier by Mussolini in order to enter the Italian political arena, the NSDAP decided to accept the rules of the German democratic system.



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In this way, Hitler argued, cooperating with the conservative elites, toning down the antibourgeois and anticapitalist rhetoric expressed by some Nazi factions, and exploiting the growing disappointment with the Weimar Republic, the party could become a major political contender. Hitler attained his goals: opposition vanished, the northern leaders accepted his diktat, and Goebbels became one of the most important men of his inner circle.19

Gruber’s Leadership Hitler, wanting to transform the NSDAP into a mass movement, and following the example of other German political parties, created ad hoc affiliates to expand Nazi influence to as many sectors of German society as possible. As a result of this policy, he decided it was also necessary to strengthen the Nazi youth organization. The desire for a more effective political education inside the ranks of the Nazi youth emerged from Hitler’s thinking during his captivity. Writing Mein Kampf, he began to realize the importance of German youth for the fulfillment of his political project. He wrote that the education and training of the young in the goals of the movement had to be developed beginning in childhood. After years of anarchy, Hitler realized that it was time to give to the Nazi youth a uniform organization and rationalize the educational work carried out inside of it.20 Thus, on July 4, 1926, during the second NSDAP Congress in Weimar, there was a meeting of the youth leaders of the various organizations inspired by National Socialism that had arisen after 1923 throughout Germany. The outcome of the meeting was an agreement to establish a unitary youth organization of the NSDAP. Given its size, Gruber’s Großdeutsche Jugendbewegung had the best claim out of all the contending associations. He was appointed Reichsführer of the Nazi youth, and his organization, annexing all the other various National Socialist youth groups, was transformed into the Hitlerjugend–Bund Deutscher Arbeiterjugend (Hitler Youth–Association of German Workers’ Youth).21 While in Italy the law instituting the Opera Nazionale Balilla was coming into force, in Germany the Hitlerjugend was officially being established. While the ONB was becoming the Fascist state youth organization, the Hitler Youth was overcoming internal fragmentation in the NSDAP, becoming one of many major youth associations in Weimar Germany at the time. But the process was slower and more difficult than in Italy. The Avanguardie Studentesche, the first Fascist youth organization to arise in Italy, established three months after its foundation a national secretariat, the aim of which was to give a national dimension to the newly established association. By contrast, the Nazis were unable to create a national youth organization before the Putsch of November

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1923. Subsequently, given the absence of Hitler, the ban against any kind of Nazi association, the division existing among the local Nazi leaders, the federal structure of the German state, and the necessity of acting underground, it was only possible for several unconnected, and sometimes competing, Nazi youth groups to arise. As a consequence, a unitary, national youth organization was established only three years after the creation of the first Nazi Jugendbund. Whereas in Italy a thread linked the Avanguardie Studentesche, the Avanguardie Giovanili, and the Opera Nazionale Balilla, in Germany there was a discontinuity in the development of the Nazi youth organizations, a discontinuity that ended only in 1926. Shortly after its official foundation, the Hitlerjugend established its headquarters in Plauen. The “new” Hitler Youth soon developed a well-defined internal organization. At the top of the hierarchy was the national leader (Reichsführer), followed by leaders on the regional (Gauführer), provincial (Bezirkführer), and communal (Ortsgruppenführer) level. The members of the organization were divided, according to age, into Wanderabteilungen (hiking units), for those between the age of sixteen and eighteen, and Jungenmannschaften, for those between the age of fourteen and sixteen.22 The Hitlerjugend was a youth branch of the SA: its members wore a uniform similar to that of the SA and Gruber had as his immediate superior the supreme commander of the Sturm­a b­ teilungen. The headquarters of the youth organization was 240 kilometers away from Munich. For this reason the Hitler Youth seemed somewhat independent from the party, although the NSDAP was committed to securing the youth organization firmly under its grasp. Therefore, during the first congress of the Hitlerjugend in Weimar, on December 5, 1926, clear guidelines were established about the relationship that had to exist between the Hitler Youth and the NSDAP. According to the new policy, all members of the Hitler Youth at the age of eighteen had to become members of the party. Moreover, the appointment of all local leaders of the organization had to be endorsed by the NSDAP. The directives were clear: the NSDAP intended to control the Hitler Youth. But the distance between Munich and Plauen mattered: in spite of guidelines and directives, the Hitlerjugend maintained a high level of independence.23 Like in Italy, the attitude of the Nazi Party toward its youth organization was very similar to the one exhibited by the PNF towards the AS. The NSDAP and the PNF considered themselves the most important agencies for the fulfillment of the Nazi and Fascist political projects, and both committed themselves to depriving the youth of their autonomy. The Hitler Youth did not spread like wildfire but expanded slowly. Gruber’s enthusiasm was undeniable, but he faced important problems. His organization needed financial backing, trained leaders, and press facilities. Private financial



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support helped the expansion of the Hitler Youth in Saxony, but it was not sufficient to generate expansion on a national basis. Having realized that public demonstrations were relatively inexpensive to organize and highly effective for attracting new members, Gruber decided to introduce them and to organize rallies and parades jointly with SA and SS units. At the end of 1928 Gruber also convened a national meeting of the entire Hitler Youth leadership at Plauen in order to evaluate the current status of the organization. On this occasion the leaders decided to create a new division for children between the age of ten and fourteen, the Jungmannschaften. Yet despite the efforts, despite the propaganda meetings organized by Gruber all over Germany, and despite the creation of new youth journals, the Hitler Youth enjoyed only modest expansion between 1926 and 1929. Although the number of branches rose from eighty in 1926 to about 450 in 1929, and although membership rose from seven hundred to thirteen thousand, this was still relatively modest. If we consider that in 1927 the Committee of the German Youth Organizations had 4,338,850 members, we can easily understand that the impact of the Nazi Youth was inconsequential.24 One explanation for the slow growth of the HJ during these years could be the relative political stability and economic well-being of the Republic between 1924 and 1929, a period when political radicalism seemed to have much less appeal.25 The Hitler Youth tried to enlist youth from all social classes. However, when it began its “recruitment campaign,” youth belonging to the upper-middle classes were already mostly members of other party associations and of groups somehow connected with the Wandervögel tradition. Moreover, young workers instead preferred to join extreme left groups. For this reason, the Hitler Youth was able to recruit primarily petty- and middle-bourgeois youth. The Reichsleitung of the Hitler Youth recognized the problems and tried to build bridges with other conservative youth groups. To this end Gruber decided to institute an office especially aimed at smoothing the relationship between the Hitler Youth and other German youth associations. Nevertheless, the youth groups of the traditionalist right rejected the invitation, leading to the closure of the office. The völkisch (nationalist) organizations refused to ally with the Hitler Youth not only because they wanted to keep their identity, but also because they were extremely mistrustful toward an organization that they still felt was promoting antibourgeois values.26 The ideology of the Hitler Youth at the end of the 1920s, although incorporating the racial and nationalistic rhetoric of the NSDAP, still had a strong social revolutionary component. Gruber’s Hitler Youth opposed Communism, but also capitalism, traditionalism, and conservatism, supporting social justice, egalitarianism, and the abolition of all distinctions founded on privilege derived from class, rank, or occupation. Anticapitalist and Socialist slogans such as

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“Freiheit und Brot” (Freedom and bread), “Durch Sozialismus zur Nation” (Through socialism to the nation), and “Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz” (The common good before oneself ) were vital aspirations of the HJ. The goal of the HJ under Gruber was to fulfill a real social revolution, on egalitarian principles, emancipating the state from the bonds of capitalist powers. In short, Gruber and his entourage infused the HJ with social revolutionary ideals that could not attract “conservative” youth.27 In November 1929, given the scant success of the HJ in attracting upper-middle-class youth, the Nazis decided to implement a new strategy in order to appeal to those youth: they created an organization, distinct from the Hitler Youth, aimed at joining together junior and high school students. Under the tutelage of the journalist Adrian Theodor von Renteln, the Nationalsozia­ listisches Schülerbund (National Socialist Pupils’ League, NSS) was established in Hamburg. It had a particularly marked anti-Semitic tendency, organizing actions against Jewish students and teachers. It was a middle-class organization, and it tried to build lasting relationships with several völkisch youth organizations. Its members, above all secondary school pupils, looked at the Hitler Youth members with a kind of disdain. They considered themselves to be an elite group and they did not want to mingle with the Hitlerjugend. However, in order to overcome some of the divisions among the youth organizations they had created, the Nazis tried to encourage common meetings between the Hitler Youth and the Schülerbund.28 Moreover, the Hitlerjugend and the NSS were not the only Nazi youth organizations in existence. There was also the National­ sozialistiches Deutsches Studentenbund (National Socialist League of University Students, NSDSTB). Founded in 1926 by Wilhelm Tempel, it was not particularly successful initially. But its situation improved dramatically as soon as Baldur von Schirach became the new leader.29 Born in Berlin in 1907, von Schirach was the son of a German father and an American mother. His father was a former captain of the Prussian Army. All the children of the Schirach family were sent to highly exclusive schools. Baldur’s older brother committed suicide just after the end of the war because he did not wish to survive Germany’s humiliation. This was a shocking event for Baldur. In 1925, while he was still a young grammar-school pupil, von Schirach heard Hitler speaking for the first time. At the age of eighteen he became a member of the NSDAP. He went to study German and Art History at the University of Munich. Here he became a storm trooper and member of the Nationalsozia­ listiches Deutsches Studentenbund. He put himself in the spotlight as assignment editor of a new review, Die Deutsche Zukunft (The German Future) that would soon be renamed Wille und Macht (Will and Power). Von Schirach never had to earn his own living and was totally out of touch with the working classes. He therefore



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became a kind of spokesman for the upper-middle-class elements within the Nazi Student Association. Thanks to his capacities, he was appointed head of the organization on July 20, 1928. Von Schirach committed himself to increasing the membership of the NSDSTB. The Nationalsozialistiches Deutsches Studentenbund put itself in the spotlight with provocative actions inside the universities. Von Schirach followed Hitler’s post-1928 policies, showing himself as a loyal adherent of the Führer’s right-wing program.30

From Gruber to von Schirach If the social-revolutionary voices present in the party had largely been silenced between 1926 and 1928, in the Hitlerjugend “leftist” tendencies, as we have seen before, were still very much alive. Hitler was hoping to develop a secure alliance with right-wing and conservative groups, but the HJ was not conforming to the NSDAP’s political orientation. It was, as Peter Stachura has noted, “consciously anti-bourgeois and overtly proletarian in character and style.”31 In a propaganda appeal before the elections of 1930 the HJ proclaimed: “Must we go under as the paid slaves of a capitalist clique? Working Germany! Young manual and intellectual workers of Germany awake, break off your chains!”32 The NSDAP, seeking middle-class votes, would have never dared make such an appeal to the working classes as the HJ did.33 Von Schirach, interested in taking over the leadership of the various Nazi youth groups, started criticizing Gruber. Apart from some local successes, von Schirach maintained, the HJ leader had not created a truly national organization. Feeling under observation, Gruber promised to double Hitler Youth membership to fifty-five thousand by the end of 1931. Between the summer and the fall of 1931 he organized demonstrations, meetings, and marches all over the country aimed at increasing its membership. Moreover, the Hitler Youth committed itself to a feverish propaganda activity, directed primarily against Socialist and Communist youth movements. But the results were somewhat disappointing. Gruber could not retain his position and on October 29, 1931, the party announced that it had accepted Gruber’s resignation, even though he had not formally resigned. Hitler accused him of not having demonstrated a good organizational capacity and of not having amassed the number of members he promised. However, the basic reason for the removal of Gruber and other local youth leaders was primarily political. Hitler wanted a new leadership for the Nazi youth, a leadership that could be reassuring for the German middle and high bourgeoisie, the German Army, and von Hindenburg.34 On October 30, 1931, Hitler, feeling like Mussolini years before that the youth movement needed to be fully subservient to the party, issued a directive

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that led to the creation in Munich of a new office: the Reichsjugendführer. Von Schirach was appointed to this post. The Reichsjugendführer had under his supervision the Nationalsozialistiches Deutsches Studentenbund (led by von Schirach himself ), the Nationalsozialistisches Schülerbund, and the Hitler Youth (both led by von Renteln).35 Hitler’s decision depended not only on the aversion showed by von Schirach toward any kind of social-revolutionary tendency, but also on the organizational capacities demonstrated by the young chief of the Nazi university students. He had been able to transform the NSDSTB into one of the most important political organizations inside the German universities. After Gruber’s departure, even though socialistic themes were still an important element of propaganda, chauvinistic themes became progressively dominant. The HJ’s propaganda, under von Schirach, fell more in line with that of the NSDAP in general.36 Under von Schirach the Hitler Youth grew from 28,743 members in November 1931 to 55,365 members in 1933.37 The growth resulted from several factors. The increasing financial support obtained by the NSDAP, more and more appreciated by industrial and commercial tycoons, was partially devoted to the youth organizations, becoming a breath of fresh air for the poor Hitler Youth treasury.38 Another factor favoring the growth of the HJ membership was the fusion between the Hitler Youth and the Nationalsozialistisches Schüler­ bund. Von Schirach dissolved the NSS on July 1, 1932, and dismissed von Ren­ teln from the Hitlerjugend, becoming the absolute leader of the National Socialist youth.39 In the end, the Great Depression, which had helped to bring about a landslide vote for Hitler in 1932, made the Hitler Youth more active and more attractive. The lower-middle and the middle classes, heavily hit by the economic situation, guaranteed new “fighters” for the HJ. Street battles between young Nazis and young Communists became increasingly frequent. The Nazi youth were encouraged to consider themselves young soldiers fighting against the enemies of the German Volk at the cost of their own lives. Like many NSDAP and SA members, several Hitler youth were brought before the courts in the years before the Nazi seizure of power. Its members were subject to arrest and imprisonment, not only for writing provocative newspaper articles, but above all for street fighting and assault. Given the infamous reputation of their organization, Hitler Youth members could not enter various civic facilities open to most of other youth associations, such as sports halls, youth hostels, and swimming pools.40 Before 1933, one female and fifteen male members of the National Socialist youth movement were killed. Their deaths were used to stimulate more and more hatred of the Nazis’ enemies. Those youth, together with the HJ members killed after 1933, were honored as the Unsterbliche Gefolgschaft der Hitlerjugend (immortal fellowship of the Hitler Youth).41 The “Nazi martyrs” were identified



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with the dead of World War I, and the NSDAP established a rhetorical link between the cult of the fallen soldiers and the cult of the Nazi “victims.”42 At the Potsdam Reich Youth Rally of October 1932, Hitler celebrated the young Nazi martyrs, insisting that their deaths had to give new life to Germany. Hitler looked with pride at these youth, who sacrificed their own lives “to serve the great ideal of National Socialism,” who were creating the new Germany and inspiring with their heroism generations to follow.43 The Fascist regime in Italy also celebrated the role played by the Fascist martyrs in the development and success of the Black Shirts. Many members of the Avanguardie involved before 1922 in punitive expeditions against Socialists died in the streets.44 Mussolini, in his Doctrine of Fascism, written in 1932 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Fascist Revolution, remembered how the years preceding the March on Rome were marked by the deaths of those who sacrificed themselves for the Fascist faith.45 Thus, for both Nazis and Fascists, their younger recruits who had died for the cause did not differ from the fallen soldiers of the war. They were heroes fighting for a new era, and their early deaths were a kind of blessed sacrifice for the cause. The young martyrs were pueri aeterni (eternally young) symbolizing the everlasting youth of Italian Fascists and Nazis.46

Von Schirach’s Gleichschaltung In the elections of July and November 1932 the Nazis established themselves as the largest German party, getting respectively 37 percent and 32 percent of the votes. The conservative groups, the army, and von Hindenburg convinced themselves that without the Nazis it was not possible to govern the country, and for this reason the president bestowed on Hitler the premiership.47 When Hitler became Reichskanzler in Germany there was a panoply of different youth organizations: two million youth were members of sport associations, one million were in Catholic organizations, six hundred thousand were involved in Protestant associations, four hundred thousand were associated in youth trade union organizations, ninety thousand were committed to the Sozialistische Arbeiterjugend, fifty-five thousand were members of the Kommunistischer Jugendverband Deutschlands, seventy thousand joined the Bündische Jugend, and around fifty thousand were members of the Hitlerjugend.48 Von Schirach’s first instinct was to eliminate the competing youth organizations throughout Germany all at once. However, given the relationship existing at that time among Hitler, the conservative groups, and the Reichswehr, the Hitler Youth leader had to wait for a better moment. In Germany, as in Italy earlier, Hitler’s accession was conditioned by the presence of other parties. The Nazis, like the Fascists, had to wait before sweeping away their political enemies and closing down all the non–National Socialist associations and organizations.49

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The conservative youth groups, supported by the Reichswehr and von Hindenburg, were completely aware of the hegemonic aims of the Hitler Youth. For this reason they tried to present themselves as well disposed to Hitler and expressed their desire for collaboration with the Nazis. In so doing they hoped to maintain their independence. However, the Reichsjugendführer was deeply hostile toward these groups. In a newsletter sent to the executives of the Nazi Party on March 28, 1933, von Schirach asserted that, even though there were members of the NSDAP inside these organizations, he considered them “enemies of National Socialism.” The Reichsjugendführer stated that the youth who were not ready to bear Hitler’s name could not be considered Nazi supporters.50 On March 30, 1933, some youth organizations (Deutsches Pfadfinderbund, Reichsschaft Deutscher Pfadfinder, Jungsturm, Deutsche Freischar, and Freischar Junger Nation) decided to join together, under the protection of von Hindenburg, in one group known as Großdeutsches Bund (League of Great Germany), led by the vice-admiral Adolf von Trotha. This league was to be the nucleus of a new association, which the military hoped would become the most important youth organization of Germany and educate all the German youth from a military point of view. A few days later, on April 3, 1933, von Trotha met Hitler with the purpose of convincing the Führer that the Großdeutsches Bund would follow the directives of the government, guaranteeing the military preparation of the German youth. Von Schirach, alarmed by von Trotha’s move, and afraid that the army was trying to keep hold of the German youth, decided to counter-attack immediately, convincing some of his collaborators that it was time to act against the non-Nazi youth organizations. Therefore, he ordered the occupation of the Central Office of the Reichsausschuß Deutscher Jugendverbände. On April 5, a young HJ leader, Carl Nabesberg, along with fifty other Hitlerjungen, burst into the offices of the Reichsausschuß. This “action squad” searched, bundled, and sealed the documents concerning the youth associations and declared the dismissal of Hermann Maaß, member of the Sozialistische Arbeiterjugend and president at that time of the Reichsausschuß. Von Schirach took his place immediately. The files of the youth organizations present in the Reichsausschuß’s archives proved to be extremely useful for the Hitler Youth, providing material and information about the opponents of the HJ. The Gleichschaltung of the German youth had begun. In order to justify this action, the HJ asserted that it had to intervene to stop subversive activities carried out by some “Judaic-Marxist” exponents inside the league—Maaß was in fact member of the German Socialist Youth. In the following weeks the HJ launched a series of violent and intimidating actions against several youth organizations. The first youth groups to be affected were



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those associated with the political parties of the Weimar Republic, as well as Jewish youth associations. Local headquarters of these organizations were raided and their files removed. The destiny of the youth groups of Hitler’s conservative allies was not much different. Protests mounted by influential protectors of these organizations obliged Hitler to intervene in order to stop this surge of violence. For a while a new, more cautious policy prevailed. Home Secretary Wilhelm Frick thought that in order to put an end to the struggles among the youth organizations it would be convenient to put aside von Schirach and his organization and entrust the education of the German youth to the Reichssportführer Hans von Tschammer und Osten.51 However, on June 17, 1933, Hitler settled things once and for all, issuing a statement in favor of von Schirach, who was appointed Jugendführer des Deutschen Reiches. As such he was “at the helm of all male and female youth organizations and of all youth sections of adult organizations” in Germany. Moreover, the foundation of any new youth organization would need his approval.52 The creation of this new office seemed on the surface to guarantee the continuing existence of all youth organizations, even if now under the tutelage of the Nazis. But the strengthening of the NSDAP, destined to remain the only German party after July 1933, allowed von Schirach to mount a new and definitive attack against the person he considered to be his most dangerous rival. The HJ leader ordered the immediate dissolution of von Trotha’s Großdeutsches Bund. Some squads formed by Hitlerjungen not only searched the houses of leaders and members of this organization but also beat them and confiscated their personal documents. Von Trotha did not give in and lodged an official complaint with von Hindenburg. The president wrote a letter to Hitler complaining about the behavior of his youth. On July 15, 1933, the day after the new law prohibiting the refounding of the German parties came into force, the chancellor answered von Hindenburg. He apologized for the event, but otherwise the admiral’s protests remained ignored. The fate of the Großdeutsches Bund was by then sealed. Some youth, in the face of the dissolution of their association and in order to avoid further violence, gave in to pressures and decided to become members of the HJ.53 Once von Trotha’s organization had been dissolved, von Schirach put an end to the Reichsausschuß Deutscher Jugendverbände and instituted, in its place, the Deutscher Jugendführerrat. It was a council formed by representatives of all the remaining German youth organizations. In this council the Nazis played the predominant role. However, the Deutscher Jugendführerrat disappeared soon, just as had its predecessor. By the end of 1933, all the organizations inside the Deutscher Jugendführerrat were obliged to dissolve and their members were “invited” to join the HJ.54

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German youth had no choice anymore. The only youth “lay” association allowed to exist was the Bund der Artamanen—an agrarian and völkisch movement inspired by the ideal of Blut und Boden—of which prominent exponents of the NSDAP were members, such as the agriculture minister Richard Walter Darrè and the SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler.55 The Hitlerjugend now organized German boys and girls according to the following criteria: children from ten to thirteen years of age (Pimpfe) formed the so-called Deutsches Jungvolk (Young German People); adolescents from fourteen to eighteen were members of the Hitlerjugend strictly speaking; little girls from ten to thirteen were members of the Jungmädel (Young Girls), and at fourteen they joined the Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of the German Girls, BDM). Youth remained members of this organization until they reached eighteen years of age. The number of HJ members increased dramatically.56 In Italy until 1926 Fascists did not have a strong youth association, and the number of Balilla and Avanguardisti started growing slowly only after 1925. Before then, the Fascist youth organizations did not enjoy a monopoly. Even though the Italian youth movement was not as big as the German movement, until the foundation of the ONB a number of nationalist, liberal, religious, and sport organizations could carry out their activities undisturbed. The lay associations were dismissed easily after 1926, whereas the destiny of the Catholic youth was, as we have seen, very different. Looking at the numbers, the ONB grew from about 190,000 members in 1925 to 800,000 in 1927. The growth of the Nazi organization was astonishing compared to the Italian one: from 40,000 members in 1932 to more than 3 million at the end of 1933. But, if in Italy the ONB had to recruit youth who very often had never been members of any associations, in Germany the Hitler Youth simply annexed entire youth organizations all at once, doubtless favored by the existence of the Reichsausschuß Deutscher Jugendverbände. Ironically, the German associative tradition, which had initially hampered the emergence of the Nazis in the world of youth organizations, later on facilitated tremendously the work of the Nazis. Creating a vibrant youth movement from scratch would be a much longer process than subsuming the already existing youth groups: German youth associationalism eased von Schirach’s Gleichschaltung.

Hitlerjugend and Confessional Organizations As in Italy, the German confessional youth organizations were treated differently from the lay ones. Ad hoc agreements were necessary to clarify their roles. The Italian Fascists had to face a strong Catholic opposition, and the relationship between the ONB and Catholic Action was only settled five years after the foundation of the Opera. Mussolini knew that to keep the support of the Italian



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people he had to respect the pope. The Nazis, who were far removed from the Vatican, were also hesitant and waited years before closing down the Catholic youth organizations. Moreover, they also followed different paths with respect to Protestants and Catholics. Just before Christmas 1933 von Schirach made an agreement with the primate of the German Evangelical Church, Ludwig Müller, about the evangelical youth organizations. Only boys and girls who joined the Hitlerjugend could in the future remain members of the Evangelische Jugend Deutschlands (Evangelical Youth of Germany, EJD). Sport training and political education were to be the responsibility of the HJ, whereas religious instruction remained in the hands of the EJD, an organization that had the youth at its disposal for four days every month, two Sundays included. The agreement, coming into force in February 1934, was greeted in this way by Müller: “God bless this hour, so important for our nation and for our Church. God let his holy word vibrate vehemently in the National Socialist education of the future generations.”57 This was the easiest conquest for von Schirach, even though not every member of the German Evangelical Church shared Müller’s enthusiasm.58 The “Catholic question” was far more demanding. 59 Before the Nazi seizure of power, the Catholic Church attacked the Hitler Youth in pastoral letters and in various directives, and, after 1933, the youth groups connected to the Church of Rome began their action to resist Nazi pressure.60 The negotiations for the Concordat—the agreement between the Holy See and Nazi Germany on religious matters—obliged von Schirach to avoid anti-Catholic initiatives throughout the summer of 1933. Just after signing the Concordat ( July 20, 1933), however, the Nazis tried to obstruct the activity of the League of the Catholic Youth Associations of Germany (Verband der Katholischen Jugendvereine Deutschlands). In spite of all the difficulties they faced, Catholics were able to resist. They were protected, indeed, by article 31 of the Concordat, which stated that Catholic organizations and associations carrying out purely religious, cultural, or charitable activities connected to the ecclesiastical authorities, or social and professional activities not politically committed, were protected by the state in their institution and in their activity.61 Rome, however, was far away. And Hitler, five months after the Concordat was signed, declared that all German youth organizations other than the HJ had lost the rationale for their existence; these organizations had to disappear, leaving the Hitler Youth a clear field. That youth leagues “should continue to exist on the periphery,” Hitler continued, “protected by I know not what private concern of the churches, is in itself an intolerable situation.”62 The German Catholic youth organizations had always been fragmented in more than twenty separate Bünde (leagues), Kongregationen (congregations), and Verbände (associations). Several Catholic leaders had tried for years to unite the

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youth following the example of the Italian Catholic Action. The repression imposed by the Nazis encouraged belated Catholic unification and increased youth participation in various Catholic initiatives.63 In March 1934 von Schirach ordered German mothers and fathers to urge their sons to leave the Catholic associations and join the HJ. The leader of the Hitlerjugend encouraged members of the Hitler Youth to come to blows with the Catholic youth every time they had the possibility, and at the Nuremberg Congress of September 1934 the members of the Hitlerjugend sang: We are the cheerful Hitler Youth, we don’t need any Christian truth Adolf Hitler, our leader, is the only one who can always intercede for us. Priests can do whatever they want, But we’ll be Hitler’s boys till death; We don’t follow Christ, but Horst Wessel. Be away from us incense, be away from us font of holy water! As worthy descendants of our ancestors We march and sing holding high the flag. I am not Christian, nor Catholic.64

The song was an extreme, and clear, declaration of atheism. The Christian truth seemed unable to compete with “Hitler’s Word.” The Catholic Church and its ministers could do and say whatever they wanted, but the members of the Hitler Youth would follow only the example of their own martyrs holding high the “hook cross.” The Catholic resistance forced the Nazi regime to take draconian measures. From 1935 the Catholic youth were not allowed to wear vestments, take part in processions, or publish periodicals.65 All of these measures were similar to those undertaken five years earlier by the Fascist regime against the youth of the Catholic Action. In 1935 and 1936 the regime issued edicts to dissolve individual Verbände, and the remaining organizations were restricted to merely religious activities. They could not march, sing in public, or go on hikes. The hostile atmosphere pushed the bishops to shift “the locus of youth work from Verbände to the individual dioceses.” Individual parish priests constituted parish youth groups or Pfarrjugend. Most bishops appointed leaders to control the youth work in their dioceses. In this way the German episcopacy, following the same path taken years before in Italy, was able to create a German Catholic Action that could carry out purely religious activities for the youth.66 The Hitler Youth Law of December 1, 1936, the law that transformed the HJ into the official educational institution of the Nazi state, did not entail the



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immediate end of the Catholic youth groups, but it revealed a rising momentum in the campaign against them. The pope, trying to defend the German Catholics, as he had years earlier in an attempt to protect the young Italian Catholics, decided to issue an encyclical entitled Mit brennender Sorge (With Ardent Anxiety) on March 14, 1937. In this document the pope asserted that if the state organized its youth and made membership in this organization obligatory, then it was the absolute right of youth and parents to ensure that this organization would not be hostile to the Church. Pius XI did not want to prevent the young Germans from establishing a “true popular union, to the fostering of the love of freedom, to steadfast loyalty to the fatherland.” What he objected to was the “intentional and systematically fomented opposition” between national education and religious duty. Therefore, while the youth could sing their “songs of freedom,” they should not forget “the freedom of the sons of God.” The youth, who sang “songs of loyalty to his earthly country,” did not have to become unfaithful to God and his Church. Moreover, while the pontiff understood the importance of sport and physical education, he insisted that German youth still had to observe the “Lord’s Day,” sanctifying Sundays and not exercising the body at the expense of the immortal soul. The pope warned the Germans, as he had warned the Italians years before, that they should not idolatrize earthly entities such as state and race at the expense of the Church. Mit brennender Sorge criticized Hitler’s Germany and exhorted the younger German generations: “‘If anyone preach to you a Gospel, besides that which you have received’ at the knees of a pious mother, from the lips of a Catholic father, from the education of a teacher true to his God and his Church, ‘let him be anathema.’”67 Baldur von Schirach’s answer to the Encyclical was extremely clear. On June 18, 1937, he announced that double affiliation to the Hitlerjugend and to Catholic youth organizations was forbidden. An exception to this prohibition could be granted, if the local authorities agreed, to those associations that had strictly religious tasks (as congregations or analogous organizations).68 The Nazi youth organization, unlike the ONB, did not assume responsibility for the religious education of its members. The Fascists tried to compete with the Catholic Action, once it had downsized the role of the Church, giving short and sporadic religious lessons. The Opera used its chaplains, in practice, to string along the Church and religious families. The Hitlerjugend instead, though favoring the EJD, did not offer any kind of religious education to its members. The encyclical had the opposite effect to the one the Vatican hoped to achieve. It caused a worsening of the relationship between the Church and National Socialism, and made it impossible for Catholic associations to continue existing. From 1938 all Catholic youth groups were obliged to suspend their

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activities, and by the following year the Nazi police state had eliminated nearly all Catholic organizations.69 Nevertheless, the Catholic youth groups were the last independent youth organizations to be disbanded.70 Holding out for so long against the pressures of the Nazi state was “ample testimony to the inherent strength and wholesomeness of Catholic youth life, which was unmatched by any other sector of the German youth movement.”71 The Catholic Church and, in particular, Pius XI, were two tough obstacles that both Nazis and Fascists had to face in their ongoing process of totalitarianization.

Jugendmonopol Comparing the Hitler Youth with the youth groups of the Bündische Jugend it is possible to identify a number of similarities. The Hitlerjugend and the Bündische Jugend organized war games and Heimabende (evening meetings), and both associations gave much space to excursions (Wanderungen) and camps (Lager).72 The young Pimpfe and Hitlerjungen had uniforms very similar to the ones worn by the bündisch youth, and the HJ used many outward “trappings” of the German Bünde; moreover, the Hitlerjugend adopted not only the bündisch vocabulary and the bündisch songs (changing the lyrics more often than not), but also the bündisch organizational system: the so-called Selbstführung. According to this system the youth had to be led not by adults but by youth who had demonstrated a good aptitude for command.73 However, the Hitler Youth cannot be considered the continuation of the Wilhelminian and Weimarian Jugendbewegung. The Wandervögel movement wanted to realize a conservative revolution, returning to a kind of mythicized Volksgemeinschaft, a community in harmony with nature and with German ancestral traditions. The Gemeinschaft dreamt of by the Nazis was a community of racially pure Aryans able to make use of the most modern inventions to dominate their enemies. Moreover, the Wandervögel wanted to be masters of their own destiny; they wanted to live in their own isolated world, opposing everything that could limit their spontaneity. The Hitlerjugend instead was not independent and had to follow the ideas established by the Nazi Party. While the German youth movement generally wanted to eradicate the party system, the Hitler Youth wanted to amalgamate state, party, and Volk in a unique entity.74 The Bünde wanted to be formed by free-thinking human beings; the Hitler Youth was a training center ideally aimed at creating anti-individualistic, racially pure German warriors.75 Young Germans had to be socialized into Nazi values and Nazi culture. The regime, trying to overcome any kind of division, aimed to create, generation after generation, a social system formed by subjects completely subordinated to



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the Nazi state. There was ideally no room for the creation of an autonomous responsible personality; there was no room for teachers or for parents, who were meant to lose their role as predominant educators.76 The Nazi assault was directed against the family as the place where children were raised, seeking to redefine it as merely the place where children were produced. The Nazis tried to draw young people away from their parents’ control, mobilizing them on behalf of the Volk.77 Hitler, in a speech given on November 6, 1933, declared: “When an opponent says ‘I will not come over to your side,’ I calmly say, ‘Your child belongs to us already. . . . You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.’”78 Only young believers could ensure the future existence of the regime. In an article published in 1935, Isaac Leon Kandel, professor at Columbia University, talking about Nazi anti-individualism, wrote that the reorganization of education had become one of the primary concerns of the Nazi regime. Kandel wrote that the Nazis were eradicating freedom and choice, and were contrasting the preeminence of the individual with that of society. According to Nazi ideology, the individual could “find freedom and perfection only by sinking himself in the whole”: every member of the German community had to understand that the welfare of the Gemeinschaft preceded the welfare of the individual.79 Germany’s fate was in the hands of its younger generation, as Hitler asserted once again in one of his speeches in 1935: “Everything we want from the future of Germany is what we demand of you, boys and girls.”80 Through Nazi education the Aryan Volksgemeinschaft would be elevated and take priority, more important, even, than the family, more important than they themselves.81 The Hitler Youth had to ignore any class divisions: it had to be an organization of equals and its members had to consider themselves members of the chosen race and not members of a specific social class. As von Schirach stated, “differences of occupation, background and possessions” had to be eliminated. In the Hitlerjugend one stood next to one another “with equal rights and equal duties.” There was “no special Hitlerjugend for the poor or the rich, no Hitlerjugend for the grammar school boy or girl, or for the young worker.” There was also “no special Catholic or Protestant Hitlerjugend.” Everyone who was “of German blood” belonged to the HJ. Under the flag of youth, the Reichsjugendführer maintained, all were equal.82 On another occasion von Schirach repeated these ideas, insisting that the uniform of the Hitlerjugend was “the outward expression of an attitude that [did] not ask about class or occupation, but only about duty and achievement.”83 Peter Treuman, recalling his experience in the Hitler Youth, confirmed von Schirach’s words: “What made a tremendous impression on me was that there were no class distinctions. No matter whether one’s father

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was an engineer or an unskilled worker in the harbor, everybody was equal. . . . The admission ticket to this club was race and performance.”84 The Hitler Youth had to be, above all, a training ground for future German soldiers.85 As in the ONB in Italy, ideological education was fundamental, but military and physical education were absolutely essential as well. Already in the NSDAP program of 1920 the physical education of the youth had been indicated as an important element of the Nazi political platform. And, in his Mein Kampf, Hitler confirmed the relevance of Leibesertüchtigung (physical training).86 The Hitlerjugend tried to create the ideal “fit” soldier through sport, physical education, marches, camps, and paramilitary activities. Transforming the youth into strong and healthy soldiers was a matter of state concern. In this way the Nazi Party could guarantee the territorial expansion of the German Reich and the “neutralization” of Europe’s Jews. Making the youth stronger and healthier, the Nazi state could cultivate the elected race. Becoming a member of the Hitlerjugend, at ten years of age initiated a new path for every German boy, a path that was intended to transform him into a pure Nazi, as Hitler clearly said in one of his speeches made on December 4, 1938, in Reichenberg (Sudetenland): These youth learn nothing else than thinking as German and acting as German; these youth join our organization at ten years of age and for the first time get a breath of fresh air, then four years later go from the Jungvolk to the Hitler Youth, where we keep them for other four years. And at this stage we are less disposed to give them back to the ones who build up class and social barriers; instead we take them immediately in the Party, in the German Work Front, in the SA, in the SS, in the NSKK (Nationalsozialistische Kraftfahrkorps, Corps of the Nazi motorists) etc. and if, after having spent eighteen months or two years in these organizations, they are not yet real Nazis, then they take part at the compulsory work service, where they are groomed for six or seven months, always under one symbol: the German spade. And if after six or seven months they still have a class conscience and a class pride, they are picked up by the Wehrmacht for a further two year treatment; when they come back from the military service, after two or four years, in order to avoid that they fall again into their old habits, we immediately assign them again a task in the SA or SS etc., and they will never be free again, for the rest of their lives . . . National Socialism is not at the end of its days, it is only at the beginning.87

Even though the Hitlerjugend exercised increasing control of the German youth from 1933 onward, there were still interstices where the regime could not



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penetrate; there was still space for nonconformist behaviors. By 1935, the HJ leadership calculated that about 3.5 million youth remained outside its sphere of influence.88 Young opponents gave signs, though feeble, of their presence, as we can read in the following Gestapo document of October 1935: “All over the Reich many investigations have been carried out. From them it ensued that lately the dangerous activity of the Bündische Jugend crept in again. In some cases measures against the members of this group were taken. All this demonstrates that prohibitions against the Bündische Jugend turned to be disastrous.”89 A significant minority of the German youth remained outside the educational and recreational structures of the regime. The Hitlerjugend had to face the indifference and the rejection of many youth who expressed their hostility in terms of passive resistance or open rebellion. HJ membership showed a steady expansion from 3,577,565 in late 1934 to 5,437,601 by the end of 1936. But there were still those who were not members of the Hitlerjugend. Many parents kept their children from the Nazi youth association because they were afraid that the Hitler Youth could disrupt normal schooling, because they did not like the excessively aggressive physical approach of the organization, or because they were worried about the lax morality of the Hitlerjugend, accused of condoning sexual intercourse between members of the HJ and the BDM.90 Moreover, many Catholic and working-class parents had political and ideological reservations about allowing their children to become members of the Hitler Youth.91 Terror tactics, propaganda, government pressures, the appeal of recreational activities, and the transformation of the Hitler Youth, in December 1936, into the prevailing educational institution of Nazi Germany, were not enough. Only by imposing compulsory membership in 1939 did the Nazis ensure that almost all German youth joined the Hitler Youth. But even then the Nazis did not have under their control all members of the younger generation, as suggested by the presence of Edelweisspiraten, Swing-Jugend, and Weisse Rose—youth groups that appeared in the late 1930s and early 1940s opposing Nazi ideology.92 Nonetheless, even if the regime was not able to convert every single German youth, the Hitlerjugend remained the impressive laboratory where the Nazis attempted to create their ideal “new Aryans.” Initially, as we have seen, the Hitler Youth had been an organization aimed at fighting on the street, at defending and promoting Hitler’s ideas to the detriment of the Weimar Republic.93 But after 1933 the HJ changed its structure and goals, following a path similar to the one taken years earlier by the ONB. It abandoned its function as the youth army of the party and obtained a decidedly pedagogic function; it lost over the years its “revolutionary spirit” and its “revolutionary activism,” becoming the “educational organization par excellence of the Nazi state.”94 The Hitler Youth did not have to be assertive or creative, but, as Hitler put it in 1933, “loyal and brave.”95 Under the Nazis the youth had to

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understand that their organization was not a place where they could affirm their own opinions, but an agency designed by the regime to deaden their egotism and make them accept their unconditional subordination to the Nazi leadership.96 To this end Pimpfe and Hitlerjungen—like their counterparts in Italy— needed commanders and educators who could channel their juvenile enthusiasm and transform them into faithful believers.

5 The Training of the Hitler Youth Leadership T

he Hitlerjugend, like the Opera Nazionale Balilla, could not carry out an effective educational program without establishing its own cadre of leaders. This chapter will focus on how the Germans tried to create a well-trained corps of HJ-Führer. Beginning with the early days of the Hitlerjugend, it will explore how the Nazi youth organization managed the training of the leaders following strategies sometimes similar to—and sometimes quite different from—the Fascist youth organization. It will examine how the training system of youth leaders developed by the ONB, centered around the Accademia Fascista di Educazione Fisica e Giovanile, contrasted sharply with the system developed by the Nazis, a system characterized by the presence of various, and often incoherent, pedagogical practices.

The Early Days of the Hitler Youth The lack of trained leaders affected the growth of the Hitler Youth from the very beginning. Without HJ-Führer the organization could not carry out continuous and effective work. In 1927 the NSDAP stated that every Hitlerjunge, at the age of eighteen, had to join the SA. But a year later, on November 9, 1928, Hitler decided that, to help the youth organization in constituting its own leadership, the best members of the HJ could remain in the Hitlerjugend even after reaching the age of eighteen. This decision allowed the HJ to start building up its own leadership corps.1 However, Kurt Gruber, leader of the Hitler Youth between 1926 and 1931, had other problems to solve, as we saw in the previous chapter. Consequently, the training of the HJ leaders was set aside. Once he became leader of the Hitler Youth in October 1931, Baldur von Schirach expelled several HJ leaders appointed by Gruber. As we have seen, the new Reichsjugendführer and his predecessor had different conceptions of Nazi 99

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ideology, and von Schirach considered the leaders appointed by Gruber to be too close to the “left wing” of the Nazi Party. Accompanying this purge, and in order to establish a stricter hierarchical control in the organization, the National Head Office of the Hitler Youth (HJ-Reichsleitung) started sending so-called Schulungsbriefe (educational letters) each month to all the HJ regional committees. These taught the HJ-Führer how to conduct their educational work with their subordinates. While the Head Office emphasized central control, some local leaders also felt it necessary to organize local face-to-face courses. They thought that such courses could be more effective in improving the leadership skills and the educational tools of the HJ-Führer. Attending a course, they believed, would be much better than reading written instructions and suggestions about how to lead the members of the HJ. These courses were not held regularly and ultimately only a few local branches of the Hitler Youth were able to finance such initiatives—largely in houses owned by the Hitler Youth in Berlin, Munich, Rhineland-Palatinate, Hanover, and Flechtorf, in the neighborhood of Braunschweig.2 In Flechtorf, Hartmann Lauterbacher, at that time regional leader of the Hitler Youth of South-Hanover-Braunschweig and future right-hand man of von Schirach, was able to establish a training school for Hitler Youth leaders, dedicated to the Nazi “martyr” Leo Albert Schlageter, who had been killed by French soldiers in 1923 during the Ruhr occupation. The building was unveiled in May 1932 and was surrounded by open spaces where gymnastic, sport, and military drills took place. On the ground floor was the refectory; on the first floor was a sleeping area, a room for classes, a library, a living room, a room for teachers and speakers, and an infirmary. On the walls were hung pictures of important advocates of the Nazi movement. At the entrance of the school the following sentence was written on the wall: “Vergiß nie, daß du Hitlers Namen trägst, dem du Ehre machen mußt” (Never forget that you bear the name of Hitler, which you must honor). Going up to the second floor another sentence welcomed the guests and the young trainees: “Haltet eiserne Disziplin, sie ist die Grundlage aller Erfolge!” (Stay firmly disciplined, for discipline is the foundation of every success!). The first two short courses, attended by about eighty leaders, were organized in May and June 1932. Only the third and last course, organized in December, was aimed at training female leaders (Führerinnen). The program of the male courses included a sport and military component that focused on gymnastics, military exercises, radiotelegraphy (Morse code), excursions, and camping. Meetings with local members of the party were also organized in order to address political issues (such as Marxism, racism, and the origins and aims of National Socialism). Furthermore, lectures also explained how the Hitler Youth had been created, how it was organized, and how various hostile



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organizations were also structured. The aim of the entire course was to transform the young leaders into knowledgeable propaganda instruments, to teach them how to organize excursions, camping trips, and Heimabende, and to prepare them to manage the finances of their units.3 The appearance of these short training courses, such as those in the Flechtorf School, was indicative of “a new awareness on the part of the HJ leadership of the value and necessity of systematic ideological training.” But the endeavors were tentative. In spite of the various efforts made, before 1933 the organization of the Heimabende was inadequate, the HJ press was of poor quality, and “the erratic improvisations of local leaders continued to guide the vast majority of members.” In short, ideological education in the HJ prior to 1933 was unmethodical in comparison both with what was taking place in Italy and what the Nazis would eventually develop later in the 1930s. Moreover, the courses offered by the school of Flechtorf were not the norm but rather exception. The finances of the Hitler Youth were extremely tight, and the most fortunate local branches of the HJ could organize only very short courses, with very few participants. The Führerschulung (leaders’ training) that might have had a great practical value in improving the functioning of the Hitler Youth was carried out sporadically. Prior to the seizure of power, it is incorrect to speak of political indoctrination because there was not the organizational machinery to effect it.4

After the Seizure of Power At the end of 1933, when many youth finally joined the Hitler Youth, the shortage of leaders became more apparent. Between 1933 and 1934 there were in fact thousands of posts to be filled in provincial and central branches. The Hitler Youth urgently needed men and women able to lead and administer large and small units. But such a large number of people could only be trained over time. This Führermangel (lack of leaders) would remain an open wound afflicting the Hitlerjugend for the duration of the regime.5 To cope with the Führermangel, von Schirach decided to deploy as HJ-Führer individuals who had functioned as leaders in organizations of the pre-Nazi Jugend­bewegung.6 The decision was made after considering several factors. It was only after 1933 that the Hitler Youth effectively enrolled children younger than fourteen years of age. As a consequence, the Nazis became aware of the difficulties they faced training younger recruits and decided to rely on former leaders of the Bündische Jugend—the agency collecting under its aegis several associations, such as Scouts and Wandervögel groups, that had been disbanded at the end of 1933. These individuals who had much experience in leading children of ten, eleven, and twelve years of age could teach the Nazis how to manage units

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formed by very young members. Moreover, the Nazis believed that they could take advantage of the camaraderie existing within the various groups that comprised the Jugendbewegung, absorbing them into their own movement. Consequently, the leaders of the Bündische Jugend (or Bündische Führer) did not enter the Hitlerjugend alone but often brought with them their entire groups. In this way they increased the membership of the Nazi youth organization, losing their autonomous—and perhaps threatening—status. Furthermore, this in part helped to solve the leadership problem, given the absorption of both leaders and group members into the Hitlerjugend. The Nazis also believed that the Bündische Führer could give the HJ a reassuring appearance: it was likely that many parents, even the most reluctant, would accept the entry of their sons into the Hitlerjugend if they knew that they would be led by exactly the same leaders of the pre-Nazi period. Nevertheless, the utilization of Bündische Jugend leaders as Hitlerjugend leaders was thought to be a temporary solution. Von Schirach did not trust the former Bündisch leaders. He did not believe they would readily support the regime and be good Nazi educators. He wanted to exploit them as long as it was necessary, and he thought he could get rid of them definitively when he had at disposal Nazi youth leaders trained by the Hitlerjugend itself.7 The Reichsjugendführung wanted to have “flawless” leaders who were “National Socialist in every aspect of their lives” and who were able to transform all the young Germans under their command into pure Nazis. To be a Hitlerjugend leader meant to be a direct delegate of Hitler. Every HJ-Führer, carrying out his function, was not only responsible to himself, but above all to Hitler, to the movement created by Hitler, and to the entire German nation. The German youth needed leaders who could show them the path to follow in order to transform the Third Reich into a thousand year empire.8 A document about the ideal youth leader, published by the General Command of the Hitler Youth and entitled “Lifestyle of the Nazi Jugendführer,” insisted that “the Nazi ideology [was] not only the credo of all those who [wore] the brown shirt, but rather the ideology at the base of every German’s life.” Behaving as Nazis was a necessary but not sufficient condition to please the regime. Every human being had to abide completely by the Nazi weltanschauung. It was wrong “to pose as Nazis”; it was necessary to be Nazis. And the HJ-Führer had to be true examples, true models of the perfect integration of Nazi behavior and Nazi essence. The “virtues of the German nation, resurrected by the Nazi movement, [had] to be embodied” by the Nazi youth leaders. Every HJ-Führer “in front of his family, in front of the parents of his subordinates, in front of the people he met every day, at home and in public” had to display “an appropriate behavior.” The appearance, actions, and very being of the HJ-Führer had to fit together. As we



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have already seen in the discussion of the students of the Academy of the Mussolini Forum, the private and public lives of the youth leaders were both supposed to be faultless. Like the Fascists, the Nazis also wanted the youth leaders to be the embodiment of the “new men.”9 The bohemian years of the Nazi movement were over: no more disorder; no more violence. The HJ-Führer had to be for the families of the Hitlerjungen the reassuring face of the new rising Volksgemeinschaft. The leaders of the pre-Nazi youth movement might be helpful, but the baggage they carried from the past meant they were not always suitable for the new task at hand. Every year the Hitlerjugend supreme leader specified a new annual goal to pursue. The year 1934 was renamed by von Schirach Jahr der Schulung (year of the training). That is, it had to be dedicated to the total and massive “training” not only of the HJ members, but above all of the leaders, who had to be provided with “sound historical, political, and racial knowledge, as well as extensive physical training.”10 The reading of journals, such as Der Heimabend—that suggested to the young leaders, for example, the songs they had to teach to their subordinates and the texts they had to make them read—was inadequate to the goals von Schirach now wanted to achieve.11 The Hitler Youth decided that, after 1934, to become an HJ-Führer it was necessary to attend ad hoc courses organized by the Personalamt (human resources office) of the Hitlerjugend General Command. In 1934, 287 three-week courses were organized in facilities belonging to the Hitlerjugend, such as HJ-Heime (Hitler Youth homes) and youth hostels. Because of these courses, 12,727 mid-and upper-rank leaders were trained (2,466 for the Jungvolk and 10,261 for the Hitler Youth).12 In his New Year’s speech of 1935, von Schirach, discussing the work carried out by his organization during the previous year, stated that in 1934 thousands of leaders had been trained. He underlined that this was “a tremendous number,” given that, when he launched the Jahr der Schulung, there had been few schoolhouses in existence, apart from those few exceptions like the school at Flechtorf. Von Schirach’s aim for the future was to unveil new buildings aimed at training the youth leaders exclusively. The Reichsführer wished that very soon the Nazi youth organization would have at its disposal male and female leaders who had all spent several training weeks in one of the many leadership schools (or HJFührerschulen) that the Hitlerjugend wished to build all over Germany.13 Having at his disposal new young leaders, thanks to the Jahr der Schulung, von Schirach began a new purge. After the elimination in 1931 and 1932 of a great part of the “social-revolutionary” HJ leadership connected to Gruber, von Schirach, at the end of 1934 and beginning of 1935, got rid of several leaders of the Bündische Jugend who had entered the ranks of the Hitlerjugend in 1933.14 The Reichsjugendführer, trying to consolidate his control and guarantee

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ideological uniformity among his ranks, followed a path already established by Ricci in Italy a few years earlier, when he too had relieved some leaders of the ONB of their duties and assigned their offices to young students recently graduated from the Academy of the Mussolini Forum.15 According to a document of the Hitler Youth General Command dated October 1, 1934, 14.1 percent of the HJ leadership had carried out a leading role in the pre-Nazi youth associations. This percentage was higher in the Jungvolk: 16 percent. In some parts of Germany 30 percent of the leading roles were in the hands of former chiefs of the Bündische Jugend.16 Given the shortage of leaders in the HJ, it was clear that the Hitlerjugend could not carry out a complete purge. Therefore, the Hitler Youth decided to keep some former Bündisch leaders—those who seemed to have sincerely embraced the Nazi ideology. Some years later, Arthur Axmann, von Schirach’s successor as HJ supreme leader from August 8, 1940, recalled the events of 1934–35 and wrote that some people, who had been leaders of other youth associations and had decided to join the Hitlerjugend “with sincere passion,” gained the right to lead little units of the HJ. Axmann asserted that the Hitlerjugend did not rule out all those who had a sincere calling: “it did not hold it against them. It did not ask these people from where they came, but asked them where they wanted to go and what they were ready to do for the Nazi ideals, and for the Führer’s movement.”17 Schirach’s ultimate goal, however, was to create a leadership formed by youth who had been born and raised in Nazi Germany. The Reichsjugendführer wanted an organization based on the so-called Selbstführungsprinzip. According to the “principle of self-direction” of the youth, not invented by the Nazis but introduced by the prewar Jugendbewegung, youth had to be led by other youth.18 In January 1935, the HJ supreme leader published an article about this issue in the Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte. In a few pages von Schirach tried not only to justify the continuing presence of at least some Bündische Jugend leaders in his organization, but also delineated his projects for the future. Von Schirach argued that the Hitler Youth, aimed at attracting a huge number of members and lacking Nazi instructors, had to use necessarily skilled leaders taken from other associations. In this way the HJ could develop further without too much difficulty. The leaders did not need further training, and the organization simply imposed the guidelines they had to follow. Nevertheless, the problem with these leaders was that they belonged to “another epoch.” They had been tainted by the Weimar Republic and had been members of youth associations based on principles different from those asserted by the Nazis. Von Schirach hoped to substitute most of them in the near future by a new generation of young leaders. Given that other Nazi organizations, such as the SA and the SS, could not provide the youth organization with leaders, because they suffered the same



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Führermangel, the Hitler Youth had to get HJ-Führer from its own ranks. Everybody inside the Hitlerjugend was “a potential leader.” The road to becoming a leader was long and hard, and, as von Schirach underscored, “to open the door of the command it was necessary to possess the right key.” It did not matter “if the keys were in the hands of a worker’s, of a peasant’s or of an intellectual’s son.” Social rank was not important to become leaders.19 National Socialism was trying to liberate the younger generations “from outdated fallacies of bourgeois liberalism or Marxist class war” and was creating the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft, an exclusive community based on racial purity, not on class. Students, workers, and peasant youth had to stand side by side in the HJ, and the best of them would become leaders.20 Ambitious HJ members “could rise up through the ranks. Sometimes working-class children found themselves in authority over youth with a grammar-school background.”21 The rank of HJ-Führer could be assigned only to those youth who proved that they possessed an innate predisposition to command and who could, at the same time, best represent the Nazi ideal from a physical point of view. Only the best members could start the Führerlaufbahn (leadership carrier) that could take them up to the highest ranks of the organization.22 The young leaders of the Hitler Youth had several tasks to accomplish in spite of their young age. They supervised the bureaucratic organization of their units, were responsible to parents and teachers for the behavior of their subordinates, managed the finances of their units, drafted statistics for their higher leaders that demonstrated how they performed their activities, planned initiatives for their youth, and prepared programs for trips and tent camps. They had to be able to tell exciting stories about World War I and the first difficult years of the Nazi movement, but they also had to amuse their fellows, preparing stage shows, teaching them new songs, and inventing new games. They had to guarantee the physical and ideological preparation of their comrades.23 Not everybody thought adolescents could do all this, and not everybody shared von Schirach’s ideas about the Selbstführungsprinzip. According to the Gestapo, for example, “the minor leaders of the HJ were not often able to lead and educate other youth. They were children without command capacity and in need of education.”24 Similar criticism, as we noted, was advanced against Ricci by some Fascists who did not approve the appointment of the academists to positions of responsibility because they considered them too young and inexperienced. To avoid such complaints, the General Command of the Hitlerjugend gave precise guidelines to the local commands so that they could selectively choose the leaders. The Nazi regime was aware that “with a correct or false education of youth” the National Socialist state would stand or fall.25 The Nazis, like the Italian Fascists, knew that the future of the entire totalitarian project depended

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on youth education in general, and on youth leadership selection in particular. It was necessary to start observing the greatest number of members in order to single out those who might become HJ leaders. The selection procedures took place every year between October and December. The Hitler Youth searched for charismatic and healthy youth among its members who were not about to begin their military service or the Arbeitsdienst.26 Once the candidates had been identified, they were separated from their fellows and assembled in ad hoc units named Unterführeranwärterzuge (platoons of the aspiring lesser leaders). Between January and April these youth attended a training program and then took an exam in order to get the HJLeistungsabzeichnen (performance certificate of the HJ). The exam consisted not only of gymnastics and sports heats, but also of written political and ideological tests. The aspiring leaders were asked, for example, to talk about World War I, focusing their attention on enemy states and the reasons for Germany’s defeat, to discuss the most important moments of Hitler’s life, and to talk about the lives of those Germans who had emigrated or were obliged to live in a foreign country. There were then questions about race, blood purity, about the “mutilations” suffered by Germany because of the Versailles Treaty, and about German political projects in eastern Europe. Once they had passed the exam, every candidate obtained the certificate. Possessing the HJ-Leistungsabzeichnen, the “aspiring leaders” became “effective leaders,” beginning their carriers as Kamerad­ schaftsführer or Jungschaftsführer.27 In order to follow the subsequent narrative, it is important to examine the hierarchical structure of the Hitlerjugend schematized in Table 1, which provides the names of all the ranks used in the Nazi youth organization, and of all the different control centers, from the highest to the lowest.28 One consequence of the “principle of self-direction” was the very young age of the HJ leaders.29 In 1940 a study of the HJ minor leadership of Würzburg, a Bavarian town, was published. Referring to data collected between 1936 and 1938, it noted that the young leaders of the town were between fourteen and twenty-one years of age. Fifty youth leaders out of one hundred were on average seventeen years old; nineteen were younger than fourteen; and the remaining thirty-one were just a bit older than the average. The research demonstrated the existence of a correlation between age and rank. The Kameradschaftsführer were on average sixteen years old, the Scharführer were on average eighteen years old, and the Gefolgschaftsführer were on average nineteen. 30 This correspondence between age and rank was also confirmed by subsequent researchers. They showed that the Jungschaftsführer, at the time of appointment, were between ten and fourteen years of age, the Jungzugführer between fifteen and sixteen, the Fähnleinführer between seventeen and twenty, the Kameradschaftsführer between

Reichsjugendführung (General Command) Corresponding managerial rank Reichsjugendführer

Gebiet (regional command) Includes about 20 Banne Corresponding managerial rank Gebietsführer

Jungbann (provincial command section DJ) Includes 4–6 Jungstämme Corresponding managerial rank Jungbannführer

Bann (provincial command section HJ) Includes 4–6 Stämme Corresponding managerial rank Bannführer

Jungstamm Includes 3–5 Fähnlein Corresponding managerial rank Jungstammführer

Stamm Includes 3–5 Gefolgschaften Corresponding managerial rank Stammführer

Fähnlein Includes 4 Jungzüge Corresponding managerial rank Fähnleinführer

Gefolgschaft Includes 4 Scharen Corresponding managerial rank Gefolgschaftsführer

Jungzug Includes 4 Jungenschaften Corresponding managerial rank Jungzugführer

Schar Includes 4 Kameradschaften Corresponding managerial rank Scharführer

Jungenschaft Gathers 10 Pimpfe Corresponding managerial rank Jungschaftsführer

Kameradschaft Gathers 10 Hitlerjungen Corresponding managerial rank Kameradschaftsführer

Deutsches Jungvolk (DJ)

Hitlerjungen (HJ) strict sense Hitlerjugend (HJ)

Table 1.  Hierarchical structure of the Hitlerjugend

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sixteen and eighteen and, higher up, the Gefolgschaftsführer between eighteen and twenty-four.31 The members of the higher local and national leadership were also very young. In 1938 the Gebietsführer were on average thirty-one years old, the Bannführer twenty-five, and the Jungbannführer twenty-four. Von Schirach was appointed Reich youth chief at the age of twenty-six; his successor, Artur Axmann, was only twenty-seven when he was appointed supreme Hitler Youth leader.32 The presence of very young leaders marks a point of convergence in the historical development of both the Nazi and the Fascist youth organizations, a point seldom mentioned in the historiography. The ONB has always been described as an organization for youth but led by adults.33 But Renato Ricci, appointed president of the ONB at the age of thirty, was just four years older than von Schirach and three years older than Axmann at the time of their investitures. Similarly, the leaders who graduated from the Fascist Academy were appointed to their first higher rank posts when they were in their midtwenties, roughly the same age as the Nazi Bannführer and Jungbannführer. Moreover, Italian capi squadra, capi centuria, and cadetti were more or less the same age as German Jungschaftsführer, Jungzugführer, Fähnleinführer, Kameradschaftsführer, and Gefolgschaftsführer. If the young age of the youth leaders is an important similarity between the ONB and the HJ rarely discussed in the previous scholarship, there are also a number of differences between them that must be noted, especially with respect to the differing roles played by the school staff inside the two organizations. Ricci, not having at his disposal figures comparable to the German Bündische Führer, and not counting on a strong youth associative tradition, thought it was necessary and practical to utilize existing teachers and school principals as ONB leaders. The Opera Nazionale Balilla president thought that these individuals, once trained by the Fascist youth organization, could undertake good propaganda work in their lessons, persuading the youth to become members of the Opera. In Italy there was not a wholehearted distrust of the teachers— after all, Mussolini’s mother was a schoolteacher and the Duce himself had a teacher-training high school diploma. The Germans, by contrast, tried to establish a clear distinction between the Hitler Youth and the main education system. Baldur von Schirach did not believe that teachers could be youth leaders of his organization; he had doubts about their Nazi credentials and considered them representatives of a dying society. They were men of thought, while the Nazis needed men of faith and men of action.34 Von Schirach, a former, unsuccessful student of the University of Munich, despised culture. He was convinced that feeling was more important than understanding and that “a working youth whose heart” beat “passionately for our Führer” was “more essential for



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Germany than a highly educated aesthete” who dampened “every stirring of his weak feelings with rational consideration.”35 These words were perfectly in line with Adolf Hitler’s contempt toward intellectual efforts and bookish education. For him instruction was a mass of useless learning, and he associated intellectualism with decadence and Judaism. The Führer dismissed with much disdain the teachers. In his words, they were tyrants with only one aim: to stuff the students’ brains and turn them into “erudite apes.”36 Italian Fascism tried to guarantee that schools and youth organizations worked in harmony from the very beginning, entrusting the ONB president with the role of undersecretary of the National Education Ministry and making the ONB responsible for the organization of physical education and sport in the Italian schools. In Germany, not surprisingly, given the extremely negative attitude of Hitler toward “the training of mental abilities,” the relationship between the education system and the HJ was extremely hostile and the Hitlerjugend was quite distinct from the Ministry of Education. The Hitler Youth showed intolerance for the traditional authoritarianism of the German school system and for the older age of the teachers, something the HJ considered a sign of their ideological deficiencies.37 The Hitlerjungen did not want to submit to authoritarian teachers. The latter were beaten, denounced, and dismissed, while the Hitler Youth tried to impregnate the school system with its own sense of egalitarianism. Pupils who had leading roles in the HJ were encouraged to reject the authority of their teachers. The Hitlerjugend mounted several campaigns between 1933 and 1935 to have old teachers replaced by younger and pro-Nazi ones. The old teachers, relics of the highly intellectual Humboldtian school system, could not shape the new German youth. Trying to exclude teachers from holding important leadership roles in the HJ, von Schirach fueled the conflict and made increasingly evident the incompatibility between German schools and Nazi youth organization.38 The anti-intellectual stance of the Nazis led to worsening academic standards in the schools, severely disrupted discipline, and increased truancy. It also undermined teachers’ authority and status, resulting in teacher shortages. The Nazis also imposed an ever-expanding ideological and political agenda on the school curricula. Between 1933 and 1934 several incidents between Hitler Youth and teachers during school hours were reported. As a consequence, the NSDAP set up a Committee for Education that discussed this problem and asked HJ members to respect school authority and fulfill school requirements. Moreover, in 1934 schools were obliged to appoint an HJ-Schuljugendwalter (school youth warden) whose goal was to reduce the conflicts between teachers and pupils who were members of the Hitler Youth. While masquerading as a means of reconciliation, this merely strengthened the youth organization’s

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authority in schools, given that the Schuljugendwalter usually advanced the interests of the pupils. Kurt Petter, who was in charge of school affairs in the Reichsjugendführung, hoped to obtain—by means of the school youth wardens—a major voice for the Hitlerjugend inside the schools. Nevertheless, in an attempt to placate the teachers, von Schirach and Bernhard Rust, the Nazi minister of education, decided in June 1934 to institute the Staatsjugendtag, or State Youth Day. By organizing the more demanding HJ activities on Saturdays, the Nazi youth organization opted not to encroach on the school time anymore.39 The school system and the Hitler Youth were not destined to fight relentlessly. Perhaps influenced by his friend Renato Ricci, von Schirach thought that in the future it might be possible to give teachers leading roles inside the Nazi youth organization. There were already some teachers who were also HJFührer, but they were an exception, not the norm. They were, above all, former leaders of the Bündische Jugend who had passed on to the Nazi youth after 1933. Von Schirach hoped that, in a few years, youth leaders who had grown up in the Nazi youth organization would become teachers in elementary and high schools. In this way, he believed, it would be possible to unify these two functions that, at the moment, seemed to be in most cases incompatible.40 In the meantime, in order to facilitate more productive exchanges between schools and the HJ, the Nazi youth organization decided in 1935 to organize, in some of the few already existing HJ-Führerschulen, courses for the indoctrination and the physical preparation of young teachers.41 After years of tension and failed agreements with the Ministry of Education, von Schirach was convinced of the need to infiltrate the schools further, and thanks to the courses organized by the Nationalsozialistische Lehrbund (Nazi League of Teachers, NSLB), some teachers had become “nazified.”42 The Hitler Youth, boosted by the gradual Nazification of the teaching staff, carried out its efforts to erode further the autonomy of the school system and, as a result, according to an agreement drawn up by the Ministry of Education and the General Command of the Hitlerjugend in 1938, so-called confidence teachers were created. Appointed every year by the provincial commands of the HJ, these teachers were to be informed about everything that happened inside schools. They also had to give lessons to parents and other teachers, explaining the work and the aims of the HJ, and they had to inform the youth organization leaders about the school behavior of Pimpfe and Hitlerjungen.43 In 1938 von Schirach also considered the possibility of creating a new pedagogical figure: the Politischer Erzieher. This “ideal” educator would have to carry out many different functions. He would change his place of work several times during his professional life; he would be ready to lead Hitler Youth units and



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also to teach in schools; he would be, using von Schirach’s words, a “leaderteacher,” “a physically and spiritually hardened comrade,” not a “schoolmaster but a master of life,” a person able to go beyond the books, able to educate the youth according to the new Nazi ideology. In short, the Politischer Erzieher Baldur von Schirach depicted was very close to the kind of educator that Fascist Italy was already shaping in the Accademia Littoria.44

A Muddled Educational System In the second half of the 1930s the Hitlerjugend, trying to develop further the preparation of its leaders, committed itself to refining the ideological preparation of the HJ-Führer, improving their physical condition, and creating among them a strong sense of belonging and commitment to the regime. The Nazis felt the pressure to create, as soon as they could, an even larger supply of loyal youth trainers and instructors, and in order to do so they bombarded their leaders with a myriad of initiatives. Examining all the enterprises set up by the Nazis, the totalitarian heat that drove von Schirach and his followers emerges clearly. In addition to the increasing number of schools for leaders, a number of other pedagogical agencies were also introduced. The result was, however, a muddled educational system. The HJ-Führer had to manage the Heimabende and the political and sport training of their units following the guidelines imposed by their superiors and by the General Command of the Hitler Youth. They had to learn to be perfect leaders, studying the material sent by the Reichsjugendführung. That material dictated the political, ideological, and historical topics they had to approach in their meetings. But the best way to become perfect leaders was by attending the ideological and gymnastic Lehrgänge (courses) organized by the HJ.45 According to von Schirach, these courses had two main aims: to train all those youth just appointed as HJ leaders, and to improve the preparation of all those who had exercised a leading role inside the organization for a long time. The short Lehr­gänge organized by these schools to train the lesser leaders were the counterparts of the courses and camps organized by the ONB to train capi squadra and capi centuria.46 Superior leaders (Bannführer and Jungbannführer) attended three-week courses at the so-called Reichsführerschulen, middle leaders (Gefolgschaftsführer, Fähnleinführer, Stammführer, and Jungstammführer) attended three-week courses at the Gebietschulen, whereas lesser leaders ( Jungzugführer, Scharführer, Jungschaftsführer, and Kameradschaftsführer) attended short courses during the weekends (Wochenendelehrgänge). Pimpfe and Hitlerjungen spent the winter singing and dealing with ideological issues, whereas in the spring and in the summer they played war games and

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camped. It was therefore obvious that the training of the HJ leaders should focus on physical, military, and political education. In every course time was devoted to practicing Geländesport (activities taking place in the open-air), rifle shooting, and physical education (Leibesübungen), to training in first-aid, to the understanding of ideological issues (Weltanschauliche Schulung), and to singing, which, given the highly ideological content of Nazi songs, was considered to be a very important aspect of youth education.47 The Hitler Youth had constructed several Gebietschulen after 1934, but to husband its resources, the HJ General Command had ordered the organization of the “weekend courses” in youth hostels and buildings that had been confiscated from the banned youth organizations. Until 1937 schoolhouses to host the training of lesser leaders did not exist. In March 1937, however, the General Command of the Hitlerjugend announced a program for building schoolhouses for the training of those lesser leaders: the so-called Bannführerschulen. The command of the HJ was “absolutely convinced of the importance of the work carried out by lesser leaders in their little units” and wanted to build such training institutes all over the Reich. However, Bannführerschulen could be built only if the local commands committed themselves to the funding of the various activities of these institutes down the line. The Bannführerschulen did not fully supplant the weekend courses; the Wochenendelehrgänge continued to exist. Not every Bann enjoyed the opportunity of building new premises and keeping a permanent staff inside them.48 In time, the Führerschulen system became more complex and refined. Increasing the membership of the Hitler Youth led to an increase in the number of courses for middle and high rank leaders.49 To train as many Bannführer as possible the Nazis added two other institutes to the first school for superior male leaders, the Reichsführerschule of Potsdam, founded by von Schirach in July 1933. The Reichsführerschule 2 of Remagen (known also as Haus Calmuth), which specialized in political and ideological courses, was inaugurated in 1934, while the Reichsführerschule 3 of Marienwerder was opened in 1937.50 In 1938, given the increasingly expansionistic aims of the Nazis, the school of Marienwerder was renamed Ostlandführerschule der HJ and focused on organizing advanced courses on eastern European issues for the top HJ leaders.51 Furthermore, the Hitlerjugend founded not only three Reichsführerinnenschulen (schools for superior female leaders) in Potsdam, Godesberg, and Boyden, but also opened several Fachschulen (technical schools) for lesser and higher leaders aimed at training them in fields considered crucial for the education of the youth and at providing them the skills suitable for organizing Nazi ideology classes and managing sport, gymnastics, Geländessport, and shooting training. Some courses held in these Fachschulen lasted only one day; others lasted three weeks.52



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Besides the schools, the Nazis also started organizing workshops. The Führer­ schulungswerke (“factories” for the preparation of the leadership) were small discussion and study groups, formed by male and female leaders, that met once or twice a week from fall to spring in order to deepen some particularly relevant fields of knowledge under the tutelage of party officials, servicemen, economists, and scientists. The first Führerschulungswerke took place after 1937 in several towns. The aim was to organize them all over Germany. In 1937–38 there were some five hundred courses with twelve thousand participants—a number that had more than doubled by 1939. There were nine thematic strands, and every participant enjoyed the opportunity to choose the topic he or she wanted to study: German history; ancient German history; racism, heredity, and race policy; nation, Nazi movement, and state; the program of the NSDAP; the history and organization of the NSDAP; political economy; foreign policy; and German culture. After March 1939, to convince the greatest number of youth leaders to take part in these meetings, the General Command stated that by attending them regularly the HJ leaders would enjoy the opportunity to advance in the HJ hierarchy. In addition to the courses of the Führerschulungswerke, the youth leaders could also attend the advanced seminars organized at the Berliner Politische Hochschule (High school of politics in Berlin). Here several discussion groups were organized about, for example, German history, German heroic sagas, the German race, German art and costumes, Germany and its neighboring states, German national economy, and the aims of the HJ.53 Looking at the discussion groups proposed in both the Führerschulungswerke and the Berliner Politische Hochschule, it is clear that the Nazis were trying to transform their youth leaders into skillful propagandists of the ideal Volksgemeinschaft and of the Drang nach Osten (Drive to the east). If Führerschulungswerke and seminars at the Berliner Politische Hochschule were optional, taking part in sport contests was compulsory. The leaders had to show their military and sport preparedness. They had to be models for their subordinates; they had to demonstrate that they possessed the physical suitability required for leading roles in the Nazi youth organization. Middle and high leaders had to take part in the Führer-Zehnkämpfe (Decathlon contests for leaders), whereas the lesser leaders had to take part in the Unterführer-Fünfkämpfe (Pentathlon contests for lesser leaders). The Kämpfe entailed several heats, such as running, marching, shooting, and swimming. They were all war-related sport competitions, given that the first goal of the Hitler Youth was in fact creating soldiers, not athletes.54 From 1936 until war broke out three years later, the HJ took another important initiative, organizing the so-called Reichsführerlager, or training camps for the top ranks of the youth leadership. Only Bannführer and Gebietsführer could

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attend these meetings, which lasted ten days. The Reichsführerlager, besides focusing on further physical and political training, had other important aims. They emphasized the creation of a strong esprit de corps and dictated the goals the HJ leaders had to pursue in their activities with the youth.55 Talking at the closing ceremony of the first Reichsführerlager Hartmann Lauterbacher said: “I believe that a consequence of your participation in this camp is a new uniformity not only in your way of working, but also in your behavior, in your vision of honor, in your vision of confidence and in your vision of all the other virtues of the Nazi idea. I believe that we, in this camp, for the first time (and this is only our first successful attempt) have been knitted together in a unique body in the very true sense of the word.”56 In these remarks von Schirach’s right-hand man summarized the importance of such initiatives in guaranteeing the uniformity of the youth leadership, an essential precondition for the uniformity of the HJ more generally, and, consequently, for the new society the regime was attempting to create. The first (1936) and the last (1939) camps took place in Braunschweig, whereas the second (1937) and the third (1938) were organized in the Goethe Park of Weimar. The Reichsführerlager were attended by top leaders—coming from Banne, Gebiete, and from the General Command—and by several administrative executives of the organization. Only the last camp hosted both male and female leaders coming from all over the Reich.57 The most important aspects of these gatherings were the meetings that took place between the HJ leaders and some of the higher ideologues of the Nazi regime.58 In 1938, commenting on the guests present at the Reichsführerlager, von Schirach said that the thoughts they expressed in their speeches had to accompany the HJ-Führer forever. The youth leaders had “to think back to their words” and had to consider them the beacon of their everyday life and of their work. Von Schirach underlined that what the speakers said was not merely fodder for discussion. Their will was the “Führer’s will”; their words were “the guidelines for the entire nation” and the HJ-Führer had to listen to them and convey them to their subordinates.59 To guarantee that the directives of the General Command could reach even the most isolated and inaccessible zones of Germany, where it was not possible to organize courses regularly, let alone build schools, an important figure was instituted: the Wanderlehrer. He took with him the material necessary for the ideological and physical training of the units and taught the young local leaders how to use it. Such figures might appear insignificant but were extremely important. In Italy the ONB, attempting to reach the most remote areas, counted on the elementary teachers assigned to such inaccessible places to be youth leaders. In Germany, by contrast, the Nazis relied on the Wanderlehrer. In both



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regimes there was the idea that everybody had to be reached, that all youth had to be brought up as Fascists and Nazis. Obviously the Fascist and Nazi education of the youth living in these out-of-the-way villages was not deep. Nevertheless, both regimes took this work extremely seriously indeed.60 Despite all these initiatives, the training system of the HJ leadership was not perfect. As Michael Kater has noted, chronically inadequate leadership recruitment and training “contributed to systematic faults in the HJ leadership structure, as a result of the lack of capable chiefs.”61 In a document of April 1936 about the schools for leaders, the human resources office of the General Command of the HJ recognized that there were still flaws in the educational system. Three issues in particular were tackled in this report: the choice of the participants, the question of age limits, and the organization of school inspections aimed at checking the management. The human resources office asked the local commands to send to the Führerschulen not only the best leaders, in order to enhance their preparation and possibly give them more responsibilities, but also all those HJ-Führer who were still carrying out the same role they had in 1933. It was necessary to put them to the test, so that the HJ could see if they could be given more important tasks or if they had to be expelled from the organization, making room for more deserving people. The directive of the human resources office then set the age limit: all those who wanted to take part in courses for middle-rank leaders had to be at least eighteen years old. Evidently it was a widespread practice of the local commands to send to the courses very young leaders who did not have enough experience to perform higher duties and who therefore incurred useless costs. The directive stated that exceptions could be made, but they had to be justified. If local commands decided to send to these schools youth under eighteen years of age, the Bannführer and Jungbann­ führer who sent them were considered completely responsible for such decisions, answering personally, if necessary, for all the expenditures caused by sending unsuitable youth. Finally the newsletter stressed that regional heads of the human resources offices, Bannführer, and Jungbannführer had to inspect the Führer­ schulen, whereas the directors of the schools had to point out the best participants, sending their name to the General Command of the Hitler Youth so that it could create a short list of the best and fittest youth leaders of the Reich. In this way the Reichsjugendführung could keep track of them and guarantee them an important place in the hierarchy of the HJ leadership corps.62 For the General Command of the HJ it was not easy to enforce its orders and guidelines evenly inside the several schools for leaders scattered all over the Reich. Von Schirach could not guarantee that they offered the same programs and that they were administered in the same way. Above all, he had difficulties

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Lesser Leadership

Middle Leadership

Top Leadership

Training aids sent by the Reichsjugendführung (Schulungsbriefe, journals, etc.) Three-week courses Weekend courses at the Gebietschulen and Bannführerschulen

Fachschulen (Technical schools)

Three-week courses at the Reichsführerschulen (Potsdam, Haus Calmuth, Marienwerder) Fachschulen

Führerschulungswerke (workshops for the preparation of the leadership)

Führerschulungswerke



Berliner Politische Hochschule

Berliner Politische Hochschule



Reichsführerlager

Pentathlon contests

Decathlon contests

Decathlon contests

Table 2.  Different instruments the Nazis had at their disposal in order to train the Hitler Youth leadership

in finding reliable teachers and lasting directors. However, the most evident problem in the Nazi system was the absence of a school where the Hitler Youth could train its own leaders in a systematic, full-time manner.63 In Table 2 I schematize the different instruments the Nazis had at their disposal in order to train the Hitler Youth leadership around 1938. Such an educational system, according to von Schirach himself, was not the best for selecting and training those who led the provincial and regional committees. In this respect, the Opera Nazionale Balilla and the Hitlerjugend, in terms of the formation of their respective leaderships, followed very different educational philosophies. The system created by the Italians was more homogeneous than the German one. There was a national Institute aimed at training the higher leadership and implementing a unitary educational policy throughout the country. There were youth shaped by the Academy of the Mussolini Forum who educated in turn not only the members of the youth organization but also the middle and the lesser leaders of the Opera Nazionale Balilla. And, in the end, there was a degree of cooperation between the schools and the youth organization that was almost unknown to the Nazis. In Germany, on the other hand, the schools and the youth organization were virtually at loggerheads and



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there was no institution equivalent to the Accademia Fascista di Educazione Fisica e Giovanile. In short, the Nazi system, even though it offered many different educational platforms, was much more decentralized. There were many different kinds of schools that tried to train the Nazi youth leaders as specialists in particular sectors, but they all offered crash courses. These might have been adequate for the lesser leaders (or HJ-Führerschaft ), but for those leading Banne and Gebiete (the so-called HJ-Führerkorps) it was necessary for a much longer educational process. The contacts and exchanges that took place between Fascist and Nazi youth—the central topic of the next chapter—were not only important in patterning a somehow shared ideological platform, but also favored the institutional interaction that helped the Nazis discover a different way to train the top leaders of the Hitlerjugend.

6 The Relationship between the Opera Nazionale Balilla and the Hitlerjugend Before Hitler’s seizure of power, Hitlerjungen and Balilla had little contact

with each other. The Nazi youth organization was still very weak, and the relationships between Fascist and Nazi leaderships were all but warm.1 In 1922 Mussolini almost ignored the existence of the Brown Shirts, and, even though The Times defined Hitler as “Mussolini’s promising Bavarian pupil,” the Italian Duce considered the leader of the NSDAP an obscure political agitator.2 After the Beer Hall Putsch, the Duce described Hitler and his followers as buffoni (fools). Even though Göring and other prominent Nazis were granted asylum in Fascist Italy after November 9, 1923, until 1929 there wasn’t any enthusiastic relationship between Black and Brown Shirts. During this period, the Duce was not at all charmed by Hitler, this “strange man” who had written an “unreadable book” and who was surrounded by “fanatic and often immoral men.”3 The Duce had doubts about Hitler’s sanity, and while he wanted to get to know Hitler, he also wanted to maintain good relations with the Weimar government. Only after 1930 did the Duce decide to change his attitude toward the Nazis. The huge strides made by the NSDAP in the national election of September 1930 convinced Mussolini that it was time to take seriously and establish contact with that Bavarian “odd fellow” named Adolf Hitler, who had tried to attract Mussolini’s attention for years and years.4 The Nazis and the Fascists initiated frequent secret contacts between 1930 and 1932. To help develop a strong alliance with Fascist Italy, the Führer removed the “South Tyrolean question” from his agenda—that is, he stopped requesting the return of Bolzano and the surrounding area of northern Italy 118



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(South Tyrol), annexed by Italy after the Great War, to the Germanic people. In the early 1930s the Nazis and the Fascists began to exchange mutual representatives, even though visits by Fascist officials to Germany were still not frequent. At that time Mussolini was still the “master” and Hitler his humble “disciple.”5 And while Hitler wanted to visit the Duce, the Fascist leader declined to invite him. Ever since 1926 the Nazi Führer had also requested an autographed photo of Mussolini. But the Duce only sent one five years later, in June 1931. The letter written on that occasion by Hitler to thank Mussolini expressed deep gratitude: “Your Excellence has been so kind as to send me . . . a picture of Yourself with a dedication. I see it as a great honor for me. The sympathy for the Nazi movement that Your Excellence shows in the dedication is the same I have felt for years towards the Fascist regime created by Your Excellence. The spiritual relationship existing between the fundamental norms and principles of Fascism and of the movement I lead make me strongly hope that after the victory of National Socialism in Germany, victory in which I blindly believe, we will be able to create the same relationship between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.”6 Mussolini’s attitude toward Hitler and the NSDAP was reflected by the coldness between the ONB and the HJ. Even though no formal relationship existed between the Balilla and Hitlerjungen before 1933, the Nazi youth organization was extremely active in other countries. In 1928 the Hitlerjugend instituted an office of political affairs (Grenzlandamt ) and committed itself to the creation of a web of contacts with “racially Germanic” youth, or Volksdeutsche, living outside Germany (in Flanders, Luxemburg, Wallonia, Eupen-Malmedy, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, and the Baltic states).7 After the Nazis came to power in 1933 they guaranteed the presence of some HJ representatives in several German embassies in order to facilitate the work of the Hitlerjugend abroad. The Hitler Youth tried to improve its relationship with youth organizations in those countries where pro-Nazi movements were gaining a foothold (such as with the Arrow Cross in Hungary and the Iron Guard in Romania), where dictatorial and militaristic tendencies were present (as in Poland, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria), and where Fascist-styled rulers governed (as in Greece).8 The Nazis wanted to create a web of contacts with those organizations with which they shared similar ideals and values. It was thus during these years that the HJ attempted, above all else, to establish serious contacts with the Italian youth organization and to understand the functioning of the Opera Nazionale Balilla. The Hitlerjugend considered the Opera, the Italian state youth organization since 1926, a worthwhile template to study. As time passed, the relationship between the HJ and the ONB intensified, perfectly mirroring the development of the relationship between Hitler and Mussolini. Periods of crisis between the Führer and the Duce coincided with

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moments of tension and detachment between the Fascist and the Nazi youth. As we will see, however, after the beginning of the Ethiopian war in 1935, when the European powers decided to distance themselves from the Italians, Hitler offered his unequivocal support to Mussolini, inaugurating a period of harmony between Italy and Germany that only World War II would throw into crisis. Thus, the analysis of the interaction between Nazi and Fascist youth organizations is not only a good vantage point from which to examine the complexity and the reciprocal nature of the Nazi–Fascist relationship, but it also affords a means of examining the importance of Fascist and Nazi youth as ideological ambassadors and propaganda instruments of the two regimes.

A Rocky Beginning (1933–35) Two months after Hitler’s appointment as chancellor, in March 1933, the chargé d’affaires of Bavarian education minister Hans Schemm sent a letter to the Italian Embassy in Berlin requesting “informative material about the Italian youth organization” and asking if a commission appointed by the Ministry could “visit the Italian youth organization, and be present during the perform­ ance of its activities.”9 The Nazis wanted to understand how the Fascists were training their youth from an ideological point of view by reading the official ONB publications, and, from a practical point of view, by visiting the facilities aimed at shaping the members and leaders of the ONB. It was not the first time that the Germans displayed an interest in the educational policy carried out in Fascist Italy; already during the Weimar years German diplomatic delegations had collected information about the Italian school system, the Balilla organization, and the functioning of the ONB Academy of Physical and Youth Education. But the letter from the Bavarian Ministry of Education marked the first attempt made by the Nazis to establish an official connection with the Fascist youth organization.10 Two months later the Italian Foreign Office sent to the Italian legation in Berlin the illustrative material requested about the Opera Nazionale Balilla and noted that Renato Ricci would be extremely pleased to receive the commission appointed by the Bavarian Education Ministry.11 The Nazi delegation, led by Schemm and composed of ten ministerial representatives, wanted to learn as much as it could about the Balilla organization and the Italian school system. Members wanted to visit the Ministry of National Education, the Undersecretary for Physical and Youth Education, a summer camp, and a “Balilla House.”12 In the end the commission came to Italy twice: in August Schemm and his entourage visited the Fascist Academy of Physical Education in Rome and the camp for capi centuria to have an idea of how the Italians were forming their



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youth leaders; in September they studied the functioning of the Campo DUX in order to understand how the ONB was managing the military and sport training of its members.13 The Germans, who were still developing the training of HJ leaders and Hitlerjungen, thought that looking at a preexisting educational agency, such as the Opera, could be inspiring. The Italian youth organization was also interested in intensifying its contacts with the Hitlerjugend, proud of, and eager to share, the results of its pedagogical project. Preparatory work for the first Italian visit to Germany had already begun in 1932, but it was only after the Nazis came to power that the project materialized.14 Ricci planned for four hundred Avanguardisti and fifteen ONB leaders to be in Germany for fifteen days in July and August 1933. They would visit Munich, Leipzig, Berlin, Hamburg, and Frankfurt am Main.15 The young Avanguardisti and their leaders, coming mainly from the Fascist Academy, were welcomed with enthusiasm by the German people, as the Italian Foreign Service underscored. In his letter to the Italian Foreign Office of July 29, 1933, the Italian general consul in Munich noted that the Reich lieutenant, General Ritter von Epp, had shown a great interest in “every single detail” of the Opera Balilla and its instructors. And he highlighted that the trip of the Avanguardisti had attained its goal: “Italy could not send better messengers than these.”16 Also, the general consul of Hamburg wrote to the Foreign Office confirming that the students of the Mussolini Forum Institute, along with the Avanguardisti themselves, had been deeply admired. The academists in particular, “with their severely correct behavior,” had been able to inspire in the youth they led the pride of exhibiting the new Fascist discipline abroad.17 In a report published by the Völkischer Beobachter about the departure of the Fascist youth from Munich, the Nazi newspaper talked about the incredible number of people gathered at the train station to say goodbye to the young Italians returning to their country. The Germans waiting at the main train station were completely thrilled by the presence of the ONB members. Right from the start of their trip, the Völkischer Beobachter noted, the young Fascists had been surrounded by friendly and joyful people, and wherever they went, they had “to make their way through jubilant crowds.” All this happened, according to the Nazi newspaper, because the Germans felt that the friendship between Italy and Germany was not artificial, but deep-rooted.18 Parading on the German streets, the representatives of the ONB asserted that the Italians were not weak anymore; the youth were stronger than their fathers and grandfathers who had grown up under the pre-Fascist regime. The Italians used their youth not only to develop another connection with a regime that was ideologically similar, but they also wanted to impress the Germans by showing how their own regime was transforming the younger generations. The

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Italian youth wanted to reassert their “primogeniture,” reminding the Nazis that Mussolini had already been at the helm for more than a decade while Hitler was just a rising star. The “myth of youth” was at the core of the Italian Fascist ideology. The youth were something more than a generational cohort; they were a metaphor. They represented the entire nation and embodied the “new man” in the making. The Italian Fascists thought that their “educational project” was working and they wanted proudly to exhibit the result. Italian youth marching in the German towns were representatives of a renewed Italy, of a new ideology, of a new state. When the visit of the Italian youth delegation to Germany was drawing to an end, the ambassador, Vittorio Cerruti, sent a letter to the Italian Foreign Office. He stated that the German trip of the Avanguardisti exhibited the warm sympathy the Nazis had for Italy in general and for the Fascist youth in particular. And he added that, on behalf of Renato Ricci, he had started organizing the first official trip of the Hitler Youth to Italy. The Nazi Führer had proposed a possible visit around the end of September and the beginning of October 1933. However, the Italian ambassador in Berlin suggested that the Italians should themselves extend a formal invitation addressed to the Hitler Youth.19 By then it seemed that an enthusiastic relationship between Italian and German youth organizations was blossoming. The good rapport established in the summer of 1933 seemed to be irreversible. During the regional meeting of the Hitlerjugend in Munich on August 24, 1933, for example, the Bavarian minister of the interior highlighted how by then the Germanic and the Italian youth were linked by “strong bonds.”20 On August 25, 1933, the Nazis and Fascists signed an agreement to establish the guidelines for managing the exchanges between Hitler youth and Avanguardisti, German sport students and students of the Mussolini Forum Academy, members of the German and Italian sport societies, members of the SA and of the Young Fighting Fasces, and, subsequently, members of the National Socialist League of University Students and of the Fascist University Groups. According to this agreement, each visiting group could consist of no more than thirty participants and could remain in the host country for a maximum of thirty days. Expenses had to be split equally between Italy and Germany, and all visits had to be confirmed two months in advance. The host country had to choose where the guests could go and establish an agenda for the visit. Before their departure, all youth also had to undertake a medical examination. In order to execute this agreement, the Italians decided to set aside an annual fund of 150,000 lire. The Opera Nazionale Balilla, the Italian Olympic Committee, and the Fascist Party had to contribute 50,000 lire each.21 Despite Hitler’s promises, the Hitler Youth did not send any of its members to Italy in the fall of 1933. The Nazi youth organization decided to postpone



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the visit for financial reasons, promising to come the following spring. The HJ had indeed spent a huge amount of money for a trip to Hungary that took place in August 1933.22 But it is far more likely that the real reason for this postponement was that in fall 1933 the relationship between Italy and Germany was deteriorating because of Hitler’s foreign policy.23 Nevertheless, Hitler did not want his relationship with the Duce to be harmed. In order to reduce the tension the Führer sent a letter to Mussolini in November 1933, and on January 30, 1934, in a speech at the Reichstag, he emphasized the good relations that existed between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.24 The efforts Hitler made to improve the Italian–German relationship were mirrored in the relation between the youth of the two countries, and at the beginning of 1934 the Italian government was ready to welcome the young German visitors who had been unable to come the previous fall. The Foreign Office wrote to the ambassador in Berlin: “I have the privilege to inform His Worship that there are no difficulties to carry out the project of a trip of Hitlerian youth to Italy next Spring. They will return the visit carried out in Germany last year by our Avanguardisti.”25 The visit to Italy by the Hitler Youth depended nevertheless on the possibility that the ONB would partially fund their stay. The Fascist youth organization, however, despite having accepted the agreement of August 1933, reneged on its promises. Ricci, though renewing his commitment to the agreement, stated that he could not contribute the promised sum, largely because his organization had many projects to carry out and very few resources with which to do so. The president of the Opera promised to take into account “the opportunity of promoting or welcoming possible exchanges of youth or of students of the Physical Education Schools of Italy and Germany,” but “always in respect of the means the Opera Balilla had at disposal.” Ricci asked for help from the Fascist Party. But the PNF not only refused to incur the ONB’s expenditure, but it even urged Ricci to respect the agreement of August 1933 and pay the sum he promised as soon as he could.26 However, Ricci’s inability to pay part of the trip of the Hitlerjugend, and, above all, the increasing international tensions between Italy and Germany, consequence of the frictions existing at that time between Nazi Germany and Austria, led to the suspension of the planned visit of the Hitler Youth. The assassination of Engelbert Dollfuss, Austrian prime minister and close friend of the Duce, and the unsuccessful Nazi coup d’état in Austria, whose independence was essential for Mussolini, definitively spoiled the Nazi–Fascist relations. For Italy and Germany, and consequently for the ONB and the HJ, there began a period of mistrust and tension.27 The best summary of the Italian attitude toward Germany in the wake of the attempted Anschluß was found in the words of Mussolini in a speech he made in Bari on September 6, 1934: “We regard with supreme contempt certain

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doctrines from north of the Alps that belonged to people who ignored writing as a means to hand down the documents of their life, at a time when Rome had Caesar, Virgil, and Augustus.”28 Moreover, in a diatribe against the Nazis uttered a few days after the failed Nazi Putsch in Austria, according to Ulrich von Hassell, the German ambassador in Rome, Mussolini said that Hitler’s racial theories, based as they were on the presumed superiority of northern races, were so absurd that, if carried to their logical conclusion, the Laplanders could claim to be the “bearers of the highest culture.”29 Satire was often used in this anti-Nazi campaign. For example, in a cartoon published by an Italian xenophobic magazine, La Stirpe, in 1934, a member of the ONB was depicted kicking a monster with a swastika on its back across the Austrian border. 30 However, beyond these public displays of anti-Germanism, the Italians—as well as the Germans who instructed the press not to highlight or respond to Fascist outbursts—did not want to undermine a possible rapprochement. 31 Consequently, Mussolini did not hinder the development of a kind of parallel diplomacy, carried out by means of private meetings between lesser officials of the two nations who worked toward a reconciliation.32 Despite the broader tensions over Austria, and despite the accusations raised by the Hitler Youth against the Italians, who they claimed were guilty of “occupying” a territory—South Tyrol—that belonged to the Germanic people, the ONB and the HJ began gradually to renew their bonds.33 The increasing strains among Italy, France, and the United Kingdom because of the “Ethiopian question” favored this change. A sign of reconciliation between the youth organizations was the formation, with the support of the ONB, of a summer encampment of members of the HJ in Castel Fusano, near Rome, in 1935. This event was extremely significant; the presence of Nazi youth in Italy after a period of friction, and the availability of the Fascist youth organization to help the Hitlerjungen organize their campsite, was a clear sign that a “thaw” was beginning. Lauterbacher wrote about the campsite in his memoirs: “Italian and German flags waved. . . . The Balilla . . . were represented by a contingent of chosen youth. Tents, field kitchens, medical, and sanitarian supplies were provided by our Italian friends.” He added that the Italian and the German youth, in spite of the different mentalities, exhibited a great understanding for each other.34 Another indication that Germany again favored reconciliation between German and Italian youth was the publication in 1935 of a German book, designed for the members of the Deutsches Jungvolk, which told the events of Giovan Battista Perasso, better known as Balilla.35 In this book the Nazis not only glorified the life of the hero after whom the Fascist youth organization was named, but they even presented Balilla as a model for the young Nazis. This



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young hero of Italian history was worth considering because he was as brave as the young Nazis should be. The book extolled the courage of this youth who, thanks to his love for the fatherland, became immortal, as the subtitle of the book underlined. Despite his age, Balilla appeared to be mature as a man and strong as a soldier. Describing him, Heinrich Maria Tiede transformed this young Italian into an Aryan. In the book Giovan Battista Perasso is tall and slim and, above all, has blue eyes. This physical feature of Balilla is emphasized several times by the author; indeed, the first chapter of the book is significantly entitled: “Big blue eyes shine.” His Aryan eyes make him different, and because of them, the book seems to suggest, Balilla is predestined for success. Other passages in the book also seem to turn him into what we might see as a protoNazi youth of the eighteenth century. He is described as an Arbeiterkind, a child of the working class, and the term used by Tiede reminds us of the original name of the members of the Hitlerjugend: Jungarbeiter. Balilla led his friends against the enemies, ironically the Austrians, singing patriotic songs, reminding us not only of the heroic youth of Langemark, legendary models of the young Nazis who, according to the myth, died on the battlefields singing “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,” but also of the ranks of the HJ, marching on the street chanting their warlike songs.36 After the battle against the Austrians, initiated thanks to Balilla’s courage, the author described in these terms the wounded little Italian hero: “His head is tilted, and Balilla is weak. The loss of blood takes away all his strength.”37 These few lines echoed subtly the last moments of Herbet Norkus’s life, the martyr par excellence of the Nazi youth.38 Both youth were hurt, both bled profusely, but Balilla, unlike Herbert, survived, becoming a living legend for his fellow citizens. The “Nazification” of the eponymous hero of the Fascist youth organization, his presentation as a model for the young Nazis, the alluded similarities between Balilla and Norkus, and the exaltation of the Opera Balilla on the first and last pages of the book, where the author reminded his readers that millions of young Italians were members of the Fascist youth organization—all these elements suggested that the friendship between young Fascists and young Nazis was allegedly on the mend.

1936: A Renewed Impetus During the fourth Winter Olympic Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Renato Ricci was sent to Germany as chief of the Italian delegation. He was dispatched not only because he was president, since 1930, of the Italian Federation of Winter Sports, but also because he was considered to be the most capable person to reinvigorate the contacts with the Hitlerjugend.39 Once in Germany, the ONB

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president was invited by the HJ to visit Berlin, Cologne, Essen, and Dortmund, along with other centers aimed at training the Hitlerjungen, such as the Reichsführerschule in Calmuth and the Führerinnenschule in Godesberg. In just a few days Ricci enjoyed the opportunity to lay the foundations for the revitalization of the friendship between the ONB and the HJ.40 The second half of 1935 had been characterized by a hesitant rapprochement between Germany and Italy, a rapprochement that became sounder after Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia in October 1935.41 The first six months of 1936 meant a complete transformation of the relationship between Germany and Italy because of the Ethiopian War and the Spanish War. The hostility of France and Britain to the “Fascist states” and the Nazi and Fascist struggle against the Communists in Spain reinforced the Italian–German friendship and confirmed their common anticapitalist and anti-Bolshevik ideological identity. Mussolini decided it was time to put aside any disagreement with the Nazis. He appointed his Germanophile son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano, as foreign minister, and began to downplay his policy of guaranteeing protection for Austria. On November 1, 1936, Mussolini proclaimed that between Italy and Germany there existed “an axis around which all European states committed to cooperation and peace may collaborate.” This was a propaganda proclamation, but in the very near future it would be filled with real meaning; Italy had fallen into a spider web and it would not be able to extricate itself.42 The year 1936 also marked a new beginning for the youth organizations. A large-scale collaboration between Balilla and Hitlerjungen was launched, and several exchanges took place.43 However, the most important event of the year was the visit to Italy of a Hitler Youth delegation led by von Schirach and formed by 22 leaders, 200 Pimpfe—the youngest members of the Hitler Youth—and 252 Hitlerjungen. Following the guidelines of the General Command, every regional committee of the HJ had to put forward for the trip the names of ten Pimpfe, ten Hitler Youth, and two leaders, all meeting precise racial characteristics. This was the first trip to Italy made by the HJ supreme leader, and von Schirach wanted it to be close to perfection. By 1936 the Hitlerjugend had become the official educational institution of the Nazi state. It wanted to be on an equal footing with the ONB and thus the trip was conceived as a way to assert that Balilla and Hitlerjungen were now peers. The Hitler Youth would march for the first time in the presence of Mussolini, and, obviously, the Germans did not want to make a poor impression. Pimpfe and Hitlerjungen parading in Rome would represent the real live new German men and therefore had to be the “ideal” Aryans incarnate. On September 5 all of the selected youth were gathered in a preparation camp in Dachau. Here they carried out not only the drills to prepare them for their marches and parades in Italy, but were also



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taught about Italian policy and history. They had to learn, in particular, what Italy was before Mussolini, and what it became after the Fascist Revolution. They had to learn how their “friends” were rebuilding the Italian nation on a completely new ideological basis.44 The trip, which paralleled in significance the official visit to Germany organized by the ONB in 1933, lasted ten days, from September 15–25. The Nazi youth enjoyed visits to several Italian towns, including Padua, Venice, Florence, Fiesole, and Rome. The delegation remained in the capital for five days. Here the young Nazis experienced the history of the Italian nation from the Roman to the Fascist Empire. The tour began at the Roman Forum. Hitlerjungen and Pimpfe visited the Palatine, the Coliseum, and the Arch of Constantine. Pictures of this visit were published by the Völkischer Beobachter. In one of them the members of the Hitler Youth were photographed while touching with a mixture of astonishment and deference the bas-reliefs of Constantine’s Arch, one of the symbols of undisputed Roman supremacy. Another picture showed three young Nazis proudly playing bugles surrounded by the Roman imperial remains, almost a dark omen of what would happen seven years later when the Nazis occupied Rome after the fall of the Fascist regime.45 In the following days the Hitler Youth paid homage to one of the most important figures of the Italian Risorgimento, visiting Garibaldi’s monument, honored the fallen of World War I, laying a wreath on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and visited both the Palazzo Littorio, the seat of the Fascist Party, and the Mussolini Forum. The Fascists did their best to impress the Hitler Youth, extolling the virtues of Italy, past and present, and proudly displaying the strength of the younger Italian generations by means of gymnastic and military displays. But the trip was also a great success for the young Nazis. The Hitlerjugend exhibited not only the beauty of its young representatives, but also the perfection of their military preparation. Marches of Balilla and Hitlerjungen, Roman and Nazi salutes, swastikas and lictor fasces—symbols of the regimes—hymns extolling heroic youth and martyrs, and songs attacking shared ideological enemies, such as Communists and Socialists, were all part of a spectacle staged jointly by the ONB and the HJ in order to celebrate the comradeship of the youth of Germany and Italy against Bolshevik terror. The picture of a smiling Avanguardista pinning the ONB badge on the shirt of a member of the Hitler Youth, published by the Völkischer Beobachter, was a symbol of this friendly camaraderie.46 For von Schirach the visit was particularly important because, for the first time, he could see personally where and how the top leaders of the Fascist youth organization were trained. As we will see in the next chapter, the HJ had begun building the Academy for the training of its higher leadership, also inspired by

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Two Hitlerjungen and Baldur von Schirach honor the Italian Unknown Soldier in Piazza Venezia, Rome, September 22, 1936 (AIL, picture A00066849, Authorization ISTLUCE 0001339)

the Fascist Institute, just few months before this trip. Therefore we can imagine that, by visiting the facilities of the Mussolini Forum Academy, being present at classes, and watching the performances of the academists, von Schirach tried to draw stimuli for “his” own Jugendführer Akademie. In a letter sent to the German Foreign Office about the visit of von Schirach and the HJ, Ulrich von Hassell wrote that during the meetings between the representatives of the ONB and the Hitlerjugend, speeches were made that “underlined the necessity of collaboration and reciprocal knowledge between the youth organizations of both countries.”47 During one of their meetings in Rome the president of the Opera and the Reichsjugendführer made an important decision. The Opera Nazionale Balilla and the Hitler Youth were at this time both attempting to develop the best system for the training of their own youth leaders. Ricci and von Schirach were not only convinced that the leaders of the ONB and the HJ had to carry out similar work inside their respective associations, managing the ideological and physical education of Fascist and Nazi youth, but they were also persuaded that the leaders of the two organizations could learn from one another. Sharing this belief, and pushed by the desire to



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Baldur von Schirach, Renato Ricci, Giulio Ricci (Ricci’s son), and representatives of the German and Italian regimes attend the parade of the Accademisti in the Mussolini Forum, Rome, September 22, 1936 (AIL, picture A00066839, Authorization ISTLUCE 0001339)

bring together more intimately the youth of both countries, the leader of the Balilla and the leader of the Hitler Youth decided to found and manage jointly two institutes for the training of German and Italian educators and youth leaders. Living in close contact for a long period, Nazi and Fascist youth could create strong bonds between the two nations. Moreover, despite the differences between Nazi and Fascist ideologies, HJ and ONB leaders could learn from each other’s indoctrination techniques and educational philosophies. The project of establishing these schools attested to the fact that between young Fascists and young Nazis there was no inferiority complex and that they both looked at each other with respect and trust. Nevertheless, it was also the case that, given the long experience of the Italians and the presence of an institute for the training of the youth leaders in Rome since 1927, the Germans wanted especially to learn from Italian expertise.48 Von Schirach, writing about his 1936 visit in his memoirs, recalled how the Fascist youth were held in high esteem by the Nazis. He wrote: “Every time the Fascist youth visited Germany and every time a leader of the NSDAP came back from Italy, it was said: ‘Compared to the Italian youth, the Hitlerjugend is a Sauhaufen (a pile of pigs).’”49

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Baldur von Schirach, Renato Ricci, Giulio Ricci (Ricci’s son), and representatives of the German and Italian regimes review the Accademisti in the Mussolini Forum, Rome, September 22, 1936 (AIL, picture A00066826, Authorization ISTLUCE 0001339)

The decision to establish these two schools was made public in October 1936 on the occasion of the visit to Germany of the Italian foreign minister, Ciano, a few days before the signing of the Italian–German friendship pact known as “Rome–Berlin Axis.”50 During a meeting at the Sportpalast in Berlin, in front of twenty thousand members of the Hitlerjugend, and in the presence of the Italian foreign minister and the Italian ambassador, Bernardo Attolico, Baldur von Schirach declared that it was a great honor for him “to announce publicly to the German people the decision made together with the chief of the Fascist Youth organization” on the occasion of his last visit to Italy. The decision, von Schirach underscored, had got “the Duce’s and Adolf Hitler’s consent.” Two institutes were going to be opened, one in Rome and one in Berlin, “designed for the leaders of the youth organizations of both countries.” The one in Rome would welcome the HJ-Führer, giving them the opportunity “to learn about the cultural, economic, and political conquests of Fascist Italy.” The corresponding Berlin institute would welcome the Italian youth leaders, so that they could become familiar with the German nation. In his speech von Schirach underlined that these institutes would give the leaders of the Fascist and Nazi



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youth organizations the opportunity to share their knowledge. Comparing their experiences, they could learn what kind of songs or what kind of readings could be more effective for the ideological indoctrination of their subordinates, and they could find out what kind of physical or military exercises could be more effective to strengthen the physical structure of the youth or to refine their war-like preparation. In short, these institutes would aim at improving the pedagogical practices of both regimes.51 The Germans, hoping to unveil in the summer of 1938 the institute designed to accommodate the Italian youth leaders, started searching for a place where they could build it. The ideal location, in addition to guaranteeing space for the training of the youth, had to offer them room to rest and relax. The General Command calculated that the institute had to have at its disposal an area of about 40,000 square meters (430,000 square feet). It had to be well connected to the city, and it had to include enough space for sport activities. Among the proposed sites was Gatow, a suburb near Berlin. In summer 1937 negotiations to buy the land considered suitable for the construction began.52 But although the Italian newspapers and von Schirach talked about the creation of these institutes designed for the exchange of Fascist and Nazi youth leaders, and although plans were hatched, the ambitious project remained unfulfilled. 53 The decision to create related schools to train Nazi leaders in Rome and Fascist instructors in Berlin, even though they did not materialize, however, was a clear sign of the strong connections and mutual interests existing between the ONB and the HJ in the mid-1930s.

1937: Fascist Youth Show Off In 1937 the relationship between the youth organizations of both countries was further consolidated. In April Ricci returned the visit carried out by von Schirach in September 1936, traveling to Germany with twenty-two youth leaders. During his stay the ONB president visited Munich, Münster, the Ruhr territory, Hamburg, the Ordensburg of Krössingsee, Königsberg and, at the end of this trip, Berlin.54 The German people welcomed him, and the Nazi press devoted many articles to the coverage of Ricci’s visit. The newspapers underlined in particular how Ricci observed with interest all the Nazi educational facilities he visited. They described him as a good and respectful friend of the German people and talked about the Opera as an organization aimed at establishing friendly relations with all those youth opposed to the “red terror.” Ricci was described, in an article entitled “Die Freundschaft Hitlerjugend–Balilla” (The friendship between Hitlerjugend and Balilla), as the most faithful and bravest

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officer of Mussolini and as a gifted organizer born to be leader of the youth of Italy.55 During his stay in Berlin the president of the Opera Nazionale Balilla visited Hitler, attended a gymnastic display of the HJ, visited, together with the Reich Sport superintendent Hans von Tschammer und Osten, the Academy of Physical Education of Charlottenburg, and enjoyed a banquet organized in his honor by von Schirach.56 On this occasion the supreme chief of the Hitlerjugend invited 450 Balilla to spend a holiday period, the following summer, in the camps of the Nazi youth. He also declared publicly that he did not feel toward Ricci the simple respect due to a statesman, but rather considered him a friend, a comrade devoted to the fulfillment of the same pedagogical ideal to which he was committed. Both Nazis and Fascists wanted to create, by means of physical and political education, blindly obedient soldiers. Only Italy and Germany had understood that youth education was not a fringe issue and that if states wanted to have a complete control of their citizens, they had to monopolize the education of their future generations.57 The major “event” of 1937 was the trip to Germany of some students from the most important institutes of the ONB: the Mussolini Forum Academy, the Lictor Academy, and the Female Academy of Orvieto.58 This visit, as the Italian and German newspapers underscored, had several aims. It was an opportunity for Fascist youth to exchange experiences, to get to know one another, and to increase their mutual respect and reciprocal regard. 59 It had to cement the cordial relationship between Nazi and Fascist youth, inform students of the academies about German society, and, at the same time, demonstrate to their German friends what the Italian youth could do. The students of the Fascist academies were important symbols of the new Fascist era. By means of uniforms, Roman salutes, parades, and gymnastic displays, they had to be living examples of the new lifestyle imposed by the Fascist regime. The students of the academies had to represent Italian beauty and reflect the Fascist concern with reshaping the Italians. They were propaganda instruments and examples to show off what the ONB had been able to achieve during the previous ten years. The Nazis, whose youth leadership Academy was still at that time—as we will see in the next chapter—nothing more than a sketch, were particularly excited about this trip. They were interested in looking closely at the students of the Mussolini Forum Academy. The Germans, who had a high opinion of the institute and considered it the most important educational center for the fulfillment of the Fascist educational project, wanted to see the academists in action. The Nazi admiration for the Fascist Academy of Physical and Youth Education was in fact evident in a report that emanated from the German Embassy in Rome and appeared a few months before the Italian visit to Germany. After having discussed the architectural beauty of the Forum, the author of this report



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underlined that the Mussolini Forum Institute was “the Advanced School for the High Fascist Training.” It was the residence of eight hundred Fascist youth, defined as “the physical and spiritual elite of the youngest Fascist generation.” The author of the report explained that everybody who visited Rome certainly bumped into “the strong and slender shape of the ‘academist.’” When the students of the Mussolini Forum made the scene in the parades, with their black uniforms, their muskets, and their sailor hats, they always provoked, the report explained, “an incredible enthusiasm, thanks to their physical good looks, their discipline, and their ardor.” All the students left the Institute, the author emphasized, after years of boarding school “in order to hold from then on the role of all-accomplished educators in the Balilla youth organization.” Not everybody could become a student; even before their admittance to the Institute they had to possess a “Fascist temperament.” Other necessary conditions to get into the Academy included: comradely spirit, militarism, the vocation to carry out the role of educator, and, above all, discipline. All those who did not “possess a collaborative spirit, [ proved] to be cowardly, or [tried] only to get ahead were dismissed without failure.” There were no other institutions in Italy that could be compared with the Mussolini Forum Academy. The students lived “in a closed community” and they “looked at life, duty, and state from the same perspective.” The Academy and its men “had a style, that could not be defined in other way than Fascist. According to this style the academists educated the Italian youth.” After having spent years learning, the academists “devoted themselves to their great task: to train the youth, the future of the Nation,” according to the Fascist style and Fascist ideology.60 They not only had to teach the Italian youth the main principles of Fascist doctrine, but they also had to instruct them in having a Fascist posture. They had to homogenize both the ideological beliefs of the youth and their external behavior. The academists of Rome and Orvieto and the young students of the Lictor Academy, accompanied by the band of the Mussolini Forum, left on June 12 for an eight-day trip to the German capital. Once in Berlin the 1,200 Italian youth were welcomed by the leaders of the Hitlerjugend. The day they arrived they paraded on the streets and on Unter den Linden surrounded by a huge admiring crowd. The Italian youth, together with Ricci, went to the Neue Wache to remember the fallen German soldiers and honor them, placing a laurel crown decorated by the Italian colors inside the monument. After the ceremony the youth continued marching toward the Brandenburg Gate. From Königsplatz special mail coaches then brought them to their billets. The students of Orvieto were hosted at the Gymnastic Academy of Charlottenburg, while the students of Rome were housed in a camp in Grunewald. The encampment, dominated by a huge “M,” in honor of Mussolini, was surrounded by German

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and Italian flags and guarded by members of both the Opera Nazionale Balilla and the Hitlerjugend. Nazi propaganda tried to highlight how the Italian and German youth, though not speaking the same language, could understand one another perfectly and, thanks to the common inspiration of their education, tended to be more and more alike in gestures and attitudes.61 Such a perfect harmony of the youth, according to the Nazis, was producing two important effects. On one hand, the youth of Germany and Italy were strengthening the peaceful relationship of their countries and were laying the foundations for a long-lasting European peace. On the other, the ONB and the HJ were promoting, by means of exchanges and common training, the development of a shared Fascist culture based on the glorification of physical strength and the battle against ideological rivals.62 The Italians began preparing for the great gymnastic display scheduled for June 16. On that occasion they had to perform in front of Hitler and other important members of the Nazi Party. For this reason the academists did not have time to visit the city following their initial arrival and instead spent the first days training intensely at the Deutschlandhalle.63 On the afternoon of June 16, the day of the big gymnastic display, the academists were officially introduced to Hitler. The Völkischer Beobachter highlighted how nothing similar had ever happened before: no foreign lineup had ever paraded in front of Hitler bearing arms; the Italian academists were the first. The column of the academies, preceded by the standards of their schools and the band, marched from Königs­ platz through the overcrowded streets. When they arrived in front of the chancellery building, Hitler was waiting for them, along with Göring, Ricci, Attolico, von Schirach, and von Tschammer und Osten.64 After the perform­ ance of the German and Italian anthems, the Führer addressed the Fascist youth in a speech. He welcomed the young Italian comrades and explained to them that they were visiting “a country that [was] ruled following the same principles and the same ideas of [theirs].” Italy and Germany, Hitler continued, also had another thing in common: they both moved along the same path, from national weakness to strength. Therefore, Germans and Italians understood each other; they were “friends.” In his welcome speech, Hitler proclaimed that just as the Germans were proud and happy of their youth, so the Italian people also had to be proud and happy of theirs. Nazi and Fascist youth had a lot in common; they both had lofty ideals and they both were “ready to live, and if necessary, to die for them.” Hitler recognized the primacy of Italy as the first Fascist state, wished that other countries would soon embrace the same ideology, and urged the young Italians to close ranks with the Nazis against the main enemy: Russian Bolshevism. Concluding, Hitler proclaimed: “The best welcome to this city and to the German Reich is to tell you that millions and



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millions of people see in you the young representatives of a friendly nation!”65 After Hitler’s speech, von Schirach and Ricci also took the stage, confirming the extremely friendly relationship now existing between the youth of Germany and Italy. Afterward, the young Fascists started marching again in order to reach the Deutschlandhalle and perform their display.66 The show took place in an overcrowded hall, in front of an enthusiastic audience. There were many important representatives of both regimes.67 The academists took the field and lined up. They honored the Nazi regime, singing in German the first stanza of the “Deutschlandlied” followed by the official anthem of the NSDAP, the “Horst-Wessel-Lied.” Then, to celebrate Italy, the young Fascists sang “Inno al re,” “Giovinezza,” the official anthem of the PNF, “Gli Scariolanti,” a song of the Italian folk tradition, and two opera choruses, one from Rossini’s William Tell and one from Donizetti’s Don Sebastiano. When the musical and choral session ended, the gymnastics began. The collective sport-gymnastic display of the Mussolini Forum Academy and of the Lictor Academy generated enthusiasm in the audience. The young Italians exhibited great ability and coordination. The women of the female Academy excited the audience by performing a complex and graceful exercise using bows and hoops. The performance came to an end with a military maneuver and a final sung section. The Italian youth took their leave singing the “Horst-WesselLied” once again, the “Inno a Roma,” Verdi’s “Suonan le trombe,” and the “Inno al Duce.”68 The performance was difficult, and the German press exalted the military preparedness of the young Italians, defining the exercises they presented as “a high-level demonstration of perfect body control.”69 The Italian press also extolled the event’s success. Il Popolo d’Italia viewed the Italian perform­ ance as “the most important synthesis of the method followed by Fascism in order to train the new Italian generations.”70 It synthesized graceful femininity and strong masculinity, with the Fascist youth representing the unity of the disciplined new Fascist state. The Völkischer Beobachter and the Berliner Tageblatt also highlighted the success of the choral performance and the ability of the academists to sing the classical music pieces.71 The youth of Rome and Orvieto proved to be a “smashing athletic and political group,” able to gain “the unconditional praises of Hitler and Berlin.”72 The trip to Germany in general, and the gymnastic display in particular, filled the young Italians with pride.73 They were convinced that they represented their country at its best. One of the academists of Orvieto, remembering the German trip a few years later, wrote: “It is a far-off day when we left for Berlin, but we still keep all the enthusiasm and the joy, and above all the pride of having represented in Germany in uniform the strong, healthy, and disciplined youth of Italy.” According to this former student of the female Academy, the

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stay in Germany had been for all the participants “a continuous evolution of [their] education; in the gyms, in the Stadium, everywhere [they] seemed to leaf through the volume of Fascism, indicating to the German people that Italy [had] its own believing and obedient youth,” youth who did not have “limits and obstacles.” The members of the ONB “felt the pride of being Italians” and they knew that they had been “able to represent faithfully all the youth of their country.”74 The voice of this student vibrated with enthusiasm. Even though the Nazis were becoming haughtier and more and more self-confident, the members of the Fascist youth organization still believed, according to Fascist sources, in Italian predominance. The Italian ambassador in Berlin also considered the visit of Ricci and of the academists a great success. The presence of the Italian youth in the capital of the Reich “had been a very important event to improve the contacts between Fascist and Nazi youth.” The students of both the male and female academies had really impressed the German people “because of their perfect discipline . . . and because of their great moral and physical preparation.” The visit had given “a perfect image of the values of the Fascist youth.” Their magnificent gymnastic display had been the best metaphor to highlight how the new generations were building a new society, overcoming the allegedly innate egotism of the “old” Italians in the name of a higher all-absorbing collectivity. It had been “one of the most important visits till now carried out in Germany” and it had “to be clearly considered very productive.” Hitler himself, talking to the young Fascists, had “emphasized the meaning and value of the national education of the new generations in Italy and Germany, and the good links that [united] . . . both states.”75 Also Ricci, once back in Italy, in his appreciative telegram to Hitler, underlined how this trip had confirmed “the deep liking the German people” had toward the Italian youth and had reasserted the special relationship existing between the two countries.76 Between 1933 and 1937 the relationship between the Italian Fascist and the German Nazi youth organizations, though not always consistent, was certainly intense. The meetings between Fascist and Nazi youth were occasions of mutual cultural and ideological exchange. Italians and Germans were not simply “allies,” they were not only “friends,” but they were, first and foremost, “comrades.”77 They were not simply tied by a pact, they were not just bound by emotional connections; they were linked by common ideological values—such as cult of the body, militarism, nationalism, and anti-Communism—that the younger generations of Germany and Italy had to endorse. Balilla and Hitlerjungen had to represent the youthful strength of two powerful nations, welcoming every youth without class distinction; they had to demonstrate their opposition to Bolshevism; they had to embody the solidarity between Italy and



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Germany, two states that, after having fought against each other during World War I, had found in Fascist ideology a bond that now tied them together. Balilla and Hitlerjungen played an important role in the dissemination of what was increasingly being experienced by the late 1930s as a common ideological project that further cemented the link between Italy and Germany. The trip of the Italian Fascist academies of 1937 was the crowning achievement of the relationship between the ONB and the HJ. The visit, apart from celebrating the harmony existing between Nazi and Fascist youth—a perfect reflection of the “friendship” existing between the two totalitarian countries— was used by the Fascists to flaunt the physical strength and the military discipline of the youth of the academies. The trip was also used by the Nazis to exhort the Italian youth to join forces against Soviet Russia and to guarantee, in this way, the continental peace. Thanks to the 1937 trip, the Germans had the opportunity to admire the young students of the Mussolini Forum Institute. If in Italy there were still people who had not understood the role of the ONB Academy, and who still looked at it as a mere center for the training of physical education teachers without being aware of its political function, the Nazis, by contrast, had perfectly understood the political importance of this institution. Before the trip of June 1937, Goebbels issued clear guidelines for the mass media explaining that, talking about the academists, they had to use the following expressions: Balillaführer (Balilla leader), Elitetruppen der faschistischen Jugendorganisation (elite troops of the Fascist youth organization), and Jugendführer Italiens (youth leaders of Italy).78 In a few words the Germans were convinced that the Academy of Rome was a political institution and that the Fascists had been able to create a unique and original educational agency, an agency that, besides the inspiring example of traditional German institutions such as the military academies, had played a significant role in the fulfillment of their own Hitlerjugend Akademie, as the following chapter will show.

7 The Hitlerjugend Academy of Braunschweig The training of the top leaders of the youth organizations was for both Fascists

and Nazis of paramount importance. As we have seen, the president of the ONB tried to solve this problem by opening, less than two years after the creation of the Opera Nazionale Balilla, the Fascist Academy of Physical and Youth Education. The Nazis, once they had recognized the necessity of improving the educational system of the top leaders of the Hitlerjugend, started planning the creation of an institute similar to the ONB Academy much later, almost three years after the Nazi seizure of power. As a result, they did not have enough time to accomplish their project before the outbreak of war and the Nazi institution had a very short story compared to the Fascist Academy in Rome. Why the Hitler Youth decided to establish an Academy for the training of the Bann­ führer and how it differed from the Institute founded by Renato Ricci in Rome are the main issues discussed in the following pages.

An Academy for the Superior Leaders of the Hitler Youth After 1933, according to the General Command of the HJ, to be appointed Bannführer it was necessary to attend a three-week course at the Reichsführerschule of Potsdam. Every regional command of the Hitler Youth had to send its best young leaders to the school. During these three weeks not only were there sport and gymnastic sessions, dedicated to evaluating the physical condition of the young leaders, but there were also seminars aimed at promoting the discussion of ideological issues, assessing the reasoning capacities of the aspiring Bannführer, and improving their political awareness. The youth who attended the entire course obtained a special badge with the initials RFS—abbreviation for 138



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Reichsführerschule. After having completed a further training period of about three months in the HJ regional commands, the youth were then appointed Bannführer. They started working immediately, as volunteers, and committed themselves to attending a refresher course at the Potsdam School every two years.1 As successful as this might have been, only one year after the seizure of power von Schirach expressed doubts about this system. In his book, Die HitlerJugend: Idee und Gestalt (The Hitler Youth: Idea and Shape), published in 1934, he admitted that Potsdam was not the ideal “school for leaders.” He wanted something less ephemeral, a program that would last longer than three weeks and help bring about the professionalization of the high leadership of the HJ.2 Reading the memoirs of Hartmann Lauterbacher, we learn something more about the project to reorganize the education of the higher leaders of the Hitler Youth and about the decision to create a completely new institute for the training of the HJ leaders. Lauterbacher recalled that the decision to establish an academy for the education of the Nazi higher youth leadership, rather than simply reform the courses at Potsdam, came from Fascist Italy. In his memoirs he recalled how, during one of his several trips to Italy, after having visited the ONB Academy, he understood that the Hitler Youth had to create a similar institution. He wrote: “What we watched at the Mussolini Forum was indeed decisive . . . to spur us to carry out our Academy and to delineate the job we had to do inside of it.” The Academy of Rome, Lauterbacher continued, inspired the Nazi project.3 Jürgen Schultz, author of a book about the Academy of the HJ, also maintained that the Germans were deeply inspired by the ONB Academy, confirming what Lauterbacher admitted in his autobiography. Schultz wrote that during a trip to Italy a delegation composed of several HJ leaders led by Lauterbacher visited, among other places, the Fascist Academy at the Mussolini Forum and that they “were really struck by the idea and its fulfillment.” 4 Obviously in Germany there were other military and sport boarding institutions that favored, together with the already existing Hitlerjugendführer­schulen, the conception of the HJ Academy. However, Lauterbacher, von Schirach’s right-hand man, was forthright in admitting that the ONB Academy of Physical and Youth Education of Rome had played a major role in the conception of the Hitlerjugend Akademie. Thus, the contacts between the Fascists and the Nazis that had already developed in the sphere of youth education over some time influenced the creation of an important institution in the pedagogical apparatus of the Hitler Youth. Lauterbacher was able to convey his enthusiasm for the creation of a completely new school for the HJ leadership to von Schirach. In order to plan how the new HJ Academy should be organized, the Nazis created inside the Reichsjugendführung a study group under the leadership of Lauterbacher and

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Kurt Petter, an HJ executive responsible for the relationship between the Hitler Youth and the schools.5 The decision to build the HJ Academy was made public in October 1935 by von Schirach.6 Like Ricci in Italy, the supreme leader of the Hitler Youth also played a fundamental role in outlining the structure and organization of the new institute for the training of the HJ leaders. And even though Lauterbacher was central to the conception of the original project, the Reichsjugendführer, similar to the ONB president, considered the Akademie für Jugendführung (Academy for Youth Leaders, also known as Akademie für Deutsche Jugendführung [Academy for German Youth Leaders] and Reichs­ akademie für Jugendführung der Hitlerjugend [Reich Academy for Youth Leaders of the Hitler Youth]) one of his own most important “creatures.”7 As Lauterbacher recalled in his memoirs, the first thing to be decided was the location of the institute. In the beginning Munich, the city where the Nazi movement began, seemed to be the first choice, and representatives of the Hitlerjugend met several times with Gauleiter Adolf Wagner in order to discuss possible sites. Schloss Schleißheim seemed to be a very good choice. At the time it was completely neglected and the city authorities thought that, by establishing the Academy for the Nazi youth leadership there, the castle could be renovated and restored to its ancient splendor. Lauterbacher recalled that other possibilities were also considered, including Weimar and Braunschweig.8 Lauterbacher was one of the strongest advocates of establishing the institute in Braunschweig. He had begun his career in the Nazi youth organization in this town and had a kind of emotional bond with the place. He also thought that Braunschweig would be a good choice because it was in the center of the Reich and because the town authorities were willing to donate to the HJ an excellent piece of land on which they could build the Academy. Moreover, Braunschweig also had a very important symbolic value for the Nazis: it had been the town that granted German citizenship to Hitler on February 25, 1932. But, above all, Braunschweig had been the town of Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, founder of the most important city for the Nazis: Munich. Furthermore, Henry the Lion was symbolically important for the Nazis for another reason: he had begun the Germanization of the eastern territories. Henry, symbol of the Drang nach Osten, would be, the Nazis thought, the best spiritual father for the students of the Academy who had to instill into the next generation the spirit of the Teutonic Knights, the desire to conquer a broader Lebensraum for the chosen German race.9 In November 1935 Lauterbacher wrote an article, published in Wille und Macht, the official mouthpiece of the Hitler Youth, about the education of the HJ leaders. He stated that, before that point their preparation had followed a standard path: weekend courses for minor leaders, three-week courses in the



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Führerschulen for middle leaders, and three-week courses in the Reichsführerschulen of Potsdam, Godesberg, and Boyden for the higher leadership. In the future, Lauterbacher stated, the situation would change. These last three schools would become centers primarily aimed at training the high leaders of the Bund Deutscher Mädel, whereas the crowning achievement of the entire path for the training of the Führer of the Hitlerjugend would be the Reichsakademie für Jugendführung in Braunschweig. Moreover, being high Führer of the Hitler Youth would not be an unpaid voluntary activity anymore, but a real occupation. As Lauterbacher emphasized: “The German youth who [would] demonstrate a natural predisposition to commanding, after having held several leading roles in minor units of the Hitlerjugend and after having attended several courses for minor and middle leaders, [would] be invited by the supreme leader of the HJ to attend the Reich Academy for the youth leadership.” Only the most accomplished youth would enjoy the opportunity to become members of the HJ-Führerkorps, the highest professional leadership of the Hitlerjugend. The Academy that the HJ was creating in Braunschweig, according to Lauterbacher, “would be the most important youth educational center of the Reich.”10 The foundation stone of the Academy was laid in Richmond Park in Braunschweig, chosen as the actual seat of the institute, on January 24, 1936, eight years after the foundation of the ONB Academy in Rome. This day had a very important symbolic meaning. It was the 224th anniversary of the birth of Frederick the Great, the main protagonist of an event particularly important to the Nazis: the First Partition of Polish territory in 1772. January 24, 1936, was also the fourth anniversary of the death of Herbert Norkus, the most important martyr of the HJ. The symbolic nature of the ceremony, however, did not stop there. The Nazis decided to place with the foundation stone a box containing the earth of Langemarck. The earth of this Belgian town had a crucial meaning for the Nazis: here, during the First Battle of Ypres in 1914, the inexpert German infantry, comprised above all of students facing French and British armies, suffered severe losses. In 1915 a small German cemetery was built in Langemarck, and in the 1930s approximately ten thousand corpses, three thousand of whom were students, were brought there from eighteen German burial sites around the region. These young fallen volunteers became a myth. They were regarded “as symbols of a tremendous sacrifice for the nation . . . and the youth of the future German generations.”11 Von Schirach, placing this box containing the “holy” earth of Langemarck in the ground where the HJ-Akademie was going to be built, provided a symbolic connection between the young German soldiers of the Great War and the future Nazi generations that had to continue what “the brave comrades that came before” had begun.12 The Fascists had done

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something similar in the Mussolini Forum. Placing the “Codice del Foro Mussolini,” discussed earlier, under the base of the Obelisk beside the Fascist Academy of Physical Education, they established a connection between the Italian soldiers of World War I and the new Fascist generations symbolized by the Academy. Fascists and Nazis considered the Great War the beginning of a new era that reached its climax with the end of the liberal regimes of Italy and Germany, and both looked at the young infantrymen who had died on the battlefields as founding fathers of the “new Italy” and the “new Germany.” During the ceremony on January 24, at which the foundation stone of the new Academy was laid, Baldur von Schirach delivered a speech. In addition to suggesting that in the future a second HJ Academy would be built in Munich, he underscored the importance of the Academy they were now establishing in Braunschweig. He noted that while in recent years in every part of the Reich “Houses for Nazi youth” and schools for youth leaders had been built, the school for leaders they were founding in Braunschweig would be completely different. In the following years, decades, and centuries the Academy in Braunschweig would be the center aimed at training and shaping, both physically and ideologically, the new professional youth educators.13 Also Lauterbacher, present at the ceremony beside von Schirach, delivered a speech asserting that from the Academy “would arise in the future the most important leaders of the Hitlerjugend,” individuals destined “to educate the youth in Adolf Hitler’s image, so that they could be deserving heirs of the National Socialist Reich.”14 As von Schirach wrote in his Revolution der Erziehung (Educational Revolution) in 1938, he was convinced that the Academy in Braunschweig would create the perfect leaders of the Nazi youth organization. The ideal educators of the Hitler Youth had to be “priests” of the Nazi credo, officers in the service of Hitler. They had to be men ready to commit themselves, heart and soul, to their job, men disposed to renounce their individuality and to transform themselves into ideal-typical Nazis. In von Schirach’s ideal world the Academy would guarantee to the HJ a kind of mass production of identical top leaders so that expulsions or substitutions would not cause any change in the organization’s management. The Academy had to create high-quality “spare parts.” The success of the educational revolution von Schirach was carrying out depended on the possibility of producing uniform and interchangeable top leaders.15 The model of the Academy, designed by the Hamburg architect Erich zu Putlitz, was made public for the first time in January 1938 at the Architecture Exposition of Munich. Six months later, on June 3, the Richtfest, or topping out, took place, a ceremony held to commemorate the completion of the roof.16 The Academy, like all Nazi official buildings, was intended by its designer to be a monumental edifice perfectly in harmony with the architectural principles of



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the Nazi regime. Representative National Socialist constructions all shared similar characteristics. Steel, concrete, and glass—considered, as Berthold Hinz suggests, materials typical of “architectural Bolshevism”—were banned. Granite, marble, and any kind of massive and permanent natural material were privileged. The Nazis favored the use of extremely long and imposing façades, massive rectilinear forms, and straight lines of columns. They rejected ornamentation since, as Hinz stated, it was considered “an expression of specific periods, styles and fashions.” Its omission “was meant to suggest temporal neutrality and timelessness.” The only form of ornamentation in Nazi buildings was provided by sculptural works.17 The Academy at Braunschweig perfectly mirrored the Nazi “architectural code.” It was designed as an imposing building. The main façade of the Institute spread for about one hundred meters (328 feet) along the Wolfenbüttler Straße, and the central part of the building was more than twenty meters high (sixtyfive feet). Like the Fascist Academy in the Mussolini Forum, it appeared to be a modern and functional building. Unlike the ONB Institute, however, the HJ Academy was much “heavier.” The lightness of the red color of the Academy of Rome, adorned by the white frames of the marble windows, contrasted with the “heaviness” of the gray blocks of stone of the Academy at Braunschweig. Both institutes, however, were decorated using naked male bodies, symbolizing the strength of Fascist and Nazi youth. The marble statues of the ONB Academy, whose reference model was Imperial Rome, differed from the ones adorning the entrance doors of the right and left wings of the Akademie für Jugendführung. Both sculpted groups, though drawing inspiration from the Greek tradition, seemed to be much “bulkier” than their reference models. Another group of two marble statues, although never completed, was supposed to overlook the main entrance of the Akademie and was supposed to follow the models of the famous German sculptor Arno Breker, well known for his public works in Nazi Germany. According to the original designs, these statues had to represent two naked male bodies of about seven meters in height (twenty-three feet). One of the two statues had to lead the other, stretching its own arm behind the shoulders of its “comrade.” These two mighty sculptures were meant to symbolize the camaraderie of the Nazi youth. The nakedness highlighted the physical powers of the new German generations. Inside the new Academy, in the left wing of the building, there was a conference room, a room dedicated to the hosting of theatrical performances and movie screenings, a dining hall for special occasions, and a refectory. In the basement, also in the left wing, there was, in addition to the kitchen, a swimming pool that the students could use to train in the winter. On the second floor, just over the refectory, there was an infirmary and the personal flat of the supreme

Main façade of the Academy of Braunschweig—today Braunschweig Kolleg für Erwachsenenbildung and Abendgymnasium Braunschweig (Photograph by the author)

Academy of Braunschweig as seen today from the south (Photograph by the author)

Academy of Braunschweig, sculpted group Loyalty, south side (Photograph by the author)

Academy of Braunschweig, sculpted group Glory, north side (Photograph by the author)

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Academy of Braunschweig, residential buildings for the students as seen today (Photograph by the author)

leader of the Hitler Youth. On the third floor, at the end, were the private rooms for the teachers. The right wing of the building hosted several classrooms, a library, a reading room, a chemistry laboratory, a photography laboratory, and the administrative offices. In the basement were the stockrooms and an area designated as the shooting gallery. In the attic there was a small gymnasium and a fencing hall. The five buildings devoted to housing the students were separate from the main Academy. The walls of these buildings were made of heavy blocks of stone, exactly the same as the Akademie für Jugendführung, but the roofs were sloped, imitating a more traditional German style, similar to the one followed by Hans C. Reissinger in the House of German Education in Bayreuth, the socalled Heimatschutzstil. Each building housed twenty-four aspiring Bannführer, each of whom had at his disposal a single room. Going through the park surrounding the Academy, there was also an open area dedicated to physical activities, the Sportforum. This area included racetracks, soccer and handball pitches, spaces for throwing and jumping, and a large square for horseback riding. The original plans also called for other facilities to be built in the future: a gymnastic stadium, a stadium for indoor sports, and a track for motor sports.18



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The Selection Process and the First Course On February 18, 1938, more than two years after the foundation stone was laid in Braunschweig—and while the Academy of Rome was celebrating its decennial—the journal of the General Command of the Hitler Youth published an extremely detailed description of the path a young member of the Hitler Youth had to follow in order to become a professional Bannführer. The document not only sanctioned that, from then on, to become leaders in a Bann it was compulsory to attend the Reichsakademie für Jugendführung, but it also enumerated the eligibility requirements to enter the Academy. Every aspiring cadet had to produce the documents necessary to demonstrate the Deutscheblutige Abstammung (German-blooded descent); a medical certificate demonstrating a sound constitution (his and his family’s); the certificate indicating the possession of the HJ-Leistungsabzeichnen; a judgment issued by the local representative of the party about his family’s social, political, and ideological conduct; and, finally, evidence of the completion of his scholastic or professional training. Before beginning the course, the aspiring cadets also had to undertake both labor and military service, complete a four-month internship in a regional command of the HJ, and attend an eight-week course at the Reichsführerschule of Potsdam. Only at that point could the aspiring Bannführer gain entrance to the Academy, spending an entire year in Braunschweig. Moreover, once they had completed the course and before they sat the final exam, the students of Braunschweig had to work three weeks in a German factory and six months abroad. Only then could the successful students receive the Jugendführer-Patent and the appointment as Bannführer.19 After February 1938 the Reichsjugendfürung further elaborated the entrance requirements for the Academy. A very good school career or an impressive professional résumé, accompanied by the basic knowledge of a foreign language, would lead a candidate to be given preferential consideration—and without any reference to his social background.20 Applications from individuals who did not possess at least a lesser or middle rank in the Hitler Youth would not be accepted. Candidates also had to demonstrate the racial purity of their ancestors back at least as far as 1800.21 Moreover, in order to protect the racial purity of the HJ-Führer in general and of the academists of Braunschweig in particular, von Schirach ordered that the leaders of his organization could only marry women who were themselves racially pure. Three months before any planned marriage the future wife also had to present documents proving that her family belonged to the German Aryan race back to at least 1800. If youth leaders got married contravening this measure, they would be expelled from the organization.22

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Once admitted to the Institute, every “Braunschweig cadet” committed himself to remain in service in the Hitlerjugend for at least twelve years. During the training in Braunschweig, every aspiring Bannführer also had to decide if, once he had finished his service in the HJ, he wanted to continue his career in the NSDAP, in the state administration or, preferably, in the SS. Two years before the end of his service in the Hitlerjugend, each youth leader had to begin a retraining process to prepare him for his future task.23 The assignments in the Nazi youth top leadership were thus temporary. In Italy, by contrast, the leaders were supposed to remain in the youth organization until retirement, eventually spending the last years of their career in the ONB administration or in the schools. The top leaders of the Opera Nazionale Balilla, trained in the Academy of Rome, received a certificate that allowed them to teach physical education in the Italian high schools, unlike in Germany. The close interdependence between the Opera and the Ministry of National Education, and the possibility of moving from one agency to the other, guaranteed to the Fascist youth top leaders a job for life.24 To ensure that the first course of the Academy would begin on April 20, 1939, the fiftieth birthday of Adolf Hitler, the human resources office of the General Command of the HJ ordered a rapid completion of the selection of the first students of the Academy.25 The leaders of every German Bann invited all the lesser and middle HJ leaders who possessed the characteristics required by the Reichsjugendführung to apply.26 Every Bann presented to the regional commands of the Hitler Youth a list of suitable youth—the so-called Akademie-Bewerber (aspiring cadets). Every regional command then had to single out, by means of further tests, the best youth and propose them to the General Command. Every regional command could present at the final selection a limited number of aspiring cadets fixed by the Reichsjugendführung.27 The candidates gathered in Potsdam in five different shifts between June and July 1938. Here there was a further creaming off of the candidates. The youth selected were at last assigned to a Bann as coworkers from November 1938 to March 1939. In these months they had to prove their skills as youth leaders and had to demonstrate that they were actually worthy of becoming cadets of the Braunschweig Akademie.28 On April 20, 1939, eighty-seven academists began the first—and only— course organized by the HJ to train its top leaders. The opening ceremony took place in Potsdam, since the construction in Braunschweig was not yet complete. The course commenced in Berlin-Charlottenburg, at the Academy for the training of physical education teachers. By a strange coincidence both the HJ and the ONB academies began their courses at a host institution because their final seats were still under construction at the time of the inauguration. The lessons began on April 25 with two keynote speeches. One was delivered by



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Alfred Rosenberg, Commissar for Supervision of Intellectual and Ideological Education of the Nazi Party, dedicated to the role of Germany in Europe; the other by Hans von Tschammer und Osten, dedicated to the importance of physical education. The speeches summarized the twin goals the Academy had to achieve: the creation of youth leaders able to educate the Nazi youth both politically and physically.29 The aspiring Bannführer remained in the capital of the Reich for three months and moved to Braunschweig only on August 2, 1939, one month before the beginning of World War II.30 The various roles of youth leaders were complex, and the Bannführer had to be ready to face any possible problem. It was therefore necessary for Braun­ schweig, like the Mussolini Forum Academy, to offer a wide range of both theoretical and practical courses. During the twelve-month course the Nazi academists, just like the Fascist academists, were expected to receive a varied education. At the Academy the future Bannführer had to attend a series of classes that would help them to demonstrate in front of their subordinates the superiority of the German race and German culture and the invincibility of the German Army. Moreover, they also had to learn how to manage not only the physical and military preparation of their Pimpfe and Hitlerjungen, but also the finances of their commands.31 Von Schirach thought that by means of the Braunschweig Akademie he could create the professional Führerkorps of the Nazi youth organization. But the Institute only began its first course in the spring of 1939, six years after the Machtergreifung, almost four years after the official presentation of the project, twelve years after the conception of the Mussolini Forum Academy, and, above all, just a few months before the outbreak of World War II. Classes were interrupted because the students, as we will see, went to the war. The Reichsjugendfürung Akademie, as conceptualized by von Schirach and Lauterbacher, remained an archetype and it couldn’t work as the Nazis expected it to. The extensive contacts between the ONB and the HJ helped the Nazis to consider new ways to train their top leaders. Between 1933 and 1937, as we read in the previous chapter, the Nazis enjoyed the opportunity to visit the Academy at the Mussolini Forum and meet its students. All these contacts, as Lauterbacher admitted, influenced the training regime developed for the top leadership of the Hitler Youth. The Nazis, unlike the Fascists, who had to invent from scratch the Institute of the Mussolini Forum, were able to examine the operations of an already existing institution while they were planning theirs. The HJ-Akademie and the ONB Academy presented both differences and similarities. An important distinction between them was the absence of any racial criteria for selection in the Mussolini Forum Academy. For the Nazis the racial purity of the Volksgemeinschaft was an essential aspect of their ideology. For the

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Italian Fascists, by contrast—at least before the introduction of the racial laws in 1938—racism was not a central part of their ideology. As a consequence, the ONB Academy accepted Jewish students. The situation would change, as we will see, in 1938. Nevertheless, in both Germany and Italy, the family background of the students remained important even if not in racial terms. The Nazis took into account the physical health of the family members, whereas in Italy the ONB seemed to give much more weight to the political faith of the academists’ families. However, after the introduction of the racial laws the situation changed, and the Italian youth organization also started giving greater importance to the biological inheritance of the academists. In terms of age, the students in Braunschweig were older than the Italians. Given that the AkademieBewerber, unlike the Italians, had to have concluded military service before admission, the Germans attending the Academy were older than their Italian counterparts. In Germany to have been a lesser youth leader was considered an essential prerequisite; in Italy it was a bonus, although it was fundamental, obviously, to have been a member of the ONB. Unlike the Italian students, the Akademie-Bewerber did not have to pass a written exam in order to gain entrance to the Braunschweig Institute. This was probably a consequence of the antiintellectual attitude of the Hitlerjugend. The ONB Academy was built in the Italian capital, whereas the HJAkademie was built in a town of Lower Saxony, far from Berlin, far from Munich, far from Nuremberg—in short, far from the representative towns of the Third Reich. The Academy of Rome was part of a bigger project, an extensive architectural complex that in Fascist plans had to be one of the most important flagships of the Roma mussoliniana. In Germany, Nazi symbolism was more dispersed: Berlin was the Olympic city, Munich was the heart of the Nazi movement, Nuremberg was the city of the mass rallies, and Braunschweig was going to be the heart of the Hitlerjugend. For Mussolini’s regime, by contrast, Rome was the unitary Fascist city par excellence. It was the Olympic city, the heart of the Fascist Revolution, the place where the adunate oceaniche (immense gatherings) took place, and the main center of the Fascist youth organization. And the Foro Mussolini, in particular, the seat of the ONB Academy, was always in the spotlight. It was in the Fascist project the place where the Olympic Games would be organized in the future, the place where the palace of the Fascist Party would be built, and the place were the students of the Academy were presented in their gymnastic displays as the personification of the new regime. The Academy of Braunschweig, unlike the ONB Academy, was not conceived as a “theater” where the young generations could exhibit themselves and be exhibited. There was a small fencing hall, a small gymnasium, and a small swimming pool. But these were not destined to be stages for sport and gymnastic



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“shows.” These facilities were only there for the gymnastic and sport practice of the aspiring Bannführer. We do not know, and we will never know, if in the future the planned “gymnastic stadium” of the HJ-Akademie would be used by the Nazis as a stage for their youth leaders’ displays. The most important difference, however, between the Academy of Braunschweig and the Academy of Rome was in the duties each had to fulfill. The ONB Academy, as we have seen, was the main center for the education of the physical education teachers and of the instructors and leaders of the Fascist youth organization. By contrast, the Braunschweig Akademie was destined to train only the elite Bannführer of the Hitler Youth. The schooling of the German physical education teachers was run by another institution: the Reichsakademie für Leibesübungen of Berlin-Charlottenburg. Thus, the uniqueness of the Italian Academy at the Mussolini Forum derived from its being a kind of hybrid; it alone managed tasks assigned in Germany to two different institutions, one of which remained little more than a prototype.32 While the Academy of Braunschweig was taking shape, modeled in many important ways on its Italian counterpart, in Italy major changes were taking place in the ways in which youth were organized. The Opera Nazionale Balilla was about to disappear and the institutions aimed at educating the Italian youth were destined to undergo a metamorphosis, revolutionizing the hierarchy of the Italian Fascist youth organization and perplexing the Germans in the process.

8 A New Organization T

he Hitlerjugend did not undergo organizational modifications comparable with those experienced by the Fascist youth organization at the end of 1937 when the Opera Nazionale Balilla was replaced by the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio (GIL). Henceforth assigning solely to the party the organization of all Italian youth, Fascists claimed to have taken a step further toward the completion of the Revolution that had begun in 1922. The end of the ONB and the rise of the GIL were interpreted by the Fascists as a confirmation of the totalitarian nature of Mussolini’s regime. The passage from one organization to the other represented a major change in the control room, sanctioning the role of the PNF as the one and only political educator of the entire Italian population. The hierarchy of the party overlapped perfectly with that of the new Gioventù Italiana del Littorio. The GIL, without casting aside important ideological training, placed greater emphasis on the military preparation of the youth, tried to increase the membership and, though it preserved the same cerimonies and rites of the ONB, made them more spectacular. 1 Moreover, under the tutelage of the PNF secretary, the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio would begin a new battle against the Catholic Church and endorse the infamous race laws. Nevertheless, the GIL, although reflecting changes in Fascist policy in the late 1930s, and in spite of some organizational novelties, did not impose a new weltanschauung; it continued along the path developed by the Opera Nazionale Balilla and its president. Even if the passage from ONB to GIL was part of the so-called totalitarian acceleration, that we will discuss later, it cannot be considered a radical rupture. Fascist youth policy did not become “totalitarian” out of the blue after 1937, and Ricci’s demotion, more so than a revolutionary change in Fascist pedagogy, was a consequence of long-time internecine power struggles. Despite those struggles, leading to the birth of a new youth

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organization, the ideal transformation of Italian society was the main goal of both Ricci and his successors.

Ricci and Starace On March 3, 1935, the PNF secretary, Achille Starace, sent a letter to Mussolini. It criticized the Ministry of National Education, chaired by Cesare Maria De Vecchi, along with the Opera Nazionale Balilla. Starace accused both agencies of plotting against the party. The thirst for power by Ricci and De Vecchi, a long standing Fascist who had walked beside Mussolini during the March on Rome, was unquenchable. Absorbing the Fascist University Groups (GUF) into the ONB and subsequently subjecting the GUF to the Ministry of National Education, they wanted control not only over the youth from six to eighteen years of age, but also over the university students. Starace rejected this prospect: he wanted to keep the university students under the direct control of the Fascist Party. He did not want to lose this prerogative; on the contrary, he raised the stakes, proposing to “depose” Ricci and transform the Opera into an organization directly controlled by the party. The PNF secretary was convinced that the most important aim of the party was the education of the entire Italian population and that the Ministry of National Education, on which the Opera depended, was an administrative and bureaucratic body that lacked the genuine Fascist revolutionary spirit typical of the party. Starace was extremely critical of the ONB. The Opera, strong among the young Balilla, was far less successful among the Avanguardisti, affecting negatively the enrollment of new members in the Fasci Giovanili at the age of eighteen. If the party organized all youth, Starace argued, it would be easier to control the passage of youth into the party. Moreover, in his letter the PNF secretary also argued that Ricci relied too much on elementary school teachers as Fascist propagandists among the youth. By contrast, Starace was convinced that to educate the youth it was necessary to turn to loyal members of the Fascist Party rather than to politically unreliable teachers. The PNF secretary, closing his letter, recognized that Ricci’s efforts and the results he achieved had been appreciable, but insisted that he should renounce his role and let the ONB become a party organization, severed from the Ministry of Education.2 The Duce was not persuaded by Starace’s letter. He was afraid that riots might break out among Balilla, Avanguardisti, and Giovani Fascisti if he gave his support to Starace against Ricci. He also thought that by keeping the youth organizations separate he could avoid an excessive concentration of power in Starace’s hands. Last but not least, Mussolini belived in Ricci and in the quality

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of the work he was carrying out in the ONB. As a consequence, despite Starace’s criticism, Ricci kept his post.3 In 1937, after two years of “cold war” between Ricci and Starace, Mussolini decided to investigate what kind of relationship existed, on a local level, between the ONB and the party. He wanted to know if they were collaborating or somehow hindering the educational aims of the regime. For this purpose Mussolini ordered studies that confirmed the existence of a problematic relationship between the Opera and the party. The findings encouraged Starace to launch a new frontal attack against the Opera. He accused the ONB of separatist tendencies, and he harshly criticized Ricci once again, afraid that his strategy— his tendency to create a strong sense of belonging in the ONB—could cause disaffection toward the party. In short, Starace maintained that the ONB president was trying to separate the youth from the party, contributing to a fracture between the party and the younger generations.4 Starace believed it was necessary to work for unity within the party; particularism and divisions were the worst enemies of a regime that presented itself, and wanted to be, totalitarian. Two youth organizations, one dependent on the party—the Fasci Giovanili—and one on Ricci—the ONB—could only lead to failure, Starace insisted. The PNF had to be the only instrument to realize Mussolini’s orders and projects. Balilla and Avanguardisti did not have to consider the party an enemy. Rather, the Opera would be the beginning of their Fascist existence before they spent the rest of their lives in other party organizations. The conflict between Starace and Ricci broke out because both men wanted to lead and educate the youth. They were both ideologically committed Fascists and shared similar educational philosophies. And, in spite of Starace’s accusations, Ricci was no heretic. The issue was not a clash between two different pedagogical and ideological systems; it was not a clash between two different schools of thought. Moreover, it was not a clash between state and party, despite what Starace claimed—after all, these were not two disjointed entities but rather two sides of Mussolini’s regime.5 Rather, it was a clash between two men who both wanted full control over youth education, between two Fascists who were convinced that they knew how best to serve Mussolini and his Revolution. Starace presented himself as the leader who could repair what he perceived as a split between Balilla, Avanguardisti, and the Fascist Party. He also knew that he now had a good opportunity to displace the ONB president. Ricci’s fortunes were waning. Extremely protective of his organization and his independence, Ricci often found himself in conflict not only with the party hierarchy but also with the minister of national education. Moreover, Ricci’s popularity with the youth, after several years as ONB president, also turned out to be a disadvantage. Mussolini did not like to be upstaged by members of his entourage. Ricci had



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been president of the Opera since 1926, whereas between 1925 and 1937 there had been five PNF secretaries.6 Galeazzo Ciano, minister of foreign affairs, wrote in his diary on September 5, 1937, that the youth had to depend “exclusively on the party,” and he added that the Duce also thought so.7 A few days later Ciano wrote that the Duce wanted to get rid of the ONB president because he had exhibited an aversion to important personalities in the party. Mussolini specifically said: “Chi è contro il Partito è contro di me e ne avrà rotte le reni” (Who is against the party, is against me and I will trample him underfoot).8 Mussolini had slowly been persuaded that the PNF had to become more and more active in propaganda and pedagogy. As a consequence, the freedom of the ONB from the party, and above all Ricci’s excessive power, had to end. Mussolini, in the midst of the “totalitarian acceleration,” decided this time to endorse Starace’s goals. On September 17, 1937, Mussolini sent a letter to Ricci announcing that henceforth the Fascist youth would depend only on the party. The Duce, praising the president of the Opera, wrote that “after having worked unfailingly for eleven years to develop the Balilla organization, leading it to a very high level of efficiency,” Ricci, could look back on the work accomplished “with legitimate satisfaction.”9 The next day Ricci responded to Mussolini’s missive. He thanked the Duce for his words and wrote: “Leaving the Opera Balilla . . . I am completely aware of having accomplished my task with the passion and faith that have tied me to the Fascist Revolution from its eve.” And he added, “I have the honor of consigning to the party a big and powerful organization that gathers in its ranks more than six million youth, on whom Fascism can, with no doubt, depend.”10 The president of the ONB, deprived of “his” organization and accused of frondism, did not miss the opportunity to highlight, in his very last letter as youth leader, not only his loyalty to the Duce, but also the importance of his work.

From Opera Nazionale Balilla to Gioventù Italiana del Littorio After October 1, 1937, the Opera Nazionale Balilla no longer existed. The new organization, the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, exactly like the ONB, was structured on three levels: national, provincial, and communal. But the administrative and hierarchical structure was now firmly under party control. The PNF secretary became the GIL general commander, while the federal and communal representatives of the PNF became the provincial and communal leaders of the youth organization.11 The PNF now became the only Fascist institution responsible for the political and physical education of Italian youth. The dualism between the ONB, dependent on the Ministry of National Education, and the

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FGC, directly controlled by the PNF, vanished. But, once again, we do not have to consider the Opera Nazionale Balilla less committed to the Fascist project than the Gioventù del Littorio. Though depending administratively on the Ministry of National Education, the ONB was not an apolitical agency. It was led by a zealous Fascist and linked to a Fascist Ministry. The fact that the PNF became responsible for all propaganda and educational activities in Mussolini’s Italy was of paramount importance. Nevertheless, this change did not erase the political relevance of the activities carried out by the Opera before 1937. The GIL brought together Italian boys and girls from six to twenty-one years of age, excluding the Fascist University Groups, which, although part of the PNF, remained autonomous from the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio. “Credere, Obbedire, Combattere” (Believe, obey, fight), the former motto of the FGC, was inherited by the new association. The ONB oath remained unchanged. The Italian youth continued swearing to fulfill Mussolini’s orders and to serve with all their strength, and if necessary their blood, the Fascist Revolution.12 Once the undersecretary for Physical and Youth Education had been abolished, the staff and facilities of the Opera passed to the new organization. When the ONB was established, there were only 502 crumbling school gymnasia in Italy. At the end of “Ricci’s era” the Opera Balilla bequeathed to its successor organization the Mussolini Forum, ONB colleges, academies, and schools, 890 case del Balilla, 1,470 gymnasia, 2,568 sports grounds, and twenty-two swimming pools. The Gioventù Italiana del Littorio would continue the ONB tradition, building new facilities, new gymnasia, new case del Balilla (renamed case della GIL), and new sports fields.13 The Fascist Party became the Grande Pedagogo (the great pedagogue).14 Starace thought that, having united the ONB and the FGC under the aegis of the party, it would be easier to avoid any youth dispersion: young Italians would be obliged to remain in the Fascist youth organization until twenty-one years of age and would then automatically become active adult members of the PNF.15 The pedagogical function of the party was also sanctioned by the PNF Statute of 1938 which asserted that the Fascist Party had not only to defend and advance the Fascist Revolution, but also to manage “the political education of the Italians.”16 Not by chance this change took place in the years of the socalled totalitarian acceleration (1937–39) when the regime opted for a more resolute Fascistization of Italian political institutions: the PNF secretary was designated member without portfolio of the government (1937); Mussolini was appointed Primo maresciallo dell’Impero (first marshal of the Empire), sharing the same military rank as Vittorio Emanuele III (1938); the “traditional” Chamber of Deputies was dismissed and substituted with the new, and nonelective, Chamber of Fasces and Corporations (1939); and, in the end, some authoritative



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jurists proposed to repeal the Statuto Albertino, the liberal constitution, and to draft a new Fascist constitution—a project that remained unfulfilled (1939). These were also the years that witnessed the emergence of the Fascist Empire, the introduction of the racial and anti-Semitic laws, and the total alignment with Nazi Germany in foreign policy. Mussolini felt stronger and he believed that by strengthening the PNF—and the creation of the GIL was part of this project—he would launch the second phase of the Fascist Revolution, challenging definitively the relics of the liberal past.17 The enrollment in the Opera Nazionale Balilla had been very high among students of the middle and upper middle classes who considered membership crucial to their future successes in life. Not joining the Opera, youth would be discriminated against and isolated; they would put their future in danger and their families would be accused of antifascism.18 However, the regime was not satisfied with the number of ONB members and one of the goals set for the GIL was the expansion of the organization, the “totalitarian incorporation” of the new generations.19 Starace, celebrating the first anniversary of the new youth organization, stated that the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio wanted to assemble the entire Italian youth population so that it could guarantee the continuity of the Fascist regime.20 At the beginning of 1939, the regime decided that to become members of the PNF—a necessary requirement for finding a job—it was compulsory to have been members of the GIL or of the GUF.21 The declared, albeit never fully attained, goal of the Gioventù del Littorio was to harness all youth to the Fascist cause.22 All Italian youth were required to possess a personal book that recorded their activities. Through such a mechanism the state could chart whether or not the youth fulfilled their duties: a bad personal book would endanger their professional future.23 To comprehend how many potential members were effectively enrolled as of May 31, 1939, the party conducted an exhaustive survey. The results from nine provinces are compiled in Table 3. Unfortunately, the party did not make any distinction between rural and urban areas, between large and small cities, or between students and nonstudents. Looking at the table, however, it is possible to notice that tendentially membership was in inverse proportion to the age group and also that the economic conditions of the region influenced membership. The youth organization had the greatest influence in provinces with high per-capita incomes and high attend­ ance in school. Students were obliged by their teachers to join the Fascist organization, and well-off youth had obviously more time, compared to the working and needy youth, to attend GIL activities. Also in the new organization, as in the ONB, Balilla were much more numerous than Avanguardisti and Giovani Fascisti.24

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Balilla

Avanguardisti

Young Fascists

Total

Turin 40,634 35,280 (86%)

36,346 21,788 (60%)

33,496 19,208 (57%)

110,476 76,276 (69%)

Milan 84,956 75,654 (89%)

72,992 43,359 (60%)

69,589 28,809 (41%)

227,537 147,822 (65%)

Bologna 33,536 24,509 (73%)

28,539 12,804 (45%)

26,786 16,718 (62%)

88,861 54,031 (60%)

Florence 36,927 27,293 (74%)

32,253 14,190 (44%)

28,013 9,817 (35%)

97,193 51,300 (53%)

Rome 74,037 51,632 (70% )

58,555 27,006 (46%)

55,224 20,092 (36%)

Perugia 30,477 19,593 (64%)

24,262 8,166 (33%)

21,112 9,840 (46%)

75,851 37,599 (50%)

Cagliari 27,902 16,833 (60%)

20,104 6,270 (31%)

20,243 6,482 (32%)

68,249 29,585 (43%)

Venice 36,468 23,100 (63%)

26,989 7,030 (26%)

23,826 5,125 (21%)

87,283 35,255 (40%)

Naples 123,717 62,615 (50%)

81,004 25,618 (31%)

87,244 23,551 (27%)

291,965 111,784 (38%)

187,816 98,730 (53%)

Table 3.  Italian male youth enrolled in the GIL as of May 31, 1939. For each pair of numbers in the table above, the top figure indicates the number of potential members of the Fascist youth organization in each province, and the bottom figure indicates the number of youths who effectively joined the GIL. The numbers in parentheses indicate the ratio of effective/potential members.

The Gioventù del Littorio, although having modified the special relationship existing between the Fascist youth organization and the Ministry of Education, enjoyed a tight bond with the scholastic institutions: it invaded and conditioned the schools. The GIL organized excursions, lectures, and film screenings during the regular school schedule. Moreover, it organized parades and PNF celebrations with the schools. Many GIL radio programs were broadcast during school hours and the official journals of the Gioventù del Littorio were



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distributed in all Italian schools. GIL camping trips were carried out during the school year and, given the organization of Saturday and Sunday military and sport drills, school tests were forbidden on Mondays. Christmas holidays were completely devoted to sport and military training, and as a consequence, teachers could not assign homework during this period.25 Roberto Berardi, born in 1924, discussing his adolescence, remembered how high schools became more and more Fascisticized after 1937, and how GIL and school worked hand in hand. His humanities teacher talked with passion about Mussolini, Francisco Franco, and the Führer, and assigned homework that obliged students to deal with Fascist achievements and merits. He remembered how he had to write essays about the victory of Fascism in Spain, the Anticomintern Pact, the Rome–Berlin Axis, and the Fascist fight against Bolshevism and plutocratic democracies. To write good essays, he recalled, it was necessary to read newspapers and borrow ideas and expressions from them. Students had to praise the Duce, the regime, and the empire. To receive a good mark, students filled their compositions with expressions like: “la lungimiranza del Duce” (the Duce’s farsightedness), “l’eroismo delle Camice Nere” (the heroism of the Black Shirts), “l’Italiano nuovo forgiato dallo spirito del Littorio” (the new Italian shaped by the lictor spirit), and “gli immancabili destini della Rivoluzione fascista” (the unavoidably successful destiny of the Fascist Revolution). Reading Berardi’s memoirs we have the clear impression that students’ compositions were mere rhetorical exercises. But Berardi also emphasized that inside the schools there were representatives of the regime who allegedly checked the Fascistization of school life and tried to go beyond superficial indoctrination. Talking about his physical education teacher, who had graduated from the ONB Academy, Berardi wrote that his goal was to weld school and GIL together. He was very knowledgeable and educated and stood out from other teachers, earning the respect of local leaders. As a teacher he participated in every school meeting, and as vice commander of the GIL he supervised the activities of the youth organization. For the students he was the physicial education teacher, but also the supervisor of their premilitary preparation, and the organizer of the official Fascist gatherings and gymnastic displays. Berardi admitted that this physical education teacher, besides being an excellent coach, was undoubtedly an “overzealous Fascist.” Older members of the PNF were not as fervent as he was. The presence of the academist of Rome was felt like a warning sign for students and colleagues.26 The GIL accomplished many of the same goals and fulfilled many of the same functions as the ONB. It assisted its members by means of welfare initiatives, such as subsidizing summer holiday camps; it organized trips and cruises;

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it guaranteed the ideological training of its members; it managed the physical education teaching in elementary and high schools; and it trained the Italian youth from a political, sport, and premilitary point of view. Similar to the Hitlerjugend, the major part of the activities inside the Gioventù del Littorio was aimed at arousing the warlike temperament of the youth.27 The militarization of youth education was accelerated by the wars in Spain and Ethiopia. Physical education had been part of youth activities for years, but in the imperial climate the training became more and more military in tone. Military preparation played a much more important role in the new organization than it had in the ONB. Italian youth spent every Saturday, and several afternoons and evenings during the week, practicing sport and taking part in military drills according to their age.28 Rifle and machine-gun practice was held regularly, courses on military science and strategy were given, and the youth were allowed to participate in maneuvers held by Militia and army.29 In an article published in 1938 by the American Political Science Review James W. Miller, comparing and contrasting the youth in Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Soviet Russia, tried to highlight the main features of these three youth organizations. With respect to the Italian one, he explained that its true raison d’être was “the preparation of a young generation in matters military and in matters political.” Youth were “required to study military science assiduously.” Instructors with machine guns traveled from district to district giving training and “even allowing twelve-year olds to fire the guns.” Like the young Nazis, explained Miller, the young Fascists attended “night drills in order to become accustomed to maneuvering in the dark.” The conscripts of the Fascist Revolution “received the musket in the same spirit with which the youth of ancient Rome for the first time donned the toga of virility.” Given this kind of education, stated the American observer, the temper of the Italian youth could not “be anything but militaristic.”30 Also in the new organization, besides military training, particular emphasis was placed on ideological propaganda. The GIL continued organizing courses on Fascist culture using modern media. In the GIL houses and in the local commands of the organization, young people enjoyed the opportunity to watch propaganda films and listen to radio programs. According to an agreement bewteen the youth organization and the Ente Italiano per le Audizioni Radiofoniche (Italian Agency for the Radio Listening), political and military lessons for the Italian youth were broadcast on Saturdays and Sundays.31 In 1938, to help preserve the doctrinaire orthodoxy of the GIL members, the PNF handed out a handbook entitled Il primo libro del fascista (The First Book of the Fascist). It was organized as a kind of catechism with questions and short answers that Balilla and Avanguardisti had to learn. In 1939 the youth organization published a



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second edition: Il secondo libro del fascista (The Second Book of the Fascist). The setting of the book did not change, but it was centered on the new anti-Semitic doctrine of the regime.32 The Gioventù Italiana del Littorio was molded strictly according to the views and aspirations of Achille Starace. He was obsessive about organization, and he considered it necessary to lead the PNF and the GIL following a precise “Fascist Style.” He made the “Fascist liturgy” more elaborate and attractive, and he meticulously delineated the ideals of how Fascists should behave in everyday life, including how and when they should use the uniforms, how they should greet and address one another. Parades and mass sporting events became more and more important. He was persuaded that such happenings could help shape the Fascist spirit of the Italians. “The Fascist style,” as Starace put it in one of his regulations of March 23, 1935, “cannot be considered a mere exterior attitude, but it is a precise expression and revelation of an intimate substantial content.”33 The PNF secretary, like Mussolini, believed that imposing external behavioral norms, obliging Italians to wear a uniform, abolishing the handshake, making compulsory the “Roman salute,” and introducing the “Roman parade step,” would result in a substantive inner transformation. Form would become substance. The homogeneous behaviour of the Italians would be an important step toward the totalitarianization the regime desired. The uniform would create a new esprit de corps and would accustom its wearers to hierarchy and to war. Living, acting, marching, and dressing as Fascists, Starace thought, would transform the Italians from potential into actual “new men.” The intimate adherence of individuals to Fascist ideology and culture could be attained through a strict external conformity and through a slavish repetition of behaviors codified by the Fascist organizations.34 This was obviously what Fascist propaganda asserted and what Fascists aimed for. However, even if the results were not always successful, pedagogical laboratories were set up and educational experiments were conducted in order to mold the next generations as Fascists desired. With his frenetic activity Starace “enlarged the spread of the tentacles of the Party in the structure of the state and society; he widened the areas of its competence, and of its educational and organizational penetration.” He transformed the party into “an omnipresent and irreplaceable structure,” into “the nervous system of the totalitarian state in the making.” At the end of his secretaryship the PNF included more than twenty-one million Italians, both men and women, from the age of six onward.35 Starace, taking stock of his work before leaving his post as party secretary in October 1939, highlighted his efforts in reshaping the Italian people. He boasted about the development of the capillary and efficient educational structure of the GIL that, he maintained, had

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been able to reach millions of individuals, trying to achieve its main objective: the creation of Mussolini’s new Italians.36

The Vatican and the GIL The Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, similarly to the Hitler Youth, dispensed with the religious assistance of its members. The GIL disowned the work carried out by ONB chaplains and confined religious education to the schools. Even there, however, religious lessons only lasted thirty minutes and took place every fifteen days. Moreover, during the lessons, it was compulsory for a GIL instructor to be present. The religious policy of the new youth organization was a result of the tensions that existed between Catholic Action and the Fascist Party that reached a new breaking point, after years of peaceful coexistence, between 1937 and 1938.37 The Fascists did not want the Catholics to be proactive; they had to carry out their religious activities without being excessively “attractive.” Still distrustful of the Church, the PNF was afraid that Catholic organizations could become incubation instruments for a future Catholic party. Trying to disrupt Catholic activities and oblige people to leave the Catholic Action, Roberto Farinacci, former secretary of the Fascist Party (1925–26) and exponent of the most instransigent wing of the PNF, declared the incompatibility in his town, Cremona, of double membership: people could not at the same time be members of the PNF and of the Catholic Action. Such policies worried the pope, who was afraid that Italy was going to follow the Nazi example and that this could be the first step toward the final closure of the Catholic Action.38 After 1931 the Catholic Action had tried to protect itself from Fascism, reorganizing its structures and increasing its religious activities for youth. But just the fact that many youth still spent a lot of time in their parishes led to the beginning of a new Fascist–Catholic crisis.39 After seven years of peace, peaking on the occasion of the Spanish and Ethiopian wars, the pope turned his back on Mussolini. Pius XI rejcted the rapprochement between Fascism and National Socialism and was persuaded that Mussolini was embarking down the road to perdition and racist paganism. The Duce’s and the pope’s roads clearly parted. Assaults and violence against the Catholic youth resumed. Starace decided to stress the incompatibility between GIL and Catholic Action membership throughout Italy: leaders of the Catholic Action could not be leaders of the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio and vice versa.40 In the summer of 1938, the Catholic Action reported several actions taken against its members and leaders. The pope, speaking on July 28 to the pupils of the Collegio di Propaganda Fide, defended the Catholic Action. He also threatened, in a veiled manner, the excommunication of Mussolini if Fascists



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continued committing violent actions against the Catholics and if the regime, revoking their party cards, transformed the members of the Catholic Action into second-class citizens. The pope emphasized that any attack on the Catholic Action was an attack on the Church itself, stating: “Who strikes the Catholic Action strikes the Church, because he strikes the Catholic life. . . . You would do better not striking the Catholic Action. . . . Please, for your own good, because who strikes the Catholic Action strikes the pope, and who strikes the pope dies.”41 Moreover, the pope denied the existence of any anti-Semitic tradition in Italy and blamed the Duce for introducing anti-Semitic policies, guilty of imitating Hitler’s follies.42 Pius XI, after having shown resolve in the crisis of the late 1920s and early 1930s, presented himself once again as an opponent of the totalitarian pretenses of the Fascist regime. Peace talks were carried out, as usual, by Tacchi Venturi, culminating in the meeting of August 20, 1938, between Starace and Lamberto Vignoli, the president of Catholic Action. The agreements of 1931 were renewed; Starace downplayed his previous emphasis on the incompatibility of the two bodies, and the PNF committed itself to returning revoked party cards to members of the Catholic Action. Nevertheless, Catholic Action members were obliged to send their children to GIL parades and activities, and it was reaffirmed that the Catholic organization had to be stricly religious in nature.43 Even after the agreement, abuses continued. Party cards were still revoked, the Catholic Action badges were forbidden, several priests were assaulted, and many individuals were forced to decide if they wanted to be members of the PNF or of the AC. The relationship between the Catholic Church and the regime became colder and colder, and members of the Catholic Action turned toward a more religious inwardness.44 Moreover, between 1939 and 1940 the new pope, Pius XII, decided to reform the Catholic Action, entrusting the executive ranks of the organization to clergymen. In the past the regime had constantly attacked the lay leaders of the Catholic Action, but perhaps it would have thought twice before launching an attack against members of the Church of Rome. Nevertheless, in 1939, Fascists began their very last campaign against the Catholic Action: the “battle against the badge.” They wanted to “dissuade” the AC members from wearing the badge of their association. The Fascist “invitations” were followed by the “usual” assaults against members and clubs, until, in May 1940, it was forbidden to wear the Catholic Action badge in public.45 However, the Holy See was ready for a war of strategic positioning against the regime. Pius XII, cautious and diplomatic, aimed at gaining time, temporizing, avoiding dangerous shocks, and indulging the Fascists. In the end it is undeniable that, despite tensions, prohibitions, and crises (1931 and 1938), the Catholic Action was able to carry out several activities (training courses, Catechism contests,

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annual religious campaigns, spiritual exercises, liturgical celebrations, etc.) which contributed to the creation of a generation that would be active in both anti-Fascist Resistance and post-Fascist reconstruction.46

The “New” Academy In September 1937 Ricci, by that time former ONB president, while talking about the Mussolini Forum, by then bequeathed to the Gioventù del Littorio, explained that, “from a material point of view, it was a set of buildings and sport facilities designed . . . following a precise architectural principle, so that it could allow Italy to demand and host the Olympic games,” and that, from a pedagogical point of view, it was a “breeding ground of educators and political leaders.” Ricci, by then banned from the youth organization, tried once again to stress the importance of his own work. He considered the ONB Academy his greatest achievement. It was the heart of the Revolution; it was the site on which the regime was trying to change Italian history and create a new race of conquerors.47 In 1927 nobody imagined that the ONB Academy would be just the first of a set of institutes aimed at the ideological and physical training of those destined to work in the youth organization. During “Ricci’s reign,” in addition to the Academy of the Mussolini Forum, the Accademia Littoria, and the Orvieto Academy, other institutions were opened: the Collegio-convitto of Orvieto, a five-year teacher-training college for women; the Fascist Music Academy of Rome; the Fascist Fencing Academy of Rome, aimed at training the fencing teachers of the youth organization and the Italian Army; the Collegio Magistrale of Udine, another five-year teacher-training college, for men; the Fascist Naval Colleges of Venice and Brindisi, destined to train the future cadets of the Navy Academy of Leghorn; and the Fascist Seafaring Schools of Sabaudia and Cagliari, dedicated to the training of expert sailors.48 The law instituting the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio assigned to the organization the administration of these schools, colleges, and academies founded by the ONB and granted to the GIL the possibility of establishing new ones.49 After 1938 the Gioventù del Littorio founded other institutes, and in 1943 there would be, in total, about forty GIL schools. Among all the GIL institutes aimed at training future youth leaders, the Academy of the Mussolini Forum had to maintain its pivotal role as center for the training of higher youth educators. The first public selection for the new students of the Academy was announced in March 1938, and eight months later the first course of the “new” GIL Academy was officially opened.50 The Institute, exactly like its precursor, had to continue training those youth who had a “vocation” for becoming Fascist



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educators.51 The Academy, according to its rector Riccardo Versari, did not create “professionals or scientists,” but “apostles” and “men of action” fighting for Mussolini’s greatness. The Academy students were “ardent and enthusiastic men” who the regime had destined for positions of leadership.52 To transform the Academy into an instrument of the Fascist Party it was necessary to modify its internal organization. In April 1938 the GIL General Command appointed a commission aimed at studying and writing a new statute for the male Academy of Rome.53 Thanks to the work carried out by the commission it was possible to develop law 866 of May 22, 1939, a law that would govern the Academy until the end of the regime. The Institute, despite the organizational change, had to remain the place where the regime prepared “in arms, in brain” and “in spirit” its “best sons.”54 The new legislative measure ratified the definitive suppression of the ONB Academy of Physical and Youth Education and the creation of the GIL Academy. The management of the Institute was supervised not only by the Ministry of National Education, which had to control the quality of the teaching, but also—and this was an absolute novelty—by the PNF secretary, who had to check the political orthodoxy of the education given to the academists. Lessons in theory, as in the past, were given by professors of Italian universities, whereas physical, political, and military preparations were managed by GIL instructors.55 Courses at the “new” Institute lasted three years. In the fourth year, students served a practical apprenticeship. Afterward, the academists, appointed officers of the GIL, began their “real work” inside the organization.56 The Institute, offering political, scientific, and technical classes, tried to pursue four goals: to train youth who wanted to become GIL leaders and instructors; to train physical education teachers for the schools and the military forces; to perfect the political, scientific, and technical culture of all those who worked in the sphere of youth education; and to promote the evolution of sciences applied to sport and physical education.57 The students, as in the past, spent their days inside the boarding school, going to lessons, studying, and taking part in military, gymnastic, and sport drills. During the course students had to attend several classes divided by the academic council into four sections: sport, military, biology, and politics.58 The transition from ONB to GIL entailed a growing militarization of the Academy, a reflection of the more general militarization of the youth organization.59 Military training was intensified and, in order to test the military skills of the students, two military camps were organized in the summer of 1938 and 1939.60 In a 1940 publication the GIL Academy was presented as a severe school of discipline where the “proud and stout youth . . . toughened up their bodies and their souls through a physical, spiritual, and warlike education that had no comparison in

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any other school.”61 Two other novelties in the curriculum of the Academy were the introduction of subjects related to the new “race policy” of the regime (anthropology, auxology, and biology of the human races) and the study of a foreign language, which after October 1940 was German.62 As in the past, in order to get into the Academy it was necessary to take part in a public competition and be members of a Fascist organization. An important prerequisite for admission to the GIL Academy was the possession of precise physical and physiological characteristics. The Academy carried out a careful analysis of the candidates and tried to verify their families’ health conditions, their physiological and pathological inheritance, and their life and dietary habits.63 In addition, unlike in previous years, it was also necessary to produce a document certifying one’s belonging to the “Italian Aryan race.” After 1938 in fact, as a consequence of the new race policy adopted by the Fascist regime, Jews were not allowed to apply for admission to the Academy or to any other of the GIL institutes.64 After September 1938 the Fascist youth were used as models and examples of the purity of the Italian race. The racist semimonthly periodical La Difesa della Razza (The Defense of the Race) started publishing pictures of the students of the Mussolini Forum Academy, contrasting them with Jews, who were portrayed as moral and physical degenerates.65 Royal decree 1,728 of November 17, 1938, stated that the Fascist Party and its organizations could not have Jewish employees or office workers, while the royal decree of November 21, 1938, obliged Jewish Italians to leave the party.66 These legislative measures entailed the expulsion of Jewish youth and leaders from the GIL, and, obviously, the removal from the Academy and from other GIL institutes of all those Jewish youth accepted as students before the introduction of the racial laws.67 An important element of continuity between the ONB and the GIL academies was the role played in both institutions by the collective musical and sport displays. The students of the Academy of Rome continued to be the most important protagonists of such shows organized by the regime to astonish foreign visitors and to celebrate the major festivals of the regime. The students could draw complex geometric figures, practice difficult collective exercises using banners and other instruments, and sing chorus songs and arias in the Italian tradition. While performing in the stadium, with their uniforms or wearing their tracksuits, under the sun, surrounded by the marble statues of the Mussolini Forum, the Academy students were the masters par excellence of the Fascist style, the incarnation of the Fascist spirit. The collective displays were a kind of plastic representation of the Fascist, totalitarian, anti-individualistic state. Making use of symbols, uniforms, music, and banners, the gymnastic displays tried to generate in the participants an irresistible sense of belonging, harmonizing the individual with the whole, and training the youth to practice uniformity



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and avoid any kind of egotism. In the gymnastic displays single individuals disappeared, becoming only one body, the armonico collettivo (collective harmony), in Emilio Gentile’s words. Gymnastic displays had an educational function not only for the performers but also for the spectators. Both learned the beauty and the perfection of homogeneity, the beauty and the perfection of harmony. The movement of a single individual had no sense, no grace, no value, and no beauty; only the movement of the collective, coordinated to the smallest detail, had a meaning, a goal. Every single performer knew perfectly what to do. The collective displays symbolized the myth of the totalitarian community, organized according to functions and responsibilities. The performers were equal, but they were led by an instructor who had to guarantee the success of the perform­ ance. Only following the orders given by the instructor was it possible to bring the display to an end without mistakes.68 The creation of the GIL initially had negative repercussions on the students who graduated from the Mussolini Forum Academy between 1929 and 1937. Starace’s aim was to favor the early Fascists and to remove from command posts those who had built their own career under Ricci’s protection. The PNF secretary tried to replace the executives coming from the Opera Nazionale Balilla with party members. In October 1937 an ad hoc commission was instituted by the General Command of the GIL. Its role was to assign national and local leading roles inside the GIL, taking into consideration several criteria (Fascist and war merits, educational qualifications, service reports, qualification notes, informative reports, family situation, and personal behavior). Particularly important requirements necessary for appointment to leading roles in the Gioventú del Littorio were participation in the March on Rome and in the Great War.69 Given that the majority of the leaders coming from the ONB Academy, to whom Ricci had assigned important local and national roles in the youth organization, did not satisfy such requirements, they were relegated to a secondary role: the local leaders of the party instead became leaders of the GIL. After having been top leaders in the Opera Nazionale Balilla, many former students of the ONB Academy found themselves hierarchically subordinate to old PNF members.70 A student of the ONB Academy wrote in June 1943, recalling the transition from the ONB to the GIL, that the students who graduated before 1938 were “ostracized, denigrated, and humiliated in every possible way.”71 Starace recognized the importance of the Academy. He thought that it had great potential and that it could be a fundamental instrument for the Fascist transformation of Italian youth and, consequently, with time, of the entire Italian nation. In short, he believed that the GIL institutes could become the most important breeding ground of the Fascist faith.72 But if Starace had full confidence in the

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future development of GIL academies, schools, and colleges, he was suspicious of the students who had graduated from the ONB institutions, considering them to be Ricci’s “confidence men.” However, Starace’s successors—such as Ettore Muti and Adelchi Serena—had a different attitude toward the ONB academists. They gave important roles in the Gioventù del Littorio to those students “ostracized” by their predecessor. Following a more utilitarian strategy, they thought that it was not important if the academists received their diploma under Ricci’s or Starace’s “regency.” It was instead essential to understand who possessed skillfull leadership capacities and had a longer experience in the youth organization.73

Teachers and Young Leaders In order to carry out its educational tasks and to organize all the Italian youth, the GIL, just like the ONB, also needed lesser and middle leaders for its units. But such figures, as Starace stated, were never enough.74 The Gioventù del Littorio, following the path opened up by Renato Ricci’s organization, drew its own lesser leaders from the schools and from its units, but unlike the Opera, it was also able to enroll as youth leaders middle and high school teachers.75 Ricci thought that Balilla groups had been able to attract many members because of the commitment of the elementary school teachers to the organization, whereas the Avanguardisti groups had been less successful because of the poor involvement of the secondary school teachers in the activities of the ONB. To sow the “Fascist seeds” in Italian middle and secondary schools, the Opera Nazionale Balilla could rely only on the academists working there as physical education teachers. In the summer of 1934, during a meeting at the Foro Mussolini of Ricci, education superintendents, teachers, and principals, the ONB president invited high school teachers to become active members of the youth organizations. Ricci then wrote a telegram about this meeting to Mussolini, promising in the following years that there would be a greater participation of middle and high school teachers in the Fascist educational program.76 However, in spite of these promises, the Opera Nazionale Balilla went on organizing courses only for elementary teachers. The first course to train middle school teachers to hold leading roles in the youth organization was carried out by the GIL.77 Minister of national education Giuseppe Bottai, in his report about the school year 1937–38, also focused on the courses organized by the GIL, underlining how the new organization in part continued the work of its predecessor and in part developed it further. The minister underscored that even though the youth organization did not depend on his Ministry anymore, the relationship



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between the new organization and the schools was still very strong. If the Opera Nazionale Balilla had organized successfully for about ten years several national courses aimed at improving the preparation of the elementary teachers in the field of physical education, the GIL, continuing and completing this important initiative, would organize, with the collaboration of the Ministry of Education, national courses not only for teachers of elementary schools, but also for teachers of middle and high schools.78 In the summer of 1938 the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio did indeed organize courses for seven thousand people, including principals and teachers of both elementary and high schools.79 To convince as many teachers as possible to attend the courses organized by the GIL, Bottai promised that the participants would be favored in public competitive examinations and transfer requests, and that they would receive merit awards and leading and managerial roles in summer camps and GIL units.80 The Fascist teachers could not restrict themselves to pure teaching anymore. After 1939 all teachers would be assessed looking at the role they played in the GIL leadership: being a good teacher was not enough. Being a good teacher and a good youth leader was what the Fascist state wanted.81 Despite the new emphasis on reaching out to secondary school teachers, the GIL, like the ONB, believed that the best way to train the future leaders was to educate them from childhood. Both the ONB and the GIL utilized very young members to lead minor units, not only to cope with the lack of staff, but also to create, by means of a constant and long preparation, a well-qualified leadership.82 As in the past, local and national courses for young leaders were organized under the direction of the Academy. The best members of the organization could aspire to go a long way inside the GIL.83 The rank of capo squadra continued to be the first step to enter the ranks of leadership in the organization. Local courses for capi squadra Balilla and capi squadra Avanguardisti began again, without breaks, under the new GIL insigna, in November 1937. The direction of the courses was assigned, as in the past, to instructors who had graduated from the Academy or, in their absence, to MVSN officers. The first national courses for young leaders, aimed at developing a core of middle offices for the GIL leadership, took place in the summer of 1938. Similar courses would also be organized in the following years.84 Starace and the succeeding PNF secretaries, in terms of youth instructors, did not invent anything. The political and ideological higher leaders of the youth organization, after the passage from ONB to GIL, were still destined to be formed by the students of the Academy of Rome and in its lower ranks by school teachers and the best members of the youth organization. The Gioventù del Littorio, following the ONB model, went on organizing summer courses to train its lesser leaders. The GIL however, unlike the Opera Nazionale Balilla,

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also started organizing courses designed to train middle and high school teachers. Starace, after having stigmatized the presence of teachers in the Opera Balilla, was also compelled to keep them for the good of the Gioventù del Littorio. He understood that without assigning leading roles to the teachers the Fascist youth organization would be paralyzed. The GIL Academy, unlike the ONB Academy, was under the supervision of the party secretary. It lasted one year longer than its forerunner, and it placed more emphasis on sport, military activities, and Fascist race policy. The Jews were expelled by the GIL institutes, and the Fascist youth organization paid greater attention to the physical and physiological characteristics of its applicants. However, despite these novelties, the Academy did not change its main functions: it remained the Institute aimed at training Fascist youth leaders and physical education teachers in the schools and at promoting scientifically based sport and gymnastic activity in Italy. The students of the new Academy were, as their predecessors, among the most important propaganda instruments of the regime. Ricci’s departure did not imply a change of policy. The control and power structure of the youth organization changed, the party became the Grande Pedagogo, but the Fascist educational pattern was not revolutionized. However, as we will see in the next chapter, Ricci’s removal had consequences, at least initially, for the relationship between German and Italian youth.

9 The Relationship between the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio and the Hitlerjugend I

n the decade after the Nazi seizure of power the relationship between Fascist and Nazi youth organizations was intense, complex, and prone to change. We could roughly single out four distinct phases. Between 1933 and 1937, the first phase we have already discussed, meetings between Fascist and Nazi youth were occasions for cultural and ideological exchange, and both groups used them to improve their educational practices. In 1938, the second phase, the Nazis changed their diplomatic strategy and presented themselves as peacemakers. Although their aim was the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland, they tried to placate Britain and France. During this year von Schirach utilized his boys and girls as peace ambassadors for the Nazi regime, temporarily pushing into the background the “special relationship” with the Italian youth. The advent of World War II initiated a third phase in the relationship between Italian and German youth, one in which cooperation turned quickly into competition. Nazis and Fascists proposed the creation of an association of the youth organizations of Europe, and both posed as protagonists and leaders of the initiative. The association, theoretically egalitarian but in practice run by the Nazis, was presented as a celebration of a not clearly defined “European culture” and as an agency aimed at educating European youth in the fight against Bolshevism, Judaism, and democratic plutocracy. In the fourth and final phase, after the end of the Italian Fascist regime, the Nazis tried to create a new Germanic youth association, the aim of which was to unite all the Germanic youth of the continent, representatives of the chosen Aryan race, against Hitler’s enemies. The Italians, who had worked beside the Nazis in one way or another for more 171

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than a decade, were now excluded. In an ideal Nazi “New Order” the Fascist youth, humiliated on the battlefield, would no longer be the comrades of the Hitlerjungen. Exploring the evolution of the relationship between Nazi and Fascist youth organizations after the creation of the Gioventú del Littorio, this chapter will analyze the last three phases outlined above (1938–43), highlighting the slow, and inexorable, rupture of the equilibrium between them. In particular, examining the relationship between the youth of the two countries during World War II, the chapter will show how the conflict increased the innate Italian– German rivalry, how Italy lost inexorably its role as costar on the European stage, and how, after July 1943, the Nazis remained the only protagonists on the scene trying in vain to protect their empire.

Before the Outbreak of World War II Between 1936 and 1938 von Schirach implemented various initiatives to support the development of the “diplomatic activity” of the HJ. He ordered that selected HJ leaders attend courses on foreign policy and foreign culture at the NSDAP’s Institute for International Studies. Moreover, given the importance of establishing profitable contacts with other European youth organizations, von Schirach also suggested that the leaders of the HJ study foreign languages.1 In addition to cultivating links with the Italian youth organization, the Reichsjugend­ führer decided to intensify, in particular, the relationship between the Hitler Youth and the youth organizations of France and Britain. Such a decision was in line with Hitler’s public rhetoric. Even if the Führer had a completely different attitude to France and Britain, considering the first one of his major enemies and the second a possible ally, in public he tried to present himself as “man of peace,” willing to collaborate with both countries.2 While intensifying contact with the British and the French youth, von Schirach increased the bilateral activities with several other organizations and tried to broaden the circle of the “friend-countries.” To that end he traveled together with an HJ delegation in 1937 to the Balkans and the Middle East, visiting Greece, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon. A closer relationship between the Hitler Youth and the youth movements of these two geographic areas could be a further route to develop deeper diplomatic relationships among Germany, the Middle Europe, and the Near East.3 The crowning achievement of the new and intense international activity of the Hitler Youth was the decision to proclaim 1938 as Jahr der Verständigung, a year dedicated to the creation of new and stronger bonds with the youth of the world.4 In his New Year’s speech of 1938, von Schirach greeted the young French, Belgian, and English guests who were



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spending New Year’s Eve in German campsites together with the young Nazis, and proclaimed that in 1938 the HJ would engage in forming new bonds among German and foreign youth. He thought that youth and nations had to understand their reciprocal interests and collaborate in the name of peace.5 To encourage further contact between the HJ and other youth organizations, the Nazis unveiled in Berlin in February 1938 the HJ-Auslandshaus, aimed at offering hospitality to members and leaders of the foreign youth organizations visiting the Reich’s capital.6 Just before the Anschluß, and just a few months before the Munich Treaty, Nazi Germany used its youth organization to present itself as a peaceful country, a country the entire world could trust. The blond Hitlerjungen became the clean and harmless face of the Nazi regime. The Italians were afraid that the passage from the ONB to the GIL, and the decision made by von Schirach to dedicate 1938 to the intensification of the international activity of the HJ, could jeopardize the special relationship that had existed between German and Italian youth.7 Ricci had been able to establish a personal relationship with both von Schirach and Lauterbacher.8 Indicative of the particularly close relationship existing between von Schirach and Ricci was the publication in May 1937 of a picture of the supreme HJ-Führer together with the ONB president in the Illustrierter Beobachter. It was a significant picture because it was published in a special issue of the magazine dedicated to von Schirach’s thirtieth birthday. On the cover of the magazine there were three pictures. In one the Reichsjugendführer was with his mother, in another with Hitler, and in the third with Ricci. We might conclude, given the obvious importance of the other two people photographed with the Reichsjugendführer, that Ricci had a very special position in von Schirach’s inner circle.9 What would happen with the new Italian youth organization? What kind of relationship would develop between the old Nazi Youth leadership and the new Italian leaders? Would Ricci’s successor be a viable substitute for the ONB president, capable of remaining in von Schirach’s good graces? Such questions worried the Italians. In September 1937 Maria Figaia, Ricci’s wife, was in Germany spending some time with von Schirach and his wife, further proof of the friendly ties existing between the former president of the ONB and the Nazi Youth leader. In a letter Figaia sent to Ricci a couple of days after his dismissal, she talked about von Schirach’s consternation and Himmler’s worries about the future. Even though Ricci’s wife was not specific in describing Nazis’ fears, it was clear that the Germans were afraid that Ricci’s termination would have bad consequences for the relationship between Nazi and Fascist youth.10 The Italians were also aware that von Schirach, losing a trusted friend and ally, might have difficulties working together with the new Fascist youth leadership. Therefore, they thought that it was essential to avoid making mistakes with the Nazis during the

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first official visit to Italy of an HJ group after the establishment of the GIL, a visit scheduled for December 1937. For this purpose Bernardo Attolico, the Italian ambassador in Berlin, sent a telegram to Rome “inviting” the Gioventù del Littorio to be extremely welcoming to the German youth. The Hitler Youth representatives had to come back to Germany thinking that, in spite of Ricci’s termination, nothing had really changed.11 In June 1938 an HJ-Bannführer, Hans Marrum, an officer of the Foreign Department of the Reichsjugendführung, was sent to Rome to meet the higher leadership of the Gioventù del Littorio. Before his arrival, Attolico sent a letter to the Foreign Office. He explained that Marrum was coming to Italy to organize von Schirach’s upcoming trip, the first of the “GIL era,” a trip planned so that he could learn what was actually happening in the Italian youth organization after Ricci’s departure. The ambassador suggested the need to cultivate good relations with Marrum and hoped that Starace could manage personally the organization of von Schirach’s visit. Attolico thought that the PNF secretary had to reestablish the special closeness that characterized the relationship between von Schirach and Ricci. Furthermore, in closing his letter, the ambassador noted that after having tried to use the Nazi Youth to create a special kind of parallel diplomatic relationship with several countries, first of all England and France, von Schirach had decided to create a federation, or at least to favor closer collaboration, among all the pro-Nazi youth organizations. Ciano, the Italian foreign minister, having read Attolico’s letter, wrote immediately to the commander of the GIL asking him to offer a warm welcome to the representative of the Hitler Youth. The Gioventù del Littorio had to win back its post of honor beside the young Nazis—especially since von Schirach now seemed to have a major new project in his mind.12 Von Schirach’s visit took place in June 1938, nine months after the creation of the GIL. His meetings with Ciano and Starace seemed to be successful. Italians and Germans were sure that this visit had been the beginning of a new phase, a phase of close collaboration and harmony in the relationship between the two organizations.13 However, the real turning point was the second trip to Rome by Hans Marrum in January 1939.14 The young HJ-Führer was sent to Italy with a draft program containing a series of initiatives aimed at intensifying the exchanges between Nazi and Fascist youth in 1939. The agenda proposed by the Germans was extremely rich. They suggested the organization of ItalianGerman youth camps and common sport and musical events, as well as an exchange of radio programs. But the Nazis also had other interesting ideas. To give the German and Italian youth the opportunity to get better acquainted with each other’s countries, the Hitler Youth suggested that three thousand German and three thousand Italian adolescents be chosen to spend three weeks



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abroad living with selected Italian and German families. Moreover, given the lack of youth hostels in Italy, the Hitler Youth proposed to the GIL General Command that Italy might send a commission to Germany in order to study the functioning of the hostels of the Hitler Youth (HJ-Jugendherberge). In this way, with the support and advice of the General Command of the Hitlerjugend, the Italians could also start creating their own hostel network that would facilitate the visits of Nazi youth all over the Italian peninsula. To allow a group of Italian youth to have a direct experience of the Jugendherberge, the HJ also proposed to invite several GIL members to spend two weeks in the German youth hostels.15 In a meeting that took place in May 1939 the Italians proposed partly changing the program presented by the Nazis. According to the final version of the calendar, approved by the Gioventù del Littorio and by the Hitlerjugend, in 1939 the following events would take place: between the end of May and the beginning of June a group of thirty female leaders led by Jutta Rüdiger, Reich’s deputy of the BDM (Bund Deutscher Mädel, or League of the German Girls), would come to Italy in order to observe and study the female section of the GIL; in June a group of HJ leaders, under the guidance of Lauterbacher, would visit Italy; in August a group of Giovani Fascisti would take part in the Adolf Hitler Lager; in September sixty HJ leaders would come to Italy to participate in the Campo DUX and study the functioning of the GIL institutions; in the same month thirty Giovani Fascisti would attend the Adolf Hitler March and the Reichsparteitag; and in October eighty young Germans, von Schirach, and other members of the higher leadership of the Hitler Youth would visit Italy.16 Nazis and Fascists wanted to work together again and revive a relationship that in the last months had faded. In particular, the Germans seemed to be interested in sending their HJ and BDM leaders to Italy so that they could learn in the field the educational methods deployed by the GIL. In conformity with the program approved in May 1939, the chief of staff of the HJ and thirty regional and provincial leaders of the Nazi youth organization came to Italy. They visited the GIL College of Venice, the Mussolini Forum, and the Academy of Orvieto. During his stay in Italy Lauterbacher gave an interview underlining how important it was for both youth organizations to collaborate more and more closely, bringing “in this way a precious contribution to the great political mission of the Axis” and ensuring and guaranteeing “its continuity in the future.” The words of the HJ chief of staff, together with the busy schedule of exchanges and trips for year 1939, sanctioned definitively the end of the Verständigung and the return to the Italian–German “elective affinity.”17 Also under the terms of the agreement, on August 1, 1939, a party of 250 Giovani Fascisti left from Verona to reach the Adolf Hitler Lager. The GIL members joined a group of two hundred and fifty Hitlerjungen at the Brenner.

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Together they reached the camp and spent a training period there. Returning to Italy it was intended that both parties should go together to the Campo DUX in Rome. But after the outward journey, because of the outbreak of the war, the Hitlerjugend had to halt the initiative, and the Italian youth came back to the Brenner by train.18 The suspension of the event obviously did not mean the suspension of the collaboration between the youth organizations. Indeed, Marrum, on behalf of Lauterbacher, was sent to Italy in December 1939 to meet Giuseppe Bodini, GIL vice general commander, to make arrangements for Bodini’s visit to Germany and to discuss another possible journey to Italy of the HJ chief of staff.19 And in December, when Ettore Muti was appointed secretary of the Fascist Party and commander of the youth organization, an issue of Wille und Macht was dedicated to Italy. The leitmotiv of the issue was the hope that, in spite of the war, German and Italian people could go on collaborating.20 The first real meeting between Nazi and Fascist youth, after the outbreak of World War II, took place on the occasion of the Youth Winter Games, organized by the Germans in February 1940 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. In conjunction with this event the Nazis, together with an Italian delegation present at the sport contest, proposed the creation of a body, under Italian– German direction, aimed at intensifying the collaboration among all the youth organizations of the continent. For the moment the project was put to the side, but it would materialize in the following years.21

Mussolini between Nonbelligerence and War The Italian–German relationship was already complicated before September 1939, but the outbreak of World War II altered it significantly. On the surface everything seemed to be much the same. But, in reality, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany were not equal partners anymore. The Nazis thought of themselves as the dominant power in their relationship with Italy. Why should Nazis and Fascists be on an equal footing, when Germany was fighting valiantly and Italy remained a mere spectator? Something profound had united the two regimes “beyond the personalities of its leaders” after 1936. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy had “found each other and recognized in one another a kindred spirit.”22 The Duce and the Führer believed they had much in common and were persuaded that they could manage the European continent together. But, concretely, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were different: after 1938 it was Germany that was reshaping the continent; Mussolini often appeared merely to be Hitler’s spokesman.23 After 1938 the Italians, aware of Hitler’s hegemonic goals, decided to use every official event to present themselves as the Nazis’ closest allies and to



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celebrate the significance of Italian culture in the alliance. In speeches, articles, and publications the highest representatives of the Fascist regime asserted the importance of Italy in the awkward Italian–German relationship and maintained that the goal of the Axis was not to erase national differences but to recognize how each power would contribute to the foundation of a new Fascist civilization. In conjunction with Hitler’s visit to Italy in May 1938, for example, a commemorative volume was published: Italia e Germania, Maggio XVI (Italy and Germany, May, Sixteenth Year of the Fascist Era). The book was a collection of essays permeated by a mixture of caution and celebration. It praised Hitler’s qualities, but it also emphasized Italian uniqueness and the qualities it brought to the relationship. In this volume, as Ruth Ben-Ghiat has noted, “officials and journalists constructed histories of Italian–German relations that emphasized Italian civilization’s antiquity and its influences on Germanic culture.” In the book the Roman Empire became “the trump card of Fascists who sought to refute Nazi Nordicists’ claims of their superior Indo-Germanic lineage.”24 But if Italy was trumpeting the importance of Italian culture, Germany was shaping the actual future of the European continent. Therefore, talking about the primacy of Italian civilization did not placate Mussolini. The Duce did not care to admit that Hitler was taking the lead and that he, the Duce, the creator of the first Fascist dictatorship of the world, was losing irreparably his role as “master.” Hitler did not contradict the Duce, but, at the same time, he continued with his own strategy, redesigning Europe without Mussolini. The Führer just sent, after each new success, a note to the Duce—a kind of formal acknowledgment to a dethroned and powerless monarch. Mussolini was irritated by Hitler’s strategy; he was frustrated because the Nazi leader did not want to reveal his plans. Mussolini hoped to enjoy, sooner or later, the possibility of reestablishing a kind of symmetry between Italy and Germany. And he thought, erroneously, that the war in the Balkans would strike a balance.25 But while Italy observed, Germany advanced. The Nazis were going beyond the consolidation of their Lebensraum in eastern Europe, also bending to their will several western countries. As Wilhelm Stuckart, a Nazi Interior Ministry’s constitutional expert, explained, Germany was moving from “constructing a Volksgemeinschaft (people’s community) within its borders to building up a Völker­ gemeinschaft (community of peoples) across the continent.”26 In summer 1940 the Germans found themselves to be lords of the European continent. They started thinking about “the shape of an eventual Nazi Europe.” Even though Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi foreign minister, assured the Italians that the friendship between the Axis partners would last for centuries, the Fascists thought it was better to guarantee a safe place for Italy in the new European geopolitical pano­ rama. Mussolini could not avoid the war anymore. Neutrality was not a very .

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glorious position for the founder of Fascism. Mussolini knew that if he wanted to have voice in the postwar sharing of spoils, he had to act.27 Italy declared war on France and Great Britain on June 10, 1940. But the country was not ready: it needed raw materials, military supplies, and time to reorganize its army after the Ethiopian and Spanish wars. The country was basically bankrupt and would need, instead of a war, a period of recovery. But Mussolini thought that western Europe was falling to the Nazis and that he had to be present in order to enjoy the advantages resulting from victory. Officially, the Führer welcomed the Duce’s decision, but privately he was disdainful of Mussolini’s move; for Hitler the Duce was just jumping on Germany’s bandwagon. After the fall of France, Nazi hegemony seemed to be unlimited and many European states hoped that Mussolini would be a moderating influence upon his ally, counterbalancing the Germans. Otherwise, after the war, Germany would be the “Moloch of Europe,” and Italy, together with other European states, would find itself in a subordinate position.28 Even though the Duce and the Führer invoked statements of loyalty and solidarity, a latent distrust toward each other continued to grow. They were allies in name, but Mussolini did not have faith in Hitler and in his “clique,” and the Führer, though he respected the Duce, did not believe in the Italians. The Germans also soon realized that Italy was not a useful war ally. What had started out, in the summer of 1940, as a “parallel war” would soon degenerate into a much more unequal relationship.29

A Competitive Cooperation The underlying and growing competition between Italian Fascism and National Socialism was perfectly mirrored by the relationship between Fascist and Nazi youth organizations. On the one hand, the Nazis wanted to collaborate with the Fascists, restricting the Italians’ freedom of initiative; on the other hand, the Italians wanted to be seen and to act as peers. However, the project of creating a European youth association, in spite of the Italian role, would slowly confirm the Nazi supremacy. Looking for a symbol of the young Italian nation marching against its enemies, Mussolini decided to transform the departure of a group of Giovani Fascisti going off to fight into a propaganda event. These youth had to show the world that Mussolini had been able to turn Italy into a warlike nation. To say farewell to the young soldiers the regime organized a special parade in Padua. Invited to this event—which took place on October 25, 1940, a few days before the disastrous invasion of Greek territory—were not only a delegation of the Hitlerjugend, but also some Spanish, Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Romanian



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youth. The invitation of youth from Balkan countries was particularly emblematic. In this way Mussolini attempted to reassert Italian interests in the Balkans, trying to present Italy as a possible mouthpiece of the eastern allies of the Axis. The presence of the youth from other European organizations at this event was also considered a further opportunity for the Italians to extend and improve their contacts with them. The GIL, aspiring to play a major role among the European youth organizations, understood that it had to intensify its direct relations with the youth of the allied states. The HJ, however, did not intend to be subordinated to Mussolini’s plans. The Nazis, wanting to use the march of the young Fascist volunteers for their own advantage, decided to supply all the German youth present at the ceremony with new uniforms and to select with great care the 250 members they wanted to send to Padua. They decided that Germany had to be represented only by young decorated soldiers. Against the Italian youth, who did not yet know the battlefield, the Nazis proudly set their own young people, who, despite their age, could already be considered veterans. They wanted to steal the show; they wanted to be the real protagonists of the event. According to the Hitler Youth, collaborating with the Fascist organization and taking part in all future international events, it was “necessary for Germany to play a predominant role” and “not to remain, in any case, behind Italy’s back.”30 The era of collaboration was fading and the era of competition was beginning.31 A few weeks after the Padua march, the competition between the Hitlerjugend and the GIL occurred once again on the occasion of an Italian-German mission in Romania. The Italian legation in Bucharest sent a letter to the Foreign Office on October 23, 1940. Horia Sima, vice prime minister and commander of the Fascist Legionary Movement, also known as the Iron Guard, asked the PNF to send a youth delegation to the demonstration organized at Jassy. Here, on November 9, feast of Archangel Michael, patron of the Romanian Fascists, the Romanian youth organization was celebrating the thirteenth anniversary of the foundation of the Iron Guard. The Hitlerjugend, according to the letter, had already confirmed its presence. The Ministry confirmed on October 27, 1940, the participation of Italy and asked to know more about the composition of the Nazi delegation. The next day the Italian legation in Bucharest communicated that about a hundred members of the Hitler Youth would participate, accompanied by a fair number of youth leaders. The numbers were reduced in a second communication to twenty. The PNF, not intending to appear out of place next to the Hitler Youth, communicated to the Foreign Office that on November 5 seven GIL officers and one hundred students of the GIL Academy (not mere members of the organization) would leave for Romania. The Italians wanted to make an extraordinary impression.

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The youth, who arrived in Bucharest with the German delegation on November 6, came back to Rome after nine days. After the journey they expressed their enthusiasm for the welcome they received in Romania. On November 14 the Italian legation of Bucharest sent a report about the visit, underlining how, from the very first moment, the young Fascists created a very good impression on the population, and how their popularity and the enthusiasm the Romanians expressed for them increased day after day. The affection of the people reached its apex, according to the Foreign Office, when the Italian youth took part in the aid operations to help the Romanian people after the earthquake that struck the Romanian capital on November 9. The Italian legation in Romania tried to highlight how the favorable response to the Italian youth contrasted with the mistrust and the coldness the Romanian people showed toward the German youth. Such an attitude was, however, understandable. Because of Germany, Romania had to cede Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to the USSR in June 1940, and, as a consequence of Nazi diplomacy, the country had to renounce northern Transylvania too, which was awarded to Fascist Hungary in August 1940. The coldness of the Romanian population toward the Nazi youth grew from these policies.32 During the war the Nazis did not clearly express their plans for the future of Europe. But the Europeans, watching defenseless as the Nazis marched triumphally across the continent, could well imagine what the final goals of Nazi Germany were. There were, however, also Nazi voices that were not consistent with Hitler’s plans, such as, for example, the journal Reich, Volksordnung, Lebensraum, founded in 1941. In an anonymous article published by the periodical, the author underscored that, if the Nazis wanted to triumph, they could not lose sight of the importance of establishing a tight cooperation with their allies; if they transformed their leadership into a severe form of domination, the Europeans would rise against their rulers.33 The stand taken by the journal appeared to be shared by the Hitler Youth. Axmann, head of the Nazi youth organization from August 1940 after von Schirach’s appointment as Gauleiter of Vienna and as Reich HJ inspector and plenipotentiary for youth education of the NSDAP, also seemed to support the idea that cooperation would be better than domination and that the youth organizations of Europe had to start talking about future forms of collaboration. On the occasion of the sixth Winter Games of the Hitlerjugend (February 26–March 2, 1941) in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the Germans invited the youth organizations of Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Yugoslavia, and Japan to take part in the event. Here the European youth leaders started comparing their ideas about the new continental order the Axis powers were trying to bring about and talked about the opportunity of educating all European



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young people according to a unitary method. At the end of the meeting Axmann proposed to continue organizing such events and guarantee regular exchanges among members and leaders of the European youth organizations.34 The HJ invited the representatives of the youth organizations to their sixth Winter Games with the intention of talking about future forms of collaboration among the European youth movements, but also with the intention of displaying the physical qualities of the German youth. The Italians, in competition with their Nazi friends, decided to use the bodies of the Fascist young generations to rival the Hitler Youth. The gymnastic display organized by the Fascist youth organization to celebrate spring (Festa di Primavera) became an important occasion to show off the beauty and the strength of the Italian youth. The Gioventù del Littorio gradually transformed this national feast into an international event. The gymnastic display of 1941, for example, organized a few months after the meeting in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, was particularly spectacular and turned out to be a demonstration of Fascist power under the admiring eyes of Mussolini, the GIL leadership, the Reichsjugendführer, and the representatives and leaders of the European and Japanese youth organizations present at the show.35 Just before the attack on the Soviet Union, Axmann and von Schirach proposed to create an anti-Bolshevik European association formed by the youth organizations of the Axis states. In May 1941 Axmann, in Italy on an official visit, got the complete support of Ciano and Mussolini for the fulfillment of this project. The Italians agreed to help create a pan-European association that would coordinate the youth of the continent and prepare them for the “New Order.”36 The following August an International Youth Sport competition was organized in Breslau with the participation of several European teams. It was the first concrete step toward the creation of the European Youth Association (EYA).37 According to the Italian consul of Breslau, Ezio Mizzan, who wrote a report about the contest, the relationship between Italian and German youth “was shaped by warm comradeship,” whereas the other European youth delegations, though showing “a correct reciprocal behavior,” did not fraternize: there was a strange atmosphere among them. There was not confidence, but fear and hesitation. The “minor countries” did not know how to interpret German behavior. The Nazis seemed to show a friendly face, but for most of the European countries present at Breslau Germany was more an “occupying force” than an ally. Moreover, in the final part of his letter, the Italian consul seemed to suggest that, in the end, the Italian–German relationship was not cordial enough.38 How did the Germans present the project? Opening the HJ Summer Games in Breslau, von Schirach announced the intention of creating, with the

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fundamental support of Italy, a permanent institution to unite all the youth organizations of the Axis states. In von Schirach’s words the association seemed as if it would be based on equality and respect. He maintained that even though they spoke different languages, the hearts of the European youth “beat in unison,” moved by the same ideals. Boys and girls of the continent were “brothers and sisters,” fighting in the name of the European spirit against Bolshevik terror and Jewish gold. Boys and girls gathered in Breslau prefigured the future Europe, a continent, according to von Schirach, bound to be united in absolute concord. We may doubt the sincerity of these words, and we may imagine that the “concord” von Schirach was thinking about was, in reality, the “totalitarian uniform­ ity” imposed by the Nazis. But, at that time, two months after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, while Hitler was not disclosing his projects and ideas, the HJ presented itself as conciliatory and willing to cooperate, in the name of a “New Europe,” with the other youth organizations.39 Von Schirach’s official speech and Mizzan’s diplomatic letter spoke two different languages. Even though the Hitler Youth was still presenting a friendly face, and even though on public occasions some leaders of the Nazi regime were lavishing promises of a better future for the entire continent, many Europeans remained extremely suspicious, as the Italian diplomat pointed out. The allies of Hitler knew that he had the last word about the destiny of the continent. The Europeans taking part in Operation Barbarossa wanted to know if their intervention in support of the Nazis would guarantee a better future for their countries. Hitler, however, remained silent. In August 1941 Roosevelt and Churchill issued their statement of war aims in the Atlantic Charter. German Foreign Ministry officials thought that Hitler should do the same and express the Nazi vision of the postwar world in order to increase European support. For Hitler, however, given that the Axis powers were winning, issuing “lofty declarations” was useless. Hitler was confident that Germany would win and that Europe would be unified under Nazi leadership.40 But in October 1941 the Red Army did not fold, and the weather conditions worsened. The Nazi Foreign Ministry stressed the importance of the need for Germany to propose a positive program for the future of Europe. At the end of November 1941, the foreign ministers of Germany, Italy, and Japan met in Berlin to renew the 1936 Anti-Comintern Pact together with other new signatories (Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Spain). During the meeting the Führer seemed to be more diplomatic, publicly extolling the contribution made by Germany’s faithful allies. But it was a false dawn, a product of Hitler’s temporary pessimism about the course of the war.41 At the beginning of 1942 von Schirach, invited by Ciano, visited Italy. In a telegram dated February 17, 1942, sent to Hans Georg von Mackensen, German



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ambassador in Rome, Martin Franz Julius Luther, undersecretary of the German Foreign Ministry, discussed von Schirach’s visit. In the telegram Luther explained that during his stay the Gauleiter of Vienna suggested the sharing of the EYA’s offices: the supreme leaders of the HJ and the GIL would be joint chairs of the new European Association—while the honorary permanent chairmanship would be assigned to von Schirach only. Luther asked the German ambassador to discover what the Italians might think about this division of responsibilities. It was necessary to see if the Fascists would agree with a German honorary chairmanship, if they would demand to appoint in turn an honorary president, or if they would prefer to rotate the chairmanship between Italy and Germany.42 The Nazis did not want to appear to predominate; they wanted to give the Italians the illusion of being important, the illusion of still playing an equal role in the Italian–German relationship. Even though by 1942 Fascist Italy was already considered by the Nazis to be a ragged partner, Germany had to pay attention to its southern ally. The Nazis knew that Italy, despite its weakness, had a fundamental role to play in the war theater. It was the pillar of the defense system on the southern border of the Third Reich.43 While von Schirach went to Italy, Axmann met the people responsible for youth education in Bulgaria (Stefan Kletschkoff ), Denmark (Hans Jensen), Flanders (Eduard Lehembre), Holland (Cornelius van Geelkerken), Hungary (Vitez Alois Beldy), Norway (Axel Stang), Romania (Viktor Iliescu), and Slovakia (Alois Macek). He invited them and their youth to the Ponte Culturale WeimarFirenze/Kulturkundgebung Weimar-Florenz (Cultural Manifestation WeimarFlorence), a cultural event that was taking place in June, and he presented, off the record, the project of the European Youth Association. Once again the Hitler Youth tried to be reassuring about its good intentions: each nation had to continue managing its national education independently; the proposed association would not impose orders from above; the members of the association were to be equal. The youth organizations that joined the Association would simply commit themselves to fight against the common enemies: Russian Bolshevism and western capitalism.44 The Nazis were in the driving seat, but the Italians seemed to wish to conceal, more or less consciously, this fact.

Weimar-Firenze In June 1942 Fascists and Nazis opened the planned “European cultural event” in two different phases, the first in Weimar, city of Goethe and Schiller, and the second in Florence, city of Dante. The Ponte Culturale Weimar-Firenze included exhibitions, contests, and discussions about art, culture, and youth education. Nazis and Fascists invited youth from Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria,

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Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Holland, Hungary, Norway, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, and Japan. The event was presented as an opportunity for Axis youth to learn more about one another’s culture, and, above all, to celebrate German and Italian civilizations. Fascists and Nazis scripted such events to present Romanitá and Deutschtum as the cultural core of the future millennium. The French–British era was over; the Italian–German one had begun. The heirs of the Roman Empire and of the Holy Roman Empire were ready to become once again cultural and spiritual guides of the peoples of Europe, fighting the culture-destroying powers of Jewry, Bolshevism, and plutocracy.45 In the “German phase” (17–24 June) various events were organized, including five discussion groups: Music, Books, Press, Theater, and Radio. On these panels the representatives of the European youth organizations described the aims and activities of their own organizations; exchanged opinions, ideas, and experiences; and established future forms of collaboration. The group concerned with music, in order to facilitate the mutual knowledge of national musical traditions, proposed the creation of a “Center for European Music.” The center would include an archive, aimed at collecting texts of national anthems and political songs, scores of popular and youth songs, and actual recordings from across the continent. The center would also produce broadcasts and facilitate the exchange of youth musicians and youth musical groups from all over the continent. The books group was to study the youth book market and promote the translation and publication of the most important European youth books. The press group would encourage the reciprocal exchange of reviews, magazines, and propaganda material among all of the European youth organizations. The theater group agreed to create an office to collect scripts of past and contemporary European theatrical works. Finally, the radio group wished to promote the development of the radio as an entertainment, political, and propaganda instrument for European youth.46 These groups did not seem to promote an Italo-German monopolization of European culture; rather, they conveyed the impression of supporting the creation of a common continental civilization, the contents of which were deliberately left unstated. The meeting was also an opportunity to organize joint cultural expositions and contests. Three events were organized: “Music activity of the Hitler Youth,” “European youth press,” and “German and European youth books.” For this last exhibition, three literary prizes were awarded: for the best illustrated book for children, the best youth book, and the best biography. A musical contest was also organized with twenty-eight young European competitors, closing with the concert of an Italian and German youth choir. Discussion groups, expositions, prizes, and competitons were all presented as pan-European. They had to give an impression of equality among all the participants at the Kulturkundgebung.



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But German and Italian youth shared the greatest number of prizes and victories in every contest. In this way the ineluctable superiority of the Roman-Germanic civilization was somehow confirmed.47 The representatives of the European youth organizations moved from Weimar to Florence on June 25. In his welcome speech the secretary of the Fascist Party, Aldo Vidussoni, seized the opportunity not only to celebrate German and Italian culture, but also to give prominence to Italy and its Duce. Fascist Italy, the PNF secretary explained, looked with pride at the youth who in Weimar and Florence were reasserting “the cultural principles of the Roman spirit and of Germanism.” The Axis powers, he continued, were leading an epic fight to defend European civilization against Russian Bolshevism. The PNF secretary, who had lost an eye and an arm during the battle of Santander in Spain in 1937, remembered how the heroic youth, which was “writing immortal pages of history” against the Allies, found inspiration in the doctrine of Mussolini, the first Fascist ever. Vidussoni wanted to remind the Nazis and the other European allies of the political and ideological primacy of Italian Fascism. He wanted to establish a balance, he wanted to bring prestige to a country that was failing miserably in the battlefields.48 The cultural discussions initiated in Weimar continued in the following days in Florence. The European delegations confirmed the plans laid down in Germany about theater and radio and proposed a more intense collaboration in the youth film industry. While in Weimar literary prizes were awarded, in Florence, where a youth cinema festival took place, four film awards were made, obviously named after Nazi and Fascist leaders: Joseph Goebbels, German minister of propaganda; Alessandro Pavolini, Italian minister of popular culture; Axmann; and Ricci. On June 28, to celebrate the end of the Ponte Culturale, the GIL held a concert in the Boboli gardens. The delegations, before returning to their own countries, went to Siena on June 30 to watch the Palio, a famous horse race, and then, on July 1, to Rome where a big concert performed by Italian and German youths was held at the Opera Theatre, concluding the pan-European youth meeting.49 The Cultural Manifestation Weimar-Florence was just one of several cultural events organized by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The war saw the consolidation of Axis cultural exchange networks that had been developing since 1936. Paradoxically, whereas the conflict was creating tensions in the political relationship between the two countries, the Italian–German cultural relationship became stronger. In the early 1940s contacts and exchanges between Fascists and Nazis peaked. Conferences brought together Italian and German doctors, lawyers, writers, goldsmiths, filmmakers, experts in chemical warfare, and engineers. The Germans, who avoided making broad statements about the

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political future of the continent, were willing to organize international events publicizing the theme of Europe. And the Italians exploited any occasion they could to put themselves on the pedestal. Both Nazis and Fascists wanted to proclaim their authority in Europe by means of cultural initiatives. A mixture of “camaraderie, caution, and rivalry characterized the interactions of Italians and Germans, who sought to mobilize culture for the creation of a new model of European civilization.”50 Both Italians and Germans considered the war the birthplace of a new Fascist culture, drawing on the cultural heritage of their own two nations. The exact future development of this new civilization was open. Italy was well aware of the threatening political and military strength of its ally, fearing that Italy could become a Nazi satellite in the New European Order dominated by Germany. But in spite of this, the Italians did not want to surrender; they still wanted to play a role in that order and they used culture as means to assert their influence. As the German ambassador to Rome, von Mackensen, noted in May 1942 in a letter sent to the Foreign Ministry in Berlin, Italy was intensifying its efforts to increase Italian cultural presence in the Balkans as a “diversion” with respect to the Nazi military and economic supremacy in the zone.51 The Italians were placing cultural diffusion ahead of racial purity, funding networks of “Dante Alighieri schools” to teach those in the Balkans the glories of Italian literature.52 Mussolini considered Italy Europe’s cultural arbiter, and many Italian intellectuals felt that Italian cultural and artistic patrimony made them “the Axis’s natural cultural leader.”53 It is significant that in 1940 an Italian book entitled Latinità e Germanesimo (Latinity and Germanism) proposed the creation of a different kind of international order based on cultural rather than on military hegemony. In this book, Balbino Giuliano, former minister of national education, explained that Germany might defeat the enemies, but that only Italy could serve as “the New Europe’s educative and spiritual resource.”54 The Nazis obviously did not give way to Fascist cultural expansionism. They interfered with it, and they colonized the states they conquered politically, economically, and culturally. The Fascists tried to monitor their ally’s movements. In August 1940 Giuseppe Bottai wrote in his diary that “the theme of the ‘New Europe’” would not be “a German monopoly.” And he added: “We have to make sure that our own Fascist theses have authority.”55 Bottai supported the circulation of such ideas, founding a journal entitled Primato (Primacy). Its aim was to support the cause of Italian cultural hegemony, stressing that Italy and Germany had to act with absolute autonomy, and arguing that only Italy could be the protector and custodian of civilization and culture. Bottai was perfectly aware of the expansionary nature of Nazi imperialism and of its racial destructiveness. And he thought that Italy’s distinctive contribution to Europe was to draw Germany into a system of



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collaboration with other states. To this aim Bottai and other Italians devoted themselves during the war “to bringing together like-minded Europeans from the sphere of culture and intellectual life.”56 Culture, they thought, could guarantee Italy a special place in the continent; Rome, at the end of World War II, they argued, should be the beacon of civilization of the “New Europe.” The Fascists “felt that Italy’s glorious artistic heritage made it a natural leader in the cultural realm, while Goebbels and other Nazi officials saw Italian ambitions as ‘interfering’ with their own plans for domination.” The Nazis tended to propose forms of collaboration that turned out to be mere forms of German cultural imperialism. They talked about “spiritual unity,” but they meant Teutonic uniformity.57

The European Youth Association In the summer of 1942 Germans felt confident of victory, and the swastika flew from the Channel Islands to Russia, from Norway to the Sahara. The Germans needed help more than ever to end the conflict; they needed both men and resources. On the other hand, by that time, the German allies had reached most of their goals and wanted Germany to announce their projects for the future of Europe. If the Nazis wanted them to fight by their side with all their might, Berlin had to provide a clear definition of what the allies had to expect in a peacetime Europe under German hegemony. If the Nazis wanted to win the war, they had to give answers and make promises. It was amidst these circumstances that the youth organizations of Europe were preparing for the foundation of the European Youth Association.58 In August 1942 the Germans and the Italians started working on the brochure to promote the first EYA Congress.59 The Germans were able to move the congress from Venice, previously selected as the host city, to Vienna. Locating the gathering in the Reich, the Nazis indirectly expressed the German claim to leadership, although they officially did their best to present the Association as a European collective project. In the same month the HJ supreme leader sent a letter to Vidussoni inviting Orfeo Sellani, the vice commander of the GIL, to Munich. Axmann wanted to meet him to make the final arrangements.60 After the meeting the Hitler Youth sent a report to the German minister of propaganda about the EYA. According to the report, the European Association had to create above all solid links between the European youth and the Nazis. The report also emphasized the need for newspapers and magazines to stress the importance of the event and called for radios all over the continent to broadcast a special program about the foundation of the Association, including extracts of the speeches made by the leaders of all the European youth organizations present

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at Vienna. In this way, the report concluded, the Association would appear to be a real collective project and the European allies of Germany would feel confident about Nazi good will.61 The official magazine of the event, entitled Europa, Kontinent der Jugend (Europe, Continent of Youth), was also planned as a celebration of European culture. Texts and articles were to be broken up with pictures of European art and of European intellectuals. Most of the pictures, however, represented German and Italian paintings, sculptures, and artists. Where was the rest of Europe? The EYA, before its foundation, confirmed the centrality of Italy and Germany to the organization, as had already been demonstrated in Weimar and Florence.62 Two weeks before the foundation of the European Youth Association, on September 2, 1942, an International Student Assembly, sponsored by the American Committee of International Student Service, was held in Washington, D.C. On this occasion students and professors discussed topics including democracy, freedom, nationalism, colonialism, and the opening of a second front in Europe. The assembly not only hosted delegations from the Allied nations, but also representatives of anti-Fascist and anti-Nazi groups coming from “enemy countries,” including Italy, Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. China, with twenty-seven delegates, had the largest representation of any country other than the United States, which was represented by eighty-two delegates and seventy-seven observers from various colleges and universities. The president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, addressed the students on September 3. The Americans made special arrangements to take the president’s message to the youth of the entire world, rebroadcasting the speech in thirty-one languages.63 The American president began his speech explaining that in the days preceding the assembly the Axis used the radio to throw mud at the youth initiative organized by the International Student Service. Moreover, the president underlined that the speech he was going to deliver would most probably be ignored by the European and the Japanese youth because the airwaves in all Axis-dominated nations would be jammed. Turning directly to the Axis youth, Roosevelt explained the reason why Germany, Italy, and Japan would censor any news about this meeting: “The reason for this hysterically defensive attitude toward this gathering is not hard to find. For many years they have made their hypocritical appeal to you: they have tried with all their blatant publicity to represent themselves as the champions of youth. But now the world knows that the Nazis, the Fascists, and the militarists of Japan have nothing to offer to you except death.”64 The cause of the United Nations, asserted Roosevelt, was instead the cause of youth itself, the hope of the new generations. The president,



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discussing the organization of the youth that the Axis wanted to implement, said that the Nazis were trying to create youth organizations built on the Nazi pattern—not a pattern “devised by youth for youth,” but “a pattern devised by Hitler and imposed upon youth by form of mental forcible feeding.” The European youth were the “cannon fodder” for Hitler, destined to be slaughtered on the Eastern Front. In spite of this, in spite of the madness of the Nazi project, Roosevelt said, the Allies had to exult because, in the end, they would win. It would “be the young, free men and women of the United Nations and not the wound-up robots of the slave states who [would] mold the shape of the new world.” Concluding his speech, Roosevelt emphasized the difficulties the Allies would face in defeating the Axis, but he also reaffirmed the Allies’ dedication to the Four Freedoms and to the basic principles of the Atlantic Charter. Roosevelt believed that “with Divine guidance” the Allies could make “a steady progress toward the highest goals that men have ever imagined.” He believed that the United Nations had “the technical means, the physical resources, and, most of all, the adventurous courage and the vision and the will” needed to build and sustain the new world order. The American president urged his listeners to “maintain the offensive against evil in all its forms.” The Allies had to work, fight, and ensure that children would “enjoy in peace their inalienable right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.”65 The Nazis answered immediately. On September 4, Baldur von Schirach delivered a radio address. He announced the foundation of the EYA, but, above all, criticized Roosevelt. Using the microphones of the Reichsrundfunk, the Gauleiter of Vienna claimed that the president of the United States would never be an educator because he lacked educational instruments comparable to those Hitler and Mussolini had at their disposal. Von Schirach accused Roosevelt of paying lip service to ideas like freedom from want and freedom from fear. They were false and unreal promises, he insisted; the European youth, mindful of Wilson’s “fourteen points,” would never believe in him. The only true peace, maintained the Gauleiter of Vienna, was not the one proposed by the Americans, but that promised by the Axis. Roosevelt’s world, according to von Schirach, would have been a world that guaranteed only the rich a place, ignoring the poor. The Nazis, instead, would unite all the people of the world, without taking into consideration the size of their territories or their wealth, in the name of the most absolute equality. This, he added, was at the heart of the foundation of the new European Youth Association.66 Roosevelt’s and von Schirach’s speeches focused on two different themes. The American president tried to highlight the importance of freedom and presented the Allies, on the basis of

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the Atlantic Charter, as liberators of Europe. Von Schirach instead, on the strength of the past Ponte Culturale and of the upcoming Congress of Vienna, could claim that the Axis was creating a new world based on absolute equality. On September 14, 1942, at the Academy of Sciences of Vienna, the association destined to join together forty-four million young Europeans was formally established. Present at the foundation congress, in addition to the leader of the HJ and the GIL, were representatives from the Frentes de Juventudes (Spain), the Nationaal-Socialistische Jeugd Vlaanderen (Flanders), the Rex Jugend (Wallonia), the Brannik (Bulgaria), the Nationalsocialistisk Ungdom (Denmark), the Educatie Premilitare (Romania), the Hlinka (Slovakia), the Ustascia (Croatia), the Nazionale Jeugd Storm (Holland), the Levente (Hungary), the Nasjonal Samlings Ungdomsfylking (Norway), and, finally, the Finnish Boy Scouts. The Nazis included in their delegation Czech, Latvian, and Estonian representatives. As official guests representatives from Portugal and Japan were also invited, while, according to Axmann’s memoirs, unofficially present at the event were French youth representatives.67 The opening ceremony was organized in such a way that it was clear, from the very beginning, what role each organization was going to play in the association. The Nazis’ commanding role in the EYA was evident, but they placed Italy alongside themselves to mask, or at least to soften, their hegemonic goals through references to the cooperative relationship between themselves and the Italians.68 Von Schirach, although he regarded the EYA as a creature of his own, and although he was completely aware of Italian military failures, in his inaugural speech wanted to let everybody think that the Nazis and the Fascists were primi inter pares and that the Hitlerjugend would not enjoy absolute power inside the EYA. Von Schirach proclaimed that, joining the European Youth Association, the youth of Europe were becoming equal comrades. After the appointment of Vidussoni and Axmann as presidents of the Association, von Schirach yelded the floor to the secretary of the Fascist Party. Vidussoni, having recalled, as always, the central role played by Mussolini in the continental development of Fascist ideology, asserted that, with the faith with which he always served the cause of the Fascist Revolution, in the name of a New Europe freed from “Bolshevism and Judaic gold plutocracy,” he would devote himself completely to the Association. The investiture ceremony, monopolized by Italians and Germans and planned several months before, continued. But the Nazi–Fascist mutual assignment of major offices in the hierarchy of the EYA was mere empty choreography. Even though the European Youth Association had a German and an Italian president (Axmann and Vidussoni), and a German and an Italian honorary permanent president (von Schirach and Ricci), the egalitarian presence of the Fascists alongside the Nazis was a pure concession of the Germans.69



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To rationalize the work of the Association, and to give the illusion of a real egalitarian collaboration, several commissions were instituted during the first session of the EYA. Germany and Italy chaired two commissions each: Sport and Travels and Building were German; Propaganda and Education of Youth Leaders were Italian. Spain, Germany, and Italy cochaired the on Female Education commission. All other countries was assigned the direction of one commission: Youth and Family (Spain), Youth Health (Belgium), Youth Law (Bulgaria), Free Time (Denmark), Moral Education (Finland), Professional Training (Croatia), Art and Culture (Holland), Agriculture (Norway), School Education (Romania), Customs (Slovakia), and, finally, Premilitary Training (Hungary). Every country would hold the chair of the assigned commission for three years. Every commission could decide its own seat and could organize meetings independently from the annual congresses of the EYA.70 The assignment of the commission Education of Youth Leaders to Italy was a way to acknowledge Italian primacy in this field. Indeed, as we can read in the final report presented by Ricci at the closing meeting of the congress, by means of the academies of the Mussolini Forum and Orvieto, well-known all over the world, the colleges for the training of the instructors, the courses for the training of the officers, the teachers, and the young leaders, Fascists had at their disposal an entire apparatus, tested by almost twenty years of experience, that could be considered useful benchmarks for those nations that had only recently begun their experiments in this field.71 The Italians had discovered through several years of experience how best to train the leaders of their youth organization, and they could now teach other European youth organizations how to create a viable youth leadership from scratch. Axmann underscored indeed that Ricci had created the revolutionary forms that redesigned Italian youth education, without having examples and traditions to follow, transforming the Italian youth organization into a model for others.72 After five working days, on September 18, the commissions presented their reports and proposals. The Travels and Building commission suggested the creation of at least one big central youth hostel in every country, the first step in the creation of a continental network of hostels that would facilitate contacts and exchanges among all European youth. The Premilitary Education commission proposed to carry out every year a series of exercises at one big European military campsite, bringing together and training the greatest number of European youth. The Sport commission suggested creating, in addition to the EYA, a European Youth Sport Association. It would be involved in the organization of any youth sporting event taking place in Europe, and, above all, would organize the European youth sport championships. The Moral Education committee identified Bolshevism, Judaism, and Anglo-American plutocracy as the main

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enemies that European youth had to understand and battle, and suggested the need to concentrate the ideological education of the future generations against these three molochs. The Art and Culture commission suggested the need to follow the path established by the cultural meetings of Weimar and Florence and organize similar events. The School commission proposed to work to eliminate from European school curricula any influence extraneous to the European race, along with any element coming from masonic, democratic, Bolshevik, or Jewish culture. The representatives of the Propaganda commission proposed to organize steady exchanges not only of executives, members, and musical groups of the youth organizations, but also of films, broadcasts, and journals. Moreover, in order to develop a stronger feeling of belonging among the various youth organizations, the Propaganda commission decided to create a journal of the association under the common direction of Germany and Italy. The Education of Youth Leaders commission decided to intensify the training of all youth leaders according to common values and principles. In order to achieve this goal, the commission proposed to increase the number of meetings between the leaders of the youth organizations. Finally, the Female Education commission decided to take several common measures to standardize the education of European girls and women, not only in the domestic sphere, but also in the spheres of culture and sport.73 The congress was criticized, of course, by the Allies. In an article published in the New York Times on September 26, 1942, the journalist Harold Callender explained that the Nazis were using all the means at their disposal to depict the conquest of Europe as something positive for the Europeans. They began a campaign to “sell” Europeans on what they now preferred to call the “New Europe” rather than the “New Order.” The European meeting organized by von Schirach tried to present a new European vision, according to the New York Times, but this image of a “happy family,” composed by all the European states helping Germany win the war, was not convincing at all. Finally, in a BBC broadcast of October 24, 1942, Thomas Mann, speaking in German to his countrymen about the Vienna Congress, said that the “youth delegations coming from the occupied countries and from the countries allied with the Axis [had been] forced to accept the foundation of a European youth organization under the guidance of Baldur von Schirach,” who, after having been leader of the Hitler Youth, had now become “leader of the European youth.” Mann thought that von Schirach’s words were impudently hypocritical. He spoke about freedom, he spoke about equality, but they were all lies.74 Criticism arose also from the Nazi side. One of the major critics of the congress was von Ribbentrop. The Nazi foreign minister looked suspiciously on every international initiative. During World War II von Ribbentrop became,



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like many other representatives of the Nazi regime, more and more jealous of his sphere of power, devoting much of his time to useless struggles against his alleged rivals, as on the occasion of the EYA Congress.75 The German foreign minister immediately displayed his hostility toward the event, refusing to send a representative of his Ministry to Vienna.76 He did not accept the autonomy displayed by the former leader of the Hitler Youth; he considered the Congress of Vienna a kind of parallel diplomacy and accused von Schirach of having invaded his own “pitch.” Taking sole charge of the negotiations for the organization of the congress, von Schirach had indeed behaved as a kind of foreign minister. However, von Ribbentrop was also bothered because von Schirach had ignored his request to focus only on art and culture at the congress. As we have seen, the European representatives discussed many other topics, outlining the shape of a much broader political collaboration among European youth.77 Goebbels’s hostility toward the congress was reflected in German newspapers and magazines. Unlike the foreign press, which depicted the congress as a turning point in the Nazi attitude toward the Axis’ allies, the German journals were almost indifferent to the event.78 According to the propaganda minister, the Congress of Vienna, renamed by him Jugendkirmes (amusement park for children) and Baldurs Kinderfest (Baldur’s children party), would not have any practical consequence. Events like the foundation of the EYA were, for Goebbels, worthless. He thought that von Schirach had committed a huge mistake openly talking about the future of Europe without having the qualifications to do so. Goebbels believed that only at the end of the war could the Germans clearly decide how they would behave with respect to the other European states. For the moment, following Hitler’s example, Goebbels thought it was necessary to avoid promises, to desist from talking about Europe’s political future, and to hold an ambiguous attitude with respect to any future continental projects of the regime. During one of his secret conferences with German journalists, in which they received specific instructions about the ideas they could and could not express on specific issues, Goebbels was extremely clear about the European Order. On September 16, 1942, a couple of days after the beginning of the Congress of Vienna, the propaganda minister “polemicized very sharply against the talk of a ‘New Europe.’” He thought it was not advisable for the Nazis to make too “much noise about this subject at present.” He thought that nobody in the world would believe that the Nazis would fight for a “New Europe” without pursuing their own material interests.79 The German concept of a New European Order remained vague and changed continuously.80 Moreover, there were tensions between different visions of the future held by different German agencies, voices of exploitation mingled with voices of collaboration.81 If the Führer kept silent, without expressing his

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ideas about the future of the continent, several Nazis, such as the HJ leaders, did nothing but foster the illusions of their European “allies” and “collaborators.”82 There were Nazis who thought that the German conquest of territories that were not part of the Reich’s Lebensraum posed ideological and organizational challenges for the regime. They thought that the exploitation of an entire continent for the benefit of an imperial Herrenvolk (master race) could be counterproductive. The most primitive and inferior peoples had to be exterminated, but in general German hegemony did not have to mean denationalization or repression. Each “worthy” racial group had to develop independently and enjoy its own Lebensraum. The solution was to create a continent of nations working together under the rule of their “natural” leader: Germany. To have the support of the Europeans, Italians included, it was necessary to reassure others that absorption into the German orbit did not mean termination of national existence.83 This Nazi pan-Europeanism that was disseminated in the occupied territories was, however, nothing else but “cynical propaganda calculated to encourage, if not the active cooperation, then the passive acquiescence of the new vassals.” The Nazi leaders did not intend to compromise absolute German hegemony. All the international events organized in occupied Europe, included the congress for the creation of the EYA, have to be seen “as little more than organs of Gleichschaltung and would-be totalitarian social control.”84 The congress for the foundation of the EYA, like the meeting organized in Weimar in October 1942 to inaugurate the creation of the German-sponsored European Union of Writers, was an expression of Nazi tokenism. On both occasions the Nazis met the needs of their guests and offered food, speeches, outings, and concerts. On both occasions there were speeches about the Axis crusade against Bolsheviks, democrats, and Jews. On both occasions the Nazis talked of equality. On both occasions the Fascists were beside them, presented as equal rank allies and friends. But the swastika-draped rooms, filled with European representatives surrounded by Nazis in uniform, were a kind of “microcosm of the Nazi-dominated cultural order that was to emerge from the war.”85

After the Congress After the Congress of Vienna the EYA did not enjoy the opportunity to carry out its functions. The last official event, in which the representatives of all the organizations that had joined the EYA took part, along with youth from Portugal and Albania, was the Sport Championship of the European Youth that took place in Milan in October 1942.86 On this occasion, as reported in a note for the Italian minister of popular culture, the Germans betrayed their real attitude toward their European partners. The Nazis, according to the Italian informer,



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had “criticized the behavior of the delegates . . . coming from the little European nations” who had not “yet fully understood the position of their states in the new European frame.” The event had demonstrated, the informer thought, the real Nazi project. He stated: “At the end of the war, if the Axis won, there should be two ruling states. All the others would be ruled. However, it will be necessary that Germany keeps under its military control, at least for twenty years, all those states,” Italy included.87 The increasing intensity of the war in eastern Europe forced Germany to concentrate all its attention on the conflict and to limit drastically the foreign activity of the Hitlerjugend. In January 1943, in a conversation between the German Foreign Ministry undersecretary Luther and the Italian ambassador Dino Alfieri, about the collaboration between GIL and HJ, the Nazi representative communicated that Germany wanted to stop the activities connected with the EYA. The Führer had placed severe and strict measures on all Nazi organizations: they had to avoid, until the end of the war, all their European initiatives and activities, and they had to stop the planning, preparation, and fulfillment of international events such as congresses, meetings, and foundations of associations. The Germans presumably thought that all these meetings and exchanges could facilitate international espionage and cause avoidable expenses. From the Italian side there was no resistance. Luther and Alfieri agreed that German and Italian youth had to continue cooperating, and they were convinced that they could do that outside of the structure of the EYA. The idea was to stop momentarily the activity of the Association and to resume it again at the end of the conflict. The Duce generally agreed with the decisions taken in Berlin and imparted measures similar to those decreed by Hitler.88 After the debacle of Stalingrad there was an important change of direction in Nazi conduct. Goebbels instructed the press “to avoid talk of colonizing the east and to refer positively to the role of east European nations in the fight against Judeo-Bolshevism.” The Nazi foreign minister also thought it was necessary to change course. In February 1943 von Ribbentrop went to Rome, along with Karl Megerle, one of his ministerial advisers. Megerle, after having talked to the Italians, was aware that the Nazis could not govern “by the bayonet and violence” and that they had “to associate the European peoples with the future of the continent in terms acceptable to them all, or at least to a majority.” Megerle thought that if Mussolini spoke with the Führer, he might have a chance of changing Hitler’s mind. Von Ribbentrop’s adviser thought that the “small nations of Europe” were turning to Italy as the “mother of civilization and justice.” A pro-Europe announcement could give new hope to those nations and could help the Germans regain their support. In March 1943, the Foreign Ministry drafted a declaration for a postwar European confederation that

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committed Germany unambiguously to preserving the rights of small states. The draft talked of the confederation’s members as sovereign states, guaranteeing freedom and political independence. The Axis had to promise the little states that once they had defeated the Soviets and the Americans they would not be the Nazis’ slaves. Hitler, however, refused to make any declaration; it would be an expression of German weakness.89

The Großgermanischer Jugendverband After Stalingrad the Nazis focused on their own youth to move forward in eastern Europe. To carry out their conquest the Nazis also decided to intensify their utilization of the so-called Eastern Volunteers of the Germanic Youth, Germanic youth coming from Holland, Norway, Denmark, and Belgium to help fight in the east. The youth coming from these countries were different from other Europeans: “Nazi racialism assigned different places to different nations according to their racial origin.” These youth “of Nordic extraction, even though conquered,” were “to rank higher than others whose destiny [was] to serve the German Reich as slaves.” They were “allowed a certain measure of autonomy, always of course under the general supervision of the master race.”90 In March 1943 the Hitler Youth and the Waffen SS organized a onemonth military training camp for members of the HJ and an additional two hundred youth coming from Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Flanders, and Wallonia. These youth, whom the Nazis wanted to assimilate, had to start feeling themselves to be members of the Reich. The German Lebensraum in eastern Europe, Hitler believed, had to be conquered and populated by millions of settlers—and not just by “German pioneers,” but by other members of the “Germanic race,” such as Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, Dutch, and Flemings, who would also profit from the new opportunities.91 After the collapse of the Italian regime in July 1943, the Nazis were finally free to show their real face, a face they had always tried to hide. In the “ideal Nazi world” the German race had to lead the European continent, and all the other European peoples had to be relegated to the role of subjects. Axmann and von Schirach decided to exhume the EYA in order to join together, under absolute German control, the still existing youth organizations. Unmasking itself, the European Association became an instrument in the hands of the Reichs­ jugendführung. The HJ maintained the name of the organization that had been founded in Vienna, but it was something different. It was not a European agency anymore but a kind of Großgermanischer Jugendverband (pan-Germanic youth association). The immediate aim of the “new” EYA, reestablished in February 1944, was to mobilize all European youth to fight against the Allies.



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The long-term goal, once the enemies had been defeated, was to educate the Germanic youth from childhood onwards. They had to become citizens of the Großgermanisches Reich, from which Latin and Slavic inferior people were to be excluded. This perspective was completely in contrast with what Günter Kauf­ mann, von Schirach’s spokesman, had written one year before in an article published in Wille und Macht. Kaufmann had said in fact that Europe, after the victory of the Axis, would be a bundle of nations, a set of peoples, of Romans, Germans, and Slavs, united in only one family where no one had to renounce their own character or had to feel inferior or underestimated.92 On June 21, 1944, the midsummer night of the Germanic Youth was celebrated in Marienburg. Boys and girls from Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Flanders, Holland, Latvia, Norway, and Wallonia participated. At this meeting Axmann said that all the Germanic youth of Europe were celebrating the Solstice around the fire, in the name of their common ancestors. The Reichsjugend­ führer maintained that the Germanic youth, following Adolf Hitler, would defeat their enemies. Three months later, at the congress of the Association held in Copenhagen, the representatives of the youth organizations of Belgium, Holland, and Norway declared that they would fight for the Nazi victory, supporting “the total war of the Hitler Youth.” After a few weeks, however, these territories were removed from the German circle of influence, putting an end to what remained of the EYA.93 World War II had made the Nazi–Fascist relationship much more difficult. The conflict exposed the weakness of Fascist Italy and highlighted the strength of Nazi Germany. The dream of an Italian “parallel war,” fought independently of Germany, got stuck in the Balkans. The “Italian war” was a string of catastrophic failures, and, during the Russian campaign of 1942, the Italians realized how weak they were compared to the Nazi war machine.94 Italy lost its role as costar on the European stage, even though Germany tried diplomatically to conceal this. But despite their frailty, the Fascists did not want to renounce their role as protagonists, along with the Nazis, of the New European Order. Both Fascists and Nazis considered the New Europe that the war was molding a “hierarchy of peoples.” But if Germany wanted to occupy the apex of this hierarchy, Italy considered the Axis “an alliance of two equal managers of a new world civilization.”95 The same dynamics characterized the relationship between Nazi and Fascist youth organizations. If the Italians thought it was possible to lead the EYA by means of a genuine Italian–German duopoly, the Hitler Youth considered the Association an additional instrument of Nazi supremacy. Fascists asserted with pride the importance of the strategic Italian role in the war, the centrality of Italian culture to the European tradition, and the relevance of Italy as the first Fascist state. Between 1940 and 1943 Italy did

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not bow its head before Germany, but tried to assert its autonomy and to reinforce, also by means of its youth organization, its position in the continental hierarchy. The Gioventù del Littorio tried to steal the show from the Hitler Youth, but Nazi Germany was the one and only master in the continental theater. In the following pages we will analyze the consequences of World War II for the Nazi and Fascist youth leadership and will seek to understand how Germans and Italians faced the shortage of youth leaders during the conflict.

10 Nazi and Fascist Youth Leaders and the Effects of War W

ar was at the heart of Nazi and Fascist ideologies. Both regimes emerged from the devastation of World War I and both regimes committed themselves to transforming their citizens, and above all their youth, into soldiers. When World War II broke out the German and the Italian youth leaders felt that they had to leave for the battlefield. For years they educated Pimpfe, Hitlerjungen, Balilla, and Avanguardisti to follow respectively the Nazi and the Fascist ideology. For years they trained German and Italian youth, trying to transform them into fighters. World War II became for the youth leaders the moment of truth. The leaders had to demonstrate on the battlefields their faith and their abilities; they had to show themselves to be worthy of their fathers and brothers who had died in the trenches of the Great War; and they had to show themselves to be worthy of their roles as youth educators. In short, they had to go to the front; they had no other choice, no other possibilities. But, leaving their positions, Fascist and Nazi youth leaders endangered their organizations. In both countries emergency measures were taken to avoid the dissolution of the youth organizations. Despite this, they continued to lose their leaders. How did Nazis and Fascists face the crisis of the youth leadership in World War II? How did they deal with the shortage of youth leaders until both regimes collapsed? Nazis and Fascists could not let their pedagogical projects lapse. They both tried, despite the staff shortage, despite the military difficulties, and despite the defeats, to continue their process of Nazification and Fascistization of the next generations. Nazis and Fascists needed to train young soldiers, needed to train home front propagandists, needed to control young defeatists, critics, and opponents, and needed to show faith in the future, even if the war was ripping apart all their hopes and dreams. 199

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The Crisis of Youth Leadership in Germany Baldur von Schirach was afraid that after the outbreak of World War II his organization would suddenly lose its leaders. He was persuaded that his various subordinates, desirous of putting into practice the ideology the youth organization had dictated for years, would not resist the call of the frontline. Though knowing that his invitation would be ignored, the Reichsjugendführer requested expressly that the leaders of the Hitlerjugend not rush to the colors. He hoped they would enlist only if necessary, for without them the youth organization would have problems fulfilling its various obligations. However, at the beginning of October 1939, 273 high leaders enlisted and, at the end of November, 378— of the 424 HJ-Führer still working at the General Command—went off to war. In the same period 467 provincial leaders of the Hitlerjugend and of the Jung­ volk, out of a total of 1,100 men, also left. On December 11, 1939, Hitler caused further problems for von Schirach by ordering all the youth leaders born after 1910 to enlist. In May 1940 half of the foremen of the Reichsjugendführung were at the front, as well as 28 of the 36 regional leaders of the Nazi youth organization. The Hitler Youth was gradually losing all of its higher and lesser leaders.1 All these departures would have serious consequences for the Nazi organization, which although short of leaders, still had to carry out not only its ordinary activities (political and ideological classes; music and sport activities; and excursions), but also all those pertinent to the state of war, such as the intensification of military instruction. Therefore, in order to replace the youth leaders who had left, the Reichsjugendführung decided to once again organize the training courses for leaders it had interrupted in September 1939. As a consequence, in October 1940, the General Command ordered that in every region at least one school for male leaders and one for female leaders be reopened.2 As in peacetime, the reopened Bannführerschulen organized weekend courses for group and platoon leaders. Because of the war, these courses were renamed K(riegs)-Lehrgänge (war courses). Compared to their peacetime equivalents, the “war courses” devoted less time to games and sport, increasing the number of hours dedicated to military drills. The activities carried out in the Führerschulen were very similar to those later organized in the Wehrertüchtigungslager, the military summer camps established after 1942 and jointly managed by HJ, the Wehrmacht, and the SS to train the senior members of the youth organization (sixteen to eighteen years).3 The Reichsjugendführung was obliged to take emergency measures in the face of the war as well. Having fewer staff members at its disposal, there was the need for a drastic rationalization of personnel. The HJ General Command simplified the administrative procedures, cut the number of departments, and



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decentralized the system, giving more power to local commands. As a consequence of this administrative simplification, the General Command could reassign tasks inside the HJ, transforming former bureaucrats into HJ leaders. The Reichsjugendführer united the leadership, eliminating the distinction between Jungvolk and Hitlerjugend, and gave to the same individual the guidance of several provincial commands, renamed after the outbreak of the war K(riegs)Bannführungen. The Bannführer also changed their name becoming K(riegs)Bannführer. This function was given to students, party members, SS and SA leaders, teachers, and office workers. The Reichsjugendführung could not pay all of the provincial leaders and therefore also created the so-called Kommissarische Bannführer (provisional provincial leaders). These individuals carried out the same functions as the K-Bannführer, albeit without being paid or receiving, at most, a refund of their expenses.4 Another way for the organization to deal with the staff shortage was to recall those who had in the past played a leading role in the HJ. In spring 1940 the General Command of the Hitler Youth invited “all the former leaders of the Hitlerjugend, who [were] still in the fatherland and who [could] reconcile their job with the activity inside the youth organization, to report at the local Commands of the Hitler Youth.” The statement closed with the following sentence: “We all know that they, ready to fight, will listen joyfully to the call of the Führer’s youth organization—an organization they helped to create—now that our movement is facing its second battle.”5 It was also the shortage of leaders that pushed Axmann to come to an agreement with the Ministry of National Education. All the students who held a post as K-Bannführer and carried out a regular activity inside the Nazi Youth organization could obtain the high school diploma without sitting for the final exam. Moreover, all the students attending training courses to become HJ leaders were exempted from classes two days a week. To persuade the youth to enter the Hitlerjugend leadership, Axmann also came to an agreement with the NSDAP. It established that the elders of the youth organizations could obtain, when their career in the HJ ended, a role in the party or a job in the state administration.6 Before the outbreak of the war even a higher leader of the Bund Deutscher Mädel “could never issue an order to the lowest HJ boy.” And “on many occasions . . . HJ male leaders were gratuitously condescending or downright offensive to their female comrades.”7 After December 1939, to help the male youth organization, the General Command assigned relevant regional and provincial offices, usually given to men, to the leaders of the BDM. In addition, the General Command decided that the management of the human resources offices and of the Office for Ideological Training of the Hitlerjugend had to be given to Führerinnen. The General Command urged the male leaders to collaborate

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completely and in comradeship with their colleagues from the Bund Deutscher Mädel. However, despite this closer collaboration, boys and girls continued to be separated. Every Gebiet was led by a Gebietsführer, and there was always a Bann­ führer to manage a Bann. Likewise, the territorial wards of the BDM corresponding to Gebiet and Bann, that is, Obergau and Gau, continued being administrated respectively by an Obergauführerin and a Gauführerin.8 By the time the staff shortage in the HJ worsened, the Hitler Youth program also had to defend itself from the “threats” made by the NSDAP. The Nazi Party was, exactly like the HJ, in a delicate position. After the beginning of the war the party and its affiliates needed fresh leaders. Military conscription had taken many of them away, and the party was trying to draw replacements from the HJ. But the Reichsjugendführung countered that they lacked leaders too, and that, as a consequence, they could not comply with the party’s request. By September 1943, the party treasurer, Franz Xaver Schwarz, admitted that it might also become necessary to use the functionaries of the BDM in positions of responsibility within the Nazi Party. But such a move was impossible. Hitler, as Michael Kater explained, “could not part with the treasured notion of male supremacy in the highest party echelons. Consequently, although by 1944 the social structure of the common membership was changing noticeably—toward lower age levels and a large share of women—no such changes were occurring in the leadership corps, which remained exclusively male and was growing increasingly older.”9 The leadership was constituted, above all, by older men who were no longer able-bodied. The war turned out to be a “furnace” that was destroying the younger generation and threatening the functioning of the Nazi organizations.10 In January 1941 about 95 percent of the highest youth leadership was at the front. Many chiefs of the youth organization had already fallen during the war. From 1939 in the Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, a journal containing all the orders given by the General Command of the Hitler Youth, the names of all the fallen leaders of the Hitlerjugend were published. By 1941 the number of pages reporting the names of the fallen HJ-Führer had increased. According to a document of the General Command, when the Polish phase of the war ended, the youth leaders who had died in the war numbered 441. On January 21, 1941, the deaths totaled 1,619. On July 1, 1941, the fallen HJ leaders numbered 1,885. This would increase dramatically by February 15, 1942, to 6,986, among whom were 1,093 high leaders. The remaining 5,893 were very young, all at the very beginning of their careers.11 Paradoxically, despite the leadership shortage, the Hitler Youth tried to expand its power at the expense of the regular school system. As the German author Günther De Bruyn wrote in his memoirs, “Learning was postponed to



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the period after the Final Victory.”12 Von Schirach, as Reich plenipotentiary for youth education of the NSDAP, gained authority over the educational affairs not only of the HJ but also of the schools and the Nazi League of Teachers (NSLB). In January 1941 a new agreement was signed between von Schirach and Bernhard Rust, the Nazi minister of education, defining the educational areas of competence of the schools and the HJ and delineating the areas of cooperation between them. One of the most important and concrete initiatives taken by the HJ was the foundation in fall 1941 of the Lehrerbildungsanstalten. These institutes, aimed at training elementary school teachers (Volksschullehrer), were very similar to the Fascist Collegio Littorio. The Hitler Youth played a predominant role inside of them. It managed the institutes and selected the students—that is, the future elementary school teachers of Germany.13 Another important initiative aimed at further strengthening the power of the HJ over parents and teachers during the war was the creation in September 1940 of the Kinderlandverschikung program, or Save the Children in the Countryside. In order to protect young Nazis from the bombs increasingly falling on German towns and cities, the youth were sent away from densely populated areas. Children up to ten years of age were sent to live with Nazi families, whereas youth between ten and fourteen lived in camps supervised by HJ leaders. The teachers present at those camps were usually harassed by the HJFührer, who were the real bosses. Altercations between teachers and HJ camp leaders were a common occurrence. Even though most of the teachers were Nazi members of the NSLB, the Kinderlandverschikung turned out to be a real humiliation for the school educators and a triumph for the HJ. The Nazis used the war to carry out their battle against schools and parental homes. The war, despite the difficulties it entailed, was read as the final victory of Nazi pedagogy, as the best way to reshape the Volk.14 To streamline the bureaucratic system of the HJ and to reduce the number of people necessary to make it work, in December 1941 the Hitlerjugend and the BDM were united in one organization: the NS-Jugendorganisation. The female sections became branches inside the preexisting Gebiete and Banne. The common work in the new unitary youth organization was structured so that women could hold every leading role, with the only exception being the military ones. As a result, 75 percent of the executive and administrative offices inside the local commands were soon assigned to women. Moreover, also on a national level, women were given the opportunity to lead two important offices: the thirty-year-old Mathilde Ochs was responsible for the Office of Ideological Training, while the thirty-one-year-old Ursula Kuhlo directed the Health Office. In Germany the recourse to women in the youth organization was so diffuse that it is possible to talk about a kind of Verweiblichung (feminization) of the

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leadership. In this way the women could “serve their ‘ethnic community’ in the manner decreed by their political masters, for goals over which only these masters had jurisdiction.”15 The women were in charge, but only because the Nazi (male) masters had decided that this was the only way to face the personnel shortage that was afflicting the Hitlerjugend. We have to interpret the Verweiblichung not as an example of modern gender equality in Nazi Germany, but as a move made out of necessity.16 In 1943 the unitary youth organization had at its disposal only 800 professional leaders.17 It meant that the Hitlerjugend, which at the beginning of the war had had at its disposal 19,765 remunerated leaders, after four years of war could rely only on a leadership workforce that amounted to about 4 percent of those in service in 1939. If before the outbreak of the war every remunerated youth leader was responsible for some 440 members, in 1943 every professional youth leader was in charge of 11,250 youth. In many parts of Germany the HJ had ceased to exist. Where units still existed, they were totally in the hands of students, apprentices, women, and disabled ex-servicemen.18 In January 1943 Axmann published an article in Das Junge Deutschland (The Young Germany) in which he analyzed the activity carried out by the Hitlerjugend in the previous decade. With respect to the effects of the war on the governing board of the Hitler Youth he stated: “We must carry out the important tasks of our activity in wartime having at our disposal few professional leaders. Some of them came back from the battlefields and brought on their bodies the wounds and the signs of this war. Our Mädelführerinnen lightened the tasks of their male colleagues, accomplishing part of their work exemplarily. But more than 250,000 units are led by very young comrades.”19 The Hitler Youth, endemically short of leaders, could produce a new cadre of leaders only by pushing down the age level of the HJ-Führer. To get promoted became easier: the fifteen-year-old could pass in a few days from the role of squad leader to that of platoon leader, becoming company leader soon after; sixteen-year-old youth could even become provincial commanders without having experience and after a very brief training.20 A leader of the Hitler Youth, writing about his experience after the end of the war, recalled that he was appointed Bannführer in 1942, at the age of sixteen, skipping a rank and not understanding the reason for this promotion. He confirmed that, during the war, the leaders became younger and their training became shorter.21 The request made by Axmann, in a speech on October 14, 1943, for some leaders of his organization to be demobilized so they could return home, improving the fate of the HJ, was not approved. The leadership shortage was by then a problem without a solution. The recourse to women, disabled exservicemen, and the very young mitigated the problem but did not solve it.



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From September 1944 the HJ, given the catastrophic situation on all fronts and given the need for men to defend the country, decided gradually to stop the training courses in the schools for leaders. The war had become the most important concern.22

The Braunschweig Akademie during the War A few weeks after the move of the Hitlerjugend academists from Berlin to Braunschweig in 1939, World War II broke out. The Wehrmacht needed men, and the students attending the first course enlisted. At the beginning of September only a few students from the Sudetenland, from Austria, and Slovakia remained in the Institute. However, they also joined up quickly, and the school emptied. Not long afterward the building of the Academy was used by the Wehr­ macht, which organized several premilitary courses there; subsequently by the female organization Glaube und Schönheit (Faith and Beauty), which held three-week courses for the training of its leaders between January and September 1940; and, in the end, by the BDM. The female youth organization used the premises of the Academy for more than a year, from November 1940 until December 1941, to train its own Führerinnen.23 During the winter of 1941–42, the first winter after the declaration of war on Russia, the Academy was used as a military hospital, and the courses for the training of the female leaders were moved to Ottendorf in Schleswig-Holstein and to Heiligenberg in Baden-Württemberg.24 Given the increasingly catastrophic situation faced by the Hitlerjugend leadership, and still in need of places where it could train its own leaders, the youth organization decided to regain control of the Braunschweig Academy in September 1942. The Institute, after the renovation work to turn it from a hospital into a school again, was used to organize flash training courses for Bannführer. The courses were attended, above all, by young members of the organization and by disabled people.25 Even if the invalids did not correspond perfectly to the HJ ideal typical leader physically, they could still serve as a good example for the rank and file of the Nazi youth organization, an incarnation of personal sacrifice for the Nazi victory.26 Moreover, this was not the first time that the Hitlerjugend resorted to disabled ex-servicemen to train the youth of the Nazi organization. Before the outbreak of the war, the HJ also used them as leaders and instructors.27 Edgar Gielsdorf, Bannführer of the Hitler Youth, talking about the course he attended at the Akademie in September 1942, said that, along with him and other young leaders, there were about thirty war invalids. They had all almost recovered, but they still needed time before returning to the front. The Wehrmacht had given them leave to become, provisionally, HJ

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leaders. They were mainly officials and were, on average, twenty-five years old. Many of them had prestigious war decorations.28 The courses for the formation of the Bannführer were organized from 1942 until 1945. When the Hitler Youth Führerschulen closed in 1944, the Academy remained the only training center for the youth leaders operating in Germany. The Institute stopped its activity completely on April 12, 1945, a mere two weeks before the arrival of the American troops. The building was not damaged during the war and nowadays it is the seat of the Abendgymnasium Braun­ schweig and of the Braunschweig-Kolleg, two institutes of adult education.29

The Gioventù Italiana del Littorio and the Shortage of Leaders On June 10, 1940, Italian “nonbelligerence” came to an end. Schools closed in May, and in the final weeks before the end of the academic year “spontaneous” student demonstrations in favor of the war broke out.30 The gymnastics display organized at the Mussolini Forum on May 26, 1940, to celebrate the Spring Fest also ended with young performers and spectators crying out “spontaneously” for the conflict.31 Roberto Berardi, who was at that time a member of the Gioventù del Littorio, remembering the day of the declaration of war, wrote: “On that June 10 . . . an era ended.” War had begun, and the Duce could not change his mind anymore. The Italians took to the field, even though the country did not have at its disposal the resources it needed to fight.32 The youth organization could not stop its initiatives. It had to guarantee its propaganda activities in support of the war efforts of the regime, but it also had to carry out its educational tasks and increase the material assistance of its young members.33 To continue its work the Gioventù del Littorio needed a large, well-trained staff. But, as in Germany, the war required soldiers as well. Many youth leaders had to leave their young Balilla and Avanguardisti to take aim with a rifle. As a consequence the staff shortage—which had always been one of the biggest problems faced by both the ONB and later the GIL— worsened. Despite its efforts the GIL was not able to train all of the youth leaders it needed. The local GIL commands committed themselves to “filling the gaps in the leadership caused by the recall to arms of the officers.”34 To fill these gaps the few superior leaders and the few academists still in service had to organize training courses all over Italy, traveling from one side of the country to another. Vacancies were filled mostly by off-the-cuff educators and by young leaders, trained in crash courses. The situation was similar to the one we saw in Germany: in Italy the youth activity also could not cease; the GIL did not have enough leaders at disposal; and the youth organization was obliged to train its



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new recruits rapidly. As was the case in Germany, it also became much easier to pass from one hierarchical rank to another, while Italian youth leaders likewise became younger and younger.35 Eduardo Natoli, a GIL officer, talking about the young leaders of the Gioventù del Littorio, and highlighting the peculiar moment the organization was going through, wrote that “the GIL provid[ed] for the formation of its minor leaders, drawing them directly from its units.” Natoli thought that the young leaders were “the backbone of the organization” and that the GIL had to look after them carefully because, due to the war, it was lacking in officers.36 Before the war, as noted previously, the Italian youth organization also had many very young leaders. The presence of youth leading other youth was nothing new. The young members of the organization, invested with a hierarchical rank, were the pillar of the system. Without them leading the minor units the organization would collapse. But if their presence had been important before the outbreak of the war, after June 1940 it became essential. From December 1940 to August 1941 the GIL organized courses aimed at turning suitable Balilla, Avanguardisti, and Giovani Fascisti into leaders. Courses were led by officers trained at the GIL Academy or, in their absence, by very young GIL leaders. The courses consisted of military exercises, with and without weapons, marches, and classes in Fascist culture, physical education, sport, and singing.37 Italian schoolteachers continued playing an essential role in the youth leadership and were an increasingly important instrument in the face of the shortage of youth chiefs. From fall 1940 the GIL General Command asked for a more intense participation of the teachers in the activities organized by the Gioventù del Littorio and invited the entire Italian teaching body to take part in the courses for political and sport preparation held by the Fascist youth organization in the winter and in the summer. Given the endemic shortage of leaders, Fascists decided to give promotions to teachers without taking into consideration their service seniority in the Gioventù del Littorio. A newsletter of the General Command, issued on December 4, 1941, stated that elementary school teachers who were older than eighteen and younger than thirty-seven could now be promoted to the rank of GIL officials.38 At the end of 1941, trying to deal with the emergency, the General Command of the GIL proposed, in vain, to the War Ministry to discharge some academists from the armed forces in order to reallocate them as GIL leaders.39 Moreover, Bottai, the minister of national education, requested that school superintendents avoid assigning supplementary hours to all those teachers who held a leading role or an office in the Gioventù del Littorio; otherwise they would be overburdened, unable to carry out their functions in the youth organization in the best way possible. Despite the signs of the forthcoming rout, the regime continued its

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educational program. Closing down the youth organization, stopping its activities Fascists would admit defeat. The last courses for the assignment of leading roles to youth and teachers were in fact organized by the GIL between summer 1942 and spring 1943, just before the end of Mussolini’s dictatorship.40

End of the GIL Academy The GIL Academy carried out its activity until the end of the Fascist regime. In October 1940 Nicola Pende, senator, professor of pathology at the University of Rome “La Sapienza,” and one of the signers of the Manifesto della razza (manifesto of the race) succeeded Riccardo Versari, who had directed the Academy since its opening in 1927.41 His appointment was in step with the racist tendency that emerged in the Academy between 1938 and 1939. He devoted more time to scientific, political, and pedagogical subjects, proposed the establishment of a new journal after the suspension in 1937 of the Rivista di scienze applicate all’educazione fisica e giovanile, and suggested changes to the organization of the courses.42 One year after his appointment, Pende suggested transforming the Academy into a university, but his proposal, though accepted by the Senate, was never implemented.43 Moreover, in November 1942 the Academy Council proposed modifying the Statute of 1940. Pende and his colleagues decided it was necessary to diversify the length of the courses according to the specific role played by the academists in the Fascist youth organization after their graduation: physical education teachers should attend a biennial course, sport coaches a three-year one, whereas the future GIL leaders should attend a four-year course. Only the latter would get a university degree in “Youth training and organization sciences.” This proposal, however, because of the war, also remained a dead letter.44 After Italy entered the war, the academists were promoted as representatives of a militarily active country. In February 1941 the academists born in 1921 were enlisted, and in April 1941 all students at the Academy were asked to leave as “volunteers” for the armed services. The students of the Mussolini Forum were not only educators, athletes, and pedagogues of the youth organizations, but also, and above all, soldiers. On the covers of the youth magazines the students of the Academy were not portrayed as gymnasts or sport display performers, but as fighters.45 The Gioventù del Littorio tried to create its own pantheon, publishing in its journals obituaries of the young students of the Academy who had fallen on the battlefields.46 The opening and closing of the 1941–42 academic year became occasions on which they could be remembered, while those who were leaving the Institute to fight the enemy could be celebrated.47 In July 1942 the Gioventù



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del Littorio published a special issue of its bulletin full of articles about the war. The cover was dominated by the “fighting academists”; on the inside front cover there was a list of all the academists who had died fighting for the Axis.48 In one of the several youth journals published at that time, the academists, leaving the Mussolini Forum in order to serve at the front, were described as ready to give “their blood contribution”: they left because they wanted to fight for the honor of the fatherland. According to Fascist propaganda, it was in the Academy that they had learned to love Italy and the Duce; they had learned to believe, they had learned to obey, and now they wanted to fight, and win, for Mussolini and for their country.49 The sixteenth and final academic year began on December 12, 1942, with a “warlike style” ceremony devoted to the fallen students and to their families.50 The number of students was massively reduced. The academists who remained in the Institute in 1940 numbered 1,500; in December 1942 there were only 121.51 In July 1943 Lando Ferretti was appointed as new rector.52 But in a few days Mussolini was “deposed” and the Academy was closed. The Duce, reflecting on the youth of the GIL institutes once the regime collapsed, wrote: “It is difficult to measure the seriousness of the psychological trauma that struck, in the night between 25 and 26 July, the youth organized in the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio. Such a trauma must have been particularly severe in the male Academy of Rome, and in the female Academy of Orvieto, as well as in the premilitary institutes . . . of Brindisi, Venezia, Forlì, and Bolzano. They were all perfect and disciplined organizations that had scored great successes.”53

The Repubblica Sociale Italiana and the Rebirth of the Opera Balilla Even though the Fascist regime did not exist anymore, and even though Mussolini had been imprisoned, Italy continued its war alongside Germany, whose troops, beginning in late July 1943, occupied northern Italy. On September 8, 1943, Pietro Badoglio, the new Italian prime minister, announced that five days earlier Italy had signed an armistice with the Allies. The king left Rome, settling temporarily in Brindisi (Apulia), and Allied troops landed on the Italian mainland at Salerno. Italy was divided into two different entities. In the south the Italian monarchy under Anglo-American protection continued to exist, while on September 23, 1943, a new state was instituted in the remainder of the peninsula, a kind of Nazi protectorate: the Repubblica Sociale Italiana (Italian Social Republic, RSI). The head of the new state was, formally, Benito Mussolini, released by a Nazi commando on September 12, 1943. Some Italians decided to follow the Duce, even if he was by then a “German puppet dictator.” They viewed

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collaboration with the Nazis as a final chance to realize their dream of a Fascist “New Order.”54 On September 24, 1943, the day after the foundation of the Social Republic, a new Fascist youth organization was officially established, one that, getting back to its roots, was named Opera Balilla (OB). By invoking this name the Fascists wanted to recall their origins, referring back to the organization of the “golden era,” to the organization of a triumphant Fascism. Reviving youth activity, the Fascists attempted to convince themselves that they still mattered and that they still had a future. The central offices of the “new” organization were established initially in Rovigo and then in Milan. Renato Ricci, at that time general commander of the Republican National Guard, a paramilitary force carrying out policing duties, was appointed president of the OB. The aim of the Opera Balilla was to resume the propaganda, recreational, and educational activities interrupted after July 25. The situation was not favorable. The seats of the youth organization were devastated or occupied by German soldiers or displaced people. The means the organization had at disposal were scanty.55 According to Ricci, in the summer of 1943, before the Fascist regime fell, there were 39,008 leaders serving in the GIL. Only 2,255 of them had joined the new youth organization established in the RSI. Ricci needed people to reorganize the youth activity and, therefore, ordered a reassessment of the leading roles. He invited teachers, former leaders, and former office workers of the Gioventù del Littorio to serve in the new organization. Moreover, like the Nazis, he decided to resort to women, above all to students who had graduated from the Academy of Orvieto, and to assign them male duties: if the provincial directors for physical education and sport had to be used in other sectors of youth education, such as, for example, military training, then they were to be replaced by female instructors. The provincial commands of the organization were reestablished immediately, and as provincial presidents of the organization Ricci chose some of the academists who had studied at the Mussolini Forum before its passage from the ONB to the GIL: they were older, they had more experience, and, above all they were his students. Ricci decided to reward the leaders of the old Opera Nazionale Balilla who had been broken by Starace.56 Such a decision was “particularly appreciated by the people that from the creation” of the ONB in 1926 had carried out “their passionate activity” without deserting the youth when the decisions taken by the GIL General Command had caused their “demotion” to a lower rank.57 According to the OB president, only those men were really able to educate the young members of the Opera Balilla, transforming them into soldiers of the Social Republic.58 Ricci tried once again to open the “Balilla houses” and to reorganize the summer youth camps. He also succeeded in arranging a Campo DUX in 1944 for the training of the Avanguardisti born in 1926–27. The education of those



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youth had to be given absolute priority—not only because they were youth suitable for serving the Social Republic, or for playing leading roles in the OB, but also because they were the youth born when the Opera Nazionale Balilla had been founded. They were the Fascists who had been born under and grown up with the regime. They were, Ricci thought, more than other youth, the symbolic incarnation of the true Fascists.59 At the beginning of 1944, the Opera Balilla of the Italian Social Republic had in all 376,923 members. Legions, cohorts, and centuries of the OB were assigned to the available superior leaders, whereas maniples and squads were put in the hands of very young leaders trained in short provincial refresher courses. From January to September 981 courses were organized. There were 13,513 participants.60 In October 1944 Ricci issued a newsletter ordering the development of further courses for young leaders in main towns and minor centers of the Social Republic. He explained that “the courses for the training of male and female leaders, recently organized, had a flattering result.” But they could not fill the gap in the minor leadership, a gap worsened by the limited number of officers and high leaders. The young leaders were, Ricci argued, the most useful collaborators because they were the link between members and higher leaders. Therefore the Central Presidency of the OB decided to implement new courses after November 1944. They had to be organized in every municipality and in every main town, and lessons had to take place twice a week. The courses had to be directed by the best staff available, giving priority to academists, officers, and higher leaders. Admission to the courses had to take place rewarding the most deserving members of the OB.61 Ricci thought it was also necessary to reorganize the Academy for the training of the higher leadership. The regulation of the OB Academy, planned to be reopened in Gallarate (Varese), was published in the official Bulletin of the organization on October 15, 1944. There were no major changes. The only difference with the GIL Academy was the duration of the courses; it became once again a two-year institute. The aims of the Institute did not vary and the subjects studied remained almost unchanged. Only three new courses were added in the “political section:” demography, racial policy, and Italian literature.62 The courses were to begin in 1945. A newsletter of November 30, 1944, stated that all those who had decided to enter the Academy and had been judged fit for it by the Opera Balilla provincial committees had to present themselves by January 7, 1945, directly at the Academy in Gallarate. The provincial presidents had to advertise the Institute and had to manage the preliminary selection of the candidates.63 Attempting to guarantee leaders for the new organization, in August 1944 Ricci ordered the presidents of the provincial committees of the youth organization to send to the Central Presidency Office a list with names and addresses

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of the students of the first and second year of the Academy of Rome and of the Academy of Orvieto, now living in their provinces, who could not finish the course before July 1943.64 At the end of 1944 the OB president invited all of these youth to present themselves on February 1, 1945, at the Academy of Gallarate to sit for the diploma exam. Some students went to Gallarate and took the exam, but the degrees granted on this occasion were declared void after the end of the war. The postwar Italian democratic republic did not recognize the titles bestowed by a state it did not acknowledge as legitimate and sovereign.65 Two months later the Repubblica Sociale Italiana collapsed. On April 29, 1945, the public display of Benito Mussolini’s corpse in Piazzale Loreto, Milan, epitomized the end of the Fascist era. The Fascist Academy, the Academy of the “new men,” ceased to exist together with the RSI. Nazis and Fascists had invested everything in their regimes, and even when, after 1943, the situation was becoming hopeless, they continued planning for the future. They were not ready to see their worlds tumbling down, and they desperately tried to continue educating their youth in the Fascist and Nazi credo. They could not believe that the Allies were at the door; they could not believe that the war they longed for was fast becoming the end of their “revolutions.” The youth, and the youth leaders, were their very last hope; they were the only ones who could continue the Revolution and the struggle. The situation was much more desperate for the Fascists who, in July 1943, watched Mussolini’s downfall and then saw him come back to life a few months later disguised as a Nazi subordinate and still hoping to have a privileged space in a future “European Order.” In 1944 and 1945 Nazis and Fascists tried to sow their very last poisonous seeds in the academies and in the training courses for their youth leaders. Nazis and Fascists tried to create their “new man” by means of their youth organizations until the very end, until the Allies obliged them to look the truth in the eyes, until the American, British, and Soviet troops completely defeated them, until the Brown and the Black Shirts, once convinced that the final victory would be theirs, realized that they were the losers, until the Nazi thousand-year Reich and the New Fascist Empire turned out to be mortal illusions.

Aftermath T

he postwar transition marked for Italy and Germany an extremely difficult moment. For both Italians and Germans and, in particular, for the youth born and raised under the Fascist and the Nazi dictatorships, it was not easy to deal with the specters of the past. Mussolini’s and Hitler’s regimes were hard-toremove stains. To protect themselves, Italians and Germans tried to repress unpleasant memories. The forgetting ended in Germany in the 1960s. In Italy the acknowledgment of the “sins” of the past was more problematic. However, in both countries the process of remembering aided the growth of understanding. Time, healing most of the wounds, not only permitted a more detached analysis of the past, but it also allowed people to talk about their personal experiences without fear or shame. Italians and Germans, recalling their lives in the Fascist and Nazi youth organizations, sometimes confirmed and sometimes called into question the all-encompassing nature of the ONB, GIL, and HJ. Undoubtedly the stories told by Balilla and Hitlerjungen not only complicate the history of the youth organizations but also give a more nuanced picture of Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany. However, the testimonies of the youth who grew up under the Fascist lictor and the Nazi swastika do not challenge the unquestionable dedication that Fascists and Nazis showed in their projects of shaping the “new man,” a dedication that has been explored in this study.

Youth Adrift In 1943, after the Battle of Stalingrad, the Allies felt that final victory was approaching and that it was time to plan—not only for the future of the European continent in general but also for the reeducation of Italians and Germans. In his book Slaves Need No Leaders (1943), the American professor Walter T. Kotschnig analyzed the “youth education” issue. In the first part of his monograph, “The 213

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war between the schools,” he showed how after World War I the democratic countries tried to develop through their educational institutions what he deemed to be truly civilized men and women, able to think and express their opinions, whereas the Fascist countries turned their young into barbarians compelled to obey. The former were educating young people for peace and freedom, the latter for war and slavery. In the second part of his book, entitled “Reconstruction,” Kotschnig explained the need to search for “constructive measures” in order to rebuild the intellectual life that “Fascist fury” had destroyed in the occupied countries and to reeducate “the warped minds and emotions of Fascist youth, who were among the first victims of the barbarian revolt.”1 Kotschnig, talking about Fascist fury and Fascist youth, had in mind not Italy but Nazi Germany. Italian writers and scholars, Kotschnig explained, pointed out “quite rightly that the dragon’s teeth of Fascism were first sown in the fair land of Italy,” and some of them, he continued, were not “a little resentful that in many minds this fact has been beclouded by the rapid rise of Hitler.” But, he continued, these distinguished writers overlooked the fact that the real danger to civilization was embodied in German Fascism and that “the mantle of the arch-villain has passed from the shoulders of il Duce to those of the Führer.” Kotschnig concluded by asserting that Italian Fascism was a minor danger to democracy on a worldwide scale: even though many forms and ideas of contemporary German education were born “in the diseased mind of Mussolini,” they found their ultimate and most deadly expression in Nazi Germany.2 The American professor was convinced that the Italian educational process had been a failure and that the Duce had not been able to achieve his pedagogical goals, Mussolini had failed “in conquering the minds of the children of captive Italy.” The military ineptitude of the Italians, given the centrality of war in Fascist pedagogy, was interpreted by Kotschnig as a clear sign of the failure of Mussolini’s educational system.3 Writing in the United States in the same year, Gregor Athalwin Ziemer, echoing Kotschnig, argued that Fascist indoctrination would leave indelible marks and that deep, lasting damage had been done to the minds of Fascist youth. But, also like Kotschnig, Ziemer was writing primarily about Nazi youth in Germany. With respect to Italy he wrote: “We have all reason to hope . . . that Italian youth has not been so deeply indoctrinated as Nazi youth. Men who have studied both agree on this point. A Fascist leader who observed some Nazi schools with me was utterly astounded at the thoroughness, the deeply fanatic tone set in the Nazi schools. The Italians, according to him, would never take their theories of Fascism so seriously as the Nazis. So for the time being, the youth which needs attention first, and which should at the same time

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offer us one of the finest opportunities for rehabilitation, is German youth. Germany will be our real laboratory.”4 Kotschnig’s and Ziemer’s assessments were influenced by the disastrous results of the Italian military campaigns. Mussolini had been defeated, while Hitler was still in power. National Socialism was now the real, and last, enemy on the path to victory while the Fascist dictatorship and the Duce did not seem to be dangerous anymore. There were, however, some scholars who thought differently. Werner Peiser, professor at Loyola University in New Orleans who had lived in Italy from 1933 until 1938, thought that Italian youth also needed to be reeducated. In an article, published in 1943 and entitled significantly “The Forgotten Italian Youth,” Peiser wrote with respect to the education of the youth of the totalitarian countries that valuable contributions had been offered to solve the German problem but that the “Italian question” had been completely and inexplicably ignored. He asked himself what the reasons for this silence were: “Is it the idea that the education of the Italian Fascist youth will be a much easier task than that of the Nazi youth, so that the problem appears to be one of secondary importance? Is it the conviction that things in Italy will eventually find their solution automatically without any interference from the Allied nations, in accordance with the more easy-going way of the Italians, or the adaptability of this nation?”5 Peiser thought it was a dangerous error to assume that the Italian youth would find their way back to freedom and liberty without any assistance. It was true that in recent years Fascism had lost its hold on Italy, but the professor asserted that it would be a falsification of historical fact to deny that hundreds of thousands of youth had been enthusiastic supporters of the regime. Peiser thought that it was necessary to help the young Italians rediscover their individuality and their personality, suffocated and subjugated by the regime.6 More recently, the Italian historian Luca La Rovere has reiterated the importance of Peiser’s understanding of the Italian situation. After World War II, he argued, several observers looked at “Mussolini’s generation” as a lost generation, a group of youth refusing to accept the new democratic order and unable to shake off Fascist beliefs, myths, and illusions.7 In some of the newspapers published in “liberated Italy” after 1944, various articles stressed that the adaptation of Italian youth to the post-Fascist political system would not be easy. In an anonymous piece published by the Socialist organ Avanti! in February 1944, the author wrote that Italian youth, indoctrinated with hackneyed phrases, becoming instruments of pure and useless violence, had wasted the best years of their lives in the dry African sands and in desolate Balkan towns. They were a lost generation, depressed, and above all unable to understand the new role they now had to play in Italian society. Italian youth, the author insisted, had to be reeducated, and the older generations, responsible for the Fascist victory in

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1922, had to help the young generation believe again in the future.8 In another article, published a few months later by the same newspaper, the author explained that for the generation that had been born and grew up during the Fascist Ventennio, who had lived in an illiberal political climate, under a regime that it did not create, it was difficult to break away from Fascist habits.9 The authors of both articles hinted at the faults of the older generations, but on other occasions the accusations against the “fathers” were much clearer. In an article published in January 1944 by L’Alba, the journal of the Italian prisoners-of-war detained in Soviet Union, the author wrote that the youth had been betrayed by the Fascist regime and that the older generations were responsible because they did not join together and stand up against the dictatorship.10 And in another article published in August 1944 by the same journal, the author said that the Italian youth had to reproach the older generations for it was because of them that the regime had been able to mislead and betray the youth. If the Italian youth were disoriented, disappointed, embittered, the fault was partly that of their elders who had detached themselves from the youth for a long time.11 The philosopher Benedetto Croce also expressed his thoughts about Italian youth. The Fascist regime, he explained, had conditioned the future of the new Italian generations and tried to transform them into its own instruments. Fascists put pressure on the youth; they seduced, corrupted, and domesticated them. The older generation could not reject the youth now; they could not accuse them of being sincere supporters of the Fascist regime, while they distanced themselves from it. The fathers had to welcome the youth as “prodigal sons.” Youth and adults had to work together to rebuild the nation.12 This invitation to an intergenerational collaboration was an answer to all those who considered Fascism a “moral disease” of the Italian youth, and who, mistrusting the youth, interpreted the victory of anti-Fascism as the triumph of the older generation.13 For many youth the hardest thing was repudiating the legacy and symbolic importance of Mussolini, as Ugoberto Alfassio Grimaldi explained in 1946, recounting his own experience. He wrote that for the youth of his generation the Duce had been an exceptional personality and that, among the dogmas his generation had to break with in order to leave Fascism behind, that of Mussolini’s infallibility was certainly the most difficult.14 Unlike Grimaldi, who became an anti-Fascist, many Fascist youth were unwilling or unable to change their minds and followed Mussolini in the Social Republic. One of these, Carlo Mazzantini, recounted his experience in a book, A cercar la bella morte (In Search of a Glorious Death), published for the first time in 1986. In this work there are several passages in which the author discusses how, after the “liberation” (April 25,

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1945), the youth who fought on the “wrong” side were completely disoriented. They were confused and embittered by the adults who quickly repudiated Mussolini and Italy’s Fascist past. Mazzantini wrote that their fathers were quick to change, but he asked himself, “What are we left with? What are we now without our past—without everything we thought we were?” In a single day, twenty years were wiped out: “All finished now—back to home-base, hand out your flags, the game’s over. A good dream, and instead, without warning, we turn up. That’s why they can’t stand us. We’re their dirty conscience, you see, the mirror of their living memory!”15 The loss and confusion felt by some Italian youth after the war, even though they do not necessarily imply a totalitarian turn of the youth toward the Fascist credo, is suggestive of the degree to which at least some of them had been successfully indoctrinated in their various schools and youth groups. Ultimately, youth in post-Fascist Italy was not a homogeneous group. Mussolini’s generation was adrift, searching for a new way forward; Italian youth were trying to figure out their future while interpreting the past on their own terms. Even the academists of the Mussolini Forum were busy navigating their previous lives as they attempted to restore their reputations. Article 12 of Piero Badoglio’s legislative decree no. 159 of July 27, 1944, stated that all those who had taken part in Fascist politics, had advocated Fascist actions and thoughts, or had enjoyed career advancements with the support of the Fascist Party, had to be dismissed from their jobs.16 The academists, in order to be reinstated as physical education teachers in the Italian schools, had to explain their roles in the regime. Special commissions were instituted to evaluate their conduct. In order to keep their jobs, many academists repudiated their pasts. Some of them produced memoirs explaining that they decided to apply for a post in the Foro Mussolini only to get a job and escape from destitution;17 others justified their decisions explaining that they were passionate sportsmen and that the Academy was the only institute in Fascist Italy where they could get a qualification to teach sport and gymnastics.18 Explaining why they decided to fight in the Social Republic alongside the Nazis and against the Allies was more problematic. One academist explained that, being in the Fascist–Nazi territory, the students of the Forum had no choice: they had to recognize the Social Republic if they did not want to be deported to Germany.19 Other academists justified their behavior and their acquiescence to the Social Republic explaining that they needed a job to sustain their families.20 Most of them justified their conduct saying that they joined the Nazi–Fascists without conviction,21 or because they were helpless and fearful.22 But there were also some academists who boasted about their opposition to the Nazi–Fascists. Some of them claimed

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to have used their roles in the Opera Balilla to sabotage the Social Republic, and some others explained proudly that at the earliest opportunity they left their office to join the anti-Fascist Resistance.23 After the end of the war, many students of the Academy of the Mussolini Forum, once proud instruments of Fascist propaganda, tried to downplay their roles, producing every single document that could prove their poor faith in Mussolini and in Fascism. In several memoirs many academists described themselves as “mere” physical education teachers,24 rebels and enemies of the regime,25 anti-Fascists,26 disloyal diseducatori (counter-educators),27 and even as saboteurs who had decided to gain admission to the Academy “to assault the castle from inside” and hit the heart of Fascist education.28 In December 1944 one of the academists wrote to the Purge Commission that on October 22, 1941, during a Fascist ceremony, he sang—along with other students of the Academy—the Communist song “Bandiera Rossa” (Red Flag) instead of the Fascist song “Giovinezza, Giovinezza Primavera di Bellezza” (Youth, Youth, Spring of Beauty). He explained that his behavior was a consequence of the “inconceivable and vile things” he saw while he was in the heart of one of the most important institutions of the regime.29 Anti-Fascism? Disillusionment? Disaffection caused by the state of war? It is as difficult to interpret the behavior of these students as it is to interpret the defensive memoirs produced by all these supposed Fascist “new men.” These documents call into question the Fascist faith of the students of the Mussolini Forum and, accordingly, the effectiveness of the Fascist educational system. They seem to suggest that the apparatus set up by the Fascist youth organizations was an expensive and useless sandcastle. However, these records must also be read as a representative, but small, sample of memoirs, while the moment when, and the reasons why, they were written, must also be considered. The regime was over and the country was facing an unknown future. These acade­ mists were trying to protect themselves, their families, and their jobs. Their faith in Mussolini had to be repudiated; it was time to turn the page. There were also academists and students of the Mussolini Forum who in September 1943 were in the South and decided, by chance or by choice, to oppose the Nazi–Fascists. In a recent letter a former student of the Academy recounted his experience. In his words the disillusionment of a young Italian, who had once believed in the regime, seems to shine through: After years of pounding messages that should turn us into perfect Fascists, in the nick of time, after September 8, all of us that were in the South and in Apulia . . . enlisted in the Italian Liberation Corps and fought against the Nazis beside the Allies. . . . Almost all the academists that were in the

Aftermath 219 North sided with the Italian Social Republic. For years I have been asking myself why, but I have not found an answer yet. Surely, it was a reaction to what happened on July 25, 1943, and September 8, 1943, when our world collapsed, when everything we believed in dissolved into nothing. Alone, abandoned by everybody, without news or information, we ended up seeking refuge in the only certainty that was outstretching its hand: the Army. . . . When we were young, we took an oath to the Duce and to the king—the first vanished, only the second remained (also because who deserted was put on trial).30

Forgetting After World War II, whereas many Italian youth struggled to deal with their past, the majority of the Italian population just “erased” and “rewrote” it. “Mass opportunism” and “collective amnesia” were the keynotes of the passage from the Fascist to the democratic regime.31 The Italians tried to forget and water down the importance of Fascism. Several Fascist intellectuals who became anti-Fascists after July 25, 1943, committed themselves to presenting Mussolini’s regime as a weak dictatorship that collapsed like a “house of cards,”32 while the post-Fascist ruling class emphasized the noninvolvement of the majority of Italians with the regime and contrasted the virtuous civil society of the period with the Fascist political “caste.”33 Democratic Italy, the new political class believed, should not have to pay for the mistakes made by the Fascist regime. In short, Italians substituted the topic of guilt with a self-absolutory narrative.34 The voices of all those who tried to express how the regime conditioned their lives remained unheard.35 In the period 1945–48 an “official memory” was indeed consolidated: Italians convinced themselves that they were the victims of Fascism and thus, objectively, anti-Fascist. In the following years this narrative became the official version of the anti-Fascist historiography, while the actual study of the relationship between Italian society and the Fascist regime was neglected, causing the “retroactive de-fascistization” of Mussolini’s dictatorship.36 The Nazi occupation of northern Italy after September 1943, the Nazi massacres, the more than a hundred thousand Italians used as slave workers in Germany, the deportation of more than six hundred thousand Italian soldiers to German concentration camps—all this allowed the Italians to present themselves as victims rather than accomplices in the most terrible war of all times. The fact that the Italians had previously been fighting a dirty war of their own on the Axis side was forgotten.37 The absence of a mass slaughter comparable to the Nazi-organized Holocaust “turned Mussolini’s regime into a model of ‘friendly Fascism,’ an innocuous . . . form of government.”38 The ferocity of the

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German troops and the horrors of the extermination camps allowed Italians to forget what the Fascists did in Italy, in Yugoslavia, in their concentration camps, and in their colonies. Fascist anti-Semitism was considered a mild version of the German one. The flamethrowers and the poisonous gas used in Africa by the Italian conquerors against the unarmed population were forgotten. Twenty years of Fascist violence was erased.39 In the story told in post-Fascist Italy, the Italians were victims of the regime, of the Duce, and of the bose Deutschen (bad Germans). The italiani brava gente (good Italians) myth became a collective identity-making myth that prevented Italians from carefully assessing the effectiveness of Mussolini’s dictatorship.40 The “trivialization” of Italian Fascism, “promoted” after World War II, spread an image of Mussolini’s regime as a pale imitation of its German counterpart. It seemed in retrospect that the Italian “loss of political liberties for more than twenty years [had been] really a relatively unimportant feature of life.”41 The regime that had ruled the country from October 28, 1922, to July 25, 1943, was considered a parade regime. It was forgotten that the Black Shirts’ dictatorship, as we have seen in this book, had been one of the most important models for the Nazis, and for other movements and regimes. It was forgotten that Italian Fascism had opened the new political path that brought forth one of the darkest periods of the history of mankind. The Italians wanted to “avoid accountability for their role in the brutality of the period” and therefore tried to minimize their role in the Italian–German relationship.42 Hundreds of thousands of Italians collaborated with the Germans in the Social Republic, others joined the Resistance and fought against their compatriots and the German invaders, whereas the majority did neither. However, as Ruth Ben-Ghiat has argued, “Whatever their choices, the actions the Italians took in those years provided the parameters of a new moral universe that facilitated the nation’s evasion of responsibility for the consequences of Axis politics.”43 The Italians exploited the period of the Resistance to reestablish their good reputation. Postwar Italian amnesia, however, was not only a product of the “Resistance myth.” The italiani brava gente myth was also fostered by the Allies themselves; they had played a major role after the war in creating the image of an Italian Fascism with a human face, in creating the stereotype of “cheerful, extroverted, pleasure-loving Italians” unable to commit terrible crimes.44 Post-Fascist Italy concocted its own version of the nation’s past: the words and memories of “Mussolini’s generation” were consigned to oblivion; national pacification supplanted any project of mass purge; all Italians were anti-Fascist and had participated in the national liberation struggle, not only the army and the partisans but also the civilians; Italy had redeemed itself so that it could be considered a moral victor of World War II. The Resistance movement became

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a kind of “second” Risorgimento, in which everybody claimed to have participated. The Resistance provided the ideological basis of the Italian Republic; it was the “legitimizing principle to which all political forces intended to appeal.”45 The Resistance gave the nation the possibility of concocting an alibi, an alibi that Germany did not have, an alibi that concealed the popular consent Mussolini and his regime enjoyed.46 The tendency to “forget” not only affected the Italians. Between 1945 and 1948 the Allies confronted in Germany the issues of war crimes and guilt. 47 Dragging the Nazis through the courts, judging and punishing them was the best way to relieve the German people of the atrocities committed by the regime. The process of “de-nazification” and “democratization” was directed by the allied victors while the great majority of Germans sat by. In West and East Germany several Nazi militants were relieved of their duties. Many of them, above all in the Soviet occupation zone, were sent to reeducation camps. Timid media campaigns were launched to make Nazi criminal acts known publicly. Hitler’s ruling class was removed from the political scene, but in universities, the media, and the economy many participants in the Nazi regime remained in their posts or returned after a period of brief suspension. After 1945 only a minority of the population recognized, with a deep sense of shame, the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany. For the Germans the contingent problems were too serious: confusion, disorientation, anxieties about the present prevailed over feelings of guilt. All the evil deeds of National Socialism were placed on the shoulders of Nazi leaders. In spite of the reeducation process carried out by the Allies, however, many German adolescents still professed, in the late 1940s, their admiration for the Führer and still exhibited racist patterns of prejudice against Jewish, Polish, and black people. Also in the universities there were still students imbued with Nazi ideas who considered the Jews to be “inferior” and Germans as superior to southern and eastern peoples. And in Heidelberg, lectures given by Karl Jaspers on German collective guilt were greeted with hostile responses. Many German youth, however, like the young Italians to whom we referred earlier, felt that they had been misled, used, and abandoned by the older generation.48 Between 1948 and 1949 the Cold War began with drastic consequences in Germany. The East Germans distanced themselves from National Socialism and distinguished between a Germany that they deemed to have grown out of Nazi experience, the Federal Republic, and a Germany produced by anti-Fascism, their own German Democratic Republic. In West Germany, where the Communist menace was the center of attention, the Nazi past seemed to be pushed into the background. National Socialism became an undiscussed shameful past, and in school syllabi topics such as resistance, anti-Fascism, forced emigration,

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and the Holocaust were taboo. The film industry also avoided the Nazi past. However, despite this conspiracy of silence, Konrad Adenauer, leader of the Christian Democratic Union and chancellor between 1949 and 1963, and the German political elites stood up against any neo-Nazi revivals and took the first initiatives to compensate the Jews who suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Moreover, in contrast with the general taboo against focusing on the recent German past, in 1950 in Munich the Institut für Zeitgeschichte was established, aimed at conducting historical research into the period 1933–45. Between the end of the 1950s and the 1960s a new phase began in West Germany: a phase of critical rediscovery of the pre-1945 past.49 After 1968 the media, the tribunals, the streets, the Parliament—all became debate arenas. Suddenly, after the embarrassing silence, came information, data, and figures about the millions of victims who had been exterminated. The Germans looked at the evidence, at the documentaries of the arrival of the Allies in the concentration camps. They “were unforgettable, unaccountable images of a surrealist nightmare.”50 People started discussing the reasons for such a long silence, and the Germans tried to come to terms with their Nazi past. Sons obliged their parents to remember.

Remembering In the early postwar phase the “HJ generation” did not talk.51 Silence had served “an anesthetizing purpose.”52 But in the late 1970s the former HJ boys and BDM girls started collecting memories and documents and wrote their own stories. In Germany in the 1980s, many historians, trying to understand the “HJ generation,” turned to oral history and asked members of the Hitlerjugend and the Bund Deutscher Mädel to talk about their past experiences. Alexander von Plato, in an essay published in 1995, explained that, according to the findings of oral historians, the HJ generation could be divided into Durchmogler, that is pragmatists and opportunists who went with the flow, opponents, and enthusiasts. But these groups, stated von Plato, were ideal types. In reality, positive and negative memories were mixed together. Many people remembered that the Nazi organization helped them discover new places and territories; it gave them the possibility of meeting youth and adults from different social backgrounds and to rise up the ranks regardless of their social origin. The Hitlerjugend favored social mobility: good HJ members could more easily find a job or obtain an apprenticeship. Membership also guaranteed the possibility of meeting individuals of the opposite sex, and it helped the youth sever their links to the family and the Church. The women remembered how they gained new experiences and responsibilities outside the domestic sphere, exercising forms

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of authority inside the youth organization. But the interviewees also remembered that, because of the HJ activities, they had less time to spend with their families. Several members recalled that sometimes they would like to study, to go out with friends, or go to Church instead of taking part in sport and military events and exercises. A few witnesses confessed that they also knew something about euthanasia, sterilization, persecution of the Jews, and imprisonment of political opponents.53 Growing older and looking back “they found it easier to face the memories of their place in this dictatorship, including the contributions that they themselves had made.”54 In the mid-1960s Italian Fascism became the object of systematic analyses that advanced new interpretations of Mussolini’s regime.55 The first academic contributions about the Fascist youth were published, as we underscored in the introduction, in the early 1970s. Memoirs and interviews of people who grew up under Mussolini’s dictatorship have been published in more recent years. I giovani di Mussolini: Fascisti convinti, Fascisti pentiti, anti-Fascisti (Mussolini’s Youth: Staunch Fascists, Repentant Fascists, Anti-Fascists), a book published by the Italian journalist Aldo Grandi in 2001, is an important collection of accounts of people remembering and assessing their own experiences. Grandi offers a series of interviews conducted with several Italian men and women who were young during the Fascist regime and who entered the Littoriali della cultura e dell’arte, a national cultural and artistic contest for university students that took place in Italy from 1934 until 1940. The book is divided into several sections: Fascist Fascists; Fascist Dissemblers; Regretful Fascists; Disillusioned Fascists; Disappointed Fascists; Anti-Fascist Fascists; Anti-Fascists; Catholics; Scholars and Artists; Victims of Persecution; Women. I giovani di Mussolini is a clear example of the multifaceted experiences of Italian youth under Mussolini. It is not possible to find a common voice; the stories presented are diverse and various. Some youth described their relationship with Fascism as something “natural,” based on the acceptance of “all the ‘truths’ the regime offered.” Others stated that becoming a Balilla and then an Avanguardista was “automatic” and that Fascism “was in practice everything.” But there were also those who wanted to change the regime, attempting to recover its original revolutionary spirit, and still others who lived waiting for freedom and a vendetta against the Fascist past.56

Conclusions Italian Fascism and National Socialism were totalitarian utopias, and both regimes were inevitably riddled with contradictions. Adults and youth reacted in different ways to violence, education, and propaganda. Boys born and raised under Mussolini’s and Hitler’s rule, according to the regimes, were meant to be

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the “new men.” But they did not always fit the expectations those regimes set for them. By listening to the voices of the youth who grew up in the HJ, ONB, and GIL, we know that the results of the pedagogical projects carried out by the Nazis and Fascists were uneven. The idea of Italian and German youth being blindly mobilized by Mussolini’s and Hitler’s regimes is artificial. Though recognizing the limitations of the evidence offered by interviews, released after decades, by a scarcely representative sample of witnesses, we can consider plausible the kaleidoscopic picture of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany they offer. Both dictatorships appear to be places of multiple histories. Some youth were staunch Fascists and Nazis and remained so after 1945; others repudiated their earlier choices. Some were disillusioned; others were disappointed. Some youth resisted the regimes from the very beginning; others became opponents over the years, while still others had no interest in politics whatsoever. Some Balilla and Hitlerjungen recalled their experience in the youth organizations as one of freedom and liberation: they experienced freedom from their families; they felt they had a purpose; they felt they were important. Some considered joining the youth organizations an obligation; others became members because of the attraction exerted on them by ONB, GIL, and HJ. Generalized enthusiasm was an image spread by Fascist and Nazi propaganda, just as silent opposition was an image promoted in the years following the fall of the dictatorships.57 Even if they did not achieve their goals—even if, as this conclusion has suggested, youth responded in a myriad of different ways to the ideology they encountered—it is necessary to recognize the extensive and extraordinary efforts made by Fascists and Nazis to create their ideal educational apparatus and to understand the logic behind those efforts. Italian Fascists, as we have stressed in this study, carried out pioneering work in the youth sphere. The organizations they created did not limit themselves to organizing parades. Moreover, they exerted a clear influence on their German counterpart. The Nazis, especially before World War II, judged the Italian educational system positively and studied the institutions created by the Fascist youth organizations, convinced that the Italian regime had much to offer.58 The Germans published books and photographic collections that described and praised the work carried out by their Italian allies.59 In a Nazi publication of 1941, underlining how, despite appearances, the educational work of the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio was anything but superficial, Alfred Weidenmann wrote: “If we look at the GIL taking into consideration only marches and parades, we have a completely wrong image of this organization.”60 The image of the Italian Fascist youth organizations as red-tape associations, restricting themselves to supplying welfare assistance, an image often promoted after World War II by the Italians themselves, is misleading. In actuality, as

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Luca La Rovere insists, “Every action, every initiative, every activity, also those apparently more neutral (sport, singing, travels etc.)” was political. The apparatus set up by the Italian regime was aimed at “inoculating the Italian youth with the truths of Fascist ideology” and at forming the “new man” of Fascism.61 Renato Ricci explained in November 1942 that a clear sign of the success of the Fascist educational method was the “unanimous acknowledgment” given not only in Germany, but all over Europe, of the efficiency of the system of schools, colleges, and academies created by the ONB and GIL. The educational system forged by the Italians was considered original and innovative in its revolutionary essence. Fascists had a clear pedagogical goal and created a complex and pervasive system to train the educators who would be responsible for its realization. It was a system that both drew the attention of the Nazis and inspired them, even if, subsequently, the ruinous Fascist military campaigns caused the demotion of the Italians to vassals of the Germans.62 Italian Fascism and National Socialism developed a youth pedagogy far removed from the youth culture that had earlier been promoted by Italian Nationalists, Futurists, Wandervögel, and the young volunteers of World War I. Fascists and Nazis devoted time and energy attempting to root their weltanschauungs in the minds of the growing generations, especially by building all the facilities necessary to train the instructors and leaders of the youth organizations. As we have stressed in the present study, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany exerted a strong pressure on their youth, carefully designing a series of institutional practices through which the new generations could be trained and converted to the system of cultural and political values dictated by Mussolini and Hitler. Pedagogical ideas, aspirations, and projects were a central part of Fascist and Nazi ideology. Fascists and Nazis knew that if the Italian and German states did not attain their pedagogical goals they would endanger the continuity of their projects. As Ricci wrote in 1937 with respect to the central role played by youth education in both regimes, Nazi and Fascist Revolutions asked their peoples for a long, conscious, and generalized effort; it was not possible to create a new Italy and a new Germany without patient preparation.63 Fascists and Nazis believed that they were laying the foundation of their new systems and that in the following decades, thanks to the tireless work of youth instructors and leaders, the educational projects begun by Renato Ricci and Baldur von Schirach would bear fruit. In this book we have examined the ways in which Fascists and Nazis tried to build their ideal types—the Romans of Modernity and the Aryan Übermenschen—being aware that some youth marched with conviction under Fascist and Nazi insignia, some others fought and died in the name of freedom and democracy, and still others waited passively for the storm to pass.

Notes

Abbreviations ACS Archivio Centrale dello Stato AIL Archivio Istituto Luce AP Affari Politici ASMAE Archivio Storico del Ministero degli Affari Esteri BA Bundes Archiv FPIE Fascicoli del Personale Insegnante Epurato GUF Gruppi Universitari Fascisti IEFS Ispettorato Educazione Fisica e Sportiva MINCULPOP Ministero della Cultura Popolare Ministero Pubblica Istruzione MPI NS Nationalsozialismus PA AA Politische Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts PCM Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri PNF Partito Nazionale Fascista RSI Repubblica Sociale Italiana SPD, CO Segreteria Particolare del Duce, Carteggio Ordinario SPD, CR Segreteria Particolare del Duce, Carteggio Riservato b. busta f. fascicolo s. scatola s.f. sottofascicolo

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Notes to Pages 3–7

Introduction 1. Clyde Geronimi, dir., Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi (Walt Disney Production, RKO Radio Pictures, 1943); Gregor Athalwin Ziemer, Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi (New York: Oxford University Press, 1941). 2. Benito Mussolini, “The Doctrine of Fascism,” in Readings on Fascism and National Socialism: Selected by Members of the Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado (Athens: Swallow Press Books, Ohio University Press, 1984), 21–22. 3. Ernst Rudolf Huber, “Verfassungsrecht des grossdeutschen Reiches” (Hamburg, 1939), in Readings on Fascism and National Socialism, 90. 4. Isaac Leon Kandel, “Education in Nazi Germany,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 182 (1935): 153. 5. Dante L. Germino, The Italian Fascist Party in Power: A Study in Totalitarian Rule (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1959), 62. 6. Tracy H. Koon, Believe. Obey. Fight: Political Socialization of Youth in Fascist Italy, 1922–1943 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), xv–xvi; Mabel Berezin, Making the Fascist Self: The Political Culture of Interwar Italy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997), 23–27. See also Benito Mussolini, “Punti fermi sui giovani,” Critica Fascista, February 1, 1930. 7. Benito Mussolini, Opera Omnia (Florence: La Fenice, 1951–63), 25:134. 8. Alfred Hoernlé, “Would Plato Have Approved of the National-Socialist State?,” Philosophy 13, no. 50 (1938): 173. 9. Pier Giorgio Zunino, L’ideologia del fascismo: Miti, credenze, e valori nella stabilizzazione del regime (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1985), 241. 10. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 3. 11. Emil Ludwig, Colloqui con Mussolini (Milan: Mondadori, 1950), 111. 12. Opera Nazionale Balilla, Accademie e Collegi dell’Opera Balilla (Turin: Arti Grafiche Offset, 1937), inside back cover. 13. Ben-Ghiat, Fascist Modernities, 112. 14. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (London: Pimlico, 1992), 374. 15. Quoted in Gerhard Rempel, Hitler’s Children: The Hitler Youth and the SS (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 1–2. 16. Quoted in David Welch, “Nazi Propaganda and the Volksgemeinschaft: Constructing a People’s Community,” Journal of Contemporary History 39, no. 2 (2004): 230. 17. Quoted in Welch, “Nazi Propaganda and the Volksgemeinschaft,” 236. 18. Renato Ricci, “Gioventù tedesca e gioventù italiana,” L’illustrazione italiana, 1937, 1104. Balilla was the nickname of a young boy, Giovan Battista Perasso, who, according to legend, began an insurrection against the Austrians in Genoa in 1746 by throwing a stone at an Austrian officer. He became a national hero when, a century later, the episode was celebrated by the Risorgimento. See Antonio Gibelli, “Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB),” in Dizionario del Fascismo, ed. Victoria de Grazia and Sergio Luzzatto (Turin: Einaudi, 2003), 2:267.



Notes to Pages 7–8

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19. Hoernlé, “Would Plato Have Approved,” 173. 20. Etienne de Greef, “Psychology of the Totalitarian Movement,” Review of Politics 1, no. 2 (1939): 139. 21. For youth organizations in Europe since the late nineteenth century see chapter 1; see also Aline Coutrot, “Youth Movements in France in the 1930s,” Journal of Contemporary History 5, no. 1 (1970): 23–35; Tim Jeal, Baden-Powell: Founder of the Boy Scouts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 358–59, 371–74, 382–97, 410–23; Elizabeth Harvey, “The Cult of Youth,” in A Companion to Europe 1900–1945, ed. Gordon Martel (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006), 74–75. In this study we do not talk about Soviet Russia. For Soviet youth education, see Klaus Mehnert, Youth in Soviet Russia (London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1933); Merle Fainsod, “The Komsomols. A Study of Youth Under Dictatorship,” American Political Science Review 45, no. 1 (1951): 18–40; Jim Riordan, “Soviet Youth: Pioneers of Change,” Soviet Studies 40, no. 4 (1988): 556–72. For the “new Soviet man,” see, for example, Jay Bergman, “Valerii Chkalov: Soviet Pilot as New Soviet Man,” Journal of Contemporary History 33, no. 1 (1998): 135–52; Peter Fritzsche and Jochen Hellbeck, “The New Man in Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany,” in Beyond Totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism Compared, ed. Michael Geyer and Sheila Fitzpatrick (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 302–44. 22. In Germany, works analyzing the Hitler Youth began to appear at the end of the 1950s: Arno Klönne, Hitlerjugend-Die Jugend und ihre Organisation im Dritten Reich (Hannover: Goedel, 1956); Arno Klönne, Gegen den Storm: Bericht über den Jugendwiderstand im Dritten Reich (Hannover: Norddeutsche Verlag-Anst., 1957). Serious studies of the Italian youth organizations, including the Fascist university groups, began to appear in the early 1970s: Maria Cristina Giuntella, “I Gruppi universitari fascisti nel primo decennio del regime,” Il Movimento di liberazione in Italia 24, no. 107 (1972): 3–38; Felicita De Negri, “Agitazioni e movimenti studenteschi nel primo dopoguerra in Italia,” Studi storici 16, no. 3 (1975): 733–63; Paolo Nello, L’avanguardismo giovanile alle origini del Fascismo (Rome: Laterza, 1978); Niccolò Zapponi, “Il partito della gioventù: Le organizzazioni giovanili del fascismo 1926–1943,” Storia contemporanea 13, no. 4–5 (1982): 569–634; Paolo Bartoli, Caterina Pasquini Romizzi, Riccardo Romizzi, La organizzazione del consenso nel regime fascista: L’Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB) come istituzione di controllo sociale (Perugia: Istituto di etnologia e antropologia culturale della Università degli studi di Perugia, 1983); Carmen Betti, L’Opera Nazionale Balilla e l’educazione fascista (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1984); Luca La Rovere, Storia dei GUF: Organizzazione, politica e miti della gioventù universitaria fascista, 1919–1943 (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2003); Luca La Rovere, “L’esame di coscienza della nazione: Gli intellettuali, il problema dei giovani e la transizione al postfascismo,” Mondo contemporaneo 2, no. 3 (2006): 5–61; Luca La Rovere, L’eredita del fascismo: Gli intellettuali, i giovani e la transizione al postfascismo, 1943–1948 (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2008); Simone Duranti, Lo spirito gregario: I gruppi universitari fascisti tra politica e propaganda, 1930–1940 (Rome: Donzelli Editore, 2008). English books discussing Fascist youth education were published in the 1920s, 1930s, and the late 1950s: Herbert W. Schneider and Shepard B. Clough, Making Fascists (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929); Herman Finer, Mussolini’s Italy (New York: Henry Holt, 1935); Germino,

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Notes to Pages 8–12

Italian Fascist Party in Power. More recently an Italian scholar published in English an article about university students: Luca La Rovere, “Fascist Groups in Italian Universities: An Organization at the Service of the Totalitarian State,” Journal of Contemporary History 34, no. 3 (1999): 457–75. The last monograph published about ONB and GIL in English was in 1985: Koon, Believe. Obey. Fight. 23. Ute Schleimer published in 2004 a book in German about Italian Fascist youth organizations. In the final chapter of her study she compared in a very general way Opera Nazionale Balilla, Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, and Hitlerjugend. However, she did not look at interactions and cooperation between ONB, GIL, and HJ. See Ute Schleimer, Die Opera Nazionale Balilla bzw. Gioventù Italiana del Littorio und die Hitlerjugend-eine Vergleichende Darstellung (Munich: Waxmann, 2004). For comparative studies of Fascism in general, see Eugen Weber, Varieties of Fascism (New York: Van Nostrand, 1964); Ernst Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism: Action Française, Italian Fascism, and National Socialism (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1965); Wolfgang Schieder, Faschismus als soziale Bewegung: Deutschland und Italien im Vergleich (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1976); Stanley Payne, Fascism: Comparison and Definition (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980); Carl Levy, “Fascism, National Socialism and Conservatives in Europe, 1914–1945: Issues for Comparativists,” Contemporary European History 8, no. 1 (1999): 97–126; Sven Reichardt, Faschistische Kampfbünde: Gewalt und Gemeinschaft im italienischen Squadrismus und in der deutschen SA (Cologne: Böhlau, 2002); Christof Dipper, Deutschland und Italien 1860– 1960: Politische und kulturelle Aspekte im Vergleich (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2005); MacGregor Knox, Origins and Dynamics of the Fascist and National Socialist Dictartorships, vol. 1, To the Threshold of Power, 1922/1933 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). For transnational studies of Italian Fascism and National Socialism, see Sven Reichardt and Armin Nolzen, Faschismus in Italien und Deutschland: Studien zu Transfer und Vergleich (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005); Wolfgang Schieder, Faschistische Diktaturen: Studien zu Italien und Deutschland (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2008). On the debate about transnational history see, for example, Akira Iriye, “Transnational History,” Contemporary European History 13, no. 2 (2004): 211– 22; Deborah Cohen and Maura O’Connor, “Comparative History, Cross-National History, Transnational History: Definitions,” in Comparison and History: Europe in Crossnational Perspective, ed. Deborah Cohen and Maura O’Connor (New York: Routledge, 2004), ix–xxiv; Patricia Clavin, “Defining Transnationalism,” Contemporary European History 14, no. 4 (2005): 421–39; The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History, ed. Akira Iriye and Pierre-Yves Saunier (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). 24. See Welch, “Nazi Propaganda and the Volksgemeinschaft,” 236; Peter Fritzsche, Life and Death in the Third Reich (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008), 36; Michael Ebner, Ordinary Violence in Mussolini’s Italy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 7–18. 25. For Mussolini see Galeazzo Ciano, Diario 1937–1943, ed. Renzo De Felice (Milan: Rizzoli, 1980), 391; Ottavio Dinale, Quarant’anni di colloqui con lui (Milan: Ciarrocca, 1953), 181. For Hitler see The Testament of Adolf Hitler: The Hitler-Bormann Documents, February–April 1945, ed. François Genoud (London: Cassel, 1959), 59, 95.



Notes to Pages 12–16

231

26. See Emilio Gentile, Il culto del littorio: La sacralizzazione della politica nell’Italia fascista (Rome: Laterza, 2001); Emilio Gentile, Il fascismo di pietra (Rome: Laterza 2007); Emilio Gentile, La via italiana al totalitarismo: Il partito e lo Stato nel regime fascista (Rome: Carocci, 2008); Richard J. Bosworth, “Tourist Planning in Fascist Italy and the Limits of a Totalitarian Culture,” Contemporary European History 6, no. 1 (1997): 1–25; Richard J. Bosworth, The Italian Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of Mussolini and Fascism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Richard J. Bosworth, “Everyday Mussolinism: Friends, Family, Locality and Violence in Fascist Italy,” Contemporary European History 14, no. 1 (2005): 23–43; Paul Corner, “Everyday Fascism in the 1930s: Centre and Periphery in the Decline of Mussolini’s Dictatorship,” Contemporary European History 15, no. 2 (2006): 195–222. 27. Bosworth, “Everyday Mussolinism,” 27, 37–38, 41–42. 28. See Richard J. Bosworth, Mussolini’s Italy: Life under the Dictatorship 1915–1945 (London: Allen Lane, 2005). 29. Victoria De Grazia, The Culture of Consent: Mass Organization of Leisure in Fascist Italy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 19, 225, 243.

Chapter 1. A Generational Apocalypse 1. Helen O. Borowitz, “Youth as Metaphor and Image in Wedekind, Kokoschka, and Schiele,” Art Journal 33, no. 3 (1974): 219–25. 2. Emilio Gentile, L’apocalisse della modernità: La Grande Guerra per l’uomo nuovo (Milan: Mondadori 2008), 25–57. 3. Paul Verlaine, “Langueur,” in Le Bonne Chanson: Jadis et naguère Parallèlement (Paris: Gallimard, 1979), 107. 4. Gentile, L’apocalisse della modernità, 58–87. 5. Christopher E. Forth, “Nietzsche, Decadence, and Regeneration in France, 1891–95,” Journal of the History of Ideas 54, no. 1 (1993): 97–117; Gentile, L’apocalisse della modernità, 135–60. 6. Quoted in Forth, “Nietzsche, Decadence, and Regeneration in France,” 111. 7. Elizabeth Harvey, “The Cult of Youth,” in A Companion to Europe 1900–1945, ed. Gordon Martel (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006), 68. 8. Lorenzo Benadusi, The Enemy of the New Man: Homosexuality in Fascist Italy (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012), 21. 9. Marco Fincardi, “Italia: Primer Caso de Disciplinamento Juvenil de Masas,” Hispania: Revista Española de Historia 67, no. 225 (2007): 46–47. 10. For Futurism, see George L. Mosse, “The Political Culture of Italian Futurism: A General Perspective,” Journal of Contemporary History 25, no. 2–3 (1990): 253–68; Günter Berghaus, Futurism and Politics: Between Anarchist Rebellion and Fascist Reaction, 1909–1944 (Providence, R.I.: Berghahn Books, 1996); Richard Humphreys, Futurism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Giovanni Lista, Futurism (Paris: Terrail, 2001); Futurism: An Anthology, ed. Lawrence Rainey, Christine Poggi, and Laura Wittman (New Haven:

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Notes to Pages 16–18

Yale University Press, 2009); Emilio Gentile, La nostra sfida alle stelle: Futuristi in politica (Rome: Laterza, 2009). 11. Alberto De Bernardi, “Il mito della gioventù e i miti dei giovani,” in Il secolo dei giovani: Le nuove generazioni e la storia del Novecento, ed. Paolo Sorcinelli and Angelo Varni (Rome: Donizelli, 2004), 69–70. See also Walter L. Adamson, “The Language of Opposition in Early Twentieth-Century Italy: Rhetorical Continuities between Prewar Florentine Avant-gardism and Mussolini’s Facism,” Journal of Modern History 64, no. 1 (1992): 22–51. 12. Adamson, “Language of Opposition,” 26. 13. Emilio Gentile, The Struggle for Modernity: Nationalism, Futurism, and Fascism (London: Praeger, 2003), 57. See also Benadusi, Enemy of the New Man, 14–21. 14. Giuseppe Prezzolini, “Le due Italie,” Il Regno, May 22, 1904. Since 1870 Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome has been the seat of the Chamber of Deputies. Montecitorio is a metonymy for the Italian Parliament. 15. Giovanni Giolitti (1842–1928) was the Italian prime minister par excellence between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. He was appointed prime minister for the first time in 1892, but because of a bank scandal he was obliged to resign in 1893. Slowly, however, he regained his influence. He became minister of the interior in 1900 and prime minister again in 1903. He was head of the Italian government from 1903 to 1905, from 1906 to 1909, from 1911 to 1914, and from 1920 to 1921. He was a member of the Italian Parliament until his death in 1928. For Giovanni Giolitti and his epoch see Emilio Gentile, Le origini dell’Italia contemporanea (Rome: Laterza, 2003). 16. Richard Drake, “Decadence, Decadentism and Decadent Romanticism in Italy: Toward a Theory of Decadence,” Journal of Contemporary History 17, no. 1 (1982): 86. 17. The battles of Lissa and Custoza were two episodes of the Italian Third War of Independence (1866). On both occasions the Italians were defeated by the Austrians. In the end they won the war and annexed the Veneto, but it was only a result of the German intervention. 18. Richard Drake, “The Theory and Practice of Italian Nationalism, 1900–1906,” Journal of Modern History 53, no. 2 (1981): 218. 19. Gentile, Struggle for Modernity, 4–6, 27–38, 41–65. 20. Drake, “Theory and Practice,” 222–23. 21. Bruno Wanrooij, “Youth, Generation Conflict, and Political Struggle in Twentieth-Century Italy,” The European Legacy 4, no. 1 (1999): 73–74. For the link between Italian Nationalism and youth see Elena Papadia, “I vecchi e giovani. Liberal-conservatori e nazionalisti a confronto nell’Italia giolittiana,” Contemporanea 3, no. 4 (2002): 651–76. 22. Drake, “Theory and Practice,” 228–29. 23. Adamson, “Language of Opposition,” 32. 24. Maurizio Degl’Innocenti, “Giovani e giovanilismo tra società e politica dalla fine dell’Ottocento alla seconda guerra mondiale,” in Il secolo dei giovani: Le nuove generazioni e la storia del Novecento, 130–31.



Notes to Pages 18–20

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25. Quoted in Robert Gerwarth, “The Central European Counter-Revolution: Paramilitary Violence in Germany, Austria and Hungary after the Great War,” Past and Present, no. 200 (2008): 197. 26. Quoted in De Bernardi, “Il mito della gioventù,” 70–71. 27. Gentile, Struggle for Modernity, 49. 28. For a general history of the Wandervögel, see Walter Laquer, Young Germany: A History of German Youth Movement (New York: Basic Books, 1962); and Peter D. Stachura, The German Youth Movement 1900–1945: An Interpretative and Documentary History (New York: St. Martin Press, 1981). 29. J. S. M., “Wandering Birds,” Irish Monthly 54, no. 632 (1926): 764. 30. Karl Brandt, “The German Back-to-the-Land Movement,” Journal of Land and Public Utility Economics 11, no. 2 (1935): 127. For the “environmental protection” issue in Wilhelmine Germany, see Raymond Dominick, “Nascent Environmental Protection in the Second Empire,” German Studies Review 9, no. 2 (1986): 257–91. 31. Robert Wohl, The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), 43. See also Elizabeth Heineman, “Gender Identity in the Wandervogel Movement,” German Studies Review 12, no. 2 (1989): 251. 32. Michael H. Kater, Hitler Youth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), 7–8. 33. See Andrew Donson, Youth in the Fatherless Land: War Pedagogy, Nationalism, and Authority in Germany, 1914–1918 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010), 20– 44. For youthful suicide, sexual frustration, and generational conflict pervading middleclass life in Wilhelmine Germany see Sterling Fishman, “Sex, Suicide and the Discovery of the German Adolescent,” History of Education Quarterly, 10 (1970): 170–88; John Gillis, Youth and History: Tradition and Change in European Age Relations, 1770–Present (New York: Academic Press, 1981), 100. Tom Taylor suggests that the problems associated with German youth may have depended more on delayed attainment of adulthood than on despotic parents or violent teachers; see Taylor, “Images of Youth and the Family in Wilhelmine Germany: Toward a Reconsideration of the German Sonderweg,” German Studies Review 15 (1992): 69–71; Taylor, “The Transition to Adulthood in Comparative Perspective: Professional Males in Germany and the United States at the Turn of the Century,” Journal of Social History 21, no. 4 (1988): 635–58. 34. John Alexander Williams, Turning to Nature in Germany: Hiking, Nudism, and Conservation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007). 35. Wohl, Generation of 1914, 47. 36. For sexuality and gender in the Wandervögel see Ulrich Linse, “‘Geschlechtsnot der Jugend’: Über Jugendbewegung und Sexualität,” in “Mit uns zieht die neue Zeit”: Der Mythos Jugend, ed. Thomas Koebner, Rolf-Peter Janz, and Frank Trommler (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1985), 245–309; Heineman, “Gender Identity in the Wandervogel Movement,” 249–70; John Alexander Williams, “Ecstasies of the Young: Sexuality, the Youth Movement, and Moral Panic in Germany on the Eve of the First World War,” Central European History 34, no. 2 (2001): 163–89.

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Notes to Pages 20–23

37. See Jeffrey Verhey, The Spirit of 1914: Militarism, Myth, and Mobilisation in Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 31, 40–41, 99. 38. For youth and war experience, see Eric J. Leed, No Man’s Land (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 58–72; Wohl, Generation of 1914; George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers, Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 53–69; Harvey, “The Cult of Youth.” 39. Verhey, Spirit of 1914, 99–100. 40. Otto Braun, Aus Nachgelassenen Schriften eines Frühvollendeten (Berlin-Grunewald: Julie Vogelstein, 1921) 110, quoted in Mosse, Fallen Soldiers, 64. 41. Verhey, Spirit of 1914, 100–101. 42. Leed, No Man’s Land, 45. 43. Emilio Gentile, “Un’apocalisse della modernità: La Grande Guerra e il Mito della Rigenerazione della politica,” Storia contemporanea 26, no. 5 (1995): 733. 44. Leed, No Man’s Land, 39–57; Gentile, L’apocalisse della modernità, 195–232. 45. Wohl, Generation of 1914, 168. 46. Adamson, “Language of Opposition,” 31. See also Luca La Rovere, “Miti e politica per la gioventù fascista,” in Dalla trincea alla piazza: L’irruzione dei giovani nel Novecento, ed. Marco De Nicolò (Rome: Viella, 2011), 205–7. 47. Giovanni Papini, “Amiamo la guerra,” Lacerba, October 1, 1914, 274. 48. Quoted in Wohl, Generation of 1914, 168. 49. De Bernardi, “Il mito della gioventù,” 71; Fincardi, “Italia,” 47; Emilio Gentile, “Le giovani generazioni nella storia dell’Europa del Novecento,” in Dalla trincea alla piazza: L’irruzione dei giovani nel Novecento, ed. Marco De Nicolò (Rome: Viella, 2011), 15– 23; Elena Papadia, “‘Educati a quella morte’: I giovani interventisti e la memoria del Risorgimento,” in Nicolò, Dalla trincea alla piazza, 75–92; Daniele Ceschin, “I volontari per l’Italia: giovani irredenti in guerra (1914–1918),” in Nicolò, Dalla trincea alla piazza, 107–22. 50. Barbara Bracco, “Da soldati a reduci,” in Dalla trincea alla piazza: L’irruzione dei giovani nel Novecento, ed. Marco De Nicolò (Rome: Viella, 2011), 94. 51. For the relationship between the Socialist Party and the Italian Federation of Socialist Youth see Patrizia Dogliani, La scuola delle reclute: L’internazionale giovanile socialista dalla fine dell’Ottocento alla prima guerra mondiale (Turin: Einaudi, 1983), 222–23, 252, 255. 52. Emilio Gentile, The Origins of Fascist Ideology, 1918–1925 (New York: Enigma, 2005), 6–9. 53. De Bernardi, “Il mito della gioventù,” 72–73. The issue dividing the Italian Socialist Party was the different opinion expressed by riformisti and massimalisti about the Italian intervention in Libya. The first mainly supported the intervention. The latter were against it. See Giorgio Galli, Storia del Socialismo Italiano (Milan: Baldini and Castoldi Dalai, 2007), 110–49. 54. Gentile, Origins of Fascist Ideology, 18–19. 55. Wanrooij, “Youth, Generation Conflict,” 74. 56. Quoted in Wanrooij, “Youth, Generation Conflict,” 74. 57. Wohl, Generation of 1914, 1.



Notes to Pages 23–26

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58. Quoted in ibid., 218. 59. See Leed, No Man’s Land, 73–114; Wohl, Generation of 1914, 51–53, 217–19; Ann P. Linder, “Landscape and Symbol in the British and German Literature of World War I,” Comparative Literature Studies 31, no. 4 (1994): 351–69; Gentile, L’apocalisse della modernità, 232–58; Sven Reichard, Camicie nere, camicie brune: Milizie fasciste in Italia e in Germania (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2009), 218–19. Also, the works of such artists as Paul Nash, Otto Dix, Alfred Kubin, Max Beckmann, and Wyndham Lewis can be considered important documents portraying the destructive power of World War I. 60. Wohl, Generation of 1914, 54–57, 173, 219–21. 61. Ernst Jünger, The Storm of Steel: From the Diary of a German Storm-troop officer on the Western Front (New York: Fertig, 1975). 62. For the Great War and the Myth of Regeneration, see Gentile, “Un’apocalisse della modernità,” 733–87; Belinda Davis, “Experience, Identity, and Memory: The Legacy of World War I,” Journal of Modern History 75, no. 1 (2003): 111–31; Gentile, L’apocalisse della modernità, 243–76. 63. Quoted in Leed, No Man’s Land, 213. 64. See Gentile, Origins of Fascist Ideology, 48. 65. Leed, No Man’s Land, 213. 66. James M. Diehl, “Demobilization and Discontent,” in A Companion to Europe 1900–1945, ed. Gordon Martel (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006), 283. 67. See Mosse, Fallen Soldiers, 159–81. For the Free Corps see also Klaus Theweleit, Male Fantasies (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987). 68. For the transformation of personality in World War I, see Leed, No Man’s Land. 69. Wohl, Generation of 1914, 222.

Chapter 2. Organizing the Youth in Fascist Italy 1. Elizabeth Harvey, “The Cult of Youth,” in A Companion to Europe 1900–1945, ed. Gordon Martel (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006), 76. 2. Renzo De Felice, Mussolini il rivoluzionario 1883–1920 (Turin: Einuadi, 1995), 501– 5; Emilio Gentile, The Origins of Fascist Ideology, 1918–1925 (New York: Enigma, 2005), 105, 111–12. 3. Among other things the students asked for the institution of special exam sessions, the postponement of demobilization and, at the same time, the exemption from active military service. In this way they could finish university soon and without economic anxieties. The Fighting Fasces supported such requests. See Paolo Nello, L’avanguardismo giovanile alle origini del fascismo (Rome: Laterza, 1978), 28; Carmen Betti, L’Opera Nazionale Balilla e l’educazione fascista (Florence: Nuova Italia, 1984), 4. 4. Quoted in Gentile, Origins of Fascist Ideology, 110. 5. Gentile, Origins of Fascist Ideology, 49; Robert Wohl, The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), 174. 6. De Felice, Mussolini il rivoluzionario, 425–26; Wohl, Generation of 1914, 231–32.

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Notes to Pages 26–29

7. Luca La Rovere, Storia dei GUF: Organizzazione, politica e miti della gioventù universitaria fascista 1919–1943 (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2003), 15–37. 8. Wohl, Generation of 1914, 177. 9. Giuseppe Carlo Marino, Le generazioni italiane dall’Unità alla Repubblica (Milan: Bompiani, 2006), 418–19. 10. Wohl, Generation of 1914, 177. 11. James M. Diehl, “Demobilization and Discontent,” in A Companion to Europe 1900–1945, ed. Gordon Martel (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006), 279–80. 12. Quoted in La Rovere, Storia dei GUF, 35. 13. Wohl, Generation of 1914, 177. 14. George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 7–8. 15. For squadre and squadrismo see Roberta Suzzi Valli, “The Myth of Squadrismo in the Fascist Regime,” Journal of Contemporary History 35, no. 2 (2000): 131–50. 16. Nello, L’avanguardismo giovanile, 27–35. 17. More than half of the parliamentarians elected were novices. It was clear that the electors wanted to turn a new page, voting en masse for political parties not involved in prewar governments. The Fascist movement could not compete with the PSI and the PPI, two well organized mass parties that had on their side, respectively, the labor unions and the Church. The Italian Socialists, although having a relative majority in the Parliament, refused to collaborate with the bourgeois parties. Therefore the old liberal class, despite the mediocre electoral result, kept its leading role, forming a coalition government with the Catholics. Emilio Gentile, Fascismo e antifascismo: i partiti italiani fra le due guerre (Florence: Le Monnier, 2000), 11–13. 18. Nello, L’avanguardismo giovanile, 66–72. 19. “Fasci e Avanguardie,” Giovinezza, March 19, 1921. 20. Felicita De Negri, “Agitazioni e movimenti studenteschi nel primo dopoguerra in Italia,” Studi storici 16, no. 3 (1975): 741–47; Nello, L’avanguardismo giovanile, 73–77; Betti, L’Opera Nazionale Balilla, 3–5, 12, 78. 21. William Brustein, “The Red Menace and the Rise of Italian Fascism,” American Sociological Review 56, no. 1 (1991): 654. 22. Robert O. Paxton, “The Five Stages of Fascism,” Journal of Modern History 70, no. 1 (1998): 15. 23. De Felice, Mussolini il rivoluzionario, 657. 24. Edward R. Tannenbaum, “The Goals of Italian Fascism,” American Historical Review 74, no. 4 (1969): 1183–204; De Felice, Mussolini il rivoluzionario, 510–11, 611–18, 658–62. 25. Offices of Socialist and Catholic trade unions and journals were stormed, devastated, and burned. Non-Fascist peasants and workers were humiliated, beaten, forced to leave their towns, or sometimes killed. Several communal and provincial governments led by the Socialist Party were dismissed. For Fascist violence see Jens Petersen, “Violence in Italian Fascism 1919–1925,” in Social Protest, Violence and Terror in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Europe, ed. Wolfgang J. Mommsen and Gehrard Hirschfeld (London: Macmillan,



Notes to Pages 29–32

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1982), 276; Emilio Gentile, “The Problem of the Party in Italian Fascism,” Journal of Contemporary History 19, no. 2 (1984): 256–57; Pier Giorgio Zunino, Fascismo e nazionalsocialismo (Turin: SEI, 1985), 25–26; Michael R. Ebner, Ordinary Violence in Mussolini’s Italy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 23–34. The Black Shirts often enjoyed the connivance of judges, army, police, and government. The then prime minister, Giovanni Giolitti, even though he took pains to avoid openly favoring the Fascist squadrismo, looked at the development of the Fascist movement with ill-concealed complacency. He thought he could make use of it to convince the PSI to collaborate with the liberal government. See Zunino, Fascismo e nazionalsocialismo, 28. 26. Nello, L’avanguardismo giovanile, 87–95; Gentile, Origins of Fascist Ideology, 159–61. 27. Nello, L’avanguardismo giovanile, 93–95; Renzo De Felice, Mussolini il Fascista: La conquista del potere, 1921–1925 (Turin: Einaudi, 1995), 42–43. Local Fascist leaders were called ras, after Ethiopian chieftains. 28. Satanello, “L’altro bersaglio,” Giovinezza, April 12, 1921. 29. Nello, L’avanguardismo giovanile, 122–23, 128–29. 30. The national blocks were special electoral coalitions between the Fascist movement and the liberal elite, created to prevent the electoral victory of the mass parties, namely the PPI and the PSI. 31. Nello, L’avanguardismo giovanile, 132–34; Betti, L’Opera Nazionale Balilla, 53–54; De Felice, Mussolini il Fascista: La conquista, 120; Gentile, Origins of Fascist Ideology, 174–75. Ras were afraid that, if successful, the patto would confirm Mussolini’s absolute rule over the Fascist movement and over the local squadre. By contrast, the National Fascist Secretariat in Milan was afraid that agrarian squads could jeopardize the political future of the movement because of their radical tendencies. Obviously the liberal regime was the ultimate enemy for Mussolini and his followers as well, but, for the moment, the traditional elite had to remain a good ally. See Gentile, Origins of Fascist Ideology, 178–79; Betti, L’Opera Nazionale Balilla, 53–54. 32. Gentile, Origins of Fascist Ideology, 189–90. 33. Sven Reichard, Camicie nere, camicie brune: milizie fasciste in Italia e in Germania (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2009), 212. See also Gentile, “Problem of the Party in Italian Fascism,” 251–54. 34. Luigi Freddi, “Movimento fascista e partito politico,” Il Popolo d’Italia, September 6, 1921. 35. Nello, L’avanguardismo giovanile, 134–36. 36. Ibid., 137; Betti, L’Opera Nazionale Balilla, 25, 41–44, 59–70; Tracy H. Koon, Believe. Obey. Fight: Political Socialization of Youth in Fascist Italy, 1922–1943 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 93. 37. Nello, L’avanguardismo giovanile, 141–43. 38. Giuseppe Bastianini, “Scopi e ordinamenti dell’Avanguardia,” Popolo d’Italia, December 21, 1922, quoted in Nello, L’avanguardismo giovanile, 199–202. 39. Nello, L’avanguardismo giovanile, 138. 40. Niccolò Zapponi, “Fascism in Italian Historiography, 1986–93: A Fading National Identity,” Journal of Contemporary History 29, no. 4 (1994): 559.

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41. De Felice, Mussolini il Fascista: La conquista, 431. See also Canali Mauro, “Milizia volontaria per la sicurezza nazionale (MVSN),” in Dizionario del fascismo, ed. Victoria de Grazia and Sergio Luzzatto (Turin: Einaudi, 2003), 2:129–32. 42. The Fascists conquered towns, cities, and provinces run by rival parties using legal (dissolution of local governments imposed by prefects) as well as illegal means (violence against local government representatives). See Gentile, Fascismo e antifascismo, 89. 43. Pius XI, elected pope on February 6, 1922, thought that Mussolini could be the right person to solve the age-old dispute between the Italian state and the Vatican that had begun with the “capture” of Rome in 1870. Therefore, the ecclesiastical hierarchies turned their back on the PPI, and in April 1923 Mussolini obliged the ministers of the Popular Party to resign. Once he eliminated his strongest political “ally,” Mussolini thought it was time to sanction the prevailing role of the PNF in Italian political life. 44. The new electoral law was called Legge Acerbo after Giacomo Acerbo, the deputy who wrote the text. The new electoral law stated that the party or the electoral list gaining at least 25 percent of the votes would get two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. The remaining third would be shared among the other parties proportionally. 45. De Felice, Mussolini il Fascista: La conquista, 581–85, 617–22, 630–35. 46. Ibid., 673–81, 714, 721–30. 47. Ibid., 729–30. 48. Niccolò Zapponi, “Il partito della gioventù: Le organizzazioni giovanili del Fascismo 1926–1943,” Storia contemporanea 12, nos. 4/5 (1982): 587. 49. Renzo De Felice, Mussolini il Fascista: L’organizzazione dello stato fascista (1926– 1929) (Turin: Einaudi 1995), 175–77, 186–88. 50. Gentile, “Problem of the Party in Italian Fascism,” 266. 51. Ibid., 263. Classic works on Italian Fascism argue that after 1926 the PNF lost its revolutionary role, becoming a depoliticized bureaucratic organ. New studies, though, have questioned the argument of the state’s victory over the party, doubting the utility of looking at party and state as two separate entities within the Fascist regime. For Mussolini the Fascist Party was a revolutionary corps at the service of, and essential for, the Fascist state. It helped the regime penetrate and control Italian society. The protagonists of the Fascist Ventennio appealed sometimes to the authority of the state, other times to the authority of the PNF, in order to justify their personal positions and damage their political rivals in the internal conflicts arbitrated by Mussolini. There was not a struggle between different ideologies or different political projects. It was a struggle between high echelons of party and state. It is arduous to clearly separate state and PNF as two disjointed entities, and it is impossible to imagine a Fascist state without a Fascist Party and vice versa: the regime was a “party-state.” See Salvatore Lupo, Il Fascismo: La politica di un regime totalitario (Rome: Donzelli Editore, 2000), 20–21, 209–17, 242, 248, 380–87; Ebner, Ordinary Violence, 25, 44–45, 52, 66–67, 70, 217. 52. See Giovanni Biondi and Fiora Imberciadori, Voi siete la primavera d’Italia . . . : L’ideologia fascista nel mondo della scuola, 1925–1943 (Turin: Paravia, 1982), 138, 164, 167–69. 53. Zapponi, “Il partito della gioventù,” 587–89. 54. “Lo Statuto dei Gruppi Balilla,” Il Popolo d’Italia, February 1, 1923.



Notes to Pages 35–37

239

55. Report of Capanni, MVSN general inspector, sent to De Bono, MVSN general commander, November 10, 1923, ACS, PCM, 1926, 2821, f. 1/2-1. See also Zapponi, “Il partito della gioventù,” 588–89. 56. Betti, L’Opera Nazionale Balilla, 78–92. 57. ACS, PCM, 1926, 1.6.1., 829, Ministero dell’Interno. 58. Gentile, Fascismo e antifascismo, 162. 59. Benito Mussolini, Scritti e discorsi: Dal 1925 al 1926 (Milan: Hoepli, 1934), 109–18. See also Gentile, Fascismo e antifascismo, 185, 194. 60. De Felice, Mussolini il Fascista: L’organizzazione, 200. 61. Zapponi, “Il partito della gioventù,” 598. 62. Augusto Turati, Agli educatori della nuova Italia (Rome, 1927), 25. 63. Antonio Gibelli, “Piccole italiane e Giovani italiane,” in Dizionario del fascismo, ed. Victoria De Grazia and Sergio Luzzatto (Turin: Einaudi, 2003), 2:372–73. 64. Regolamento tecnico-disciplinare ONB per l’esecuzione della legge 3 aprile 1926, n. 2247, art. 10. See also Sandro Setta, Renato Ricci: Dallo squadrismo alla Repubblica Sociale Italiana (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1986), 132. 65. Regolamento tecnico-disciplinare ONB per l’esecuzione della legge 3 aprile 1926, n. 2247, art. 11, 12, 13, 17, 48 and 50. 66. Herbert W. Schneider and Shepard B. Clough, Making Fascists (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929), 181. 67. Herman Finer, Mussolini’s Italy (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1935), 429–30. 68. Regolamento tecnico-disciplinare ONB per l’esecuzione della legge 3 aprile 1926, n. 2,247, art. 25 and 26. 69. Carmelo Midulla, L’indirizzo ortogenico-costituzionalistico e l’educazione fisica e giovanile: Prolusione tenuta all’inaugurazione dell’anno accademico 1929–30 il 18 dicembre 1929-VIII (Rome: ONB, 1930), 3; Setta, Renato Ricci, 137. 70. Regolamento tecnico-disciplinare ONB per l’esecuzione della legge 3 aprile 1926, n. 2247, art. 4 and 11. 71. Son of a marble quarrier, Renato Ricci was born in Carrara on June 1, 1896. He strongly supported the Italian intervention in World War I, and after the war broke out he joined the army as a volunteer. In 1921 he founded the local Fascio in Carrara. On October 28, 1922—the day of the March on Rome—Ricci occupied Carrara and Massa, and on October 29 he joined Mussolini in the Italian capital. In the following years he worked in several local Fasci all over Italy as high political commissioner of the PNF. In 1924 he was elected member of the Chamber of Deputies and became vicesecretary of the PNF. In 1926 he was appointed president of the ONB and in 1929 undersecretary of the Ministry of National Education. In 1937 Ricci was dismissed from both offices. He became then, respectively, undersecretary (1937) and minister of the corporations (1939). In 1941 he fought in Greece, where he was awarded with two silver decorations. In February 1943 Ricci was dismissed from his office as minister and he decided to withdraw from public life. After September 8, 1943, he came back to politics and on September 16 he was appointed commander of the MVSN. On December 8, 1943, he

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became leader of the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana (National Republican Guard, GNR)—a paramilitary force of the Italian Social Republic created to replace the MVSN and the Carabinieri—and of the Opera Balilla—the “new” Fascist youth organization. Because of his bad relationships with the Germans, with Marshal Rodolfo Graziani—Minister of Defense of the Social Republic—and with Alessandro Pavolini— head of the new Fascist Republican Party, the successor of the PNF—Ricci lost his office as head of the GNR on August 19, 1944, even if he kept his position as leader of the Opera Balilla. On April 25—day of the liberation of Italy from Nazi Fascism—he avoided arrest, but he was caught on June 28. He was imprisoned until January 1950, when he was granted an amnesty. Ricci died in Rome on January 22, 1956. For Ricci, see, Riservato a Mussolini: Notiziari giornalieri della Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana, Novembre 1943–giugno 1944, ed. Luigi Bonomini, Federico Fagotto, Luigi Micheletti, Luigi Molinari Tosatti, and Natale Verdina (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1974); Betti, L’Opera Nazionale Balilla, 115–30, 133–77; Koon, Believe. Obey. Fight, 94–95, 106–9, 219; Setta, Renato Ricci; Sandro Setta, “Ricci Renato,” in Dizionario del fascismo, ed. Victoria de Grazia and Sergio Luzzatto (Turin: Einaudi, 2003), 2:508–11; Alessio Ponzio, “Ricci Renato,” in DBE: Dizionario Biografico dell’Educazione 1800–2000, ed. Giorgio Chiosso and Roberto Sani (Milan: Editrice Bibliografica, 2014), 2:410–11. 72. Betti, L’Opera Nazionale Balilla, 124; Setta, Renato Ricci, 118–21. Royal decree 1,554 of August 10, 1927, and law 2,614 of November 13, 1928, entrusted the president of the ONB the powers of the Central Council and of the Executive Council. 73. For the Catholic youth associations, see Luciano Osbat, “Movimento Cattolico e questione giovanile,” in Dizionario storico del movimento cattolico in Italia, 1860–1980, ed. Francesco Traniello (Turin: Marietti 1981), vol. 1, part 2, pages 84–96. 74. Patrizia Dogliani, Storia dei giovani (Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2003), 36–42. 75. Mario Casella, “Per una storia dei rapporti tra Azione cattolica e fascismo nell’età di Pio XI,” in Chiesa, Azione cattolica e Fascismo nell’Italia settentrionale durante il pontificato di Pio XI (1922–1939), ed. Fulvio Salimbeni (Milan: Vita e pensiero 1979), 1157–263; Mario Casella, L’Azione cattolica nell’Italia contemporanea (1919–1969) (Rome: A.V.E., 1992), 173–213. In 1870 Rome was still part of the papal state. On September 20, 1870, the city was conquered by the Royal Army and became part of the Italian Kingdom. The papacy did not want to recognize the annexation, and therefore the relationship between the pope and the Italian state became tense. The dispute between the papacy and the Italian state begun in 1870 after the “conquest” of Rome is known as “Roman question.” 76. Emilio Gentile, Contro Cesare: Cristianesimo e totalitarismo nell’epoca dei fascismi (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2010), 178–230. The Concordat is an agreement necessary to regulate the relationship between the Holy See and a sovereign state. 77. For the destiny of the Federazione delle Associazioni Sportive Cattoliche Italiane (Federation of the Italian Catholic Sport Associations), see Felice Fabrizio, Storia dello sport: Dalle società ginnastiche all’associazionismo di massa (Rimini: Guaraldi, 1977), 110–12. 78. Assunta Trova, Alle origini dello scoutismo cattolico in Italia: Promessa scout ed educazione religiosa, 1905–1928 (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1986), 157–58; Luciano Caimi, “Modelli educativi dell’associazionismo giovanile cattolico nel primo dopoguerra (1919–1939),”



Notes to Pages 40–44

241

in Chiesa, cultura e educazione nell’Italia tra le due guerre, ed. Luciano Pazzaglia (Brescia: La Scuola, 2003), 236–37. 79. Trova, Alle origini dello scoutismo, 161–62. 80. Zapponi, “Il partito della gioventù,” 593. 81. Ibid., 596; Trova, Alle origini dello scoutismo, 173. 82. Luigi Pasquale Cairoli, Il Concordato fra la Santa Sede e l’Italia (Monza: Borsa, 1930), 99. 83. Albert C. O’Brien, “Italian Youth in Conflict: Catholic Action and Fascist Italy, 1929–1931,” Catholic Historical Review 68, no. 4 (1982): 625–35. 84. On March 24, 1929, the second “Fascist” general elections were held. It was a plebiscite in which voters had just to approve or reject a single party list composed by the Grand Council of Fascism. About 98 percent of the voters approved the list. See Gentile, Fascismo e antifascismo, 177–85. 85. Quoted in Gentile, Contro Cesare, 202–3. 86. L’Osservatore Romano, May 16, 1929. 87. Corriere d’Italia, May 26, 1929. 88. Setta, Renato Ricci, 133. 89. Ibid., 132–34; Koon, Believe. Obey. Fight, 101. 90. Mino Doletti, Al campo con gli Avanguardisti (Bologna: Licinio Cappelli Editore, 1929), 63–64, 83–84. 91. Ibid., 81. 92. Pope Pius XI, Divin Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929, http://www.vatican.va /holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19291231_rappresentantiin-terra_it.html. 93. E. A. Miller, “Il Fascismo, Italian Education, and the Church” School Review 38, no. 7 (1930): 524. See also Gentile, Contro Cesare, 217. 94. Richard J. Bosworth, Mussolini’s Italy: Life under the Dictatorship 1915–1945 (London: Allen Lane, 2005), 261. 95. Quoted in Marino, Le generazioni italiane dall’Unità alla repubblica, 665–66. 96. Reports sent by the MVSN Chief of staff to Renato Ricci on March 2, 1931, March 16, 1931, March 22, 1931, and May 29, 1931, ACS, Carte Ricci, s. 2. 97. O’Brien, “Italian Youth in Conflict,” 631–32. 98. Pope Pius XI, Non abbiamo bisogno, June 29, 1931, http://www.vatican.va /holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_29061931_non-abbiamobisogno_en.html. 99. Ibid. 100. Renato Moro, “Azione Cattolica, clero e laicato durante il fascismo,” in Storia del movimento cattolico in Italia, vol. 4, I cattolici dal Fascismo alla Resistenza, ed. Francesco Malgeri (Rome: Il poligono, 1981), 246. 101. Despite tensions and ambiguities, the Catholic Church tried to guarantee its alliance with Mussolini. The Duce harmed members of the Popular Party and antiFascist priests and bishops, but he also granted the Catholic Church several claims ignored by previous governments. Apart from the Lateran Pacts, the regime introduced

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Notes to Pages 44–45

the teaching of Catholic religion in all elementary schools, made compulsory the exhibition of the crucifix in all classrooms, introduced the state certification exam in order to equate state schools and private Catholic ones, recognized the Catholic University of Milan, bestowed financial subsidies to restore places of worship, acknowledged several religious feast days previously ignored, protected the enactment of religious processions and ceremonies, implemented measures to defend public morality, fought divorce in recognition of the sanctity of marriage, repressed pornography, and declared the incompatibility of Fascism with freemasonry. See Gentile, Contro Cesare, 107–8. 102. For the ambiguity of the relationship between Church and Fascist regime see Gerald Parsons, “Fascism and Catholicism: A Case Study of the Sacrario dei Caduti Fascisti in the Crypt of San Domenico, Siena,” Journal of Contemporary History 42, no. 3 (2007): 469–84. See also Stanley Payne, A History of Fascism: 1914–1945 (London: UCL, 1995), 215–17. 103. Ernesto Preziosi, Obbedienti in piedi: La vicenda dell’Azione cattolica in Italia (Turin: SEI, 1996), 173. 104. Different attitudes toward Mussolini’s regime were expressed by former members of the Italian Catholic Youth Society and the Italian Catholic University Federation. See Roberto Berardi, Un Balilla negli anni trenta: Vita di provincia dalla grande depressione alla guerra (Cuneo: L’Arcere, 1994), 9–10; Aldo Grandi, I giovani di Mussolini: Fascisti convinti, fascisti pentiti, antifascisti (Milan: Baldini & Castoldi, 2001), 236–43. However, after the crisis of 1931, Gioventù Italica, the official magazine of the Italian Catholic Youth Society, recommended to the members of the Azione Cattolica models of masculinity similar to those prescribed by the Fascists. Besides articles about family, sexual abstinence, and spirituality, Gioventù Italica also published articles about sports, chemical weapons, grand maneuvers, and Mussolini: the Catholic youth had to love peace, but they had also to be ready to fight for the Italian state. Although proclaiming, on the one hand, the importance of Jesus Christ’s main commandment to “Love one another, just as I have loved you,” Gioventù Italica did not hesitate to extoll militarism. Ultimately, according to the magazine, it was possible to be at the same time good Catholics and good Fascists. See Alessio Ponzio, “Corpo e anima: Sport e modello virile nella formazione dei giovani fascisti e dei giovani cattolici nell’Italia degli anni Trenta,” Mondo Contemporaneo 1, no. 3 (2005): 51–104. 105. Gentile, Contro Cesare, 217–19. 106. See Emanuela Bellucci, “L’educazione religiosa nell’ONB,” in Cattolici e fascisti in Umbria (1922–1945), ed. Alberto Monticone (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1978), 107–9; Luca La Rovere, “‘Rifare gli Italiani’: L’esperimento di creazione dell’ ‘Uomo nuovo nel regime fascista,’” Annali di storia dell’educazione e delle istituzioni scolastiche 9 (2002): 57–59. 107. Finer, Mussolini’s Italy, 436. 108. See Bellucci, “L’educazione religiosa nell’ONB,” 107. 109. La Rovere, Storia dei GUF, 152–59. 110. Zapponi, “Il partito della gioventù,” 613. The Ministry of Public Education was named Ministry of National Education in 1929. In the same year the Undersecretariat for Youth and Physical Education was created. The president of the ONB was by



Notes to Pages 46–50

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law undersecretary for Youth and Physical Education, and as a consequence the relationship between the Ministry of National Education and Ricci got stronger. 111. Gentile, “Problem of the Party in Italian Fascism,” 266. 112. La Rovere, Storia dei GUF, 153–54. 113. Ricci’s letter sent to Mussolini on May 30, 1931, ACS, SPD, CR, 1922–1943, Riunioni del Direttorio, b. 33, meeting of June 3, 1931. 114. La Rovere, Storia dei GUF, 156–57. 115. Ricci’s letter sent to Giuriati on November 7, 1931, ACS, PNF, Servizi Amministrativi, I, b. 362, f. 6.1.77, s.f. “Roma.” 116. PNF, Foglio disposizioni, February 19, 1932. 117. As Salvatore Lupo underlines, Achille Starace decided to put an end to the battle against Ricci, only because at that time they were allies in the “power struggle” inside the PNF against the undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior, Leandro Arpinati. See Lupo, Il Fascismo, 380–81. 118. Harvey, “Cult of Youth,” 77.

Chapter 3. A New Class of Educators 1. Pietro Caporilli, L’educazione giovanile nello Stato Fascista (Rome: Edizioni Sapientia, 1930); Mino Doletti, Al campo con gli Avanguardisti (Bologna: Licio Cappelli Editore, 1929). 2. See PNF, Foglio d’ordini del PNF, September 3, 1926, 2, ACS, PNF, Segreteria GUF, b. 49; PNF, Foglio d’ordini del PNF, September 11, 1926, 1, ACS, PNF, Segreteria GUF, b. 49; PNF, Foglio d’ordini del PNF, November 22, 1927, 2, ACS, PNF, Segreteria GUF, b. 49; Caporilli, L’educazione giovanile, 145. 3. The Academy of Physical Education was called by different names by the Fascists. In this chapter we will refer to it using also the following synonyms: the Mussolini Forum Institute and Academy of Physical and Youth Education. 4. Renzo De Felice, Mussolini il Fascista: La conquista del potere, 1921–1925 (Turin: Einaudi, 1966), 397–400. 5. For an analysis of the teacher training colleges of physical education in Italy before 1923, see Fernando Varese, L’ordinamento e l’organizzazione dell’educazione fisica e sportiva scolastica in Italia dal 1859 al 1983 (Rome: CONI, 1984); Michele Di Donato, “L’evoluzione storica della formazione del personale insegnante di educazione fisica in Italia (1847– 1943),” Alcmeone 11, no. 5–6 (1985): 175–79; Gaetano Bonetta, Corpo e nazione: L’educazione ginnastica, igienica e sessuale nell’Italia liberale (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1990); Patrizia Ferrara, L’Italia in palestra: Storia, documenti e immagini della ginnastica dal 1833 al 1973 (Rome: La Meridiana, 1992); Alessio Ponzio, La Palestra del Littorio. L’Accademia della Farnesina un esperimento di pedagogia totalitaria nell’Italia fascista (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2009), 15–20. 6. Grazioli’s letter sent to Mussolini on September 12, 1927, ACS, SPD, CR, 1922– 1943, 5. 7. Rough copy of the letter of Alessandro Chiavolini sent to Ricci, Turati, Ferretti and Fedele, without date, ACS, SPD, CR, 1922–1943, 5.

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Notes to Pages 50–52

8. “L’ordinamento e lo sviluppo dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla in una intervista con l’on. Ricci,” La Nuova Scuola Italiana, October 9, 1927. 9. “L’inaugurazione della Scuola Superiore Fascista per l’Educazione Ginni­cosportiva e il I convegno dei presidenti provinciali dell’ONB,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, January 31, 1928, 3; Ponzio, La Palestra del Littorio, 33–38. 10. “Apertura dei corsi per insegnanti di ginnastica e sport,” La Scuola Fascista, November, 24, 1927, 10; “Corsi professionali di ginnastica e sport,” I diritti della scuola, November 27, 1927, 137; “La Scuola Superiore Fascista per gli insegnanti di ginnastica,” Il Popolo d’Italia, December 8, 1927, 2; Avviso di iscrizione al primo anno alla Scuola Superiore Fascista di Magistero per l’Educazione Ginnico-sportiva, ACS, PCM, 1927, 5.1.4659. 11. “Le cerimonie di oggi a Roma per l’Istituto di educazione fisica,” Corriere della Sera, February 5, 1928; “L’inaugurazione della Scuola superiore di educazione ginnicosportiva,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, February 15, 1928, 1. 12. According to the implementation procedures of the ONB law ( January 1927), Avanguardisti and Balilla units had to be led and trained by MVSN officers. At first this seemed to be the best possible way to guarantee Fascist leaders and instructors in the units of the Fascist youth organizations. But Ricci realized soon that the assignment of leading roles to militia members had not been a good idea. Indeed, as soon as the MVSN identified particularly skilled instructors, it required them to leave the leadership of the youth units and assigned them to train MVSN battalions. As a result Balilla and Avanguardisti had at their disposal few qualified instructors. See “Opera Nazionale Balilla,” I diritti della scuola, May 13, 1928, 465; Ricci’s report about the ONB, eighth year of the Fascist Era, 34, ACS, PCM, 1928–1930, 1.1.15, 2104, 46; Renato Ricci, “Balilla e Gioventù Fascista,” in Mussolini e il Fascismo (Rome: Daffina, 1929), 319. 13. Fernando Maria Brignoli, “Giovinezza e disciplina,” Giovinezza-Organo ufficiale del comitato provinciale dell’Urbe dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, August 31, 1928, 2. 14. Eugenio Ferrauto, “Cultura fisica e Opera Balilla nell’educazione fisica,” Il Giavellotto, February 18, 1928, quoted in Enrico Cirincione, “Il I. concorso ginnicomilitare ‘DUX’ e gli insegnanti di educazione fisica,” La Nuova Scuola Fascista–Settimanale di Politica Scolastica, June 30, 1929, 9. 15. “Bando di concorso per l’ammissione di 150 allievi all’Accademia Fascista di Educazione Fisica per l’anno accademico 1929–30,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, April 1, 1929, 1–2. 16. Minutes of the Fascist Physical Education Academy, meeting of November 8, 1928, Private Archive Luigi Meschini. 17. Angelo Cammarata, Pedagogia di Mussolini. La scuola dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla: I corsi per i capi centuria e i Campi DUX (Palermo: Trimarchi, 1932), 100. 18. “Istituto Superiore Fascista di Magistero,” La Scuola Fascista: Bisettimanale di Politica Scolastica, January 5, 1928, 10; Brignoli, “Giovinezza e disciplina,” 2. 19. Del Comitato Centrale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, Nicola Stagnani’s report against the Opera Nazionale Balilla and Ricci, ACS, PCM, 1940–1943, 1.1.15, 3500, 1.



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20. “Notiziario–Lo Statuto dell’Accademia Fascista di E. F. dal Consiglio superiore dell’educazione nazionale,” Echi e commenti, October 15, 1929; “Balilla (Opera Nazionale),” Enciclopedia Italiana (Rome: Treccani, 1930). For the reform attempt see Ponzio, La Palestra del Littorio, 48–53, 61. 21. Ricci’s report about the ONB activity in the ninth year of the Fascist Era, ACS, PCM, 1928–1930, 1.1.15, 2104, 46. 22. Ricci’s letter to Giuliano, November 7, 1931, ACS, MPI, Direzione Generale Istruzione Superiore, Divisione II, Legislazione e statuti delle regie università (1923– 1938), b. 50; Giuliano’s letter to Ricci, December 11, 1931, ACS, MPI, Direzione Generale Istruzione Superiore, Divisione II, Legislazione e statuti delle regie università (1923–1938), b. 50. For the legislative measures of 1931 and 1932, see Ponzio, La Palestra del Littorio, 57–62. 23. Cammarata, Pedagogia di Mussolini, 102–3. See also “Saluto del comitato scientifico della rivista in occasione del II anno di attività,” Rivista di scienze applicate all’educazione fisica e giovanile, January–February 1931, 4; “Recensioni,” Rivista di scienze applicate all’educazione fisica e giovanile, January–February 1932, 53. 24. In this speech Mussolini announced the principle “numbers equal power.” National power depended, according to the Duce, on population growth. Therefore, the Fascist state had to take measures against abortion, celibacy, and contraceptive methods, and had to improve the health of the Italian people. Sport and physical education were considered essential weapons in the regime’s demographic battle. For Fascist eugenics, see Giorgio Israel and Pietro Nastasi, Scienza e razza nell’Italia fascista (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1999); Mantovani Claudia, Rigenerare la società: L’eugenetica in Italia dalle origini ottocentesche agli anni Trenta (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2004). 25. For Fascism and modernity, see Roger Griffin, Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007); Emilio Gentile, Modernità totalitaria: Il Fascismo Italiano (Rome: Laterza, 2008). 26. For Italian–American relations, see John P. Diggins, Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972); David F. Schmitz, The United States and Fascist Italy, 1922–1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988); Emilio Gentile, “Impending Modernity: Fascism and the Ambivalent Image of the United States,” Journal of Contemporary History 28, no. 1 (1993): 7–29; Stanley Payne, A History of Fascism: 1914–1945 (London: University College London Press, 1995), 230. 27. Schmitz, United States and Fascist Italy, 111–34. 28. Thomas B. Morgan, Italian Physical Culture Demonstration (New York: Macfadden Book Co., 1932). 29. For Bernarr Macfadden, see Mary Macfadden and Emile Gauvreau, Dumbbells and Carrot Strips: the Story of Bernarr Macfadden (New York: Holt, 1953); Robert Ernst, Weakness Is a Crime: The Life of Bernarr Macfadden (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1991); Ruth Marie Griffith, “Apostles of Abstinence: Fasting and Masculinity in the Progressive Era,” American Quarterly 52, no. 4 (2000): 599–638; Clement Wood, Bernarr Macfadden: A Study in Success (Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger Publishing, 2003); Mark

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Notes to Pages 55–59

Adams, Mr. America: How Muscular Millionaire Bernarr Macfadden Transformed the Nation through Sex, Salad, and the Ultimate Starvation Diet (New York: Harper Collins, 2009). 30. Ernst, Weakness Is a Crime, 103. 31. “Un articolo di MacFadden nel Graphic su Mussolini,” Il progresso Italo-Americano, April 4, 1931. 32. Macfadden and Gauvreau, Dumbbells and Carrot Strips, 401. 33. Adams, Mr. America, 164. 34. Ernst, Weakness Is a Crime, 104. 35. Rivista di scienze applicate all’educazione fisica e giovanile, January–February 1931, 4. Robert Ernst and Mark Adams wrote mistakenly in their books that forty cadets of the University of Rome came to the United States to attend Macfadden’s course. 36. See the picture published by the New York Times with the title “Mussolini’s Envoys of Physical Culture,” New York Times, February 24, 1931. See also “40 Atleti d’Italia partiti per gli S.U.,” Il progresso Italo-Americano, February 15, 1931. 37. “Quaranta Atleti Italiani, baldi nelle loro severe divise, suscitano ammirazione e simpatia all’arrivo in New York,” Il progresso Italo-Americano, February 24, 1931. 38. “Gli Atleti Italiani ricevuti dal sindaco Walker e acclamati da 10,000 persone,” Il progresso Italo-Americano, February 25, 1931. See also the picture of the students together with Walker, MacFadden, and the Italian vice consul published by Il progresso ItaloAmericano-Sezione Illustrata, March 8, 1931. 39. “Hoover riceve gli atleti italiani,” Il progresso Italo-Americano, February 27, 1931. 40. Morgan, Italian Physical Culture, passim. 41. “Gli Atleti Fascisti sono partiti per l’Italia col ‘Biancamano’,” Il progresso ItaloAmericano, July 18, 1931. 42. “Accademia di educazione fisica,” I diritti della scuola, August 5, 1931, 583. 43. “Realizzazione e mete dell’Opera Balilla. I giochi e il loro valore educativo,” Rivista illustrata del Popolo d’Italia, April 1931, 18–19; “Notizie e informazioni,” Rivista di scienze applicate all’educazione fisica e giovanile, May–June 1931, 63–64; Rivista Illustrata del Popolo d’Italia, April 1931, 18–19. 44. For Mussolini’s Rome: Kostof Spiro, Third Rome, 1870–1950: Traffic and Glory. An Exhibition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 29–40; Paul Baxa, “Piacentini’s Window: The Modernism of the Fascist Master Plan of Rome,” Contemporary European History 13, no. 1 (2004): 1–20; Emilio Gentile, Fascismo di pietra (Rome: Laterza, 2007); Paul Baxa, “Capturing the Fascist Moment: Hitler’s Visit to Italy in 1938 and the Radicalization of Fascist Italy,” Journal of Contemporary History 42, no. 2 (2007): 231–35; Paolo Nicoloso, Mussolini architetto: Propaganda e paesaggio urbano nell’Italia fascista (Turin: Einaudi, 2008). 45. Enrico Del Debbio, “Memoriale,” in Foro Italico, ed. Antonella Greco and Stefano Santuccio (Rome: Multigrafica, 1991), 89. 46. Il Foro Italico e lo Stadio olimpico: Immagini dalla storia, ed. Memmo Caporilli and Franco Simeoni (Rome: Tomo Edizioni, 1990), 59; Greco and Santuccio, Foro Italico, 50. 47. Renato Ricci, “Prefazione,” in Il Foro Mussolini, ed. Agnoldomenico Pica (Milan: Bompiani, 1937), 5.



Notes to Pages 59–61

247

48. Carmen Betti, L’Opera Nazionale Balilla e l’educazione fascista (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1984), 131–33; Caporilli and Simeoni, Il Foro Italico, 59. 49. See Ricci’s report sent to the office of the prime minister on May 22, 1935, ACS, PCM, 1934–36, 7.2.3856. 50. “Relazione a S. E. il Capo del Governo sull’attività svolta durante l’anno 1928,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, January 1, 1929, 9. 51. Report on the works at the Mussolini Forum, sent by Ricci to Mussolini on June 22, 1934, ACS, PCM, Gabinetto, 1934–36, 7.2.3856.2. 52. Sport Fascista, November 1928, 1, 2, 5; Caporilli and Simeoni, Il Foro Italico, 48. 53. Pica, Il Foro Mussolini, 30. Subsequently, both projects were abandoned, and the “twin building” became the seat of the Academy of Music and of the indoor swimming pools of the ONB. 54. See Rivista illustrata del popolo d’Italia, September 1929, 56; “Il Foro Mussolini inaugurato dal Duce-Imponenti manifestazioni di entusiasmo della gioventù Fascista e del popolo dell’Urbe. Il saggio ginnico-sportivo,” Il Popolo d’Italia, November 5, 1932; Marcello Piacentini, “Il Foro Mussolini in Roma,” Architettura: Rivista del Sindacato Nazionale Fascista Architetti, February 1933, 67; Pica, Il Foro Mussolini, 30; Agnoldomenico Pica, “Il Foro Mussolini,” L’ingegnere: Rivista del Sindacato Nazionale Fascista Ingegneri, July 15, 1938, 383–88. 55. “Notizie e informazioni,” Rivista di scienze applicate all’educazione fisica e giovanile, January–February 1930, 68. 56. See Del Comitato Centrale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla; Vittorio Cian, Su l’Opera Nazionale Balilla, discorso pronunciato nella seduta del 4 aprile 1933 (Rome, 1933), 17. 57. See Contract of June 20, 1928, ACS, PCM, 1928–1930, 1.1.15, 2104, 25. 58. Watch Inaugurazione del Foro Mussolini, AIL, 1932, B164. Moreover, see the pictures in “Il Foro Mussolini inaugurato dal Duce”; Scaramuccia, “La vittoria risplende nelle opere,” L’illustrazione italiana, November 13, 1932, 696–97; “Il Foro Mussolini,” Rivista illustrata del Popolo d’Italia, November 1932, 72–77; Cammarata, Pedagogia di Mussolini, 104. 59. Giusppe Amilcare Oddo, Due anni da allievo all’Accademia Fascista X–XI (Cantù: Tipografia Grassi e Primi 1935), 43–44. The Female Academy of Orvieto, quoted by the academist, was founded on February 8, 1932. It had to educate and train the female physical education teachers and the leaders of the female units of the Fascist youth organizations. 60. Sandro Setta, Renato Ricci: Dallo squadrismo alla Repubblica Sociale Italiana (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1986), 158–61. 61. Antonio Muñoz, “Roma Mussoliniana,” in Panorami di realizzazioni del Fascismo, Le opere pubbliche del Regime Fascista (Rome: Casa editrice dei Panorami di realizzazioni del Fascismo, 1942), 9:245. 62. See Rivista illustrata del Popolo d’Italia, September 1929, 58–59; Gustavo Brigante Colonna, “Mentre l’obelisco dedicato al Duce viaggia verso Roma. Ricordo degli ultimi monoliti romani,” Capitolium-Rassegna mensile del Governatorato 5, no. 5 (1929): 270–71; ONB, L’Obelisco Mussolini (Rome: Presidenza Centrale dell’Opera Balilla, 1934). 63. “Fascists Have Won Italians to Sport,” New York Times, February 15, 1931.

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Notes to Pages 61–68

64. “Rome Will Erect 56-Foot Monolith,” New York Times, September 11, 1932. 65. See, for example, the following newsreels: Giunge a Roma il monolite delle Alpi Apuane, AIL, 1929, A0477; A Roma trasporto del monolite, AIL, 1930, A0508; Arrivo a Roma del monolite, AIL, 1930, A0509; A Roma l’innalzamento dell’Obelisco, AIL, 1932, A0994. See also Maccaroni, “La ‘colonna del Duce’ verso il mare di Roma,” Il Carlino della sera, January 16, 1929, quoted in Setta, Renato Ricci, 159. See the pictures in “Monolito,” Rivista illustrata del Popolo d’Italia, November 1932, 72–77. 66. “Il Codice del Foro Mussolini,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, November 15, 1932, 3–5. 67. Mario Paniconi, “Criteri informatori e dati sul Foro Mussolini,” Architettura: Rivista del Sindacato Nazionale Fascista Architetti, February 1933, 65–75. 68. “Rome Will Erect 56-Foot Monolith.” 69. Carlo Magi-Spinetti, “Il Foro Mussolini,” Capitolium-Rassegna mensile del Governatorato 9, no. 2 (1934): 91. 70. See Caporilli and Simeoni, Il Foro Italico, 88, 101; Greco and Santuccio, Foro Italico, 49. 71. For the marble statues see “Le statue per il Foro Mussolini,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, August 1, 1929, 1. 72. See “Il Foro Mussolini inaugurato dal Duce”; Caporilli and Simeoni, Il Foro Italico, 118; Greco and Santuccio, Foro Italico, 49. 73. See Senate, Parliamentary Acts, Senator Alfredo Baccelli’s report, discussion about the budget of the National Education Ministry, year 1934–1935, January 8, 1934, 1929–34, Discussions no. 6, from December 11, 1933, to January 16, 1934, 6969; “Il Foro Mussolini inaugurato dal Duce”; G. di Castelnuovo, “Il Foro Mussolini,” Roma di Mussolini, 26–36, quoted in Greco and Santuccio, Foro Italico, 84; Magi-Spinetti, “Il Foro Mussolini,” 96–97. 74. Camillo Barbarito, Lo Sport Fascista e la Razza (Turin: G. B. Paravia e C., 1937), 42. 75. See “Il Foro Mussolini,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, November 15, 1932, 3. 76. Ugo Ojetti, “Fedeltà a Roma,” Corriere della Sera, October 23, 1932, 3. 77. See Accademia Fascista-XI (Rome, 1933), 10, 13, 17, 22; Piacentini, “Il Foro Mussolini in Roma,” 68, 70; Caporilli and Simeoni, Il Foro Italico, 71–72, 77. 78. “Il Foro Mussolini inaugurato dal Duce,” 2; Accademia Fascista, 14, 20, 22; Piacentini, “Il Foro Mussolini in Roma,” 70. For the School of Fascist Mystique see Daniele Marchesini, La scuola dei gerarchi. Mistica Fascista: storia, problemi, istituzioni (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1976). For Arnaldo Mussolini see Marcello Staglieno, Arnaldo e Benito: Due fratelli (Milan: Oscar Mondadori, 2004). 79. See, for example, Ricci’s letter sent to Mussolini September 30, 1929, ACS, PCM, 1928–1930, 1.1.15, 2104, 22–5; ONB, Il capo centuria (Rome: Grafia, 1930), 292. 80. See Avviso di iscrizione al primo anno alla Scuola Superiore Fascista di Magistero per l’Educazione Ginnico-sportiva, ACS, PCM, 1927, 5.1.4659; “Classifica delle direzioni ginnico-sportive,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, March 15, 1928, 3.



Notes to Pages 68–71

249

81. “Movimento ufficiali nelle legioni Avanguardisti e Balilla,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, October 15, 1929, 7. 82. Accademia Fascista, 9–13. 83. “Bando per l’anno accademico 1929–1930,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, August 15, 1929, 3. 84. See “Borse di studio per le Accademie istituite dal Comitato di Napoli,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, May 1, 1933, 5; “Istituzione di borse di studio presso l’Accademia di Roma e di Orvieto,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, May 15, 1933, 4–5; “Istituzione di borse di studio,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, November 1, 1935, 3; “Notiziario,” Il giornale della scuola media, December 5, 1935, 11. Moreover, see Accademia Fascista, 17–20, 29; Ponzio, La Palestra del Littorio, 91–98. 85. Accademia Fascista, 5. 86. See Chamber of Deputies, Parliamentary Acts, volume VII, Discussions from November 16, 1932, to March 18, 1933, XI, XXVIII Legislature, 1929–1933, Discussion of the budget of the Ministry of National Education 1933–1934, Speech of Umberto Guglielmotti, March 13, 1933. Moreover see Ponzio, La Palestra del Littorio, 99–101, 118–23. 87. Accademia Fascista, 15. 88. “L’Opera Balilla vivaio di giovinezza,” Almanacco fascista del “Popolo d’Italia” (Milan: Tipografia del Popolo d’Italia, 1936), 270. 89. Accademia Fascista, 22–25. 90. Oddo, Due anni da allievo all’Accademia Fascista, 47. 91. See, for example, the special issue of Storia Verità about the meeting organized by the former students of the Academy of Rome and Orvieto in 1999: “Le Accademie di Educazione Fisica. Ieri. Oggi. Domani,” Storia Verità 4, no. 19 (1999). 92. “L’Opera Balilla vivaio di giovinezza,” 275; Oddo, Due anni da allievo all’Accademia Fascista, 22. 93. Angelo Cammarata, “Sintesi d’Educazione Fascista al III Corso nazionale per capi centuria dell’ONB,” I diritti della scuola, August 25, 1932, 602–3; Cammarata, Pedagogia di Mussolini, 101–2; “Le giovani generazioni Fasciste. La relazione del Duce alla Camera sull’ordinamento dell’esercito. Il calendario dell’Opera Balilla per l’anno XII,” Corriere della Sera, November 29, 1933, 1. 94. “Le disposizioni impartite dalla Presidenza all’inizio del 2° decennio,” Il giornale della scuola media, June 15, 1936, 13. 95. Ricci’s report about the ONB, eighth year of the Fascist Era (1929–1930), 42, ACS, PCM, 1928–1930, 1.1.15, 2104, 46. 96. “L’Opera Balilla alla fine dell’anno X,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, November 1, 1932, 4; “Il bilancio dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla alla Camera dei Deputati e al Senato,” 1. 97. “Il bilancio dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla alla Camera dei Deputati e al Senato,” 1. 98. See “La formazione dei dirigenti dell’Opera Balilla,” Rivista illustrata del Popolo d’Italia, August 1933, 19–20. For the lesser leaders see also Ponzio, La Palestra del Littorio,

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Notes to Pages 71–74

102–15. Also the article 41 of the “Regolamento tecnico-disciplinare ONB per l’esecuzione della legge 3 aprile 1926” stated that primary school teachers had to be employed as Balilla leaders. For the role of the elementary teachers in the ONB see, for example, Roberto Berardi, Un Balilla negli anni trenta: vita di provincia dalla grande depressione alla guerra (Cuneo: L’Arcere, 1994), 32, 61, 67–68, 71; and Luisa Passerini, Torino operaia e fascismo (Rome: Laterza, 1984), 169. 99. See “La formazione dei dirigenti dell’Opera Balilla,” 19–20. 100. For the female teachers issue, see Manlio Pompei, “Educazione virile,” Critica Fascista, August 15, 1932, 306–7; report of the royal prefecture of Istria–Prefect Cimoroni–Situation of the youth organization in Pola, November 28, 1933, ACS, Carte Ricci, s. 2, f. 4, s.f. 1; Starace’s letter of March 19, 1935, quoted in Alberto Aquarone, “Due lettere di Starace a Mussolini sulle organizzazioni giovanili fasciste,” Rassegna degli Archivi di stato 27, no. 3 (1968): 641. 101. Eugenio Ferrauto, “L’educazione fisica giovanile del Regime,” Lo Sport Fascista, April 1936, 11. 102. Cammarata, Pedagogia di Mussolini, 101–2. 103. See, for example, “L’azione spiegata dall’ONB nell’anno VIII,” I diritti della scuola, January 4, 1931, 180; “Mille maestri al corso informativo,” I diritti della scuola, September 7, 1933, 619. 104. A Roma il Duce riceve 1,200 insegnanti, AIL, 1929, A0422. 105. “Corsi informativi nazionali per dirigenti e insegnanti elementari,” Bollettino del Ministero dell’Educazione Nazionale, May 5, 1931, 1157. 106. “Corsi nazionali per dirigenti e insegnanti della scuola primaria,” Bollettino del Ministero dell’Educazione Nazionale, April 25, 1933, 806–7. 107. “Scuola e Opera Balilla,” I diritti della scuola, June 30, 1933, 545. 108. For the Accademia Littoria see Ponzio, La Palestra del Littorio, 185–94. 109. See Ricci’s reports about ONB, eighth and ninth year of the Fascist Era, ACS, PCM, 1928–1930, 1.1.15, 2104, 46. 110. “Disposizioni della Presidenza per i prossimi campeggi,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, June 15, 1929, 1–3; “Gli allievi dell’A. F. ai campeggi,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, August 1, 1929, 3; “Corsi per capi squadra,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, August 1, 1929, 3; “Corso ginnico sportivo militare per Avanguardisti capi squadra,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, September 15, 1929, 1. 111. “Il campeggio Avanguardisti capi squadra,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, September 1, 1929, 1. 112. “La relazione dei dirigenti Balilla,” Scuola italiana moderna, June 14, 1930, V. 113. “Norme generali per capi squadra e capi centuria,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, June 1, 1930, 3. 114. “Norme generali per capi squadra e capi centuria”; “Notizie e informazioni,” Rivista di scienze applicate all’educazione fisica e giovanile, March–April 1930, 78. 115. “Le direttive per l’attività dell’organizzazione nell’anno IX,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, September 15, 1930, 1.



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116. “Circolare del Comando Generale della MVSN per i militi in servizio presso l’ONB,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, January 1, 1930, 4; “Disposizioni per la nomina degli Avanguardisti a capi squadra,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, April 15, 1930, 7–9; “Norme generali per capi squadra e capi centuria,” 7; “Notizie e informazioni,” Rivista di scienze applicate all’educazione fisica e giovanile, May–June 1931, 63. See also n.12 in this chapter. 117. “Personale retribuito dall’ONB,” I diritti della scuola, October 25, 1931, 60. 118. Ricci, “Prefazione,” 5.

Chapter 4. And They Will Never Be Free Again, for the Rest of Their Lives 1. George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 161. See also James M. Diehl, “Demobilization and Discontent,” in A Companion to Europe 1900–1945, ed. Gordon Martel (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006), 285–88; Andrew Donson, Youth in the Fatherless Land: War Pedagogy, Nationalism, and Authority in Germany, 1914–1918 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010). 2. The Deutsche Arbeiterpartei was founded on January 9, 1919, by a locksmith named Anton Drexler and a sports journalist, Karl Harren. The party consisted of a small group of faithful followers. Adolf Hitler became a member in September 1919. In a short period of time Hitler became the “attraction” of the DAP. The party program consisted of twenty-five points and displayed a clear hostility toward capitalism, demanded the abrogation of the peace treaties of Versailles and Saint-Germain, and proclaimed that only Volksgenossen (race comrades) could be considered German citizens and whoever was not a citizen had to be considered a “guest.” Shortly afterward the party’s name was changed: the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei became the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei. See Joachim C. Fest, The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership (New York: Pantheon Books, 1970), 15–19; Joachim C. Fest, Hitler (New York: Vintage books edition, 1975), 133; Nazi Ideology before 1933: A Documentation, ed. Barbara Miller Lane and Leila J. Rupp (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978), 41–43; Jay Hatheway, “The Pre-1920 Origins of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party,” Journal of Contemporary History 29, no. 3 (1994): 443–62. 3. For the SA, see Peter H. Merkl, The Making of a Stormtrooper (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980); Richard Bessel, Political Violence and the Rise of Nazism: The Storm Troopers in Eastern Germany, 1925–1934 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984); Sven Reichardt, Faschistische Kampfbünde: Gewalt und Gemeinschaft im italienischen Squadrismus und in der deutschen SA (Cologne: Böhlau, 2002). 4. Michael Kater, The Nazi Party: A Social Profile of Members and Leaders, 1919–1945 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983), 27–28. 5. For the origins of the Hitler Youth: Arno Klönne, Hitlerjugend: Die Jugend und ihre Organisation im Dritten Reich (Hannover: Goedel, 1957); Hannsjoachim Wolfgang Koch, The Hitler Youth: Origins and Development 1922–1945 (New York: Cooper Square Press,

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Notes to Pages 77–80

1975), 43–83; Peter D. Stachura, Nazi Youth in the Weimar Republic (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Clio Books, 1975); Brenda Ralph Lewis, Hitler Youth: The Hitlerjugend in War and Peace, 1933–1945 (London: Spellmount, 2000); Michael Buddrus, Totale Erziehung für den totalen Krieg: Hitlerjugend und nationalsozialistische Jugendpolitik (Munich: Saur, 2003). 6. Stachura, Nazi Youth, 7. 7. For the foundation of the Jugendbund der NSDAP, see “Aus der Bewegung,” Völkischer Beobachter, March 8, 1922. For the inaugural meeting, see “Die Gründungsver­ sammlung des Jugendbundes der NSDAP,” Völkischer Beobachter, May 17, 1922. 8. Satzungen des Jugendbundes der NSDAP (March 1922), quoted in Hans-Christian Brandenburg, Die Geschichte der HJ: Wege und Irrwege einer Generation (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1968), 239–40. 9. Stachura, Nazi Youth, 9. 10. Donson, Youth in the Fatherless Land, 4. 11. The Deutschnationale Volkspartei (German National People’s Party, DNVP) created the so-called Bismarckjugend in 1918. One year later the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (Communist Party, KPD) and the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party, SPD) assembled their own youth, respectively, in the Kommunistischer Jugendverband Deutschlands (Communist Youth Association of Germany, KJD) and the Sozialistische Arbeiterjugend (Socialist Workers’ Youth, SAJ). In 1920 the Deutsche Volkspartei (German People’s Party, DVP) founded the Hindenburgjugend, while the Catholics of the Deutsche Zentrumspartei (German Center Party) organized its youth in the Windthorstbund (Windthorst’s Alliance). 12. See Klönne, Hitlerjugend, 12; Ulrike Schmidt, “Über das Verhältnis von Jugendbewegung und Hitlerjugend,” Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 15, no. 16 (1965): 20; Stachura, Nazi Youth, 4, 89, 103; Peter D. Stachura, The German Youth Movement 1900–1945 (London: Macmillan, 1981); Heinz-Hermann Krüger, “Jugend und Jugendopposition im Dritten Reich,” in Erziehung im Nationalsozialismus, “. . . und sie werden nicht mehr frei ihr ganzes Leben!,” ed. Kurt-Ingo Flessau, Elke Nyssen, and Günter Pätzold (Cologne: Böhlau, 1987), 11. 13. Stachura, Nazi Youth, 7–10. 14. Ibid., 10–11. 15. Ibid., 5; Elizabeth Harvey, “The Cult of Youth,” in A Companion to Europe 1900– 1945, ed. Gordon Martel (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006), 77. 16. See Stachura, Nazi Youth, 5–12; Hermann Giesecke, Vom Wandervogel bis zur Hitlerjugend (Munich: Juventa, 1981), 182; Ralph Lewis, Hitler Youth, 15–18. 17. See Satzungen der Großdeutschen Jugendbewegung, quoted in Brandenburg, Die Geschichte der HJ, 241–42; Stachura, Nazi Youth, 13–16; Koch, Hitler Youth, 55–66. The ideology of the Großdeutsche Jugendbewegung was basically identical to the one of Lenk’s Jugendbund: anti-Semitism, anti-Bolshevism, classless equality of all Aryans and physical health. See “Aufruf ! An die Deutsche Jugend,” Völkischer Beobachter, November 4, 1922. 18. The “social-revolutionary” Nazis desired to push the themes of warmongering and nationalism into the background, give more space to social issues, carry out the



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economic program put forward in the 1920 NSDAP platform, and nationalize several large industries. Fest, Face of the Third Reich, 89. 19. See Fest, Face of the Third Reich, 89–90; Robert O. Paxton, “The Five Stages of Fascism,” Journal of Modern History 70, no. 1 (1998): 12–16; Richard J. Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (London: Penguin, 2004), 201–5; Kater, Nazi Party, 30–46. 20. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (London: Pimlico, 1992), 377–80. 21. See Klönne, Hitlerjugend, 9; Stachura, Nazi Youth, 21–23; Giesecke, Vom Wandervogel bis zur Hitlerjugend, 182; Ralph Lewis, Hitler Youth, 15–18. The foundation of a united Nazi youth organization was not an isolated event; in a similar manner the SS was established in 1925, the SA was reorganized in 1926, and many other Nazi associations were created in the following years. 22. Stachura, Nazi Youth, 24–25. 23. See Klönne, Hitlerjugend, 9; Stachura, Nazi Youth, 25–31, 38, 71–88. 24. Koch, Hitler Youth, 67–70; Stachura, Nazi Youth, 31. 25. Stachura, Nazi Youth, 29–38. See also Peter D. Stachura, “Das Dritte Reich und Jugenderziehung: Die Rolle der Hitlerjugend 1933–1939,” in Erziehung und Schulung im Dritten Reich, ed. Manfred Heinemann (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1980), 94; Michael Mitterauer, Sozialgeschichte der Jugend (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986), 231–32. 26. See also Stachura, Nazi Youth, 58, 97–99; Daniel Horn, “The National Socialist Schülerbund and the Hitler Youth, 1929–1933,” Central European History 10, no. 4 (1978): 355–58. 27. See Grundsatzreferat Kurt Grubers Ende 1928 in Plauen, quoted in Brandenburg, Die Geschichte der HJ, 246–47; Stachura, Nazi Youth, 47–52. 28. See Klönne, Hitlerjugend, 10; Horn, “National Socialist Schülerbund and the Hitler Youth,” 360–62. 29. See Wolfgang Zorn, “Student Politics in the Weimar Republic,” Journal of Contemporary History 5, no. 1 (1970): 128–43. 30. Koch, Hitler Youth, 70–71; Stachura, Nazi Youth, 54; Evans, Coming of the Third Reich, 213–16; Michael Kater, Hitler Youth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 2004), 17–18. 31. Peter D. Stachura, “The Ideology of the Hitler Youth in the Kampfzeit,” Journal of Contemporary History 8, no. 3 (1973): 159–60. 32. Stachura, Nazi Youth, 52. 33. See Peter D. Stachura, “The Hitler Youth in Crisis: The Case of Reichsführer Kurt Gruber, October 1931,” European Studies Review 6, no. 6 (1976): 337–39, 347; Horn, “National Socialist Schülerbund and the Hitler Youth,” 370. After the elections of September 1930, Hitler, actively building good relationships with businessmen, state bureaucrats, academics, and eastern landowners, decided to remove once and for all those Nazi leaders who could be accused of supporting and expressing anticapitalist and antibourgeois ideas. 34. Klönne, Hitlerjugend, 10; Stachura, Nazi Youth, 122–36, 153; Koch, Hitler Youth, 75–79. 35. Koch, Hitler Youth, 79.

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36. Stachura, Nazi Youth, 54. 37. Membership numbers from Günter Kaufmann (Das Kommende Deutschland [Berlin: Junker and Dünnhaupt, 1940]). Such authors as Fest (Face of the Third Reich), maintained that the Hitler Youth had, at the end of 1932, 110,000 members. 38. Koch, Hitler Youth, 84. 39. Stachura, Nazi Youth, 163; Stachura, “Hitler Youth in Crisis,” 347; Horn, “National Socialist Schülerbund and the Hitler Youth,” 373–75; Buddrus, Totale Erziehung für den totalen Krieg, 1:307. 40. Stachura, Nazi Youth, 45–46; 188. See also Ward James, “Smash the Fascists. . . . German Communist Efforts to Counter the Nazis, 1930–1931,” Central European History 14, no. 1 (1981): 30–62; Elizabeth Harvey, Youth and Welfare State in Weimar Germany (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993); Richard Bessel, “The Nazi Capture of Power,” Journal of Contemporary History 39, no. 2 (2004): 180–83; Elizabeth Harvey, “Autonomia, conformidad y rebellion: movimientos y culturas juveniles en Alemania en el periodo de entreguerras,” Hispania: Revista Española de Historia 57, no. 225 (2007): 103–26; Kater, Hitler Youth, 6. 41. Stachura, Nazi Youth, 186–87. 42. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers, 182–83. 43. Max Domarus, Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945 (Munich: Süd­ deutscher Verlag 1965), 137. 44. Paolo Nello, L’avanguardismo giovanile alle origini del fascismo (Rome: Laterza, 1978), 115. 45. Benito Mussolini, “The Doctrine of Fascism,” in Twentieth Century Europe: University of Chicago. Readings in Western Civilization, ed. John W. Boyer and Jan Goldstein, 225, 232. 46. Barbara Spackman, “Fascist Puerility,” Qui Parle 13, no. 1 (2001): 13–28. 47. Bessel, “Nazi Capture of Power,” 183. Von Hindenburg was convinced he could “cage” the NSDAP leader and utilize him. He thought he could neutralize Hitler’s subversive strength, obliging the new chancellor to carry out a conservative policy. 48. Wolfgang Kiem, “Erziehung unter der Nazi-Diktatur,” in Antidemokratische Potentiale, Machtantritt und Machtdurchsetzung, ed. Wolfgang Kiem (Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchges., 1995), 126. 49. Harvey, “Cult of Youth,” 77. 50. Michael Wortmann, Baldur von Schirach, Hitlers Jugendführer (Cologne: Böhlau, 1982), 103–4. 51. See Peter D. Stachura, “The National Socialist Machtergreifung and the German Youth Movement: Coordination and Reorganization, 1933–34,” Journal of European Studies 5, no. 5 (1975): 258; Koch, Hitler Youth, 97–99; Wortmann, Baldur von Schirach, 103–7. 52. Arthur Axmann, “Hitler-Jugend, 1933–1943,” Das Junge Deutschland: Amtliches Organ des Jungenführers des Deutschen Reichs-Sozialpolitische Zeitschrift der deutschen Jugend, January 30, 1943, 14. 53. Wortmann, Baldur von Schirach, 107–9. For the end of the Großdeutsches Bund,



Notes to Pages 89–94

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see also Thomas A. Kohut, A German Generation: An Experiential History of the Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 86–87, 101–2, 127–28. 54. Von Schirach gained control also over the European Youth Exchange Service— which organized youth exchanges among European youth groups and supported youth work among German minority groups outside Germany—and of the German Youth Hostel Association. See John Biesanz, “Nazi Influence on German Youth Hostels,” Social Forces 19, no. 4 (1941): 557–58. 55. Koch, Hitler Youth, 98–100; Wortmann, Baldur von Schirach, 109–10. 56. Buddrus, Totale Erziehung für den totalen Krieg, 1:307. 57. Wortmann, Baldur von Schirach, 115–16. 58. Ibid. Protests were carried out by some pastors of the Pfarrer-Notbund, a league opposed to any agreement between the Nazis and the Evangelicals. Their opposition delayed the agreement’s coming into force, but it did not prevent its realization. 59. See Lawrence D. Walker, Hitler Youth and Catholic Youth 1933–1936: A Study in Totalitarian Conquest (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1970). 60. Koch, Hitler Youth, 87–89. 61. Quoted in Stachura, “Das Dritte Reich und Jugenderziehung,” 99. 62. Quoted in Stachura, German Youth, 126–27. 63. Mark Edward Ruff, The Wayward Flock: Catholic Youth in Postwar West Germany, 1945–1965 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 25–28. 64. Quoted in Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power: How the Nazis Won over the Hearts and Minds of a Nation (London: Penguin Books, 2005), 250–51; see also 237. Horst Ludwig Wessel (1907–30) was a young Storm Trooper killed by a member of the German Communist Party. The song he wrote, “Die Fahne hoch” (The flag high), was the official anthem of the NSDAP from 1933 to 1945. January 22 became “Horst Wessel Memorial Day.” His legend was reinforced by the production of a film entitled Hans Westmar: One of Many (dir. Franz Wenzler, 1933). For Horst Wessel: Jay W. Baird, “Goebbels, Horst Wessel, and the Myth of Resurrection and Return,” Journal of Contemporary History 17, no. 4 (1982): 633–50. 65. See Gerhard Rempel, Hitler’s Children: The Hitler Youth and the SS (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 56. 66. In the diocese of Münster alone, for example, between 1934 and 1938, the number of participants in “spiritual exercises” and “days of reflection” increased from thirty-eight thousand to sixth thousand. Ruff, Wayward Flock, 28–29. 67. Pope Pius XI, The Encyclical Mit Brenneder Sorge: The Persecution of the Church in Germany (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1937), 26–29. 68. Quoted in Deutsche Jugend 1933–1945: Eine Dokumentation, ed. Karl Heinz Jahnke and Michael Buddrus (Hamburg: VSA-Verlag, 1989), 131. 69. Ruff, Wayward Flock, 28. 70. Evans, Third Reich in Power, 241–44. 71. Stachura, German Youth, 127. 72. The Heimabende were meetings that usually took place in the evening in the local seats of the Hitlerjugend. They were aimed at training the members of the organization

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Notes to Pages 94–97

from an ideological point of view. See Buddrus, Totale Erziehung für den totalen Krieg, 1:62–64. 73. See Stachura, Nazi Youth, 90, 93; and Schmidt, “Über das Verhältnis,” 35–36. 74. Stachura, German Youth, 117. For the complexity of the relationship between HJ and Youth Movement see Mike Tyldesley, “The German Youth Movement and National Socialism: Some Views from Britain,” Journal of Contemporary History 41, no. 1 (2006): 21–34. See also Kohut, A German Generation, 80–81. 75. Walter Laqueur, Young Germany: A History of the German Youth Movement (New York: Basic Books, 1962), 194–97. 76. Saul B. Robinsohn, “On National-Socialist Education,” Comparative Education 2, no. 3 (1966): 227. 77. Kohut, A German Generation, 155. 78. Quoted in Lisa Pine, Nazi Family Policy, 1933–1945 (Oxford: Berg, 1997), 57. 79. Isaac Leon Kandel, “Education in Nazi Germany,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 182 (1935): 158. 80. Quoted in “Die körperliche Erziehung in der Hitlerjugend,” Wille und Macht: Führerorgan der nationalsozialistischen Jugend no. 14–15, 1936, 10. 81. Kater, Hitler Youth, 38–40. 82. Baldur von Schirach, Revolution der Erziehung (Munich: Eher, 1939), 45. 83. Baldur von Schirach, Die Hitler-Jugend: Idee und Gestalt (Leipzig: Taus., 1934), 77. Also in Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph des Willens, the film that chronicled the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, Baldur von Schirach and Adolf Hitler, addressing the members of the Hitler Youth, underlined the importance of equality. Both claimed that the new German society had to be a society without classes, castes, or social ranks. 84. Reinhard Sieder, “A Hitler Youth from a Respectable Family: The Narrative Composition and Deconstruction of a Life Story,” in International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories, vol. 2, Between Generations: Family, Models, Myth and Memories, ed. Daniel Bertaux and Paul Thompson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 105. 85. Kater, Hitler Youth, 28–37. 86. Hitler, Mein Kampf, 230–31, 372–77, 382, 389. 87. Quoted in Deutsche Jugend 1933–1945, 155. 88. Detlev Peukert, “Youth in the Third Reich,” in Life in the Third Reich, ed. Richard Bessel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 29–40; Perry Biddiscombe, “‘The Enemy of Our Enemy’: A View of the Edelweiss Piraten from the British and American Archives,” Journal of Contemporary History 30, no. 1 (1995): 37–63; David Welch, “Nazi Propaganda and the Volksgemeinschaft: Constructing a People’s Community,” Journal of Contemporary History 39, no. 2 (2004): 231–32; Kater, Hitler Youth, 20–28, 114–66. 89. Quoted in Deutsche Jugend 1933–1945, 105–6. 90. Kater, Hitler Youth, 107–8. 91. The impact of National Socialism on the Catholic milieu was uneven. Its success depended on region, class, and gender. The regime destroyed the Catholic network, “sent many priests to their grave,” and provided youth with “alternative values.” However, many Catholics, during such a difficult time, strengthened their commitment to



Notes to Pages 97–103

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the Church, and despite unprecedented upheaval, after 1945 the Catholic milieu reconstituted itself with astonishing speed. See Ruff, Wayward Flock, 8. 92. Stachura, German Youth, 131–33. While only 30.5 percent of German youth were members of the Hitler Youth in 1933, 64 percent were members by 1937, and an amazing 98.1 percent were members in 1939. Kater, Hitler Youth, 23. 93. Koch, Hitler Youth, 81–82. 94. Wortmann, Baldur von Schirach, 154. 95. Harvey, “Cult of Youth,” 77. 96. Friedrich Albert Beck, “Die Erziehung im dritten Reich,” in Readings on Fascism and National Socialism: Selected by Members of the Department of Philosophy University of Colorado (Athens: Swallow Press Books, Ohio University Press, 1984), 80.

Chapter 5. The Training of the Hitler Youth Leadership 1. See Karl Otto Paetel, Die Hitlerjugend-Bund deutscher Arbeitsjugend (Flarchheim in Thüringen: Die Kommenden, 1930), 22; Peter D. Stachura, Nazi Youth in the Weimar Republic (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Clio Books, 1975), 32. 2. See Stachura, Nazi Youth, 62–64; Peter D. Stachura, “The Hitler Youth in Crisis: The Case of Reichsführer Kurt Gruber, October 1931,” European Studies Review 6, no. 6 (1976): 341; Jürgen Schultz, Die Akademie für Jugendführung der Hitlerjugend in Braunschweig (Braunschweig: Waisenhaus Buchdruckerei und Verlag, 1978), 16, 144. 3. Schultz, Die Akademie für Jugendführung, 142–44. 4. Stachura, Nazi Youth, 64. 5. “Überblick über die Führerschulung der HJ, 1935,” in Deutsche Jugend 1933–1945: Eine Dokumentation, ed. Karl Heinz Jahnke and Michael Buddrus (Hamburg: VSAVerlag, 1989), 107–8; Michael Wortmann, Baldur von Schirach, Hitlers Jugendführer (Cologne: Böhlau, 1982), 143–45, 175. 6. See the document of the Reichsjugendführung sent to the German Foreign Office, November 27, 1933, PA AA, Partei, Akten, Wanderungen, 1933, R 98892. 7. See Peter D. Stachura, The German Youth Movement 1900–1945 (London: Macmillan, 1981), 56; Matthias von Hellfeld, Bündische Jugend und Hitlerjugend: Zur Geschichte von Anpassung und Widerstand, 1930–1939 (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft u. Politik, 1987), 101; Hermann Giesecke, Vom Wandervogel bis zur Hitlerjugend (Munich: Juventa, 1981), 192; Jochen von Lang, Der Hitler-Junge-Baldur von Schirach: Der Mann, der Deutschlands Jugend erzog (Hamburg: Vollst. Taschenbuchausg, 1988), 114–15; Michael Buddrus, Totale Erziehung für den totalen Krieg: Hitlerjugend und nationalsozialistische Jugendpolitik (Munich: Saur, 2003), 1:307. 8. See Führertum der Hitler-Jugend, BA, NS 28, 90. 9. “Lebenshaltung des nationalsozialistischen Jugendführer,” Reichsbefehl der Reichs­ jugendführung der NSDAP, January 31, 1936, 47. 10. Baldur von Schirach, Die Hitler-Jugend: Idee und Gestalt (Leipzig: Taus., 1934), 130, 135.

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Notes to Pages 103–105

11. Such journals were useful though and continued to be published. After 1936 two twice-weekly magazines aimed at managing the Heimabende were also sent to the leaders: for the HJ Die Kameradschaft and for the Jungvolk Die Jugenschaft. See “Fünf Arbeits­ jahre,” in Jungen–eure Welt! Das Jahrbuch der Hitlerjugend (Munich: Müller, 1938), 9–10. 12. See “Bestätigung von HJ-Führern,” Verordnungsblatt der Reichsjugendführung, December 15, 1934, 4; von Schirach, Die Hitler–Jugend, 135. 13. “Neujahrbotschaft vom Grabe Herbert Norkus (1. Januar 1935),” quoted in Baldur von Schirach, Revolution der Erziehung (Munich: Eher, 1939), 19–20. 14. See Michael K. Kater, “Bürgerliche Jugendbewegung und Hitlerjugend in Deutschland von 1926 bis 1939,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 17 (1977): 169; Arno Klönne, Jugend im Dritten Reich: Die Hitler-Jugend und ihre Gegner (Cologne: PapyRossa-Verlag, 1980), 120. 15. See von Schirach, Die Hitler-Jugend, 135; Georg Usadel, Die nationalsozialistische Bewegung-Deutschlands Erwachen (Bielefeld: Velhagen & Klasing, 1934), 53–54; Stachura, Nazi Youth, 64; Schultz, Die Akademie für Jugendführung, 15–16. 16. See Lagebericht-Bündische Jugend, 57–58, BA, NS 28/111. 17. Arthur Axmann, “Hitler-Jugend 1933–1943,” Das Junge Deutschland-Amtliches Organ des Jungenführers des Deutschen Reichs-Sozialpolitische Zeitschrift der deutschen Jugend, January 30, 1943, 17. 18. Hermann Giesecke, Hitlers Pädagogen: Theorie und Praxis nationalsozialistischer Er­ ziehung (Munich: Juventa-Verlag Weinheim, 1999), 180–82. 19. Baldur von Schirach, “Das Prinzip der Selbstführung,” Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte, Januar 1935, 4–8. 20. See David Welch, “Nazi Propaganda and the Volksgemeinschaft: Constructing a People’s Community,” Journal of Contemporary History 39, no. 2 (2004): 230–38. 21. Alexander von Plato, “The Hitler Youth Generation and Its Role in the PostWar German States,” in Generation in Conflict: Youth Revolt and Generation Formation in Germany 1770–1968, ed. Mark Roseman (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 212. 22. For the importance of the selection see “Die Führerauslese der Hitler-Jugend. Wer sind die Führer der HJ? Und wer bestimmt sie? Eine große Aufgabe, die in der Stille gelöst wird,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, April 4, 1936, 3; “Beschickung der Führerschulen,” Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, April 30, 1936, 331–33; “Drei Jahre Reichsführerschule Potsdam,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, July 25, 1936, 2; “Neubau der HJ-Reichsführerschule in Potsdam,” Das Archiv: Nachschlagewerk für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur, October 1937–March 1938, 823–24; “Die weltanschauliche Schulung der Unterführer und Unterführeranwärter für Wochenendschulungen, Kurzlehrgänge und Ausbildungseinheiten,” in Die Kameradschaft (Berlin, 1938), 3. Moreover, see Buddrus, Totale Erziehung für den totalen Krieg, 1:325. 23. Werner Klose, Generation im Gleichschritt: Die Hitlerjugend (Munich: Stalling Verlag, 1982), 85–90. 24. Quoted in Wortmann, Baldur von Schirach, 137. See also Ulrike Schmidt, “Über das Verhältnis von Jugendbewegung und Hitlerjugend,” Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 15, no. 16 (1965): 29; Erziehung im Nationalsozialismus, “. . . und sie werden nicht mehr



Notes to Pages 105–109

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frei ihr ganzes Leben!,” ed. Kurt-Ingo Flessau, Elke Nyssen, and Günter Pätzold (Cologne: Böhlau, 1987) 17–21; Michael Kater, Hitler-Jugend (Darmstadt: Primus, 2005), 50. 25. “Aufgaben der Jugenderziehung in nationalsozialistichen Staat,” in Schulung des Erziehers im nationalsozialistischen Staat, ed. Otto Borst (Esslingen, 1934), 48, quoted in Stachura, German Youth, 144. 26. See “Jugengruppe und Jungenführer,” Wille und Macht: Führerorgan der nationalsozialistischen Jugend, October 15, 1933, 22–24; “Ein Tag in der Jungvolkführerschule ‘Langemarck,’” Morgen: Nationalsozialistische Jungblätter, July 1937, 27. 27. See Die Kameradschaft: Blätter für Heimabendgestaltung in der Hitlerjugend-Lagerschulung 1938-Das HJ-Leistungsabzeichnen (Berlin, 1938), 20–55. 28. See Aufbaudienst 1: Der organisatorische Aufbau der HJ (Vienna: Die Befehlsstelle Südost der RJF, 1938), 15–20. 29. See Klönne, Jugend im Dritten Reich, 69. 30. Ludwig Hemm, Die unteren Führer in der HJ: Versuch ihrer psychologischen Typen­ gliederung (Leipzig: J. A. Barth, 1940), 3–4. 31. See Philip Baker, Youth Led by Youth: Some Aspects of the Hitlerjugend (London: Vilmor Publications, 1989), 17; Gerhard Rempel, Hitler’s Children: The Hitler Youth and the SS (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 12–13; Kater, Hitler-Jugend, 50–51. 32. See Gunther Kaufmann, Das kommende Deutschland: die Erziehung der Jugend im Reich Adolf Hitlers (Berlin: Junker & Dünnhaupt, 1943), 46. 33. See Patrizia Dogliani, Storia dei giovani (Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2003), 123. 34. For the political attitude of the school teachers towards National Socialism see Marjorie Lamberti, “German Schoolteachers, National Socialism, and the Politics of Culture at the End of the Weimar Republic,” Central European History 34, no. 1 (2001): 53–82. 35. Quoted in Stachura, German Youth, 145. 36. Lisa Pine, Education in Nazi Germany (New York: Berg, 2010), 13. 37. Michael Kater, Hitler Youth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 2004), 40–48. For Hitler’s attitude towards intellectual education see Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (London: Pimlico, 1992), 370–75, 379–89. 38. The uneasy relationship existing between the Hitlerjugend and the Ministry of National Education mirrored the unsettled relationship existing between the Nazi Party and the state. After the seizure of power, a basic problem was whether the Nazi Party had simply to complement the authoritarian state dictatorship in propaganda terms and organizationally, or whether it had to exert a clear position of power over the government. The problem remained unresolved. Ultimately, in terms of Nazi Germany, it is possible to speak of a widespread dualism of party and state. This dualism was controlled or modified from time to time through the Führer’s power. Hitler was equally detached from party and state but made use of both. Since the absolute leader could only get his way through the power of the party or of the state, remaining dependent on both, it is possible to talk of a “triangular structure” as the basis of the National Socialist regime: a “polycratic” Party-State-Führer absolutism in which not only party and state,

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Notes to Pages 110–111

but even rival party bigwigs and the high echelons of the Nazi Ministries, often found themselves on opposite sides. The Third Reich remained in a state of permanent improvisation with vague formulas to define the relationship between NSDAP and Staat. See Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German Dictatorship: The Origins, Structure and Consequences of National Socialism (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), 291–97; Martin Broszat, The Hitler State: The Foundation and Development of the Internal Structure of the Third Reich (New York: Longman, 1981), 194–95, 269–70; Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation (London: Arnold, 2000), 69–91. 39. Stachura, German Youth, 143–49, 152; Hannsjoachim Wolfgang Koch, The Hitler Youth: Origins and Development 1922–1945 (New York: Cooper Square Press, 1975), 168–69; Kater, Hitler Youth, 38. 40. See Elke Nyssen, Schule im Nationalsozialismus (Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1979), 63; Michael Kater, “Hitlerjugend und Schule im dritten Reich,” Historische Zeitschrift 228, no. 3 (1979): 602–3; Frank Norbert, Heil Hitler, Herr Lehrer, Volksschule 1933– 1945 (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1983), 141; Hartmann Lauterbacher, Erlebt und mitgestaltet: Kronzeuge einer Epoche 1923–1945. Zu neuen Ufern nach Kriegsende (Oldendorf: K. W. Schütz-Verlag, 1984), 110; Gerd Nixdorf, “Politisierung und Neutralisierung der Schule in der NS-Zeit,” in Herrschaftsalltag im Dritten Reich, ed. Hans Mommsen (Düsseldorf: Schwann im Patmos Verlag, 1988), 251. 41. “Junglehrer auf einer HJ-Führerschule,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, May 4, 1935, 5. 42. Rolf Eilers, Die nationalsozialistische Schulpolitik: Eine Studie zur Funktion der Er­ziehung im totalitären Staat (Cologne: Westdt. Verlag, 1963), 122–24; Kater, “Hitlerjugend und Schule,” 572–623; Nyssen, Schule im Nationalsozialismus, 36, 55; Peter D. Stachura, “Das Dritte Reich und Jugenderziehung: Die Rolle der Hitlerjugend 1933–1939,” in Erziehung und Schulung im Dritten Reich, ed. Alfred Heinemann (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1980), 1:103–4; Klönne, Jugend im Dritten Reich, 130–33; Scuola e pedagogia nella Germania nazista, ed. Mirella Pizzolini and Bruno Bandini (Turin: Loescher, 1981), 99–100, 233–34; Heil Hitler, Herr Lehrer, 139–49; Buddrus, Totale Erziehung für den totalen Krieg, 1:853–60. About 97 percent of all German teachers joined the NSLB. It trained the German teachers from a political and ideological point of view. They had to take part in Schulungs-, Sommer-, Austausch-, and Grenzlandlager (that is training camps, summer camps, camps for international exchanges, and camps organised in marginal lands) that had to guarantee the teachers’ Nazification. See Hajo Bernett, Sportunterricht an der nationalsozialistische Schule (Cologne: H. Richarz, 1985), 22–24. 43. Buddrus, Totale Erziehung für den totalen Krieg, 1:860. 44. “Stimmen für die Einheit der Erziehung,” Wille und Macht: Führerorgan der nationalsozialistischen Jugend, July 15, 1939, 1–16. See also von Schirach, Revolution der Er­ziehung, 125. 45. See “Überblick über die Führerschulung der HJ,” 108; von Schirach, Revolution der Erziehung, 9. 46. Von Schirach, Die Hitler-Jugend, 107; “Einberufungen zu Lehrgängen,” Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, January 31, 1936, 46.



Notes to Pages 112–114

261

47. Von Schirach, Die Hitler-Jugend, 139. See also “Wochenendelehrgänge für HJFührer-Zur Erfassung der unteren Führerschaft,” Völkischer Beobachter, October 13, 1936; “Anordnung über Wochenschulung in der Zeit vom 1. Oktober 1936 bis zum 31. März 1937,” Verordnungsblatt der Obersten Reichsbehörde Jugendführer des Deutschen Reichs und der Reichsjugendführung del NSDAP, October 2, 1936, 731; Aufbaudienst 2: Der Dienst der Mannschaft und die Schulung der Führerschaft (Vienna: Die Befehlsstelle Südost der RJF, 1938), 27. In order to read the texts of some Nazi songs for the youth, see Hugo Wolfram Schmidt, Uns geht die Sonne nicht: Lieder der Hitlerjugend (Cologne: Tonger, 1934). 48. “Errichtung von Bann–Führerschulen,” Verordnungsblatt der Obersten Reichsbehörde Jugendführer des Deutschen Reichs und der Reichsjugendführung del NSDAP, March 12, 1937, 59–60. 49. See “Zahlen aus der Führerschulung der HJ im April 1935,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, May 18, 1935, 2; Kaufmann, Das kommende Deutschland, 128; Wortmann, Baldur von Schirach, 112. 50. See “Reichsjugendführerschule der HJ in Potsdam,” Das Archiv: Nachschlagewerk für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur, October 1934–March 1935, 1442; “Das Haus der jungen Führer,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, March 23, 1935, 8; “Zweite Reichsführer­ schule der HJ,” Das Archiv: Nachschlagewerk für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur, October 1934– March 1935, 1787; “Führerschule Marienweder,” Verordnungsblatt der Obersten Reichsbehörde Jugendführer des Deutschen Reichs und der Reichsjugendführung del NSDAP, February 12, 1937, 27. 51. “Einberufung zum 1. Lehrgang in die Ostlandführerschule,” Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, June 11, 1937, 499; “Erster Lehrgang aud fer Ostlandführer­ schule,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, July 3, 1937, 2. 52. For these schools, see “Eröffnung der ersten Reichs-Seesportschule der HJ,” Das Archiv: Nachschlagewerk für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur, October 1935–March 1936, 1186; “Eröffnung der Reichsschießschule der HJ,” Das Archiv: Nachschlagewerk für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur, April–September 1937, 540; “Lehrgänge auf der Reichsschule der Hitlerjugend in Obermaßfeld in Thüringen,” Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, August 27, 1937, 863; “Die HJ hat nun zwei eigene Sportschulen. Sport im Schloß,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, November 27, 1937, 4; Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, July 2, 1938, 594. 53. See “Das Führerschulungswerk der HJ,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, October 16, 1937, 2; “Führerschulungswerk,” Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, November 26, 1937, 1129; “Das HJ-Seminar an der Hochschule für Politik. Arbeit nach Feieraben,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, March 26, 1938, 8; “Seht: Das haben wir geleistet!,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, April 2, 1938, 3; “Be­ scheinigung für regelmäßige Teilnahme am Führerschulungswerk,” Reichsbefehl der Reichs­ jugendführung der NSDAP, March 24, 1939, 225. 54. See “Führer-Zehnkampf der Hitler-Jugend,” Das Archiv: Nachschlagewerk für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur, October 1936–March 1937, 1310. Moreover, see Buddrus, Totale Er­ ziehung für den totalen Krieg, 1:236–37. 55. See HJ-Reichsführerlager in Braunschweig 1936 (Braunschweig: Limpert, 1936), 5–8; Drittes Reichsführerlager der HJ (Leipzig, 1938), 3.

262



Notes to Pages 114–118

56. Quoted in “Fünf Arbeitsjahre,” 12. 57. See “Das erste Reichsführerlager der HJ-Sämtliche Bann-und Jungbannführer in Braunschweig,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, May 30, 1936, 9, 11; “Reichsführerlager München,” Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, February 2, 1937, 102; “Reichsführerlager 1937: Weimar,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, May 29, 1937, 3–4; “Einberufungsbefehl für das 3. Reichsführerlager, Weimar,” Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, April 23, 1938, 417–18; “Drittes Reichsführerlager der HJ and Einberufungsbefehl für das 4. Reichsführer-und Führerinnenlager in Braunschweig,” Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, March 24, 1939, 209–13. Till then the high female leaders had organized their own camps. See “Das erste ReichsführerinnenLager des BDM auf dem Reichssportfeld,” Illustrierter Beobachter, October 22, 1936, 1728. 58. From 1936 to 1939 speeches were delivered by, among others, Ernst Wilhelm Bohle (chief of the Department Foreign Affairs of the NSDAP), Walter Buch (president of the Supreme Tribunal of the NSDAP), Richard Walter Darrè (minister for agriculture), Hans Frank (president of the Jurisprudence German Academy), Hermann Göring, Walter Groß (chief of the Office for Racial Policies of the NSDAP), Rudolf Heß, Heinrich Himmler, Robert Ley (chief of the German Work Front), Viktor Lutze (chief of the SA), Alfred Rosenberg (Führer’s delegate for intellectual and philosophical education and training of the NSDAP), Bernard Rust (minister of education), Arthur Seyss-Inquart (former Austrian prime minister and Ostmark superintendent), and Hans von Tschammer und Osten. 59. Von Schirach, Revolution der Erziehung, 110. 60. See “Bann-, Jungbann-, Untergau-und Jumgmädeluntergau-Führer-und Führerinennschulen,” Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, December 11, 1936, 964; Jutta Rüdiger, Die Hitler-Jugend und ihr Selbstverständnis im Spiegel ihrer Aufgabengebiete (Lemförde: Askania Verlagsgesellschaft GmbH, 1983), 108. 61. Kater, Hitler Youth, 57. 62. “Beschickung der Führerschulen,” Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, April 1936, 331–33. 63. See von Schirach, Die Hitler-Jugend, 108; von Schirach, Revolution der Erziehung, 19–20. Moreover, see “Führerschulen der Hitlerjugend,” Amtliches Nachrichtenblatt des Jugend­führers des Deutschen Reichs und der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, Oct ober 8, 1937, 345; Schultz, Die Akademie für Jugendführung, 17–18.

Chapter 6. The Relationship between the Opera Nazionale Balilla and the Hitlerjugend 1. For the relationship between Hitler and Mussolini before 1933 see Meir Michaelis, “I nuclei nazisti in Italia e la loro funzione nei rapporti tra fascismo e nazismo nel 1932,” Nuova Rivista Storica 57, nos. 3–4 (1973): 422–38; Meir Michaelis, “I rapporti tra fascismo e nazismo prima dell’avvento al potere di Hitler (1922–1933), Parte prima 1922–1928,” Rivista storica italiana 85, no. 3 (1973): 544–600; Renzo De Felice, Hitler e Mussolini: I Rapporti Segreti (1922–1933) (Florence: Le Monnier 1983).



Notes to Pages 118–121

263

2. Quoted in Christian Leitz, Nazi Foreign Policy 1933–1941: The Road to Global War (London: Routledge, 2004), 10. 3. De Felice, Hitler e Mussolini, 212. 4. Alan Cassels, “Mussolini and German Nationalism, 1922–1925,” Journal of Modern History 35, no. 2 (1963): 148–51. 5. Wolfgang Schieder, “Das Italienische Experiment: Der Faschismus als Vorbild in der Krise der Weimarer Republik,” Historische Zeitschrift 262, no. 1 (1996): 73–125. 6. Quoted in De Felice, Hitler e Mussolini, 229. 7. See Karl Otto Paetel, Die Hitlerjugend-Bund deutscher Arbeitsjugend (Flarchheim in Thüringen: Die Kommenden, 1930), 47–48. See also Torsten Schaar, “Zu auslandspolitischen Aktivitäten der Reichsjugendführung während des zweiten Weltkrieges unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Gründung des Europäischen Jugendverbandes,” Jugendgeschichte 1, no. 13 (1990): 42. 8. Hartmann Lauterbacher, Erlebt und mitgestaltet: Kronzeuge einer Epoche 1923–1945. Zu neuen Ufern nach Kriegsende (Oldendorf: K. W. Schütz-Verlag, 1984), 132–33. 9. Letter sent on March 30, 1933, by H. Roder to the Italian Embassy in Berlin, ASMAE, Ambasciata Berlino, 1933, b. 151. 10. See, for example, the letter sent by the German Foreign Office to the German Embassy in Rome, February 27, 1929, PA AA, Rom-Quirinal, 1352B; Theodor Lewald’s Report of November 10, 1930, PA AA, Rom-Quirinal, 1352B. 11. Telegram of May 23, 1933, sent by the Italian Foreign Office to the Italian Embassy in Berlin, ASMAE, Ambasciata Berlino, 1933, b. 151; letter sent by the Italian Embassy on May 31, 1933, to H. Roder, ASMAE, Ambasciata Berlino, 1933, b. 151. See also the letter sent on April 3, 1933, by the Italian Embassy in Berlin to the Italian Foreign Ministry, ASMAE, Ambasciata Berlino, 1933, b. 151. 12. Letter of H. Roder of July 14, 1933, sent to the Italian Embassy in Berlin, ASMAE, Ambasciata Berlino, 1933, b. 151. 13. See the communication of the Italian Foreign Ministry sent to the Italian Embassy in Berlin on June 26, 1933, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, 1933, b. 17, f. 2; note of the Italian Foreign Office sent to the General Direction of Political Affairs, September 2, 1933, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, 1933, b. 17, Rapporti politici. 14. Report of the German ambassador in Rome of August 4, 1932, PA AA, Rom-Quirinal, 1352B. 15. Ricci’s letter sent to Fulvio Suvich, Undersecretary of the Foreign Office, June 17, 1933, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, 1933, b. 17, f. 2. See also “Il Fascismo per la cultura dei giovani. Tre crociere dell’Opera Balilla in Germania, in Ungheria e nel Levante,” Il Messaggero, June 14, 1933. 16. Telegram n. 6678/681 of Pittalis, Italian General Consul in Munich, July 29, 1933, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, 1933, b. 17, f. 2. 17. Letter of the Italian General Consul of Hamburg sent on August 11, 1933, to the Italian Foreign Office, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, 1933, b. 17, f. 2. 18. “Die Avanguardisten verlassen Deutschland,” Völkischer Beobachter (Munich edition), August 11, 1933.

264



Notes to Pages 122–124

19. Report of Ambassador Cerruti, August 11, 1933, sent to the Italian Foreign Office, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, 1933, b. 17, f. 2. 20. Telegram of the Italian General Consulate of Munich of August 24, 1933, about “The first regional meeting of the Hitler Youth of Munich,” ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, 1933, b. 13, Rapporti politici, III trimestre. 21. See agreement of August 25, 1933, and letter sent by the German Embassy in Rome to the German Foreign Office on August 31, 1933, PA AA, Rom-Quirinal, 1355/4. 22. Letter of the Propaganda Ministry sent to the Foreign Office on November 20, 1933, PA AA, Rom-Quirinal, 1355/4. See also Bericht über die Ungarnfahrt der HitlerJugend vom 17. bis 29. August 1933 and document sent by the Reichsjugendführung to the Führer’s chancellery on August 28, 1933, BA, Reichskanzlei, R43II/523. 23. The Duce felt offended when the Führer opposed Mussolini’s attempt to ensure international security by means of the Four-Power Pact, a nonbelligerence agreement among Italy, France, Britain, and Germany. Hitler, leaving the League of Nations on September 19, 1933, rendered the pact useless. 24. Leitz, Nazi Foreign Policy, 16–17. 25. Letter of the Foreign Office sent to the Italian Embassy in Berlin, January 29, 1934, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, b. 24, 1935, Rapporti politici. See also Leitz, Nazi Foreign Policy, 16–17. 26. See the letter sent by Ricci to Giovanni Marinelli on March 26, 1934, and the letter sent by Marinelli to Ricci on March 30, 1934, ACS, PNF, Direttorio nazionale, Servizi vari, Serie II, b. 250. 27. At the beginning of 1934 Engelbert Dollfuss assumed power in Austria, establishing a Fascist-styled clerical-moderate dictatorship. Frightened by Hitler’s annexation designs, he asked for and obtained the Duce’s protection. In June 1934 Hitler met Mussolini in Venice. He played down his interest in an Anschluß, although at the same time wanted to introduce several political changes in Austria, including a new chancellor, new elections, and the inclusion of the Nazis in a new government. But the Duce did not want to abandon his role as Austria’s protector. On July 25, 1934, some Nazi groups, encouraged by Berlin, tried to carry out a coup d’état in Austria. Dollfuss was killed, but the annexation failed. The Duce reacted immediately rallying four divisions along the Italian–Austrian border. The Italian move resulted in the Nazi retreat. For Mussolini it was important to maintain an independent Austrian state as a buffer between Italy and a possible Greater German Reich that might endanger Italian territory and Italian interests in the Danube area. See Hanno Scheuch, “Austria 1918–1955: From the First to the Second Republic,” Historical Journal 32, no. 1 (1989): 177–99; Brunello Mantelli, “Vom ‘bilateralen Handelsausgleich’ zur ‘Achse Berlin-Rom.’ Der Einfluß wirtschaft­ licher Faktoren auf die Entstehung des deutschen-italienischen Bündnisses 1933–1936,” in Faschismus und Gesellschaft in Italien: Staat-Wirtschaft-Kultur, ed. Jens Petersen and Wolfgang Schieder (Cologne: SH-Verlag, 1998), 270; Leitz, Nazi Foreign Policy, 13–19. 28. Benito Mussolini, “Al Popolo di Bari,” in Opera Omnia di Benito Mussolini: Dal Patto a quattro all’inaugurazione della Provincia di Littoria (8 giugno 1933–18 dicembre 1934), vol. 26, ed. Edoardo and Duilio Susmel (Florence: La Fenice, 1958), 319.



Notes to Pages 124–126

265

29. Ulrich von Hassel, Vom anderen Deutschlandaus den nachgelassenen Tagebuchern 1938– 1944 (Zurich: Atlantis Verlag, 1946), November 28, 1938, 28 quoted in Esmonde Robertson, “Race as a Factor in Mussolini’s Policy in Africa and Europe,” Journal of Contemporary History 23, no. 1 (1988): 38. 30. Richard J. Bosworth, Mussolini’s Italy: Life under the Dictatorship 1915–1945 (London: Allen Lane, 2005), 305. 31. Benjamin George Martin, “A New Order for European Culture: The GermanItalian Axis and the Reordering of International Cultural Exchange, 1936–1945” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2006), 75. 32. See Giacomo Della Chiesa D’Isasca, “Propaganda e diplomazia tra Italia e Germania (1933–1939),” Clio-Rivista trimestrale di studi storici 38, no. 4 (2002): 668–69; Giacomo Della Chiesa D’Isasca, “La visita di una delegazione italiana in Germania per questioni demografico-razziali (maggio–giugno 1937),” Clio-Rivista trimestrale di studi storici 39, no. 4 (2003): 103–21. 33. See for example Gunter Kaufmann, “Die Südtiroler Frage-Starhemberg verrät Meran,” Wille und Macht: Führerorgan der nationalsozialistischen Jugend, June 1, 1935, 33–35, and “Deutsches Land im Süden: Südtirol,” Die Jungenschaft, November 1935, 2–4. 34. Lauterbacher, Erlebt und mitgestaltet, 120. 35. Heinrich Maria Tiede, Balilla-Ein Junge wird unsterblich: Deutschen Jungen und Mädchen erzählt (Leipzig: Anton, 1935). 36. Ibid., 40. 37. Ibid., 44. 38. Herbert Norkus was killed in 1932 at the age of sixteen. He became one the Nazi martyr par excellence thanks to the propaganda campaign organized by Goebbels, and to the book by Karl Aloys Schenzinger and the film by Hans Steinhoff, based on his life, both entitled Hitlerjunge Quex. See: Jay W. Baird, “From Berlin to Neubabelsberg: Nazi Film Propaganda and Hitler Youth Quex,” Journal of Contemporary History 18, no. 3 (1983): 495–515. 39. See Attolico’s telegram sent on December 23, 1935, to the National Education Ministry; De Vecchi’s letter sent to Mussolini on December 31, 1935; Mussolini’s telegram sent to the National Education Ministry and to the Foreign Office on January 3, 1936, ACS, PCM, 1934–1936, 14.4.5714. 40. “Der Führer der Balilla bescuht die HJ,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, February 8, 1936, 2. 41. Jens Petersen, Hitler-Mussolini: La difficile alleanza (Rome: Laterza, 1983), 430–92; Della Chiesa D’Isasca, “Propaganda e diplomazia,” 654–55, 673–76, 683–85. 42. Leitz, Nazi Foreign Policy, 19–23. 43. See “Il campeggio dei giovani hitleriani. Canti di ragazzi tedeschi in riva al Tiguglio,” Giornale di Genova, April 15, 1936, 5; the program of the visit (April 24–May 3, 1936) sent by the Reichsjugendführung to the Foreign Office on April 2, 1936, PA AA, Partei, Akten, Die Jugendbewegung in Italien, 1, 1937/1938, R 98863; “Die Jugendverbände des Auslands,” Führerblätter der Hitler-Jugend: Aufgabe für das Deutsche Jungvolk, June 1936,

266



Notes to Pages 127–132

14–18; letter of the Reichsjugendführung sent on August 11, 1936, to the Foreign Office, PA AA, Rom-Quirinal, 668b. 44. See “Italienfahrer,” Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, July 10, 1936, 514–15; “Italiensfahrt im September,” Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, October 2, 1936, 731. 45. Völkischer Beobachter, September 24, 1936. 46. See the note of the Duce’s secretariat of September 12, 1936, ACS, SPD, CO, 525.199. And see the letter sent by the German Embassy in Rome to the German Foreign Office on September 24, 1936, PA AA, Rom-Quirinal, 668b. Moreover see the following articles: “Hitlerjungen besuchen Rom,” Völkischer Beobachter, September 20, 1936; “450 Hitlerjungen in Rom,” Völkischer Beobachter, September 21, 1936; “Hitlerjugend vor Mussolini,” Völkischer Beobachter, September 24, 1936; “Fahrt durch Italien. Drei Tage in Florenz . . . und in Rom,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, September 1936, 8–9; “Bilder von der Italienreise der HJ,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, October 1936, 3. 47. Letter of the German ambassador in Rome sent to the German Foreign Office on September 24, 1936, PA AA, Rom-Quirinal, 668b. 48. “Deutschlandreise Staatssekretärs Ricci,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, April 1937, 2. 49. Baldur von Schirach, Ich glaubte an Hitler (Hamburg: Mosaik Verlag, 1967), 223–24. 50. See Elizabeth Wiskemann, The Rome–Berlin Axis (London: Collins, 1966). 51. See “Graf Ciano als Gast der deutschen Jugend–Erreichtung deutsch– italienischer Institute für Jugenderziehung und–führung,” Hamburger Fremdenblatt, October 22, 1936, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, 1936, b. 35, Giornali–Giornalisti– Stampa; “Graf Ciano bei der Jugend Adolf Hitlers-Institut für deutsch-italienische Jugendführung gegründet,” Völkischer Beobachter, October 23, 1936. 52. See the letter sent on June 22, 1937, by the Mayor of Berlin to the German Education Ministry about the Deutsch-Italienisches Austauschinstitut, PA AA, Rom-Quirinal, 668c. 53. See “Una ‘Casa del Balilla’ sarà costruita a Berlino,” Il Popolo d’Italia, May 28, 1937; letter of von Schirach sent to Lammers, secretary at the Reichskanzlei, July 1, 1937, BA, Reichskanzlei, R43II/515. 54. To train the officers of the NSDAP three ad hoc institutes were founded, known as Ordensburgen, in Krössingsee, Vogelsang, and Sonthofen. According to the plans, such institutes had to be attended by the best students of the Adolf Hitler Schulen (AHS): “Ordensburgen,” Enzyklopädie des Nationalsozialismus (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1997), 627–28. 55. See “Deutschlandreise Staatssekretärs Ricci,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, April 1937, 2; “Die Freundschaft Hitlerjugend–Balilla,” Volkischer Beobachter, April 25, 1937, 1; “Die Balilla ehrt die Ermordeten der Bewegung,” Völkischer Beobachter, April 26, 1937; “Die Italienische Jugendführer in Hamburg,” Völkischer Beobachter, April 28, 1937.



Notes to Pages 132–135

267

56. See “La visita di S. E. Ricci al cancelliere tedesco,” Il Popolo d’Italia, May 2, 1937; “Le visite di S. E. Ricci e gli industriali italiani in Germania,” Il Popolo d’Italia, May 3, 1937. For the visit see also a newsreel: Germania. Berlino. Il Ministro Ricci alla festa nazionale del Terzo Reich, AIL, 1937, B1097. 57. “Gemeinsame Erziehungsideale–Empfang des Reichsjugendführers zu Ehren Ricci,” Völkischer Beobachter, May 2, 1937; “450 Balillajungen kommen in die Sommer­ zelt­lager der Hitlerjugend,” Völkischer Beobachter, May 5, 1937. 58. For the visit see Gunter Kaufmann, “Freundschaft zwischen Jugend,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, May 1937, 3 and “Jugend findet Jugend,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, June 26, 1937, 7. Are also interesting two Italian newsreels: Germania. Berlino. Gli Accademisti Fascisti in visita, AIL, 1937, B1122; Le giornate degli Accademisti dell’Opera Balilla, AIL, 1937, B1125. 59. See “Die neue Jugend Italiens–Bedeutung des Besuches–Fundament er­ folgreicher Zusammenarbeit,” Berliner Tageblatt, June 15, 1937; “La stampa tedesca esalta la nuova giovinezza d’Italia,” Il Popolo d’Italia, June 16, 1937; “Staatssekretär Ricci mit 1,300 Führeranwärtern der Balilla in Deutschland,” Völkischer Beobachter, June 15, 1937. 60. Die 800 der Farnesina. Führerschule der faschistischen Jugend. “Varf ” als Leistungs­schlüssel, February 25, 1937, BA, NS 43, 384. 61. See “Im Zeltlager der jungen Italiener–Weiße Stadt in vier Tagen von der Hitler–Jugend erbaut,” Völkischer Beobachter, June 17, 1937; Der Pimpf: Nationalsozialistische Tageblätter, June 1937, 8–9, 29. 62. “Jugend–Kameradschaft über die Grenzen,” Westdeutscherbeobachter, June 16, 1937, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, 1937, 42, Stampa. 63. See “Il soggiorno in Germania degli Accademisti Fascisti,” Il Popolo d’Italia, June 15, 1937; “Gli allievi delle Accademie Fasciste a Berlino,” L’illustrazione italiana, June 20, 1937, 704; “Diario della settimana,” L’illustrazione italiana, June 27, 1937, xi. 64. “Gli Accademisti Fascisti presentati a Hitler–Una riuscita manifestazione ginnico–sportiva,” Il Popolo d’Italia, June 17, 1937. 65. “Adolf Hitler sprach zu Jugend des faschistischen Italiens,” Völkischer Beobachter, June 18, 1937. 66. See Germania. Berlino. Gioventù Fascista e Hitlerjugend, AIL, 1937, B1119. 67. See “Die Vorführungen der Balilla in der Deutschlandhalle,” Völkischer Beobachter, June 18, 1937; “Gli allievi delle Accademie Fasciste a Berlino”; “Il viaggio di S. E. il Presidente e degli Accademisti dell’O. B. in Germania,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, July 1, 1937, 1. See also the following newsreel: Germania. Berlino. Il soggiorno degli Accademisti italiani, AIL, 1937, B11201. 68. “Gli Accademisti Fascisti presentati a Hitler–Una riuscita manifestazione ginnico-sportiva,” Il Popolo d’Italia, June 17, 1937, 8; “Die Vorführungen der Balilla in der Deutschlandhalle”; “Gli allievi delle Accademie Fasciste a Berlino.” 69. “Beifall um dei Balilla–Führer,” Berliner Tageblatt, June 17, 1937; “Ammirazione e simpatia della popolazione di Berlino per gli Accademisti Fascisti,” Il Popolo d’Italia, June 19, 1937, 5. 70. “Ammirazione e simpatia.”

268



Notes to Pages 135–140

71. “Beifall um dei Balilla–Führer”; “Ammirazione e simpatia.” 72. “Gli Accademisti dell’ONB in Germania,” Il giornale della scuola media, June 1937, 1. 73. See “Le manifestazioni a Berlino in onore degli Accademisti Fascisti,” Il Popolo d’Italia, June 18, 1937; “Die Balilla zum Gast beim Reichsjugendführer und Reichssportführer,” Völkischer Beobachter, June 19, 1937; “Gli Accademisti a Berlino–La visita a Tempelhof-Parole di calda simpatia del borgomastro–Un altro esercizio allo Stadio,” Corriere della Sera, June 21, 1937. See also this newsreel: Germania. Berlino. Il soggiorno degli Accademisti italiani. 74. “Gioventù Italiana a Berlino,” Accademia Fascista di Orvieto–Fortitudo, 40, Archivio di Stato di Orvieto, Archivio Elisa Lombardi, b. 1, Giornalini delle Accademie di Orvieto e Roma. 75. Telegram of the Italian Embassy in Berlin sent to the Foreign Office and to the Popular Culture Ministry (MINCULPOP) on June 24, 1937, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, 1937, b. 40, Germania–Italia. 76. “Riccis Dank an den Führer,” Völkischer Beobachter, June 26, 1937. 77. “Il soggiorno in Germania degli Accademisti Fascisti,” Il Popolo d’Italia, June 15, 1937. 78. See NS-Presseanweisungen der Vorkriegszeit, 1937, ed. Hans Bohrmann (Munich: K. G. Saur Verlag Gmbh, 1998), 483.

Chapter 7. The Hitlerjugend Academy of Braunschweig 1. For the courses at Potsdam see “Auslese und Führererziehung in der HJ,” Völkischer Beobachter, April 7, 1934; “Einberufung zum 35. Lehrgang der Reichsjugendführerschule,” Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, May 8, 1936, 349; Jutta Rüdiger, Die Hitler-Jugend und ihr Selbstverständnis im Spiegel ihrer Aufgabengebiete (Schnellbach: Verlag Siegfried Bublies, 1998), 51. 2. Baldur von Schirach, Die Hitler-Jugend: Idee und Gestalt (Berlin: Taus, 1934), 107–8. 3. Hartmann Lauterbacher, Erlebt und mitgestaltet: Kronzeuge einer Epoche 1923–1945. Zu neuen Ufern nach Kriegsende (Preußisch-Oldendorf: K. W. Schütz-Verlag, 1984), 128–29. In his memoirs Lauterbacher argued that also Glaube und Schönheit followed a foreign model: the English organization “Health and Beauty.” 4. Jürgen Schultz, Die Akademie der Jugendführung der Hitlerjugend in Braunschweig (Braunschweig: Waisenhaus Buchdruckerei und Verlag, 1978), 29–30. 5. Lauterbacher, Erlebt und mitgestaltet, 130. 6. “Der Reichsjugendführer verkundet: Akademie für deutsche Jugenderziehung,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, October 26, 1935, 1. 7. See Schultz, Die Akademie für Jugendführung, 170–71. 8. Lauterbacher, Erlebt und mitgestaltet, 130–31. 9. See HJ-Führerlager in Braunschweig 1936 (Braunschweig: Limpert, 1936), 3, 12; “Braunschweig: Die Stadt der Akademie für Jugendführung,” Die junge Front, February 1, 1936, 2.



Notes to Pages 141–148

269

10. Hartmann Lauterbacher, “Akademie für Jugendführung,” Wille und Macht: Führerorgan der nationalsozialistischen Jugend, November 1935, 6–7. 11. Michael H. Kater, Hitler Youth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), 8. For the “myth of Langemarck” see George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 70–73, 86, 212; Jeffrey Verhey, The Spirit of 1914: Militarism, Myth, and Mobilization in Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 210. 12. “Rede von Schirachs anläßlich der Grundsteinlegung der Akademie für Jugendführung der HJ am 24. Januar 1936,” Berliner Tageszeitung, January 24, 1936. 13. Ibid. 14. “Grundsteinlegung der Reichsakademie für Jugendführung in Braunschwieg,” Das Archiv: Nachschlagewerk für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur, October 1935–March 1936, 1301. 15. Baldur von Schirach, Revolution der Erziehung: Reden aus den Jahren des Aufbaus (Munich: Eher, 1938), 9. See also Michael Buddrus, Totale Erziehung für den totalen Krieg: Hitlerjugend und nationalsozialistische Jugendpolitik (Munich: Saur, 2003), 2:326–27. 16. See “Zum Richtfest der Jugendakademie Braunschweig: ‘Wer zweckmäßig baut, baut schön!’—Gespräch mit dem Architekten der Akadamie,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, June 11, 1938, 7. 17. Berthold Hinz, Art in the Third Reich (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980), 189–204. 18. See “Die Akademie für Deutsche Jugendführung: Gang durch die Neubauten der Ausbildungsstätte des HJ-Führerkorps in Braunschweig,” Hannoverische Anzeige, June 2, 1938. Moreover see Schultz, Die Akademie für Jugendführung, 163–64, 191; Manfred Bültemann, Architektur für das Dritte Reich: Die Akademie für Deutsche Jugendführung in Braunschweig (Berlin: Ernst, 1986), 59–63, 86–88, 93; Bernhild Vögel, . . . und in Braunschweig? Materialien und Tips zur Stadterkundung, 1930–1945 (Braunschweig: Jugendring Braunschweig, 1996), 121–23; Petra Bojahr, Erich zu Putlitz, Leben und Werk 1892–1945: Untersuchungen zur Monu­ mental­architektur (Hamburg: Dölling und Galitz, 1997), 103. 19. Amtliches Nachrichtenblatt des Jugendführers des Deutschen Reichs und der Reichsjugend­ führung der NSDAP, February 18, 1938, 61–62; Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, February 18, 1938, 147. 20. Schultz, Die Akademie für Jugendführung, 154–55, 200. 21. See von Schirach, Revolution der Erziehung, 11, 58–60; “Schulung und Erziehung der künftigen Bann–und Jungbannführer,” Verordnungsblatt der Obersten Reichsbehörde Jugend­ führer des Deutschen Reichs und der Reichsjugendführung del NSDAP, February 12, 1937, 27. 22. “Genemigungspflicht für Verlobungen der HJ-Führer,” Das Archiv: Nachschlagewerk für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur, October 1938–March 1939, 1550; “Aus den Ausführungsbestimmungen des Personalamtes zur Verordnung des Reichsjugendführers über die Verlobungs-und Heiratsgenehmigungen für HJ-Führer,” January 1, 1939, quoted in Deutsche Jugend 1933–1945: Eine Dokumentation, ed. Karl Heinz Jahnke and Michael Buddrus (Hamburg: Vsa-Verlag, 1989), 157–59. 23. Amtliches Nachrichtenblatt des Jugendführers des Deutschen Reichs und der Reichsjugend­ führung der NSDAP, February 18, 1938, 61–62; Günter Kaufmann, Das kommende Deutschland: Die Erziehung der Jugend im Reich Adolf Hitlers (Berlin: Junker & Dünnhaupt, 1943), 46–48;

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Notes to Pages 148–151

Schultz, Die Akademie für Jugendführung, 26, 236–37. It was not accidental that the HJ-Führer, after having worked in the youth organization for twelve years, were “encouraged” to join the Schutz Staffeln. Since 1936 the relationship between the SS and the HJ had intensified, and since 1938 Himmler had started using the HJ-Streifedienst, according to an agreement signed on October 7, 1938, by the SS and HJ, as a convenient feeder mechanism for the SS units. From its founding ( July 1934) the HJ-Streifedienst, formed by male Hitler Youth between sixteen and eighteen years of age, cooperating with the Gestapo and other SS branches, had to maintain the discipline in the HJ and to fight enemy youth groups. See Michael Wortmann, Baldur von Schirach: Hitlers Jugendführer (Cologne: Bölhau, 1982) 157; Gerhard Rempel, Hitler’s Children: The Hitler Youth and the SS (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989); Buddrus, Totale Erziehung für den totalen Krieg, 2:315–16; Kater, Hitler Youth, 61–62, 151–52, 208–11. 24. See “Decreto ministeriale 25 giugno 1933. Approvazione del Regolamento organico dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla,” Bollettino quindicinale dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, July 15, 1933, 1–11. 25. Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, February 25, 1938, 193. Given the complexity of the selection procedures, in order to avoid delays and complete a list of Akademie-Bewerber (aspiring cadets) far in advance of the beginning of the course, the Hitler Youth began as early as 1938 to select candidates for the courses of 1940, 1941, 1942, and 1943. According to the Reichsjugendführung, the lists of the future Akademie-Bewerber until 1943 had to be ready by March 1940. See Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, April 29, 1938, 442; Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, June 17, 1938, 559. 26. Schultz, Die Akademie für Jugendführung, 157–58. 27. For the selection process for the first course at the Academy see Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, April 29, 1938, 441–42; Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, June 17, 1938, 559; Schultz, Die Akademie für Jugendführung, 226. 28. Günter Kaufmann, “Jugendführer—ein Beruf des 20. Jahrhunderts,” Wille und Macht: Führerorgan der nationalsozialistischen Jugend, March 1, 1938; “Einsatz der Akademieanwärter,” Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, October 14, 1938, 783; “Anwärter für die Akademie für Jugendführung, Braunschweig,” Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, December 2, 1938, 937; Schultz, Die Akademie für Jugendführung, 157–58. 29. “Erziehung zu tapferen Charakteren,” Völkischer Beobachter, April 26, 1939. 30. “Eröffnung der Reichsakademie für Jugendführung,” Das Archiv: Nachschlagewerk für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur, April–September 1939, 601; Schultz, Die Akademie für Jugendführung, 163. 31. Lauterbacher, “Akademie für Jugendführung,” 7; Kaufmann, “Jugendführer.” See also Schultz, Die Akademie für Jugendführung, 31–33, 163–64, 200. 32. For the German Academy for Physical Education: “Reichsakademie für Leibesübungen errichtet. Einheitliche Führerausbildung auf dem Gebiete der körperliche Erziehung,” Völkischer Beobachter, April 16, 1936; “Aufgaben der neuen Akademie für Leibesübungen,” Völkischer Beobachter, April 20, 1936; “Lehrgänge an der Reichsakademie für Leibesübungen,” Leibesübungen und körperliche Erziehung, May 20, 1936, xxx–xxxi;



Notes to Pages 152–155

271

“Accademia del Reich per esercizi fisici,” I problemi della gioventù, January 1942, 210–11. For the training of physical education teachers in Weimar and Nazi Germany: Carl Diem, Weltgeschichte des Sports und der Leibeserziehung (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1960), 976–1018; Hajo Bernett, “Schulische Leibeserziehung im Dritten Reich,” Informationen zur Erziehungsund Bildungshistorischen Forschung-IZEBF 7, no. 14 (1980): 98–102; Bernett, Sportunterricht an der nationalsozialistische Schule: Schulsport an den höheren Schulen Preußens 1933–1940 (Sankt Augustin: Richarz, 1985), 36, 48–50, 64–71.

Chapter 8. A New Organization 1. Among the ONB rites maintained by the GIL were, for example, the so-called Leva Fascista (Fascist draft), a rite aimed at celebrating the increasing membership of the Fascist youth organizations. Instituted in 1927, it was one of the principal Fascist rituals and was celebrated until the end of the regime. This choral event, the goal of which was to show how the regime was actively creating a new Fascist community, took place every year in the chief towns in the presence of the authorities of the government and the party, on March 23 (the anniversary of the foundation of the Fighting Fasces) or on April 21 (the anniversary of the foundation of Rome). With the Fascist anthem in the background, “Giovinezza, Giovinezza, primavera di bellezza” (Youth, Youth, Spring of Beauty), the Leva Fascista celebrated the passage from one age group to another. The rite was sealed by a symbolic embrace between the representatives of every youth group, by the collective oath to the Duce, by the speeches held by the Fascist local authorities, by a collective musical and sport display, and by a collective dinner. The main ceremony took place in Rome where Mussolini’s speech was the highlight. Emilio Gentile, “The Problem of the Party in Italian Fascism,” Journal of Contemporary History 19, no. 2 (1984): 266–67; Tracy H. Koon, Believe. Obey. Fight: Political Socialization of Youth in Fascist Italy, 1922–1943 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 106–7. 2. Starace’s letter, March 19, 1935, quoted in Alberto Aquarone, “Due lettere di Starace a Mussolini sulle organizzazioni giovanili Fasciste,” Rassegna degli Archivi di Stato 28, no. 3 (1968): 634–47. See also Niccolò Zapponi, “Il partito della gioventù. Le organizzazioni giovanili del Fascismo 1926–1943,” Storia contemporanea 13, no. 4–5 (1982): 617; Emilio Gentile, Fascismo e antifascismo: I partiti italiani tra le due guerre (Florence: Le Monnier, 2000), 216. 3. Carmen Betti, L’Opera Nazionale Balilla e l’educazione fascista (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1984), 174. 4. Zapponi, “Il partito della gioventù,” 617–18. 5. See chapter 2, note 51. 6. Sandro Setta, Renato Ricci: Dallo squadrismo alla Repubblica Sociale Italiana (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1986), 188–91; Salvatore Lupo, Il Fascismo: La politica di un regime totalitario (Rome: Donzelli Editore, 2000), 399–400. 7. Quoted in Dante L. Germino, The Italian Fascist Party in Power: A Study in Totalitarian Rule (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1959), 68. 8. Galeazzo Ciano, Diario 1937–1943 (Milan: Rizzoli, 1980), 38.

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Notes to Pages 155–157

9. Quoted in Setta, Renato Ricci, 193. 10. Quoted in ibid., 194. 11. See report for the Council of Ministers, ACS, Atti, PCM, Presidenza, 1937, no. 161, October 21, 1937; “L’ordinamento della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù del Littorio, November 1, 1937, 1–3. 12. Foundation of the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, royal decree law 1,837, October 27, 1937, quoted in Pietro Viotto, Storia antologica dell’educazione fisica in Italia: Testi, leggi, istituzioni (Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1983), 273–78. 13. Setta, Renato Ricci, 125–26; Mario Gotta, Legislazione e ordinamenti dell’educazione fisica nella scuola italiana: Lineamenti storici (Rome: Istituto superiore di educazione fisica, 1959), 35–41. 14. Gentile, Fascismo e antifascismo, 208–11. 15. Koon, Believe. Obey. Fight, 113–14. 16. Statuto del PNF (1938) quoted in Gentile, Fascismo e antifascismo, 223. 17. See Stanley Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914–1945 (London: University College London Press, 1995), 218–20; 233–35; Emilio Gentile, La via italiana al totalitarismo: Il partito e lo Stato nel regime fascista (Urbino: Carocci editore, 2008), 187–226; Gentile, Fascismo e antifascismo, 204–41; Michael Ebner, Ordinary Violence in Mussolini’s Italy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 166–67. 18. For membership numbers of the youth organizations see Herman Finer, Mussolini’s Italy (New York: H. Holt and Company 1935), 438–39; Germino, Italian Fascist Party in Power, 71–76; Gino Germani, “Political Socialization of Youth in Fascist Regimes,” in Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society: The Dynamics of Established One-Party Systems, ed. Samuel P. Huntington and Clement H. Moore (New York: Basic Books, 1970), 349; Koon, Belive. Obey. Fight, 172–83. For the necessity of becoming members of the Fascist youth organizations see Luisa Passerini, Torino operaia e fascismo: una storia orale (Rome: Laterza, 1984), 169; Aldo Grandi, I giovani di Mussolini: Fascisti convinti, Fascisti pentiti, antifascisti (Milan: Baldini & Castoldi, 2001), 237, 285, 286, 297, 298; and Ebner, Ordinary Violence, 19, 231–32. Italians accused of antifascism, imprisoned for political reasons, or sent to confino, petitioning Mussolini or other Fascist officials to receive clemency, placed particular emphasis on their children’s Fascist upbringing. They adduced their children’s ONB membership as an act of political faith and in their letters to the Duce and other influential members of the regime they enclosed pictures of their families displaying their children dressed in the uniform of the party or the Balilla. Ebner, Ordinary Violence, 256–58. 19. Germino, Italian Fascist Party in Power, 71. 20. “Il Partito al DUCE nel XVI annuale della Marcia su Roma,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, November 1, 1938, 1–2. 21. PNF, Foglio disposizioni, January 19, 1939. 22. Luca La Rovere, “‘Rifare gli Italiani’: L’esperimento di creazione dell’ ‘Uomo nuovo nel regime Fascista,’” Annali di storia dell’educazione e delle istituzioni scolastiche 9 (2002): 69. 23. Ester De Fort, La scuola elementare dall’Unità alla caduta del Fascismo (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1996), 445–66.



Notes to Pages 157–161

273

24. Germino, Italian Fascist Party in Power, 72–76. 25. Koon, Believe. Obey. Fight, 170–71. 26. Roberto Berardi, Un Balilla negli anni trenta: Vita di provincia dalla grande depressione alla guerra (Cuneo: L’Arcere, 1994), 96–97, 99. 27. Germino, Italian Fascist Party in Power, 69. See also Zapponi, “Il partito della gioventù,” 619. 28. Koon, Believe. Obey. Fight, 112, 148–50. The Fascist Grand Council voted the establishment of the Sabato Fascista (Fascist Saturday) on February 16, 1935. Offices had to be closed on Saturday afternoons, and those hours were to be used for pre- and postmilitary training and for political, cultural, and sport activities by the various PNF groups. Exceptions were allowed in certain cases, but never for those under twenty-one. The law was quite clearly intended primarily for the youth. See the Nazi Staatsjugendtag in chapter 5. 29. Germino, Italian Fascist Party in Power, 70. 30. James W. Miller, “Youth in the Dictatorships,” American Political Science Review 32, no. 5 (1938): 968–69. 31. See Aurelio Bozzoni, “Gioventù Italiana del Littorio,” in Panorami di realizzazioni del Fascismo. Dai Fasci al Partito Nazionale Fascista, ed. Giacomo Di Giacomo (Rome: Casa ed. dei Panorami di realizzazioni del Fascismo, 1942), 423–25; PNF, Foglio disposizioni, December 27, 1940. 32. Zapponi, “Il partito della gioventù,” 623. For Italian racism see Martin Agronsky, “Racism in Italy,” Foreign Affairs 17, no. 2 (1939): 391–401; Richard Pankhurst, “Fascist Racial Policies in Ethiopia: 1922–1941,” Ethiopian Observer 12, no. 4 (1969): 270–86; Renzo De Felice, Storia degli ebrei Italiani sotto il Fascismo (Turin: Einuadi, 1972); Denis Mack Smith, Mussolini’s Roman Empire (London: Longman, 1976); Richard Pankhurst, “The Secret History of the Italian Fascist Occupation of Ethiopia 1935–1941,” African Quarterly 16, no. 4 (1977): 1–52; Gene Bernardini, “The Origins and Development of Racial AntiSemitism in Fascist Italy,” Journal of Modern History 49, no. 3 (1977): 431–53; Meir Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews: German–Italian Relations and the Jewish Question 1922–1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978); Esmonde Robertson, “Race as a Factor in Mussolini’s Policy in Africa and Europe,” Journal of Contemporary History 23, no. 1 (1988): 37–58; Giorgio Israel and Pietro Nastasi, Scienza e razza nell’Italia fascista (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1998); Alberto Maiocchi, Scienza italiana e razzismo fascista (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1999); Giulia Barrera, “The Construction of Racial Hierarchies in Colonial Eritrea: The Liberal and Early Fascist Period (1897–1934),” in A Place in the Sun: Africa in Italian Colonial Culture, ed. Patrizia Palumbo (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 81–115; Claudia Mantovani, Rigenerare la societa: L’eugenetica in Italia dalle origini ottocentesche agli anni Trenta (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2004); Alexander De Grand, “Mussolini’s Follies: Fascism in Its Imperial and Racist Phase, 1935–1940,” Contemporary European History, 13, no. 2 (2004): 127–47. 33. Quoted in Gentile, “Problem of the Party,” 267. 34. See Niccolò Zapponi, “Le elites del fascismo,” in Formazione e ruolo delle elites nell’età contemporanea, ed. Giovanni Aliberti and Luigi Rossi (Naples: Edizioni scientifiche

274



Notes to Pages 161–165

italiane, 1995), 183–95; Zapponi, “Stili di vita fascisti: L’arte di sopravvivere,” in L’economia domestica (secoli XIX–XX), ed. Giovanni Aliberti (Pisa: Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali 1995), 169–84; La Rovere, “Rifare gli italiani,” 65. See also Ulrich Schmid, “Style versus Ideology: Towards a Conceptualization of Fascist Aesthetics,” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 6, no. 1 (2005): 127–40. 35. Gentile, “Problem of the Party,” 267–70. 36. Ibid., 268–69. 37. See Zapponi, “Il partito della gioventù,” 619; Renato Moro, “Azione Cattolica, clero e laicato durante il Fascismo,” in Storia del movimento cattolico in Italia, ed. Francesco Malgeri (Rome: AVE, 1980): 335–45; Mario Casella, “La questione dell’assistenza religiosa alla Gioventù Italiana del Littorio nelle carte dell’Ambasciata d’Italia preso la Santa Sede (1939–1942),” Ricerche storiche 34, no. 1 (2004): 130–46. 38. Sandro Rogari, “La crisi del 1938 e il distacco dal regime,” Nuova Antologia 113, no. 1 (1978): 348–49. 39. Renzo De Felice, Mussolini il Duce: Lo Stato totalitario, 1936–1940 (Turin: Einaudi, 1996), 139–40. 40. Mario Casella, L’Azione Cattolica nell’Italia contemporanea (Rome: AVE, 1992), 238–39. 41. Quoted in Moro, “Azione Cattolica,” 342–43. 42. Simona Colarizi, L’opinione degli Italiani sotto il regime, 1929–1943 (Rome: Laterza 1991), 251. 43. Moro, “Azione Cattolica,” 345. 44. Casella, L’Azione Cattolica, 242. 45. Moro, “Azione Cattolica,” 345–49. 46. Luciano Osbat, “Movimento cattolico e questione giovanile,” in Dizionario storico del movimento cattolico in Italia (1860–1980), vol. 1, pt. 2, I fatti e le idee, ed. Francesco Traniello and Giorgio Campanini (Turin: Marietti, 1981), 94; Colarizi, L’opinione degli Italiani sotto il regime, 255. 47. Renato Ricci, “Prefazione,” in Il Foro Mussolini, ed. Agnoldomenico Pica (Milan, 1937), 5. 48. Zapponi, “Il partito della gioventù,” 619; Alessio Ponzio, La Palestra del Littorio: Un esperimento di pedagogia totalitaria nell’Italia fascista (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2009), 184–219. 49. “Rapporti del segretario del PNF,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, February 1, 1938, 1–2; “Relazione del segretario al Direttorio nazionale del PNF,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, November 1, 1938, 2. 50. See “Bando di concorso straordinario per l’ammissione di cento allievi all’Accademia Fascista,” Foglio d’ordini, March 15, 1938; “Il segretario del PNF inaugura i corsi dell’Accademia della GIL,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù del Littorio, November 15, 1938, 21. 51. Renato Marzolo, Italiens Jugendorganisationen (Rome: Società editrice Novissima, 1939), 35–36.



Notes to Pages 165–166

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52. Riccardo Versari, Discorso del rettore senatore prof. dott. Riccardo Versari all’inaugurazione dell’XI anno accademico dell’Accademia della GIL al Foro Mussolini il 6 novembre XVII (Rome: R. Pioda, 1939), 5. 53. “Norme e disposizioni,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, April 15, 1938, 9; PNF, Foglio d’ordini, June 24, 1938. 54. Agnoldomenico Pica, “Il Foro Mussolini,” L’ingegnere, July 1938, 383. 55. Art. 2, law no. 866, May 22, 1939. 56. See Discorso del rettore senatore prof. dott. Riccardo Versari, 7. 57. Art. 2, law no. 866, May 22, 1939. 58. See Michele Di Donato, “L’evoluzione storica della formazione del personale insegnante di educazione fisica in Italia (1847–1943),” Alcmeone: Rivista di scienze applicate all’Educazione Fisica e Sportiva 9, no. 5–6 (1985): 179. 59. See newsletter no. 374-1-10, July 25, 1939, Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù del Littorio, August 15, 1939, 344. 60. See Aurelio Bozzoni, “Gioventù Italiana del Littorio,” in Panorami di Realizzazioni del Fascismo, vol. 3, Dai Fasci al Partito Nazionale Fascista (Rome: Casa editrice dei Panorami di realizzazioni del Fascismo 1942), 430; PNF, Foglio d’ordini, February 1, 1938; “Notizie e informazioni,” L’illustrazione italiana, January 8, 1939, X; “Il Segretario del PNF ispeziona il campo degli allievi dell’Accademia della GIL,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù del Littorio, July 1939, 302. 61. Nino Macellari, Sport e potenza (Tivoli: Arti Grafiche A. Chicca, 1940), 185–86. 62. See Marzolo, Italiens Jugendorganisationen, 36–41; GIL, Accademia della GIL (Rome), 5; Discorso del Rettore Senatore Prof. Dott. Riccardo Versari, 7; “Attività dei Collegi e Accademie della GIL,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù del Littorio, May 15, 1941, 392. 63. See PNF-GIL, Norme per la visita medica dei candidati all’ammissione alle Accademie, Collegi e Scuole della GIL. Estratto dal Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio n. 21, 1° settembre 1938–XVI, 3, 6; “Relazione sull’attività del servizio assistenziale e sanitario-Anno XVI,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù del Littorio, September 1939, 10; GIL, Accademia della GIL, 5; Achille Starace, Gioventù Italiana del Littorio (Milan: A. Mondatori, 1942), 76. 64. See PNF-GIL, Norme per la visita medica dei candidati; GIL, Accademia della GIL, 6–7. 65. “La Difesa della Razza,” June 5, 1939, 24–25; “La Difesa della Razza,” November 5, 1942, cover. 66. Art. 13 and 16 royal decree law no. 1728, November 17, 1938, quoted in De Felice, Storia degli ebrei italiani sotto il Fascismo, 576–80. 67. See “Accademia di Musica della GIL-Foro Mussolini Roma,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù del Littorio, February 1939, 2; Senate, Parliamentary Acts 1948–1950, vol. 10, Senator Luigi Russo’s report presented on November 24, 1949, VI Senate Commission of Public Education and Fine Arts, 163; Senate, Parliamentary Acts 1948–1950, vol. 10, report of the Minister of Public Education Guido Gonella, December 15, 1949, VI Senate Commission of Public Education and Fine Arts, 172; Chamber of Deputies, Parliamentary Acts 1948–1953, Ortensio Pierantozzi’s speech,

276



Notes to Pages 167–169

April 28, 1950, VI Commission of Public Education and Fine Arts of the Chamber of Deputies, 181. 68. See Emilio Gentile, Il culto del littorio: La sacralizzazione della politica nell’Italia fascista (Rome: Laterza, 2007), 159–60; Ponzio, La Palestra del Littorio, 173–83. 69. “Delibera del Segretario del PNF del 31 agosto 1938 sul personale della GIL relativa al regolamento del 1° marzo 1938,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù del Littorio, November 1, 1938, 16–17. 70. Zapponi, “Il partito della gioventù,” 618. 71. Eugenio Pagnini, “Valore dell’educazione fisica,” Lo Sport Fascista, June 1943, 15–16. 72. Starace’s Report, November 3, 1939, 30, ACS, Joint Allied Intelligence Agency, Personal Papers of Benito Mussolini, Job 131. 73. Alessio Ponzio, “Per una storia dell’elite giovanile fascista: L’Accademia della Farnesina” (PhD diss., Università Roma Tre, 2005), 527–42. 74. PNF, Foglio disposizioni, November 17, 1938. 75. Renato Marzolo, “Gioventù Italiana del Littorio,” in Dizionario di politica, ed. PNF (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1940), 2:300. 76. See Chamber of Deputies, Parliamentary Acts, vol. 7, Discussions from November 16, 1932, until March 18, 1933, Francesco Bascone’s report, March 13, 1933, 8188; Ricci’s reports about ONB, ninth year of the Fascist Era, ACS, PCM, 1928–1930, 1.1.15, 2104, 46; “Il primo raduno nazionale dei dirigenti e insegnanti della scuola media,” Il giornale della scuola media, August 15, 1934, 1–3; Ricci’s Telegram sent to Mussolini on August 12, 1934, ACS, PCM, 1934–36, 14.3.2072. 77. “Rubrica del preside,” Il giornale della scuola media, 11–31 March 1938, 5. See also “7 mila insegnanti delle scuole medie e primarie ai corsi della GIL,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù del Littorio, July 1938, 1. 78. Bottai’s report about the school year 1937–1938, July 14, 1938, ACS, PCM, 1937–39, 5.1.5298. 79. “7 mila insegnanti delle scuole medie e primarie”; “Il corso della GIL,” La Scuola Italiana: Quindicinale della Scuola Media, August 21, 1938, 1. 80. “Corsi nazionali per dirigenti ed insegnanti della scuola media e primaria,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù del Littorio, April 1, 1938, 7; “Concorsi della GIL,” Il giornale della scuola media, 1–15 October 1–15, 1938, 10. 81. Nazareno Padellaro, “Collaborazione della scuola con la GIL,” Primato educativo, March–April 1939, 96. 82. PNF, Foglio disposizioni, August 20, 1938. 83. See “Avanzamento dei sotto capi manipolo,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù del Littorio, March 15, 1939, 163; “Norme e disposizioni,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù del Littorio, July 1, 1940, 305–6; “Corsi per cadetti e campi addestramento della GIL,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù del Littorio, August 1, 1940, 346; “Avanzamento ufficiali,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù del Littorio, August 15, 1940, 679–80; “Proposte di promozione per i partecipanti ai campi allievi istruttori,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù del Littorio, October 15, 1940, 483.



Notes to Pages 169–173

277

84. “Corsi nazionali cadetti e capi centuria,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù del Littorio, April 15, 1938, 14; PNF, Foglio disposizioni, July 11, 1938; “Corsi cadetti e capi centuria,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù del Littorio, May 1, 1939, 219.

Chapter 9. The Relationship between the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio and the Hitlerjugend 1. See “Außenpolitisches Schulungshaus der NSDAP,” Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, February 14, 1936, 101; “Seht: Das haben wir geleistet!,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, April 2, 1938, 2; “Richtfest des Auslandshauses der HJ,” Das Archiv: Nachschlagewerk für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur, October 1937–March 1938, 1393. 2. For the relationship between Britain, France, and Germany, see Richard James Overy, The Origins of the Second World War (London: Longman, 1999); Peter Jackson, France and the Nazi Menace: Intelligence and Policy Making, 1933–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Christian Leitz, Nazi Foreign Policy, 1933–1941: The Road to Global War (New York: Routledge, 2004), 32–61; Ian Kershaw, Making Friends with Hitler: Lord Londonderry and Britain’s Road to War (London: Allen Lane, 2004). 3. Stefan Wild, “National Socialism in the Arab Near East between 1933 and 1939,” Die Welt des Islams 25, no. 1/4 (1985): 126–73. 4. See “Jugend der Welt: Warum nicht? Die Jugend ist der beste Botschafter der Welt,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, January 1, 1938, 1; “Neujahrbotschaft des Jugendführers des Deutschen Reichs. 1938-Jahr der Verständigung,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, January 8, 1938, 1. For the trip to the Balkans and Middle East see letter from the Reichsjugendführung to the German Foreign Office on October 9, 1937; and letter from von Schirach to Lammers, administrative chief of the German Chancellery, on November 18, 1937, PA AA, Partei, Akten, Reise des Reichsjugendführers nach dem Balkan, Jugendbewegung, R98908. 5. Letter sent by Magistrati to Ciano on January 3, 1938, ASMAE, Gabinetto del Ministero e Segreteria Generale, 1922–1943, Uc3, b. 3, f. 3. The idea of youth as peace ambassadors was not a new strategy for the Germans. An article published in 1934 argued that even though Germany was not part of the League of Nations anymore, the Nazis were not using their international policy to poison the international relations among peoples. Rather, they were trying to guarantee, using in part the German youth, the appeasement of Europe and the world. See Carl Nabersberg, “Die deutsche Jugend im Dienst der Friedenspolitik des Führers,” Wille und Macht: Führerorgan der nationalsozialistischen Jugend, April 15, 1934, 16–18. 6. “Das Auslandhaus der Hitlerjugend,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, February 5, 1938, 1. 7. Magistrati’s letter sent to Ciano on January 3, 1938, ASMAE, Gabinetto del Ministero e Segreteria Generale, 1922–1943, Uc3, b. 3, f. 3. 8. Hartmann Lauterbacher, Erlebt und mitgestaltet: Kronzeuge einer Epoche 1923–1945. Zu neuen Ufern nach Kriegsende (Oldendorf: K. W. Schütz-Verlag, 1984), 138. Several letters

278



Notes to Pages 173–175

in the ACS prove the existence of a close relationship between Ricci, von Schirach and Lauterbacher. See ACS, Carte Ricci, s. 2. 9. Illustrierter Beobachter, May 5, 1937. 10. Sandro Setta, Renato Ricci: Dallo squadrismo alla Repubblica Sociale Italiana (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1986), 195. 11. Telegram sent by the Italian Embassy in Berlin to the Italian Foreign Office on December 15, 1937, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, 1937, b. 40, Germania–Italia. 12. Letter of the Italian Embassy in Berlin sent to the Foreign Office on June 27, 1938, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, 1938, b. 49, Rapporti Germania–Italia; letter sent by Ciano to Starace on July 2, 1938, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, 1938, b. 49, Rapporti Germania–Italia. 13. See letter of September 15, 1938, sent by the Italian Embassy in Berlin to the Foreign Office, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, 1937, b. 39, f. 2; “Schirach in Rom und Bled,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, July 23, 1938, 2; “Wo steht Europas Jugend,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitlerjugend, February 11, 1939, 1; letter sent by the German Foreign Office to the Reichsjugendführung on March 20, 1939, PA AA, RomQuirinal, 668c. 14. Letter of the Italian Embassy in Berlin sent to the Italian Foreign Office on January 28, 1939, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, 1939, b. 61, Rapporti politici; letter of the Reichsjugendführung sent to the German Embassy in Rome on January 31, 1939, PA AA, Rom-Quirinal, 668c. 15. Program of February 6, 1939, PA AA, Rom-Quirinal, 668c. The program suggested also to intensify the relationship with the Japanese youth and to facilitate the exchange of the respective youth leaders. 16. Program presented by Wilke to the ambassador May 7, 1939, and answer sent by von Mackensen to Wilke May 11, 1939, PA AA, Rom-Quirinal, 668c. To guarantee more and more intense and profitable relations, the youth organizations of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy also committed themselves to learn each other’s language. The Italian royal decree 305 of February 9, 1939, made enforceable the cultural agreement contracted in Rome between Italy and Germany on November 23, 1938. Article 19 of the cultural agreement stated that the organizations of the Nazi and the Fascist Parties had to promote the studying of each other’s language. As a consequence, GIL adopted the studying of the German language in its youth units and in its institutes. Analogous initiatives were also taken by the Hitler Youth. See Jens Petersen, “L’accordo culturale fra l’Italia e la Germania del 23 novembre 1938,” in Fascismo e nazionalsocialismo, ed. Karl Dietrich Braker and Leo Valiani (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1986), 357–58. See also “Italienischer Unterricht für Adolf-Hitler-Schulen,” Die HJ: Das Kampfblatt der Hitler­ jugend, March 18, 1939, 1–2; “Deutsch–Italienisches Kulturabkommen,” Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, January 12, 1940, 11. 17. See note of the Italian foreign minister of May 24, 1939, ASMAE, AP, 1931– 1945, Germania 1939, b. 64, f. 4; draft for the HJ visit of June 1939, ASMAE, AP, 1931– 1945, Germania 1939, b. 64, f. 4; “Segnalazioni,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, July 1, 1939, 279.



Notes to Pages 176–179

279

18. Note of the German Foreign Office of September 2, 1939, PA AA, Rom-Quirinal, 668c. 19. Letter sent by the Reichjugendführung to the Reichskanzelei on December 13, 1939, PA AA, Rom-Quirinal, 668c. 20. Wille und Macht: Führerorgan der nationalsozialistischen Jugend, December 1, 1939. 21. Torsten Schaar, Artur Axmann: Vom Hitlerjungen zum Reichsjugendführer der NSDAP: eine nationalsozialistische Karriere (Rostock: Universität Rostock, 1998), 315–16. 22. Paul Baxa, “Capturing the Fascist Moment: Hitler’s Visit to Italy in 1938 and the Radicalization of Fascist Italy,” Journal of Contemporary History 42, no. 2 (2007): 241. 23. For the Italian–German relationship see Knox MacGregor, Mussolini Unleashed 1939–1941: Politics and Stratey in Fascist Italy’s Last War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Knox MacGregor, Common Destiny: Dictatorship, Foreign Policy and War in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Leitz, Nazi Foreign Policy. 24. See Ruth Ben-Ghiat, “Italian Fascists and National Socialists. The Dynamics of an Uneasy Relationship,” in Art, Culture, and Media Under the Third Reich, ed. Richard A. Etlin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 265–67; Ciano’s Diary 1939–1943 (London: M. Muggeridge, 1947), 45. 25. Leitz, Nazi Foreign Policy, 27. See also Mark Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe (New York: Penguin Press, 2008), 340–41. 26. Quoted in Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 103. 27. Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 103–10, 115, 127–28. 28. Leitz, Nazi Foreign Policy, 30; Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 127. 29. Leitz, Nazi Foreign Policy, 28; Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 342. 30. See letter sent by the PNF to the German Embassy in Rome on August 22, 1940, PA AA, Rom-Quirinal, 1394A; note from the Reichsjugendführung sent to the German Foreign Office on September 30, 1940, PA AA, Partei, Akten, Jugendwanderungen und Reisen, 1939/1940, R98920. The Nazis always carefully selected the youth to send abroad. See, for example, Bericht über die Ungarnfahrt der Hitlerjugend vom 17. bis 29. August 1933, BA, Reichskanzlei, R43II/523; “Zusammenstellung offizieller Ausland­ reisen der Hitlerjugend, in Einsatz der Musikeinheiten im Jahr der Verständigung,” Reichsbefehl der Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP, February 10, 1941, 16. 31. Despite the unstated and underlying rivalry between the HJ and the GIL, the Nazis still wanted to take advantage of the Gioventù del Littorio and wanted to continue learning as much as they could from the Fascist youth organization. In February 1941, for example, the Italian Foreign Office sent a telegram to the directory of the PNF explaining that the General Command of the Hitler Youth wanted to study how the GIL organized its premilitary training courses. Furthermore, in the same telegram, the Ministry asked the Fascist authorities if it was possible to host at the Academy of Orvieto some leaders of the Bund Deutscher Mädel. In this way the Nazi youth organization, which wanted to establish an academy for the training of its female leaders, could study the functioning of the GIL’s most famous female institute. See the letter of the Foreign Office sent to the Embassy of Rome January 16, 1941, and the report about the visit sent

280



Notes to Pages 180–184

by the German Embassy in Rome to the German Foreign Office on December 29, 1941, PA AA, Rom-Quirinal, 1394A; telegram 11/04353/24, February 28, 1941, sent by the Foreign Office to the National Directory of the PNF, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, b. 49, Rapporti politici Italia–Germania, 1941. 32. For the Rumanian journey, ASMAE, AP, 1931–45, Romania, 1939, b. 15. 33. Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 121, 248. 34. See “Die Jugend Europas in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Von den 6. Winterkampfspielen der Hitlerjugend,” Völkischer Beobachter, February 24, 1941; “Kameradschaft der Jugend-Kameradschaft der Völker,” Völkischer Beobachter, February 27, 1941; “In Zukunft gegelmäßiger Austausch der Jugendgruppen. Reichsjugendführer Axmann zieht das Fazit im Treffen der europäischen Jugend,” Völkischer Beobachter, March 4, 1941; Reinhold Sautter, Hitlerjugend: Das Erlebnis einer großen Kameradschaft (Munich: Röhrig, 1942), 263. 35. Festa di Primavera al Foro Mussolini: La manifestazione ginnico–corale della GIL, AIL, 1941, D003204. 36. Artur Axmann, Das kann doch nicht das Ende sein: Hitlers letzter Reichsjugendführer erinnert sich (Schnellbach: Bublies, 1995), 272–74. 37. “V. Sommerkampfspiele der Hitler-Jugend,” Völkischer Beobachter, September 2, 1941. 38. Letter sent by the consul of Breslau on September 16, 1941, to the Royal Embassy of Berlin, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, 1941, 72. 39. See “Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Jugend Europas: Schirach und Sellani sprachen in Breslau,” Völkischer Beobachter, August 31, 1941, 4; telegram sent by Mussolini to Baldur von Schirach on September 5, 1941, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, 1941, b. 72; “Appel an Europas Jugend-Baldur von Schirach sprach in Breslau,” Völkischer Beobachter, August 30, 1941, 2. 40. Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 558–59. 41. Ibid., 320–27. 42. Telegram of Luther sent to von Mackensen on February 17, 1942, PA AA, Handakten Luther, 1942, R27634. 43. Enzo Collotti, “L’alleanza italo-tedesca 1941–1943,” in Gli Italiani sul fronte russo, ed. Istituto storico della Resistenza in Cuneo e Provincia (Bari: De Donato, 1982), 18. 44. See the report of the meeting between Axmann and Lehembre ( January, 27 1942), BA, NS 28, 117. 45. PNF, Manifestazioni culturali della Gioventù europea: Ponte Weimar-Firenze (Florence: Tip. A. G. Pieri, 1942). See also “Der Führer an die Europäische Jugend,” Völkischer Beobachter, June 24, 1942; “Alles Gold der Welt ist gering zu achten in Vergleich zur Ehre und Freiheit der Völker,” Völkischer Beobachter, June 29, 1942; “Weimar 17–24 giugno XX,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, July 1, 1942, 9; “Firenze 14–30 giugno XX,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, July 1, 1942, 32; “Weimar-Florenz. Zum Abschluß des europäischen Jugendtreffens,” Völkischer Beobachter, July 5, 1942; “Europa den Europäern,” Völkischer Beobachter, July 13, 1942; “Kulturkundgebung der europäischen Jugend in Weimar,” Das Archiv: Nachschlagewerk



Notes to Pages 184–187

281

für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur, April–September 1942, 236–37; Ponte Culturale Weimar-Firenze, AIL, 1942, D002502. 46. “Ergebnisse der kulturellen Arbeitsgemeinschaften der europäischen Jugend in Weimar,” Kulturpolitische Arbeitsblätter und Mitteilungsdienst der Arbietsgemeinschaft “Junges Schaffen,” 1942, 89–93. 47. “Verleihung des Musikpreises von Weimar,” Kulturpolitische Arbeitsblätter und Mitteilungsdienst der Arbietsgemeinschaft “Junges Schaffen,” 1942, 93–95; “Verleihung des Jugendbuchpreises von Weimar,” Kulturpolitische Arbeitsblätter und Mitteilungsdienst der Arbiets­ gemeinschaft “Junges Schaffen,” 1942, 95–96; “Kulturkundgebung der europäischen Jugend. Verleihung der Musik-und Jugendbuchpreises in Weimar,” Völkischer Beobachter, June 24, 1942, 2; Jutta Rüdiger, Die Hitler-Jugend und ihr Selbstverständnis im Spiegel ihrer Aufgabengebiete (Lindhorst: Askania Verlag, 1983), 140. 48. “Firenze 14–30 giugno XX,” 22. 49. See “Firenze 14–30 giugno XX,” 32, 41, 53–54, 58–63; PNF, Manifestazioni culturali della Gioventù europea, 5–6; “Die Musik auf der Kulturkundgebung der europäischen Jugend Weimar-Florenz 1942,” Kulturpolitische Arbeitsblätter und Mitteilungsdienst der Arbiets­ gemeinschaft “Junges Schaffen,” 1942, 110–12; “Weimar 17–24 giugno XX,” 12; “Das heutige Europa in Florenz, Abschluß des europäischen Jugendtreffens in Florenz,” Völkischer Beobachter, July 3, 1942, 2. 50. Ben-Ghiat, “Italian Fascists and National Socialists,” 277–78. 51. Collotti, “L’alleanza italo-tedesca 1941–1943,” 36. 52. Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 343. 53. Ben-Ghiat, “Italian Fascists and National Socialists,” 272. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid., 274. 56. Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 129. 57. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 178–79. See also Paolo Nicoloso, Mussolini Architetto: Propaganda e paesaggio urbano nell’Italia fascista (Turin: Einaudi, 2008), 217, 248–51, 276–77. For the cultural relationship between Italy and Germany see Benjamin George Martin, “A New Order for European Culture: The German-Italian Axis and the Reordering of International Cultural Exchange, 1936–1945” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2006). 58. Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 355–56. For the Italian–German rivalry in the Balkans see James J. Sadkovich, “The Italo-Greek War in Context: Italian Priorities and Axis Diplomacy,” Journal of Contemporary History 28, no. 3 (1993): 439–64; Srdjan Trifkovic´, “Rivalry between Germany and Italy in Croatia, 1942–1943,” Historical Journal 36, no. 4 (1993): 879–904. 59. Gründung des europäischen Jugendverbandes. Bereistellung von Papier für Druckschriften, August 5, 1942, BA, NS 18, 541. 60. See telegram sent on August 5, 1942, from the Foreign Office to the Office of the Prime Minister, telegram sent by the Office of the Prime Minister to Italian Embassy in Berlin on August 8, 1942, and telegram sent by the Foreign Office to the Italian

282



Notes to Pages 188–190

Embassy in Berlin and to the Office of the Prime Minister on August 11, 1942, ACS, PCM, 1940–41, 3.2.4, 52197. 61. Gründung des europäischen Jugendverbandes, report of the Propaganda Office of the Hitler Youth sent to the German minister of propaganda on August 15, 1942, BA, NS 18, 541. 62. Europa, Kontinent der Jugend, ed. Baldur von Schirach and Günter Kaufmann (Vienna: Die Pause, 1942). 63. Winifred Mallon, “Calls on Free Men to Reshape World,” New York Times, September 3, 1942; “President Warns Youth to Choose Death or Freedom,” New York Times, September 4, 1942. 64. “President’s Call to Youth to Meet Problems of the War and the Future,” New York Times, September 4, 1942. 65. Ibid. 66. Baldur von Schirach, “Antwort an Roosevelt,” Wille und Macht: Führerorgan der nationalsozialistischen Jugend, September 1942, 29–34. 67. See “Gründung des europäischen Jugendverbandes,” Das Archiv: Nachschlagewerk für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur, April–September 1942, 532; Dokumente zur Gründung des Europäischen Jugendverbandes in Wien-Documenti della fondazione dell’Associazione della Gioventù Europea a Vienna-14.–18. September 1942—14–18 settembre 1942 (Vienna 1942), 31* and 64*; Günter Kaufmann, Das kommende Deutschland: Die Erziehung der Jugend im Reich Adolf Hitlers (Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt, 1943), 217–18. See Axmann, Das kann doch nicht das Ende sein, 300, 307. 68. The Nazi hegemonic goals inside the EYA and the necessity of hiding them were suggested in the exchange between Luther and von Mackensen we mentioned before. See telegram of Luther sent to von Mackensen on February 17, 1942, PA AA, Handakten Luther, 1942, R 27634. 69. Dokumente zur Gründung des Europäischen Jugendverbandes, 7*–9*; letter sent by Ricci to von Schirach on April 30, 1942, ACS, Carte Ricci, s. 2, f. 5, s.f. 2; Aktennotiz über die Gründung des Europäischen Jugendverbandes für den Herrn Reichsaussenminister and letter sent by Luther to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on October 8, 1942, PA AA, Handakten Luther, 1942/1943, R27650. Already in the early 1930s, around 1933 and 1935, Mussolini had tried to expand the ideological and political influence of Fascism within Europe. The Fascist International that the Italians aimed to create had to unite Fascist and philo-Fascist European movements, guaranteeing their independence and rejecting any claims to racial superiority or regional dominance on the continent. The Fascist International was an anti-Nazi initiative. One of the most important reasons for the collapse of the project was the new direction taken by Mussolini’s foreign policy around 1936. The increasing interrelations between Mussolini and Hitler meant that in Italy anti-Nazi polemics had to be suppressed. It was no longer possible, in the second half of the decade, to present Italian Fascism as an ideological alternative to German National Socialism, since the two countries were acting in concert. For the Fascist International and its failure, see Michael Arthus Ledeen, Universal Fascism: The Theory and Practice of the Fascist International, 1928–1936 (New York: Howard Fertig, 1972); Stanley



Notes to Pages 191–194

283

Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914–1945 (London: UCL Press, 1995), 228–29, 231; Marco Cuzzi, L’internazionale delle camicie nere. I CAUR 1933–1939 (Milan: Mursia, 2005). 70. “El Congreso de Juventudes in Viena,” Aspa-Actualidades sociales y politicas de Alemania, no. 11 (1942): 4; Kaufmann, Das kommende Deutschland, 216–17; Axmann, Das kann doch nicht das Ende sein, 302; Buddrus, Totale Erziehung für den totalen Krieg: Hitlerjugend und National-sozialistische Jugendpolitik (Munich: Saur, 2003), 2:792. 71. Dokumente zur Gründung des Europäischen Jugendverbandes, 9*, 48*. 72. Ibid., 8*–9*. 73. “El Congreso de Juventudes in Viena,” 4–5; “Schlußsitzung-HeldenehrungGroßkundgebung,” Das Archiv: Nachschlagewerk für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur, April– September 1942, 533–34; Kaufmann, “Vorboten der neuen Ordnung,” Wille und Macht: Führerorgan der nationalsozialistischen Jugend, October 1942, 17; “Europa hat die Zukunft. Zur Gründung des Europäischen Jugendverbandes in Wien,” Das Deutsche Mädel: Die Zeitschrift des Bundes Deutscher Mädel in der HJ, October 1942, 3; Dokumente zur Gründung des Europäischen Jugendverbandes, 33*–34*, 71*; Arbeitsgemeinschaft Führererziehung, Schlusskommmuniqué, BA, NS 18, 541; Axmann, Das kann doch nicht das Ende sein, 305; Schaar, Artur Axman, 329. 74. See Harold Callender, “‘New Europe’ Rises in Nazi World Drive,” New York Times, September 26, 1942; Thomas Mann’s speech quoted in Deutsche Jugend 1933–1945: Eine Dokumentation, ed. Karl Heinz Jahnke and Michael Buddrus (Hamburg: VSA-Verlag, 1989), 446–47; Schaar, Artur Axmann, 329–30. 75. Joachim C. Fest, The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership (New York: Pantheon, 1970), 184–86. For Nazi policracy and inner wars see Peter Hüttenberger, “Nationalsozialistische Polykratie,” Geschichte und Gesellscahft: Zeitschrift für Historische Sozialwissenschaft, no. 2 (1976): 417–42; Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation (London: Oxford University Press, 2000), 74–75, 140–42; MacGregor, Common Destiny, 234. 76. Letter of the Bannführer Jürgens sent to the Reichsjugendführer on September 5, 1942, BA, NS 28, 116. See also Axmann, Das kann doch nicht das Ende sein, 299. 77. Aktennotiz über die Gründung des Europäischen Jugendverbandes für den Herrn Reichsaussenminister, PA AA, Handakten Luther, 1942–1943, R27650. 78. Axmann, Das kann doch nicht das Ende sein, 304–5. See, for example, the foreign articles about the event present in BA, R901, 57641. 79. Willy A. Boelke, Wollt ihr den totalen Krieg: Die geheimen Goebbels-Konferenzen 1939– 1943 (Munich: dtv, 1969), 318. See also Josef Goebbels, Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, pt. 2, Diktate 1941–1945, vol. 5, July–September 1942 (Munich: Saur, 1995), 505, 524, 528–29, 568–69. 80. Joachim Lund, “Denmark and the ‘European New Order,’ 1940–1942,” Contemporary European History 13, no. 3 (2004): 306. 81. Trifkovic´, “Rivalry between Germany and Italy in Croatia,” 883–84. 82. Roger Griffin, “Europe for the Europeans. Fascist Myths of the European New Order 1922–1992,” in A Fascist Century, ed. Matthew Feldman (New York: PalgraveMacMillan, 2008), 146–52; Lund, “Denmark and the ‘European New Order,’” 308.

284



Notes to Pages 194–200

83. Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 245–47. 84. Griffin, “Europe for the Europeans,” 152. 85. Ben-Ghiat, “Italian Fascists and National Socialists,” 275. 86. See PNF–GIL, Campionati sportivi della gioventu europea: Milano 24/27 settembre anno XX (Milan: GIL, 1942). 87. Note for the MINCULPOP (October 3, 1942) about the Sport Championships of the European Youth of Milan, ACS, MINCULPOP, Gabinetto, b. 84. 88. See letter of Braun sent on January 14, 1943, about the conversation between Luther and Alfieri, PA AA, Handakten Luther, von 1936 bis 1943, R27662; telegram n. 31/01517 sent by Italian Foreign Office to the Office of the Prime Minister on January 25, 1943, ACS, PCM, 1941–1943, 15.2.7050. 89. Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 357–60. 90. Walter M. Kotschnig, Slaves Need No Leaders: An Answer to the Fascist Challenge to Education (New York: Oxford University Press, 1943), 65. See also Schaar, Artur Axmann, 321. 91. “Wehrertüchtigungslager der germanischen Jugend,” Das Archiv: Nachschlagewerk für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur, October 1942–March 1943, 1054; Schaar, Artur Axmann, 314– 15; Lund, “Denmark and the ‘European New Order,’” 312–13. 92. See Kaufmann, “Vorboten der neuen Ordnung”; document of the Auslandsund Volkstumsamt Hauptabteilung I, January 18, 1944, BA, NS 28, 118; document signed Fink, January 25, 1944, BA, NS 28, 118; Helmut Heiber, Reichsführer! . . . Briefe an und von Himmler (Stutgart: DVA Verlag, 1968), 154–56; Torsten Schaar, “Zu auslandspolitischen Aktivitäten der Reichsjugendführung während des zweiten Weltkrieges unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Gründung des Europäischen Jugend­ verbandes,” Jugendgeschichte 1, no. 13 (1990): 50–52; Axmann, Das kann doch nicht das Ende sein, 307; Schaar, Artur Axmann, 323; Buddrus, Totale Erziehung, 2:790–800. 93. “Sonnenwendfeier der europäischen Jugend,” Das Archiv: Nachschlagewerk für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur, 1943–1944, 190; “Germanische Jugend im totalen Kriegseinsatz,” Das Archiv: Nachschlagewerk für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur, 1943–1944, 453. See also Schaar, “Zu auslandspolitischen Aktivitäten,” 51; Buddrus, Totale Erziehung, 2:799–802. 94. Collotti, “L’alleanza italo-tedesca 1941–1943,” 29–44. 95. Ben-Ghiat, “Italian Fascists and National Socialists,” 262, 270.

Chapter 10. Nazi and Fascist Youth Leaders and the Effects of War 1. See Torsten Schaar, Artur Axmann. Vom Hitlerjungen zum Reichsjugendführer der NSDAP: eine nationalsozialistische Karriere (Rostock: Universität Rostock, 1998), 185; Michael Buddrus, Totale Erziehung für den totalen Krieg, Hitlerjugend und nationalsozialistische Jugendpolitik (Munich: Saur 2003), 1:307, 337–39. For Hitler’s order: Rundschreiben Nr. 12/39 der Reichsjugendführung für die Führer und Führerinnen der HJ, December 15, 1939, BA, NS 28, 34. 2. See Rundschreiben Nr. 8/39 der Reichsjugendführung, October 24, 1939, BA, NS 28, 34; Program of employment and training of the Hitler Youth for 1940, ASMAE,



Notes to Pages 200–204

285

AP, 1931–1945, Italia, 1940, b. 73, Istituto nazionale relazioni culturali con l’estero; telegram of the Royal Italian Embassy in Berlin sent to the Foreign Office and to the Popular Culture Ministry, October 22, 1940, ASMAE, AP, 1931–1945, Germania, 1940, b. 69. See also Deutsche Jugend 1933–1945: eine Dokumentation, ed. Karl Heinz Jahnke and Michael Buddrus (Hamburg: VSA-Verlag, 1989), 320–21; Schaar, Artur Axman, 545–50; Buddrus, Totale Erziehung, 1:68, 337–55. 3. For the reopening of the schools for HJ leaders see “Deutschlands Jugend an der inneren Front-Aufgaben und Einsatz der HJ im Kriege,” Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte, January 1940, 22–23; Schaar, Artur Axmann, 185, 552, 565–69; Buddrus, Totale Erziehung, 1:342. For the Wehrertüchtigungslager see Michael H. Kater, Hitler Youth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), 196–97. 4. Schaar, Artur Axman, 539; “K-Bannführer,” Das Junge Deutschland, July 1942, 161–65. 5. “Anruf an alle ehemaligen HJ-Führer,” Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte, March 1940, 175. 6. For the agreement between Axman and the Ministry of Education: Artur Axmann, Das kann doch nicht das Ende sein: Hitlers letzter Reichsjugendführer erinnert sich (Schnellbach: Bublies, 1995), 245; Buddrus, Totale Erziehung, 1:864. For the agreement with the NSDAP: telegram of the Royal Italian Embassy in Berlin sent to the Foreign Office and to the Ministry of Popular Culture, October 22, 1940, ASMAE, AP, 1931– 1945, Germania, 1940, b. 69. 7. Kater, Hitler Youth, 104. 8. For the new relationship between the HJ and the BDM see Rundschreiben Nr. 12/39 der Reichsjugendführung für die Führer und Führerinnen der HJ, December 15, 1939, BA, NS 28, 34; Martin Klaus, Mädchen im 3. Reich-Der Bund Deutscher Mädchen (Cologne: PapyRossa-Verlag 1998), 107, 121; Buddrus, Totale Erziehung, 1:331. 9. Kater, Hitler Youth, 59. 10. Michael Kater, The Nazi Party: A Social Profile of Members and Leaders, 1919–1945 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983), 144–53, 235. 11. Rundschreiben Nr. 2/42 der Reichsjugendführung, March 4, 1942, BA, NS 28, 128. 12. Günther De Bruyn, Zwischenbilanz: Eine Jugend in Berlin (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1995), 103. 13. For the Lehrerbildungsanstalten see Ute Gutzmann, Von der Hochschule für Lehrer­ bildung zur Lehrerbildungsanstalt: Die Neuregelung der Volksschullehrerausbildung in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus und ihre Umsetzung in Schleswig-Holstein und Hamburg (Dusseldorf: Droste, 2000). Collegio Littorio was the new name of the Accademia Littoria after 1938; see Alessio Ponzio, La Palestra del Littorio: Un esperimento di pedagogia totalitaria nell’Italia fascista (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2009), 199–200. 14. Peter D. Stachura, The German Youth Movement 1900–1945: An Interpretative and Documentary History (New York: St. Martin Press, 1981), 153–54; Kater, Hitler Youth, 44–48. 15. Jill Stephenson, Women in Nazi Germany (New York: Longman, 2001), 19. 16. For the Verweiblichung: Buddrus, Totale Erziehung, 1:14, 16, 343. For women in Nazi Germany see also Claudia Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family, and

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Notes to Pages 204–206

Nazi Politics (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987); Matthew Stibbe, Women in the Third Reich (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). For the disagreement among historians over the status of women in National Socialism, see Thomas A. Kohut, A German Generation: An Experiential History of the Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 152–56. 17. See Josef Goebbels, “Ansprache an die Jugend,” Das Junge Deutschland, December 15, 1943, 281. 18. See Buddrus, Totale Erziehung, 1:344. 19. Artur Axmann, “Hitler-Jugend 1933–1943,” Das Junge Deutschland, January, 30 1943, 64. 20. See Kater, Hitler Youth, 57. See also Detlev Peukert, “Youth in the Third Reich,” in Life in the Third Reich, ed. Richard Bessel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 31. 21. Edgar Gielsdorf, Vom Christkind eine Landsknechtstrommel: Eine Hitler-Junge zieht Bilanz (Cologne: E. G. Lüttgau Verlag, 1994), 120–21. 22. See Die Arbeit der Hitler-Jugend im Kriege: Aus der Rede des Reichsjugendführers Axmann auf der Befehlshabertagung in Bad Schachen am 14. Oktober 1943, quoted in Schaar, Artur Axmann, 562, 578; Torsten Schaar, “Die Reichsjugendführung der NSDAP im totalen Krieg. August 1944 bis Mai 1945,” in Deutsche Jugend zwischen Krieg und Frieden 1944–1946, ed. Ingo Koch (Rostock: Verlag Jugend und Geschichte, 1993), 50. 23. See Junge Welt-Die Reichszeitschrift der Hitler-Jugend, December, 9 1939, 24; “Lehrgänge der Beauftragten für das BDM-Werk ‘Glaube und Schönheit’ in den Unter­ gauen in der Akademie für Jugendführung in Braunschweig,” Reichsbefehl der Reichs­ jugendführung der NSDAP, February 3, 1940, 5; Jürgen Schultz, Die Akademie für Jugendführung der Hitlerjugend in Braunschweig (Braunschweig: Waisenhaus Buchdruckerei und Verlag, 1978), 172–73; Jutta Rüdiger, Die Hitler-Jugend und ihr Selbstverständnis im Spiegel ihrer Auf­ gabengebiete (Lemförde: Askania Verlagsgesellschaft GmbH, 1983), 172. For Glaube und Schönheit see Sabine Hering and Kurt Schilde, Das BDM-Werk “Glaube und Schönheit”: Die Organisation junger Frauen im Nationalsozialismus (Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 2000). This organization served as a tie-in between the work in the BDM and that of the National Socialist Women’s League. Women between seventeen and twenty-one years of age could join the Glaube und Schönheit voluntarily. 24. Schultz, Die Akademie für Jugendführung, 160–61, 172–74. 25. Schultz, Die Akademie für Jugendführung, 158–61, 177–78; Rüdiger, Die Hitler-Jugend, 167; Manfred Bültemann, Architektur für das Dritte Reich: die Akademie für Deutsche Jugendführung in Braunschweig (Berlin: Ernst, 1986), 60–61. 26. Jahnke and Buddrus, Deutsche Jugend 1933–1945, 310–11; Schultz, Die Akademie für Jugendführung, 160–61; Buddrus, Totale Erziehung, 1:340, 344. To train the disabled exservicemen to get leading roles in the HJ, were founded also other ad hoc schools in Buckow, Brandeburg, and Hartenstein-Erzgebirge. 27. Jahnke and Buddrus, Deutsche Jugend 1933–1945, 154–55. 28. Gielsdorf, Vom Christkind eine Landsknechtstrommel, 128, 131. 29. Schultz, Die Akademie für Jugendführung, 179.



Notes to Pages 206–208

287

30. Roberto Berardi, Un Balilla negli anni trenta: Vita di provincia dalla grande depressione alla guerra (Cuneo: L’Arcere, 1994), 118. 31. Al Foro Mussolini: Saggio della GIL in presenza di Mussolini, AIL, 1940, C0040. 32. Tracy H. Koon, Believe. Obey. Fight: Political Socialization of Youth in Fascist Italy, 1922–1943 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 246–47; Simona Colarizi, L’opinione degli italiani sotto il regime 1929–1943 (Rome: Laterza, 2001), 329–48; Berardi, Un Balilla negli anni Trenta, 121–22. 33. Letter of the GIL General Command sent to the Office of the Prime Minister, July 17, 1940, ACS, PCM, 1940–1943, 1.1.15, 3500, 3–12. For the activities of the organization during the war, see “Notizie e informazioni,” L’illustrazione italiana, April 6, 1941, VII–VIII; “Rapporto del comandante generale agli ispettori, comandanti e vice comandanti federali della GIL,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, April 15, 1941, 318. 34. PNF, Foglio disposizioni, no. 152, June 15, 1940. 35. “Provvedimenti riguardanti il personale,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, October 15, 1940, 486; “Proposte di promozione per i partecipanti ai campi allievi istruttori,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, October 15, 1940, 483; “Rapporto del vice comandante della Gioventù del Littorio a Roma e a Bologna,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, February 1, 1941, 155; “I quadri dirigenti giovanili,” Problemi della gioventù, February 1943, 108–12. 36. Eduardo Natoli, “I graduati della GIL,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, March 15, 1941, 237–38. 37. “Norme e disposizioni,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, December 15, 1940, 83; PNF, “Programma di addestramento per i corsi allievi vice capi squadra Balilla, Avanguardisti e Giovani Fascisti,” (Rome: GIL, 1940); “Giovinezza Fascista attorno al DUCE,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, August 15, 1941, 647. 38. “L’attività degli insegnanti nella GIL e la valutazione per le note di qualifica,” La scuola italiana—Quindicinale della scuola media, October 31, 1940, 6; “Corsi di educazione fisica per gli insegnanti elementari,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, February 1, 1941, 154; PNF, Foglio disposizioni, no. 118, May 20, 1941; “Corsi di perfezionamento per aspiranti della GIL,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, November 1, 1941, 47; “Telegrammi-Circolari,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, November 1, 1941, 48; “I graduati e gli aspiranti della GIL,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, November 15, 1941, 49–50; “Qualifiche e gradi degli organizzati,” I diritti della scuola, December 24, 1941, 148. 39. Letter sent to the National High Commission of the Italian Youth on February 6, 1946, ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE (1945–1947), b. 21, Gr. An. 40. Newsletter no. 10, March 12, 1942, of the national education minister quoted in Bollettino del Ministero dell’Educazione Nazionale: Atti amministrativi, March 17, 1942, 746–47. For the last courses, see “Notizie e indiscrezioni,” L’illustrazione italiana, June 7, 1942, V;

288



Notes to Pages 208–210

“Notizie e indiscrezioni,” L’illustrazione italiana, August 2, 1942, IV; “Cronache della GIL,” Problemi della gioventù, September 1942, 851. 41. “Notizie e indiscrezioni,” L’illustrazione italiana, November 24, 1940, XIII. 42. Minutes of the GIL Academy Council, November 22, 1940; April 28, 1941; November 3, 1941, Private Archive Luigi Meschini. 43. Minutes of the GIL Academy Council, November 3, 1941, Private Archive Luigi Meschini; Senate, Parliamentary Acts, Discussions, XXX Legislature, no. 4, 1941, 162:283. 44. Minutes of the GIL Academy Council, November 12, 1942, Private Archive Luigi Meschini. 45. “Notizie e indiscrezioni,” L’illustrazione italiana, December 8, 1940, XII–XIII; Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, March 15, 1941, 244; “Attività dei Collegi e delle Accademie della GIL,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, April 1, 1941, 280; “Attività dei Collegi e Accademie della GIL,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, April 15, 1941, 315; “Notiziario della GIL,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, July 15, 1941, 558; “Iscrizioni all’Accademia della GIL,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, August 15, 1941, 672; “Attività dei Collegi e delle Accademie della GIL,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, December 1, 1941, 102; “Attività dei Collegi e delle Accademie della GIL,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, March 15, 1942, 365. 46. “La GIL e la guerra,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, April 15, 1941, 331. 47. “Il nuovo anno accademico della GIL inaugurato alla presenza del segretario del Partito,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, December 1, 1941, 103; “Cronache della GIL,” Problemi della gioventù, December, 15 1941, 99; “Cronache della GIL,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, June 1, 1942, 528. 48. Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, July 15, 1942. 49. Campo Nazionale Cadetti (Rome, 1942), 28. 50. “Al Foro Mussolini—Inaugurazione del XVI anno accademico,” Bollettino del Comando Generale della Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, January 1, 1943, 148–49; L’Accademia della GIL inaugura il suo XVI anno di vita, AIL, 1942, C0307. 51. L’Accademia della GIL—Visita al Foro Mussolini-Corso per “visitatrici fasciste” (Rome: Tipografia Fratelli Pallotta, 1940), 4; “Al Foro Mussolini. Inaugurazione del XVI anno accademico,” 148. 52. Telegram of Ferretti sent to Mussolini on July 3, 1943, ACS, SPD, CO, 533.221. 53. Benito Mussolini, Opera Omnia, XXXIV, Pensieri pontini e sardi (1943), no. 69 (Florence: La Fenice, 1961), 295–96. 54. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 204–5. 55. “Ricostituzione dell’Opera Balilla,” I diritti della scuola, September 12, 1943, 428; Opera Balilla, Relazione sui primi quattro mesi di attività 1943–1944, 76, ACS, SPD, CO, RSI, b. 23.



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56. “Ricostituzione dell’Opera Balilla,” 428; Opera Balilla, Relazione sui primi quattro mesi, 4–6, 10–11. For the female role in the Italian Social Republic see Maria Fraddosio, “La donna e la guerra. Aspetti della militanza femminile nel fascismo: dalla mobilitazione civile alle origini del SAF nella Repubblica Sociale Italiana,” Storia Contemporanea 20, no. 6 (1989): 1105–81. 57. “La ricostruzione del ruolo ufficiali Opera Balilla,” Bollettino Opera Balilla, February 1, 1944, 2. 58. Opera Balilla, Relazione sui primi quattro mesi, 24–25. 59. Sandro Setta, Renato Ricci: Dallo squadrismo alla Repubblica Sociale Italiana (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1986), 279–80. 60. Opera Balilla, Relazione sui primi quattro mesi, 13–16; Ricci’s newsletter no. 37, December 14, 1943, in “Ordini e disposizioni del presidente,” Bollettino Opera Balilla, January 15, 1944, 7–8; Opera Balilla, Relazione sul primo anno attività 24 settembre 1943–24 settembre 1944, ACS, SPD, CO, RSI, b. 23. 61. “Ordini e disposizioni del presidente,” Bollettino Opera Balilla, October 28, 1944, 5. 62. Opera Balilla, Relazione sui primi quattro mesi, 78–79, 110; “Regolamenti delle Accademie e dei Collegi dell’Opera Balilla per l’anno scolastico 1944–45 XXIII,” Bollettino Opera Balilla, October 15, 1944, ACS, SPD, CO, RSI, 49. 63. “Lettera circolare no. 14,” Bollettino Opera Balilla, December 15, 1944, 7. 64. “Ordini e disposizioni del presidente,” Bollettino Opera Balilla, September 1, 1944, 4. 65. “Approvato il disegno di legge per la sistemazione degli ex allievi delle Accademie di EF,” Educazione fisica-Organo ufficiale dell’associazione nazionale di EF, May 15, 1950, 2.

Aftermath 1. Walter T. Kotschnig, Slaves Need No Leaders: An Answer to the Fascist Challenge to Education (New York: Oxford University Press, 1943), xii. 2. Ibid., xi–xii, 35. 3. Ibid., 43. 4. Gregor Ziemer, “Rehabilitating Fascist Youth,” Public Opinion Quarterly 7, no. 4 (1943): 583–84. 5. Werner Peiser, “The Forgotten Italian Youth,” High School Journal 26, no. 5 (1943): 150–51. 6. Ibid., 151–55. 7. Luca La Rovere, “Miti e politica per la gioventù fascista,” in Dalla trincea alla piazza: L’irruzione dei giovani nel Novecento, ed. Marco De Nicolò (Rome: Viella, 2011), 219. 8. “Un compito: i giovani,” Avanti!, February 26, 1944. 9. “La tessera e l’idea,” Avanti!, June 16, 1944. 10. “Il problema dei giovani nell’Italia di oggi e di domani,” L’Alba: Giornale dei prigionieri di guerra italiani nell’Unione Sovietica, January 8, 1944. 11. Ercole, “Gioventù d’oggi,” L’Alba: Giornale dei prigionieri di guerra italiani nell’Unione Sovietica, August 12, 1944.

290



Notes to Pages 216–218

12. Benedetto Croce, “La Gioventù Italiana,” Libertà 1, no. 1, 1944. 13. Bruno Wanrooij, “Youth, Generation Conflict, and Political Struggle in Twentieth Century Italy,” European Legacy 4, no. 1 (1999): 77, 83. 14. Autobiografie di giovani del tempo fascista (Brescia: Morcelliana, 1947), 55, 67–68. 15. Carlo Mazzantini, In Search of a Glorious Death (Manchester: Carcanet, 1992), 5, 85. 16. The epurazione (purge) in Italy was a long and complex phenomenon. In the beginning the desire to punish the Fascists prevailed over forgiveness. But in the end nothing came from the epurazione: both Communists and Christian Democrats opted for a general pacification. See, for example, Claudio Pavone, Una guerra civile: Saggio storico sulla moralità nella Resistenza (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1991); Claudio Pavone, Alle origini della Repubblica: Scritti sul fascismo, antifascismo e continuità dello Stato (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1995); Domenico Roy Palmer, Processo ai fascisti (Milan: Rizzoli, 1996); Hans Woller, I conti con il fascismo: L’epurazione in Italia 1943–1948 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1997); Guido Melis, “Percorsi di continuità: L’epurazione nei ministeri,” in La Resistenza tra storia e memoria: Atti del Convegno, ed. Nicola Gallerano (Milan: Mursia, 1999), 298–329; Romano Canosa, Storia dell’epurazione in Italia: Le sanzioni contro il fascismo 1943–1948 (Milan: Baldini & Castoldi, 1999); Guido Melis, “Note sull’epurazione nei ministeri, 1944–1946,” Ventunesimo secolo 2, no. 4 (2003): 17–52. 17. Memorandum of To. Ci., ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 10, To. Ci.; letter sent to the National Purge Commission (February 9, 1945), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 21, It. Gi.; letter sent to the National Purge Commission (August 18, 1945), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 37, Ma. Sa.; letter sent to the Purge Commission of Varese (October 25, 1945), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 40, Su. Gi.; report sent to the National Purge Commission (May 24, 1946), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 1, Ag. Lu. 18. Memorandum of An. Ga., ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 20, An. Ga.; letter sent to the Purge Commission of Modena (August 4, 1945), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 6, Br. Ma.; letter sent to the National Committee of the Italian Youth (November 14, 1945), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 6, Br. Ma.; memorandum of An. Gr. sent to the National Commette of the Italian Youth (February 6, 1946), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 21, An. Gr. 19. Memorandum of Si. Do. (May 10, 1946), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 39, Si. Do. 20. Letter sent to the National Purge Commission, ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 21, Gr. Em.; letter sent to the National Committee of the Italian Youth (April 22, 1946), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 6, Br. Gi.; letter sent to the National Purge Commission (April 24, 1946), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 43, Ve. An. 21. Letter sent to the Purge Commission of Modena (August 4, 1945), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 6, Ma. Br. 22. Letter sent to the Purge Commission of Modena (August 4, 1945), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 6, Ma. Br. 23. Memorandum of Pa. Ma. sent to the National Committee of the Italian Youth ( June 19, 1945), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 31, Pa. Ma.; memorandum of Ve. An. (March 2, 1946), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 43, Ve. An.; memorandum of Gu. Gi. (May 10, 1946), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 22, Gu. Gi.; letter sent to the National Purge Commission (May 10, 1946), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 1, An. Fr.; letter sent to the National



Notes to Pages 218–219

291

Committee of the Italian Youth (May 25, 1946), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 43, Ve. Re. Si. For the collaboration with the anti-Fascist Resistance see documents certifying the collaboration of Fi. Ac. with the anti-Fascist partisans of the batallion “Bettini” and the brigade “La Pasubiana,” ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 17, Fi. Ac.; document certifying the collaboration of Va. Ar. with the “Gruppo Bande Armate-Gran Sasso” ( July 8, 1944), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 42, Va. Ar.; statement of the National Liberation Committee of Quarona (Vercelli) (October 10, 1945), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 32, Pe. Re.; letter of the National Association of the Italian Partisans ( July 3, 1945) and letter of the National Liberation Committee of Cazzago San Martino (Brescia) (March 5, 1946), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 27, Mo. El.; letter of National Liberation Committee of Ravenna about the collaboration of Ma. E. (August 6, 1946), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 25, Ma. E. 24. Letter to Purge Commission of Sondrio ( July 2, 1945), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 32, Pe. El.; memorandum of Co. Ca. to the Purge Commission of Verona ( July 10, 1945), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 12, Co. Ca.; letter to the National Committee of the Italian Youth (April 25, 1946), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 18, Fo. Ca. 25. Letter to the National Purge Commission (December 4, 1944), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 17, Fa. Al. 26. Statement of May 15, 1946, ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 43, Za. An. 27. Statement of July 16, 1945, ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 10, Ci. Gi.; statement of May 17, 1946, ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 43, Za. An. 28. Statement of May 16, 1946, ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 43, Za. An.; letter sent to the National Committee of the Italian Youth (May 17, 1946), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 43, Za. An. 29. Letter sent to the National Purge Commission (December 4, 1944), ACS, MPI, IEFS, FPIE, b. 17, Fa. Al. 30. Letter to the author from Sergio Pivetta, January 28, 2013, Milan. 31. Among the most recent publications on post-Fascist Italy see Italian Fascism: History, Memory and Representation, ed. Richard J. Bosworth and Patrizia Dogliani (New York: Palgrave, 1999); Donald Sassoon, “L’Italia dopo il fascismo: L’affermazione delle narrazioni dominanti,” Novecento 3, no. 5 (2001): 11–36; Piergiorgio Zunino, La Repubblica e il suo passato: Il fascismo dopo il fascismo, il comunismo, la democrazia: le origini dell’Italia contemporanea (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003); Mario Isnenghi, Dalla resistenza alla desistenza: L’Italia del “Ponte” (1945–1947) (Rome: Laterza, 2007); Giancarlo Monina 1945–1946: Le origini della Repubblica (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2007); Luca La Rovere, L’eredità del Fascismo: Gli intellettuali, i giovani e la transizione al postfascismo, 1943–1948 (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2008), 29–133; Luca La Rovere, “The ‘Examination of Conscience’ of the Nation: The Lost Debate about the ‘Collective Guilt’ in Italy, 1943–45,” Politics, Religion & Ideology 9, no. 2–3 (2008): 187–202; Dalla trincea alla piazza, 233–93. 32. Emilio Gentile, La via italiana al totalitarismo: Il partito e lo stato nel regime fascista (Rome: Carocci, 2008), 342–43. 33. La Rovere, “‘Examination of Conscience,’” 189–96. 34. Ibid., 196, 198. 35. Gentile, La via italiana al totalitarismo, 342–49.

292



Notes to Pages 219–220

36. See Emilio Gentile, Fascismo: Storia e interpretazione (Rome: Laterza, 2002), v–xi. See also La Rovere, “‘Examination of Conscience,’” 187. 37. Mark Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe (New York: Penguin, 2008), 349. Among the Nazi carnages we can mention the massacres of Marzabotto and Sant’Anna di Stazzema, and the revenge of the Fosse Ardeatine—a mass execution carried out in Rome in March 1944 by the Nazis as a reprisal for a partisan attack. 38. Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetic of Power in Mussoloni’s Italy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 194. 39. The German sociologist Renate Siebert, in an essay published in 1992, admitted that she was struck by the ease with which the past and the memory of Fascism could be invoked in Italy. She felt that, for the Italians, unlike the Germans, Fascism was not a “personal problem.” Siebert’s essay was written in response to a specific event. In November 1989 the BBC broadcast a documentary entitled Fascist Legacy. The first part of the film offered a historical reconstruction of the war crimes the Italians perpetrated in Yugoslavia and Ethiopia, while the second discussed how and why those crimes remained unpunished. The Italian state channel Rai 1 bought Fascist Legacy immediately. But it was never broadcast. Only in 2004 did the Italian channel La7 screen large excerpts from the documentary. The central question posed by the film was: why were the Italian war criminals never tried? They were war criminals according to the UN Commission on War Crimes and to the Central Register of War Criminals and Security Suspects, but for them the requests for extradition from the affected countries were completely rejected by the American Pentagon and by the British Foreign Office. The issue of the Italian war criminals was conveniently forgotten as the Cold War became the main determinant of international relations in the postwar world. See Renate Siebert, “Don’t Forget: Fragments of a Negative Tradition,” in Memory and Totalitarianism, ed. Luisa Passerini (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 165–78; Effie G. H. Pedaliu, “Britain and the ‘Hand-over’ of Italian War Criminals to Yugoslavia, 1945–48,” Journal of Contemporary History 39, no. 4 (2004): 503–29. In Yugoslavia the behavior of the Italian Army was not very different from that of the Germans. General Mario Robotti considered the province of Ljubljana a battlefield and was ordered to consider the entire population hostile. Robotti instructed his men to be ruthless with the Slovenians, and his superior, General Mario Roatta, decreed in the “Circular 3C” of March 1942 that the watchword against the Yugoslavs had to be “Not tooth for a tooth,” but “A head for a tooth.” See Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 349. For the Italian concentration camps see James Walston, “History and Memory of the Italian Concentration Camps,” Historical Journal 40, no. 1 (1997): 169–83; I campi di concentramento in Italia: Dall’internamento alla deportazione (1940– 1945), ed. Costantino Di Sante (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2001); Carlo Spartaco Capogreco, I campi del duce: L’internamento civile nell’Italia fascista, 1940–1943 (Turin: Einaudi, 2006); Alessandra Kersevan, Lager italiani: Pulizia etnica e campi di concentramento fascisti per civili jugoslavi 1941–1943 (Rome: Nutrimenti, 2008); Luigi Reale, Mussolini’s Concentration Camps for Civilians: An Insight into the Nature of Fascist Racism (Portland: Vallentine Mitchell, 2011). 40. See Paul Corner, “Italian Fascism: Whatever Happened to Dictatorship?,” Journal of Modern History 74, no. 2 (2002): 326; Filippo Focardi, La guerra della memoria: La



Notes to Pages 220–221

293

resistenza nel dibattito politico italiano dal 1945 ad oggi (Rome: Laterza, 2005), 3–9; Davide Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire: Italian Occupation during the Second World War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006). For the Italiani brava gente myth see also: David Bidussa, Il mito del bravo italiano (Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1994); Filippo Focardi, “‘Bravo italiano’ e ‘cattivo Tedesco’: riflessioni sulla genesi di due immagini incrociate,” Storia e memoria 1 (1996): 62–66; Nicholas Doumanis, “The Italian Empire and brava gente: Oral History and the Dodacanase Islands,” in Italian Fascism: History, Memory and Representation, ed. Richard J. Bosworth and Patrizia Dogliani (New York: Palgrave, 1999), 161–77; Filippo Focardi, “La memoria della guerra e il mito del ‘bravo italiano.’ Origine e affermazione di un autoritratto collettivo,” Italia contemporanea, nos. 220–21 (2000): 393– 99; Claudio Fogu, “Italiani brava gente. The Legacy of Fascist Historic(al) Culture on Italian Politics of Memory,” in Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe, ed. Claudio Fogu, Wulf Kansteiner, and Ned Lebow (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 147–76; Angelo Del Boca, Italiani, brava gente? Un mito duro a morire (Vicenza: N. Pozza, 2006); L’Impero fascista: Italia ed Etiopia (1935–1941), ed. Riccardo Bottoni (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2008). 41. Corner, “Italian Fascism,” 327. 42. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, “Italian Fascists and National Socialists: The Dynamics of an Uneasy Relationship,” in Art, Culture, and Media Under the Third Reich, ed. Richard A. Etlin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 257. 43. Ibid., 277. 44. Pedaliu, “Britain and the ‘Hand-over’,” 503. See also Siebert, “Don’t Forget,” 172–74. 45. Simone Neri Serneri, “A Past to Be Thrown Away? Politics and History in the Italian Resistance,” Contemporary European History 4, no. 3 (1995): 367. See also Focardi, La guerra della memoria, 9–13; Filippo Focardi and Lutz Klinkhammer, “La rimozione dei crimini di guerra dell’Italia fascista: la nascita di un mito assolutorio (1943–1948),” in Guerra e pace nell’Italia del Novecento: Politica estera, cultura politica e correnti dell’opinione pubblica, ed. Luigi Goglia, Renato Moro, and Leopoldo Nuti (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2006), 251–90. The “official memory” also glossed over the fact that after September 1943 not all Italians were fighting against the Nazis and that northern Italy was the battlefield of a fratricidal war. See Neri Serneri, “A Past to Be Thrown Away,” 367–81. La notte di San Lorenzo, a film by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, shot in 1982, showed clearly how in northern Italy, after July 1943, there was a real civil war. 46. For the Italian consensus about the Fascist regime, see Corner, “Italian Fascism,” 325–51. 47. For postwar Germany see Wolfgang Benz, “Postwar Society and National Socialism: Remembrance, Amnesia, Rejection,” Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte 19 (1990): 1–12; Alf Lüdtke, “‘Coming to Terms with the Past’: Illusions of Remembering, Ways of Forgetting Nazism in West Germany,” Journal of Modern History 65, no. 3 (1993): 542–72; Reinhard Alter and Peter Monteath, Rewriting The German Past: History and Identity in the New Germany (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1997); Jeffrey Herf, Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997); Hanna Schissler, The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949–1968

294



Notes to Pages 221–223

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); Norbert Frei, Adenauer’s Germany and the Nazi Past: The Politics of Amnesty and Integration (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002); Jan-Werner Müller, Memory and Power in Post-War Europe: Studies in the Presence of the Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Wulf Kansteiner, “Nazis, Viewers and Statistics: Television History, Television Audience Research and Collective Memory in West Germany,” Journal of Contemporary History 39, no. 4 (2004): 575–98; Jürgen Kocka, “Confrontarsi con difficili passati: Memorie collettive e politica in Germania dopo il 1945 e il 1990,” Mondo contemporaneo 1, no. 2 (2005): 103–17; Fogu, Kansteiner, and Lebow, Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe; Wolfgang Benz, Deutschland unter alliierter Besatzung: 1945–1949 (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2009). 48. See Helmut Schelsky, Die skeptische Generation: Eine Soziologie der deutschen Jugend (Düsseldorf: E. Diederich, 1957); Alan McDougall, Youth Politics in East Germany: The Free German Youth Movement, 1946–1968 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004). 49. In 1958 the Central Office of the State Justice Administrations for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes was founded; in 1959 Günther Grass published Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum); in 1960 the Germans followed with interest the trial of Adolf Eichmann; and from 1963 to 1965 twenty-two SS men and one prisoner Kapo—all perpetrators in Auschwitz—were prosecuted. 50. Siebert, “Don’t Forget,” 168. 51. For the “Hitler Youth generation” see Helmut Schelsky, Die skeptische Generation; Generations in Conflict: Youth Revolt and Generation Formation in Germany 1770–1968, ed. Mark Roseman (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995); McDougall, Youth Politics in East Germany; Michael H. Kater, Hitler Youth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), 247–65; Thomas A. Kohut, A German Generation: An Experiential History of the Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011). 52. Kater, Hitler Youth, 265. 53. Alexander von Plato, “The Hitler Youth Generation and its Role in the Postwar German States,” in Generations in Conflict: Youth Revolt and Generation Formation in Germany 1770–1968, ed. Mark Roseman (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 210–19. 54. Kater, Hitler Youth, 265. 55. See, for example, Alberto Aquarone, L’organizzazione dello Stato totalitario (Turin: Einaudi, 1965); Renzo De Felice, Mussolini il rivoluzionario (Turin: Einaudi, 1965); De Felice, Mussolini il Fascista, vol. 1, La conquista del potere (Turin: Einaudi, 1966); De Felice, Mussolini il Fascista, vol. 2, L’organizzazione dello stato fascista: 1925–1929 (Turin: Einaudi, 1968). 56. Aldo Grandi, I giovani di Mussolini: Fascisti convinti, Fascisti pentiti, anti-Fascisti (Milan: Baldini & Castoldi, 2001), 101–2, 114–17, 217, 277. Ute Schleimer also deals with the experiences of twenty former members of the Fascist youth organizations and seventeen youth who did not join ONB and GIL. In her work it is possible to see once again how the youth responded in very different ways to Mussolini’s regime: Ute Schleimer, Die Opera Nazionale Balilla bzw. Gioventù Italiana del Littorio und die Hitlerjugend-eine Vergleichende Darstellung (Munich: Waxmann, 2004), 21–48.



Notes to Pages 224–225

295

57. For the multifaceted attitudes towards the Italian Fascist regime, see, for example Autobiografie di giovani del tempo fascista (Brescia: Morcelliana, 1947); Dante L. Germino, The Italian Fascist Party in Power: A Study in Totalitarian Rule (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1959); Gino Germani, “Political Socialization of Youth in Fascist Regimes,” in Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society: The Dynamics of Established One-Party Systems, ed. Samuel P. Huntington and Clement H. Moore (New York: Basic Books Inc., 1970); Tracy H. Koon, Believe. Obey. Fight: Political Socialization of Youth in Fascist Italy, 1922–1943 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985); Luisa Passerini, Fascism in Popular Memory: The Cultural Memory of the Turin Working Class (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Doug Thompson, State Control in Fascist Italy: Culture and Conformity, 1925–1943 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991); Roberto Berardi, Un Balilla negli anni trenta: Vita di provincia dalla grande depressione alla guerra (Cuneo: L’Arcere, 1994); Mabel Berezin, Making the Fascist Self: The Political Culture of Interwar Italy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997); Salvatore Lupo, Il Fascismo: La politica di un regime totalitario (Rome: Donzelli Editore, 2000); Mirco Dondi, “The Fascist Mentality after Fascism,” in Italian Fascism: History, Memory and Representation, 141–60; Grandi, I giovani di Mussolini; Richard J. Bosworth, “Everyday Mussolinism: Friends, Family, Locality and Violence in Fascist Italy,” Contemporary European History 14, no. 1 (2005): 23–43; Paul Corner, “Everyday Fascism in the 1930s: Centre and Periphery in the Decline of Mussolini’s Dictatorship,” Contemporary European History 15, no. 2 (2006): 195–222. For Nazi Germany, see, for example Melita Maschmann, Account Rendered: A Dossier on My Former Self (London: Abelard-Schuman, 1964); Daniel Horn, “Youth Resistance in the Third Reich,” Journal of Social History 1, no. 7 (1973): 26–50; Inge Scholl, The White Rose: Munich, 1942–1943 (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1983); Detlev Peukert, “Youth in the Third Reich,” in Life in the Third Reich, ed. Richard Bessel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); Detlev Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition and Racism in Everyday Life (London: Penguin, 1989); Alf Lüdtke, “People Working: Everyday Life and German Fascism,” History Workshop Journal 50 (2000): 74–92. 58. Weidenmann, Junges Italien (Stuttgart: Loewes Verlag Ferdinand Carl, 1941), 112–15. 59. Alfred Weidenmann, Junges Italien; Alfred Weidenmann, Junges Europa (Stuttgart: Loewes Verlag Ferdinand Carl, 1941), 60–100; Helmut Stock, Die faschistische Staatsjugend (Munich: Beck, 1943); H. Wilke, GIL-Jugend in Italien (Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt Verlag, 1943). 60. Weidenmann, Junges Italien, 112. 61. La Rovere, “Miti e politica per la gioventù fascista,” 218. 62. Renato Ricci, “L’educazione dei giovani trionfo del fascismo,” Rivista illustrata del Popolo d’Italia, November 1942, 16. 63. Renato Ricci, “Gioventù tedesca e gioventù italiana,” L’illustrazione italiana, 1937, 1104.

Index

AC. See Azione Cattolica (AC) Academy of Braunschweig. See Hitlerjugend Akademie Academy of Orvieto: BDM and, 279–80n31; founding of, 247n59; HJ visit to, 175; institutions opened during “Ricci’s reign” and, 164; as known worldwide, 191; after Mussolini’s fall, 209–10, 212; unveiling of the Mussolini Forum and, 61; visit to Germany and, 132–36 Academy of Physical and Youth Education. See Accademia Fascista di Educazione Fisica Academy of Rome. See Accademia Fascista di Educazione Fisica Accademia Fascista di Educazione Fisica: acad­e­ mists as missionaries of Fascism and, 51, 68–71; academists in formation and, 53, 69, 130; academists’ living arrangements and, 70; academists’ reasons for becoming students and, 217–19; admission to, 68– 69, 133; career plans of youth leaders and, 148; continuation of Black Shirts’ Revolution and, 75; continuing role of, 164; curriculum of, 51, 54, 69, 74; educational philosophy of, 116–17; end of, 212; Fascist Advanced School for Sport and Physical Education of Rome and, 50–51; goals of, 9, 49, 52–53; gymnastics display for Hitler

and, 134–35; as inspiration for German Academy, 127–28, 139, 151; Italian-German youth exchanges and, 121, 132, 133–36; Jewish students at, 150; limitations of, 71; Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale ( MVSN ) and, 68, 69, 244n12; Mussolini Forum and, 59–60, 63–68, 150; Nazis’ admiration for, 132–33, 136, 137; negative effects of GIL on graduates of, 167; “new man” and, 70, 75; newsreels of academists and, 75; nostalgia for, 70; ONB leadership purges and, 104; Opera Balilla (OB) and, 210; postwar experiences of academists and, 217–19; suppression of, 165; training of instructors and, 49, 72, 73–74, 99; United States visit of, 54, 55– 59; variant names of, 51, 243n3; viewers of parade of, 129. See also Italian Fascist versus German Nazi youth training; relationship between Italian and German youth organizations Accademia Littoria ( Lictor Academy), 73, 111, 132, 133–36, 164, 285n13 Acerbo, Giacomo, 238n44 Acerbo Law. See Legge Acerbo Adams, Mark, 246n35 Adenauer, Konrad, 222 Adua, Italian defeat at (1896), 17

297

298

Index

AGF. See Avanguardie Giovanili Fasciste (AGF) Akademie-berwerber, 148, 150, 270n25 Albania, 183–84, 194 Alfieri, Dino, 195 American Committee of International Student Service, 188 Anschluß, 123, 173, 264n27 Anticomintern Pact, 159 antimodernism, 19–20 anti-Semitism and Jews: anti-Semitic publications and, 160–61; criteria for youth leadership-training selection and, 149–50; Cultural Manifestation Weimar-Florence and, 184; EYA and, 182, 190, 192; GIL’s expulsion of Jews and, 170; Großdeutsche Jugendbewegung and, 252n17; HJ instructions to youth about, 6; HJ members’ memories of, 223; intellectualism and, 109; Italian Fascist versus Nazi antiSemitism and, 220; Jewish youth associations and, 89; “Judeo-Bolshevism” and, 195; Jugendbund and, 78, 252n17; Nazi myth of race and, 79; Nazi panEuropeanism and, 194; “neutralization” of Europe’s Jews and, 96; NSS and, 84; Pius XI on anti-Semitism and, 163; in postwar Germany, 221; proposed compensation for Jews harmed by Nazis and, 222; racial and anti-Semitic laws in Italy and, 157, 166 AS. See Avanguardia Studentesca (AS) Attolico, Bernardo, 130, 134, 174 Austria: anti-Nazis at International Youth Assembly from, 188; in German book about Balilla, 125; Germany’s designs on, 10, 123–24, 126, 171, 264n27; Italian territory in hands of, 17; Third Italian War of Independence (1866) and, 232n17 Austria-Hungary, 22 Avanguardia Studentesca (AS): AGF and, 30– 32; Appeasement Pact (1921) and, 30; demise of, 47; Fascist martyrs and, 87; founding of, 28, 81; Mussolini’s parliamentary strategy and, 29–30 Avanguardie Giovanil Fascist (AGF ): aims and activities of, 32; conditions in, 34–35;

founding of, 31; GUF and, 31; versus Jugendbund de NSDAP, 77, 78; National Congress of (1922), 31–32; number of members of, 34–35; ONB and, 35, 153, 154, 155–56; PNF and, 31–33. See also relationship between Italian and German youth organizations Axmann, Arthur: 1944 midsummer night of Germanic Youth and, 197; age of, 108; EYA and, 183, 187, 190, 191, 196; film award named for, 185; as HJ supreme leader, 104, 108; Nazi voices inconsistent with Hitler’s plans and, 180; proposed Italian-German joint leadership institutes and, 181; youth leadership crisis during World War II and, 201, 204 Azione Cattolica (AC): battle against the badge and, 163; calls for appeasement of, 40; Catholic associations related to, 39; continued activities of, 163–64; Fascist actions against members of, 92, 162–63; Fascist youth organizations and, 9, 45; fate of under Mussolini, 40–41, 42–45; GIL and, 162; Gospel focus of, 9; Lateran Pacts and, 41; masculinity and, 242n104; ONB and, 90–91; Nazi actions against members of, 92; peace talks between Fascists and, 163; Pius XI and, 162–63; Pius XII and, 163; PNF and, 162, 163; PPI and, 43, 44; resistance and reconstruction rooted in, 163–64; violent press campaign against, 43 Baden-Powell, Robert, 7 Badoglio, Pietro, 209, 217 Balilla (Giovan Battista Perasso), 124–25, 228n18 Balkans, the, 172, 177, 179, 186, 197 Bann (subdivision of HJ ), 107, 112, 114, 117, 147– 48, 202–3 Bastianini, Giuseppe, 32 BDM. See Bund Deutscher Mädel ( BDM ) Beckmann, Max, 235n59 Beldy, Vitez Alois, 183 Belgium, 183–84, 188, 191, 196–97 Ben-Ghiat, Ruth, 177, 220 Berardi, Roberto, 159, 206 Bergson, Henri-Louis, 15

Index 299 Bismarckjugend, 252n11 Black Shirts’ Revolution: collaborators with, 236–37n25; continuation of, 75; Fascistization of Italian high schools and, 159; Fascist martyrs and, 87; Fascist youth in, 25–26, 47; Mussolini’s anticipation of, 5 Blondel, Maurice, 15 Bodini, Giuseppe, 176 Bohle, Ernst Wilhelm, 262n58 Bonomi, Ivanoe, 30 Bosworth, Richard J., 12 Bottai, Giuseppe, 24, 26, 168–69, 186–87, 207, 276n78 Boy Scout movement, 7, 39–41, 101, 190 Brannik, the (Bulgaria), 190 Braun, Otto, 21 Braunschweig Academy. See Hitlerjugend Akademie Breker, Arno, 143 Buch, Walter, 262n58 Bulgaria, 119, 178–80, 182–84, 190–91 Bund der Artamanen, 90 Bund Deutscher Mädel ( BDM ): Academy of Orvieto and, 279–80n31; female versus male leaders and, 201–2, 203–4; Glaube und Schönheit ( Faith and Beauty) and, 286n23; Hitlerjugend Akademie and, 141, 205; HJ merger with, 203; Italian-German youth exchanges and, 175; oral histories of, 222–23; organization of the HJ and, 90; sexuality and, 97; youth leadership crisis during World War II and, 201–2 Bündische Jugend: creation of, 78; Heimabende (evening meetings) of, 94, 255–56n72; HJ and, 94, 101–4, 110; number of members of, 87; organizational structure of, 94; prohibitions against, 97 cadetti, 74–75, 108 Callender, Harold, 192, 283n74 Campo DUX, 41–42, 121, 175, 176, 210 capi centuria, 73, 108, 111, 120–21 capi manipolo, 68, 73 capi squadra, 108, 111, 169 Catholic Action. See Azione Cattolica (AC) Catholic Boy Scouts. See Italian Catholic Scout Association

Catholic Church: 1919 Italian elections and, 236n17; Catholic religion in Fascist elementary schools and, 241–42n101; education of Fascist youth leaders and, 66; Fascism and Catholicism and, 41, 44, 241–42n101; Fascists’ restoration of properties to, 44– 45; Fascist violence against, 236–37n25; GIL and, 152; HJ and, 91–93; local youth groups in Germany and, 92; Mass attend­ ance by Fascist youth and, 45; Nazis and, 92, 93–94, 162, 256–57n91; number of German participants in activities of, 255n66; secret youth activities and, 40; youth organizations and, 8, 34, 39–40, 91–94. See also Vatican Catholic Female Youth, 39, 40 Catholic University of Milan, 241–42n101 Cerruti, Vittorio, 122 Chamber of Fasces and Corporations, 156 China, 188 Christian Democratic Union, 222 Churchill, Winston, 182 Ciano, Galeazzo, 126, 130, 155, 174, 181, 182 Cold War, 221, 292n39 Collegio-convitto of Orvieto, 164 Collegio di Propaganda Fide, 162 Collegio Littorio, 203 Collegio Magistrale of Udine, 164 Communist Party ( KPD). See Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands ( KPD) Communists, Nazi conflict with, 86, 255n64 Communist Youth Association of Germany ( KJD). See Kommunistischer Jugendverband Deutschlands ( KJD) Concordats, 39, 40–41, 44, 91, 240n76 Congress of Reggio Emilia, 22 conservatives, Hitler and HJ and, 85, 87–88, 89, 254n47 Corner, Paul, 12 Corradini, Enrico, 18 Costantini, Costantino, 61 Croatia, 182, 183–84, 190, 191 Croce, Benedetto, 216 Cultural Manifestation Weimar-Florence, 183– 87, 188, 192 Custoza, battle of, 17, 232n17 Czechoslovakia, 188, 190

300

Index

Dachau, 126–27 Daneo, Silvio, 56 D’Annunzio, Gabriele, 27 Darrè, Richard Walter, 90, 262n58 De Bruyn, Günther, 202–3 De Grazia, Victoria, 12 Del Debbio, Enrico, 59–60, 61, 64, 65 De Martino, Giacomo, 56 Denmark, 180, 182–84, 190, 191, 196–97 Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (German Labor Party), 76–77, 79, 251n2 Deutsche Freischar, 88 Deutscher Jugendbund, 80 Deutscher Jugendführerrat, 89 Deutsches Jungvolk, 90, 96, 103–4, 107, 124, 200–201 Deutsches Pfadfinderbund, 88 Deutsche Volkspartei (DVP ), 252n11 Deutsche Zentrumspartei (German Center Party), 252n11 Deutschnationale Volkspartei ( DNVP ), 252n11 De Vecchi, Cesare Maria, 153 Difesa della Razza, La (periodical), 166 Disney, Walt, 3–4, 12 Dix, Otto, 235n59 DNVP. See Deutschnationale Volkspartei (DNVP) Dogali, Italian defeat at (1887), 17 Dollfuss, Engelbert, 123, 264n27 Drexler, Anton, 79, 251n2 DVP. See Deutsche Volkspartei ( DVP ) Eastern Volunteers of the Germanic Youth, 196 Edelweisspiraten, 97 Educatie Premilitare (Romania), 190 Eichmann, Adolf, 294n49 EJD. See Evangelische Jugend Deutschlands (EJD) ENEF. See Ente Nazionale per l’Educazione Fisica (ENEF) England. See Great Britain Ente Italiano per le Audizioni Radiofoniche (EIAR), 160 Ente Nazionale per l’Educazione Fisica ( ENEF ), xv, 49 Erasmus, Desiderius, 3

Ernst, Robert, 55, 246n35 Estonia, 190, 197 Ethiopia: Italian war crimes in, 292n39; Italy’s war in, 120, 124, 126, 162, 178; militarization of Italian youth and, 160; victory of at Adua, 17 eugenics, 54, 245n24 European Union of Writers, 194 European Youth Association (EYA): Allies’ criticism of, 192; cessation of activities of, 195; commissions of, 191–92; commitment to Nazi victory and, 197; Congress of Vienna and, 187, 189–94; context of founding of, 187; Cultural Manifestation Weimar-Florence and, 183–87, 188; end of, 197; exhumation of after Italian Fascist collapse, 196–97; female education and, 192; founding of, 189–90, 194; German hegemony in, 193–95; International Youth Sport competition and, 181; ItalianGerman relationship and, 190, 197–98; meetings about, 182–83; Nazi criticism of, 192–93; as pan-Germanic youth association, 196–97; public relations for, 187–88, 192; purpose of, 189; Sport Championship of the European Youth and, 194 European Youth Exchange Service, 255n54 Evangelical Youth of Germany (EJD). See Evangelische Jugend Deutschlands (EJD) Evangelische Jugend Deutschlands (EJD), xv, 91, 93 EYA. See European Youth Association (EYA) Fähnlein (subdivision of HJ ), 107 family: Fascist organizations and, 4, 34, 68, 150, 167; HJ and, 4, 95, 102–3, 105, 110, 147, 150, 203, 222 Farinacci, Roberto, 162 Farnesina Military Academy for Physical Education, 49, 50 Fasci di Combattimento ( Fighting Fasces): founding of, 26, 46, 271n1; myth of youth and, 79; second Fascist National Congress and, 28; university students and, 235n3; Youth Fighting Fasces ( Fasci Giovanili di Combattimento, FGC) and, 46, 47, 158

Index 301 Fasci Giovanili di Combattimento (Youth Fighting Fasces, FGC). See Fasci di Combattimento (Fighting Fasces) Fascist Academy of Physical Education. See Accademia Fascista di Educazione Fisica Fascist Congress of 1921, 30 Fascist education: aim of, 4–5; characteristics of, 4; competing educational systems and, 34; conflict with Vatican about, 10–11, 40; creation of “new man” and, 8; elementary school and, 71–72, 249–50n98; extraordinary commitment to, 12–13; Italian youth organizations and, 7; as key to Mussolini’s project, 34; lack of faith in older generations and, 5; lack of precedent for, 35; as main duty of Fascist state, 4; ONB’s monopoly over, 35–36; from party ideology to common culture and, 5–6; relationship of with Nazi education, 8–9, 230n23; required for all Italian youth, 42–43, 44; scholarship on, 8, 229–30n22; to secure Mussolini’s Revolution, 25–26; socialization agencies for, 4 Fascist Fencing Academy of Rome, 164 Fascist Grand Council. See Gran Consiglio del Fascismo Fascist Legacy (documentary), 292n39 Fascist Legionary Movement, 179 Fascist Music Academy of Rome, 164 Fascist National Congress of 1920, 28 Fascist National Party (PNF). See Partito Nazionale Fascista ( PNF ) Fascist Naval Colleges, 164 Fascist Republican Party, 239–40n71 Fascist Seafaring Schools, 164 Fascist University Groups (GUF ). See Gruppi Universitari Fascisti (GUF ) Fedele, Pietro, 49 Federation of the Italian Catholic Sport Associations, 39 Female Academy of Orvieto. See Academy of Orvieto Ferretti, Lando, 49, 209 FGC. See Fasci di Combattimento ( Fighting Fasces) Figaia, Maria, 173

Fighting Fasces. See Fasci di Combattimento ( Fighting Fasces) Finer, Herman, 45 Finland, 180, 182, 183–84, 190, 191 Fiume, march to, 27 Flanders, 119, 183, 190, 196, 197 Flechtorf School, 100–101, 103 Forni, Roberto, 35 France: anti-Nazis at International Youth Assembly from, 188; end of the French era and, 184; EYA and, 190; fall of, 178; Four-Power Pact and, 264n23; German efforts to placate, 171; HJ and youth organizations of, 172, 174; hostility of toward Fascist states, 126; Italy in Ethiopia and, 124; Italy’s declaration of war on, 178; Ruhr occupation of, 110; World War I and, 141 Franco, Francisco, 159 Frank, Hans, 262n58 Freddi, Luigi, 28, 30–31 Frederick the Great, 141 Free German Youth. See Freie Deutsche Jugend freemasonry, 241–42n101 Freie Deutsche Jugend, 20 Freikorps ( Free Corps), 24, 76 Freischar Junger Nation, 88 Frentes de Juventudes (Spain), 190 Freud, Sigmund, 15 Frick, Wilhelm, 89 Führermangel, 101, 105 Führerschulungswerke, 113, 116 Futurists, 9, 14, 16, 18–19, 22, 25, 27, 47, 225 Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 127 Gauleiter, 140, 180, 183, 189 Gebiet, 107, 114, 117, 202, 203 Gefolgschaft (subdivision of HJ ), 86, 107 gender and sexuality: female versus male BDM leaders and, 201–2, 203–4; girls in ONB and, 36; HJ and BDM members and, 97; male versus female ONB teachers and, 71–72; training of female HJ leaders and, 114, 262n57; in the Wandervögel, 20 Gentile, Emilio, 12, 167 Gentile, Giovanni, 34, 49

302

Index

German Catholic Action, 92 German Center Party. See Deutsche Zentrums­ partei (German Center Party) German Evangelical Church, 91, 255n58 German National People’s Party ( DNVP ). See Deutschnationale Volkspartei ( DNVP ) German People’s Party ( DVP). See Deutsche Volkspartei (DVP ) Germany: 1933 law prohibiting refounding of political parties in, 89; 1936 Winter Olympics in, 125–26; 1944 midsummer night of Germanic Youth and, 197; AntiComintern Pact and, 182; anti-Nazis at International Youth Assembly from, 188; appeasement of Europe by, 277n5; associative tradition in, 90; Austria and, 10, 123–24, 126, 171, 265n27; Cold War and, 221; confidence of in World War II victory, 187; Cultural Manifestation WeimarFlorence and, 183–87; de-nazification and democratization in, 221; early-twentiethcentury generational conflict in, 9; EYA and, 191; failure of Fascist project in, 11– 12; Four-Power Pact and, 264n23; Humboldtian school system in, 109; ItalianGerman relationship during World War II and, 176, 178, 183, 185–86, 190, 197–98; large number of youth organizations in, 78, 87; League of Nations and, 277n5; as Moloch of Europe, 178; myth of war in, 76; pan-Europeanism with German hegemony and, 194; partition of, 221; plans of for postwar Europe, 187, 195–96; polycratic state and, 259–60n38; postwar amnesia and remembering in, 11, 213, 221– 23; postwar racism and prejudice in, 221; post–World War I conflict in, 76; pre– World War II diplomatic strategy of, 171– 73; prosecutions of war criminals and, 294n49; State Youth Day (Staatsjugendtag) in, 110; total alignment in foreign policy with Fascist Italy and, 157; Volksgenossen as only citizens of, 251n2; World War II expansion of, 177 German Youth Hostel Association, 255n54 Gestapo, 97, 105, 269–70n23 Gielsdorf, Edgar, 205

GIL. See Gioventù Italiana del Littorio (GIL) GIL Academy: admission to, 164–65, 166; curriculum of, 165–66; effects of on Accademia Fascista di Educazione Fisica and ONB graduates, 167–68; end of, 208–9; Italian-German youth exchanges and, 179–80; Jews excluded from, 166; law governing, 165; military enlistment of students of, 208–9; Ministry of National Education and, 165; versus OB Academy, 211; PNF and, 170; proposed transformation of into a university, 208; racist tendency in, 208; role of in World War II, 11; similarities to and differences from ONB and, 170. See also Gioventù Italiana del Littorio (GIL) Giolitti, Giovanni, 17, 21, 232n15, 236–37n25 Gioventù Italiana del Littorio (GIL): allencompassing nature of, 213; Catholic Church and, 152, 162–64; courses for elementary and secondary teachers and, 169–70, 207; creation and administration of other schools by, 164; elimination of rivals by, 8; EYA and, 179, 183, 187, 190; Fascist style and, 161; HJ and, 11, 181, 198; Italian-German mission in Romania and, 179–80; Italian schools and, 158–59; leadership and, 167, 168, 169, 206–8, 210; membership levels in, 157, 158; memories of membership in, 224; Ministry of National Education and, 73, 158, 168–69; Mussolini Forum and, 164; Nazi learning from, 279–80n31; ONB oath and, 156; PNF and, 155–56, 157; race laws and, 150, 152, 166; religious education within, 162; as replacement for the ONB, 10, 152, 155– 56, 159–60, 271n1; revolutionary energy of youth and, 7; second phase of Fascist Revolution and, 157; totalitarian acceleration and, 10, 152, 157; training processes of, 8, 230n23; women in, 210; World War II in journals of, 209; youth hostels and, 175; youth transformed into soldiers and, 199; youth who did not join, 294n56. See also GIL Academy; relationship between Italian and German youth organizations Gioventù Italica (magazine), 242n104

Index 303 Giuliano, Balbino, 53, 186 Giuriati, Giovanni, 43, 47 Glaube und Schönheit ( Faith and Beauty), 205, 268n3, 286n23 Gleichschaltung, 87–90, 194 Goebbels, Joseph: ambiguity about Europe’s future and, 193; capitalists and, 80; change in direction after Stalingrad and, 195; EYA and, 193; film award named for, 185; in Hitler’s inner circle, 81; Italian ambitions and, 187; mass media guidelines about the students of the Fascist academies and, 137; Nazi martyrs and, 265n38; propaganda campaigns organized by, 265n38; on youth and the future, 3 Göring, Hermann, 118, 134, 262n58 Gran Consiglio del Fascismo, 34, 36, 273n28 Grandi, Aldo, 223 Grass, Günther, 294n49 Graziani, Rodolfo, 239–40n71 Grazioli, Francesco Saverio, 49–50 Grazzi, Emanuele, 56 Great Britain: Four-Power Pact and, 264n23; German efforts to placate, 171; HJ and youth organizations of, 172, 174; hostility of toward Fascist states, 126; Italian war crimes and, 292n39; Italy in Ethiopia and, 124; Italy’s declaration of war on, 178 Great Depression, 86 Greater German Youth Movement. See Großdeutsche Jugendbewegung (Greater German Youth Movement) Great War. See World War I Greece, 119, 172, 178, 239–40n71 Grimaldi, Ugoberto, 216 Groß, Walter, 262n58 Großdeutsche Jugendbewegung (Greater German Youth Movement), 80, 81, 252n17 Großdeutsches Bund (League of Great Germany), 88, 89 Großdeutsche Volksgemeinschaft, 80 Gruber, Kurt, 79, 80, 81, 82–86, 99, 100, 103 Gruppi Balilla, 34, 35 Gruppi Universitari Fascisti (GUF): creation of, 31; GIL and, 156; Italian-German youth exchanges and, 122; leadership of, 43; Ministry of National Education and, 153;

ONB and, 46–47, 153; PNF membership and, 157 Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana (GNR), 239–40n71 GUF. See Gruppi Universitari Fascisti (GUF ) Gymnastic Academy of Charlottenburg. See Reichsakademie für Leibesübungen of Berlin Charlottenburg Harvey, Elizabeth, 25 Heimabende (evening meetings), 94, 101, 111, 255–56n72, 258n11 Heinz, Friedrich Wilhelm, 23–24 Henry the Lion, 140 Heß, Rudolf, 77, 262n58 Himmler, Heinrich, 90, 173, 262n58, 269–70n23 Hindenburgjugend, 252n11 Hinz, Berthold, 143 Hitler, Adolf: 1932 elections and, 86, 87; 1944 midsummer night of Germanic Youth and, 197; academists’ gymnastics display for, 134–35; ambiguity about Europe’s future and, 182, 193–94; anti-Bolshevism and, 134; anti-intellectualism of, 109; appointment of as chancellor, 75, 87; attempted coup in Austria and, 264n27; attitude of toward Great Britain versus France, 172; Baldur von Shirach and, 84, 173, 200; Beer Hall Putsch and, 79, 118; birthday of, 148; capitalists and, 80–81, 253n33; on children in the Nazi state, 95; confessional youth organizations and, 91; contempt for intellectualism and, 108–9; failure of new society and, 12; Four-Power Pact and, 264n23; German citizenship for, 140; HJ and, 9, 85, 92, 97, 99–100, 106, 142, 256n83; ideal youth leaders and, 102; imprisonment of, 79–80, 81, 82; intervention of in surge of youth violence, 89; Italian-German relationship and, 123, 134–36, 159, 176, 264n23; Italy as starting point for Fascism and, 214; Jugendbund der NSDAP and, 77; League of Nations and, 264n23; male supremacy in party echelons and, 202; as “man of peace,” 172; Mein Kampf and, 81, 96; Mussolini’s relationship with, 118–20, 124, 163, 176–78,

304

Index

Hitler, Adolf (continued ) 282–83n69; Nazi change of direction after Stalingrad and, 195–96; Nazi voices inconsistent with plans of, 180; party and state and, 259–60n38; Paul von Hindenburg and, 87, 89, 254n47; political parties and, 76–77, 81, 87, 251n2; proposed Germanic youth association and, 171; proposed Italian-German joint leadership institutes and, 130; relationship between ONB and HJ and, 118; removal of leftists by, 253n33; right-wing and conservative groups and, 85, 87–88, 254n47; as rising star, 122; South Tyrolean question and, 118–19; valorization of youth by, 6; youth as cannon fodder for, 189; youth education as keystone for, 4, 225 Hitlerjugend (HJ ): after 1933 seizure of power, 101–6, 108–11; age groups in, 90, 101–2; all-encompassing nature of, 213; antiintellectualism and, 150; attacks on other youth organizations and, 88–89; BDM merger with, 203; Beer Hall Putsch and, 81–82; British, French, and Belgian youth and, 172–74; Bündische Jugend and, 102; class and, 83–84, 86, 95–96, 105; compulsory membership in, 97; confessional youth organizations and, 10, 90–93; creation of, 81; Cultural Manifestation Weimar-Florence and, 184; curriculum of, 111–12; educational letters to regional committees of, 100; elementary school teachers and, 203; elimination of rivals by, 8; EYA and, 183, 187, 190, 197–98; Fascist youth excluded by, 171–72; female leaders and, 114, 203–4, 262n57; financial support for, 82–83, 86, 101; GIL and, 11, 198; goals of, 88, 96–98, 103, 105; Großdeutsches Bund and, 88, 89; growth of, 82–83, 86, 90, 97, 256–57n91; Heimabende (evening meetings) of, 94, 111, 255–56n72, 258n11; hierarchical structure of, 106, 107, 108; Hitler and, 9, 85, 92, 97, 79–100, 106, 142, 256n83; ideal Aryans and, 126; initiation into, 96; instructions of to youth, 6; Italian-German mission in Romania and, 179–80; Italian-German youth exchanges

and, 121–22, 123; Jahr der Verständigung (1938) and, 172; leadership and, 98, 99– 106, 109–10, 111–17, 200–206, 286n26; leftist tendencies in, 83–84, 85; limits of influence of, 96–97; versus main education system, 108–10, 259–60n38; muddled educational system and, 111–17; Nazi ideologues and, 114, 262n58; Nazi Jugendbund of Plauen and, 79; Nazi martyrs and, 86–87; Nazi voices inconsistent with Hitler’s plans and, 180, 182; “new Aryans” and, 97; Nordic youth and, 196; NSDAP and, 82, 85, 86, 94; NSS and, 86; number of members of, 87, 90, 97, 254n37; occupation of Reichsausschuß Deutscher Jugendverbände offices and, 88; as official educational institution of the Nazi state, 126; ONB and, 10, 76; Operation Barbarossa and, 182; oral histories of, 222–23, 224; outside Germany, 119; as peace ambassadors for Nazi regime, 172–73, 174, 277n5; power of over parents and teachers, 203; pre-1933 ideological education in, 101; public demonstrations and, 83, 85; race as criterion for membership in, 95– 96; religion of members and, 162; revolutionary energy of youth and, 7; from revolutionary to educational organization, 97–98; SA and, 82, 83, 99; scholarship on, 8, 230n23; send-off of Italian troops and, 178–79; sexuality and, 97; sporting events and, 180–82; SS and, 83, 269–70n23; street fighting of, 86, 97; teachers’ authority rejected in, 109–10; at tomb of the Italian Unknown Soldier, 127, 128; as training ground for future soldiers, 199–200; training processes of, 8, 99; uniforms of, 94; as united Nazi youth organization, 253n21; during World War II, 195, 200, 202; youth hostels and, 175. See also Hitlerjugend Akademie; Italian Fascist versus German Nazi youth training; relationship between Italian and German youth organizations Hitlerjugend Akademie, 144–46; Accademia Fascista di Educazione Fisica and, 137, 139, 151; admission to, 147–48, 270n25; career plans of students of, 148; curriculum of,

Index 305 149; design and construction of, 142–43, 146, 150–51; disabled veterans and, 205; first course of, 148–49; founding ceremony at, 142; goals of, 141, 142; HJ effort to regain control of, 205; location of, 140, 141, 150; marriages of students of, 147; present use of building of, 206; symbolism in founding of, 141–42; training system preceding, 138–39, 140–41; during World War II, 11, 149, 205 Hitler Youth. See Hitlerjugend (HJ ); Hitlerjugend Akademie Hitler Youth Law, 92–93 HJ. See Hitlerjugend (HJ ) HJ-Führer, 99–103, 105, 111, 114–15, 130, 147, 173–74, 200, 202, 204, 270n23 HJ-Führerkorps, 117, 141 HJ-Führerschaft, 117 HJ-Führerschulen, 103, 110–12, 115–16, 139–41, 200, 206 HJ-Leistungsabzeichnen, 106, 147 Hlinka, the (Slovakia), 190 Hoernlé, Alfred, 5 Hoffmann, Hermann, 19 Hohe Meissner, 1913 ceremonies at, 20 Holland, 180, 183–84, 190–91, 196–97 Hoover, Herbert, 54–55, 56–57 Hungary, 119, 123, 178–80, 182–84, 188, 190–91 Iliescu, Viktor, 183 Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 222 International Student Assembly, 188 International Student Service, 188 International Youth Sport Competition, 181–82 Iran, 172 Iraq, 172 Iron Guard, 119, 179 Istituti di Magistero di Educazione Fisica, 49 Italian Agency for Radio Listening. See Ente Italiano per le Audizioni Radiofonische (EIAR) Italian Catholic Scout Association, 39–41 Italian Catholic University Federation, 39, 40, 43, 242n104 Italian Catholic Youth Society, 39–40, 42, 43, 45, 242n104

Italian Fascists: 1919 elections and, 28, 236n17; 1921 elections and, 30; 1924 elections in, 32–33; 1931 internal crisis and, 45–47; agrarian, 29, 30, 31, 236–37n25, 237n31; anti-Bolshevism and, 126, 134, 159; anticapitalism and, 126; anti-individualism and, 166–67; beginning of Mussolini’s dictatorship and, 33; Catholic Church and, 41, 44, 241–42n101; collapse of Fascist regime and, 209; election irregularities and, 32–33; Fascist martyrs and, 87; first and second phase of, 33; HJ’s exclusion of, 171–72; Italian youth’s 1933 visit to Germany and, 121–22; lasting damage to minds of Fascist youth and, 214–17; myth of youth and, 122; postwar amnesia and remembering and, 213, 219–20, 223, 224; postwar experiences of, 217; proposed Fascist International and, 282–83n69; purge of, 33; rapprochement between Nazis and, 162; as revolt of youth, 25; rites of, 271n1; scholarship on, 223; songs of, 135; success versus failure of youth education and, 214, 217, 218; Third Rome and, 35; totalitarian acceleration and, 152, 155, 156, 161; transforming youth into soldiers and, 199; trivialization of Italian Fascism and, 219–21, 292n39; valorization of youth by, 26–27; violence perpetrated by, 29– 31, 220, 236–37n25, 238n42, 292n39; as war criminals, 292n39. See also Italian Fascist versus German Nazi youth training; relationship between Italian and German youth organizations Italian Fascist youth organizations: as model for EYA, 191; as model for Nazis, 139, 224; religious education within, 45; rival groups of, 9, 34. See also specific organizations Italian Fascist versus German Nazi youth training: Accademia Littoria graduates and, 111; activities of, 160; age of leaders and, 105, 108; anti-Semitism and, 78; career plans of youth leaders and, 148; class and, 78; construction of buildings for, 142–43; continuity versus discontinuity in development of, 82; duties fulfilled by, 151; educational philosophies and, 116–17;

306

Index

Italian Fascist versus … (continued ) elementary school teachers and, 203; at end of World War II, 212; first courses at host institutions and, 148; goals of, 132; ideal youth leaders and, 102–3; Italy as inspiration for Germany and, 127–28, 139, 224–25; Italy’s head start and, 138, 149, 214; lasting damage to young minds and, 214–15; leadership crisis during World War II and, 199, 206–7; leadership purges and, 103–4; leadership training in remote regions and, 114–15; musical and sport displays and, 166–67; need for reeducation after World War II and, 214–16; “new men” and, 223–24; paramilitary nature of, 77; proposed Italian-German joint leadership institutes and, 129–31; qualifications for leadership and, 108–9; selection criteria for, 149–50; symbolic aspects of training sites and, 141–42; totalitarian projects and, 105–6; training of youth instructors and, 99, 101; uneven results and, 223–24 Italian Federation of Socialist Youth, 22, 39 Italian Federation of Winter Sports, 125 Italianismo, 18–19 Italian Nationalists, 9, 14, 16–19, 22, 27, 29, 32, 34, 47, 225 Italian National Olympic Committee, 39, 122 Italian Popular Party ( PPI ) . See Partito Popolare Italiano (PPI) Italian Socialist Party ( PSI ). See Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI ) Italian Socialists, 22, 28–30, 236n17, 236–37n25 Italy: 1870 capture of Rome and, 238n43; 1914 neutrality proclamation of, 21–22; 1919 elections in, 28, 236n17; 1921 elections in, 30, 237n30; 1924 elections in, 32–33; 1929 elections in, 241n84; 1944 liberation of from Nazi Fascism, 239–40n71; before and after Mussolini, 127; Anti-Comintern Pact and, 182; anti-Fascists at International Student Assembly from, 188; armistice with the Allies and, 209; Conciliation of 1929 and, 43; Constitution of, 156–57; Cultural Manifestation Weimar-Florence and, 183–87; Dante Alighieri schools and,

186; early-twentieth-century generational conflict in, 9; end of Fascist regime in, 171, 196, 209; entry of into World War II, 178, 206; as Europe’s cultural arbiter, 186–87; EYA and, 191; failure of new society in, 11–12; Fascistization of high schools in, 159; Fascist Saturday in, 273n28; FourPower Pact and, 264n23; fratricide in northern Italy and, 293n45; HJ and, 127, 180–81; “ideal typical” Italians and, 35; invasion of Ethiopia by, 120, 124, 126; invasion of Greek territory and, 178; Italian-American relations and, 54–55, 56; Italian-German relationship during World War II and, 176, 178, 183, 185–86, 190, 197–98; Italians as “new men” and, 161; Italians as victims of Fascism and, 219–20; as moral victor in World War II, 220–21; Nazi occupation in northern Italy and, 219, 292n37; new empire and, 75; partition of, 209, 218–19, 293n45; personal book for youth in, 157; poor military performance of, 197, 214–15; postwar amnesia and remembering in, 11, 213, 219– 20; racial and anti-Semitic laws in, 157, 166; reconstruction as intergenerational collaboration in, 216; Repubblica Sociale Italiana (RSI ) and, 209–11, 216–18, 219, 220; Resistance in, 220–21; send-off of Italian troops and, 178–79; South Tyrol annexed by, 118–19, 124; total alignment between Nazi Germany and, 157; Vatican and, 39–44, 91, 238n43, 240nn75–76, 241n76. See also Rome Jahr der Schulung, 103 Japan, 180, 181, 182, 183–84, 188, 190, 278n15 Jaspers, Karl, 221 Jensen, Hans, 183 journals in youth education, 50, 73, 83, 103, 116, 158, 192, 203, 208–9, 258n11 Jugendbewegung, 53, 94, 101–2, 104 Jugendbund der NSDAP, 76, 77–79, 252n17 Jugendführer Akademie, 128 Jungbann (subdivision of HJ ), 107 Jungenschaft (subdivision of HJ ), 107, 258n11 Jünger, Ernst, 23, 235n61

Index 307 Jungmädel, 90 Jungstamm (subdivision of HJ ), 107 Jungsturm, 88 Jungzug (subdivision of HJ ), 107 Kameradschaft (subdivision of HJ ), 107, 258n11 Kandel, Isaac Leon, 95 Kater, Michael, 115, 202 Kaufmann, Günter, 197 Kinderlandverschikung, 203 KJD. See Kommunistischer Jugendverband Deutschlands ( KJD) Kletschkoff, Stefan, 183 Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands ( KPD), 252n11, 255n64 Kommunistischer Jugendverband Deutschlands (KJD), 87, 252n11 Kotschnig, Walter T., 213–15 KPD. See Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (KPD) Kubin, Alfred, 235n59 Kuhlo, Ursula, 203 labor and trade unions, 28, 43, 45, 87, 236n17, 236–37n25 Langemarck (Belgium), 141 La notte di San Lorenzo (film), 293n45 La Rovere, Luca, 215–16 Latvia, 190, 197 Lauterbacher, Hartmann: English “Health and Beauty” organization and, 268n3; Hitlerjugend Akademie and, 139–41, 142, 149; on HJ encampment near Rome, 124; HJ training and, 100, 114; Italian-German youth exchanges and, 175; Renato Ricci and, 173, 277–78n8; wartime plans for Italian-German cooperation and, 176 League of Nations, 264n23, 277n5 League of the German Girls ( BDM ). See Bund Deutscher Mädel ( BDM ) Lebanon, 172 Leed, Eric J., 24 Legge Acerbo, 32, 238n44 leggi fascistissime, 33 Lehembre, Eduard, 183 Lehrbildungsanstalten, 203 Lenk, Gustav Adolf, 77–79, 252n17

Levente, the (Hungary), 190 Lewis, Wyndham, 235n59 Ley, Robert, 262n58 Libya, 36, 234n53 Lictor Academy. See Accademia Littoria (Lictor Academy) Lissa, battle of (1866), 17, 232n17 Locke, John, 3 Ludwig, Emil, 5, 228n11 Lupo, Salvatore, 243n117 Luther, Martin Franz Julius, 183, 195, 282n68 Lutze, Viktor, 262n58 Maaß, Hermann, 88 Macek, Alois, 183 Macfadden, Bernarr, 53, 54, 55–58 Macfadden, Mary Williamson, 55 Machtergreifung, 10, 149 Mann, Thomas, 192, 283n74 March on Rome: Cesare Maria De Vecchi and, 153; deaths of Fascists preceding, 87; first and second phase of Fascism and, 33; first election after, 32; as inspiration for Nazi insurrection, 78; Mussolini’s seizure of power and, 31; Renato Ricci and, 239n71; reporters’ interest in Italy and, 54; requirements for GIL leadership and, 167; totalitarian educational project and, 34 Marconi, Paolo, 21–22 Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso, 18, 19 Marrum, Hans, 174, 176 Marx, Karl, and Marxism, 6, 22, 100, 105 Matteotti, Giacomi, 33 Mazzantini, Carlo, 216–17 Mazzini, Giuseppe, 21 Megerle, Karl, 195 memory and forgetting, 11, 213, 219–24, 292n39 Middle East, 172 Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale ( MVSN ): Accademia Fascista di Educazione Fisica and, 68, 69; creation of, 32; GIL and, 169; membership in, 34; ONB and, 36, 50–51, 74, 160, 244n12; Renato Ricci and, 239–40n71; training for prospective members of, 46 Miller, James W., 160 Mizzan, Ezzio, 181, 182

308

Index

modernity and modernism, 15, 17–18, 19, 54 Montecitorio, 17, 232n14 Morgan, Thomas B., 55, 56 Mosca, Gaetano, 15 Müller, Ludwig, 91 Mussolini, Arnaldo, 66 Mussolini, Benito: AS and, 29–30, 31; acad­e­ mists’ devotion to, 209, 219; academists’ visit to United States and, 58; Achille Starace and, 153–54, 155; AGF and, 31– 32; agrarian Fascism and, 29, 31, 237n31; Appeasement Pact (1921) and, 30; ascend­ ance of to power, 25; Ascension Day Speech of 1927 and, 54, 245n24; background of, 108; Balkans and, 179; Beer Hall Putsch and, 118; beginning of Fascist dictatorship of, 33; Bernarr Macfadden and, 55–56; Concordat and, 39, 40–41, 44, 240n76; confessional youth organizations and, 39, 43; Cultural Manifestation Weimar-Florence and, 185; death of, 212; defenses of Italians accused of antifascism and, 272n18; Doctrine of Fascism by, 87; end of dictatorship of, 208; failure of new society and, 12; on Fascism as way of life, 35; Fascistization of high schools and, 159; Fascist rites and, 271n1; Four-Power Pact and, 264n23; GIL and, 156; GIL Academy and, 165; growing up under dictatorship of, 223, 294n56; Hitler’s racial theories and, 124; Hitler’s relationship with, 9, 118–20, 123–24, 176–78, 264n23, 264n27, 282–83n69; HJ and, 126, 181; imprisonment of, 209; as inspiration for academists, 70; Italian-German relationship during World War II and, 177; Italy as Europe’s cultural arbiter and, 186; Italy as starting point for Fascism and, 190, 214, 282– 83n69; on main duty of Fascist state, 4; March on Rome and, 31, 32, 78; Mussolini Forum and, 59, 61; Nazi change of direction after Stalingrad and, 195; Mussolini’s generation as lost generation and, 215; “new Italians” and, 69; nonbelligerence versus war for, 176–78, 206; ONB and, 37, 45, 50; ONB versus GUF and, 46–47; parliamentarian strategy of, 29–30, 32–33;

Pius XI and, 42, 43–45, 162–63, 238n43; PNF and, 30–31, 33, 238n43, 238n51; popular consent for regime of, 220–21; as potential moderating influence on Germany, 178; PPI and, 238n43; proposed European association of youth organizations and, 181; proposed Fascist International and, 282–83n69; proposed ItalianGerman joint leadership institutes and, 130; public school system and, 49; rapprochement with Nazis and, 126; Renato Ricci and, 37, 153–55, 168, 239–40n71; Repubblica Sociale Italiana ( RSI ) and, 209–10, 212, 216–17; repudiation of the legacy of, 216–17, 218, 219, 220; retroactive defascistization of dictatorship of, 219–20; Roman emperors and, 63; scholarship on, 12, 223; second phase of Fascist Revolution and, 157; silencing of opponents by, 80; totalitarianism and, 152, 155, 156, 161; United States welcome of, 54; valorization of youth by, 5–6; World War I and, 22–23; youths’ centrality to Fascism and, 76; youth education and, 34, 75; youth invited to Fascist movement by, 26–27, 79 Mussolini Forum: Accademia Littoria ( Lictor Academy) and, 73; Code of, 63, 142; Cypresses Stadium (Stadio Olimpico) at, 60, 63; design and construction of, 59–60, 61, 63–65, 143, 247n53; GIL and, 156; HJ visit to monument of, 127–28; indoor facilities of, 66; larger Fascist project and, 150; Marble Stadium at, 63, 64, 65; Obelisk at, 61, 62, 63, 142; Olympics and, 164; rebirth of Italy and, 59; student demonstrations in favor of war at, 206; unveiling of, 60–61, 63 Mussolini Forum Institute. See Accademia Fascista di Educazione Fisica Muti, Ettore, 168, 176 Mutschmann, Martin, 80 MVSN. See Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale ( MVSN ) Nabesberg, Carl, 88 Nash, Paul, 235n59 Nasjonal Samlings Ungdomsfylking ( Norway), 190

Index 309 Nationaal-Socialistische Jeugd Vlaanderen (Flanders), 190 National Education Ministry ( Italy), GIL and, 73, 158, 168–69; GIL Academy and, 165; GUF and, 153; as Ministry of Public Education, 242–43n110; Nazi visitors to Italy and, 120; ONB and, 45, 73, 109, 148, 153, 155–56, 239–40n71; primacy of, 73 National Fascist Council, 31 National Republican Guard (GNR). See Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana (GNR) National Security Volunteer Militia ( MVSN ). See Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (MVSN ) Nationalsocialistisk Ungdom ( Denmark), 190 National Socialist League of University Students ( NSDSTB). See Nationalsozialistisches Deutsches Studentenbund ( NSDSTB) National Socialist Pupils’ League (NSS). See Nationalsozialistisches Schülerbund ( NSS) Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei ( NSDAP ): 1920 platform of, 252–53n18; 1923 Putsch and, 78–80; 1932 elections and, 87; arrest and imprisonment of members of, 86; Bund der Artamanen and, 90; cult of Nazi victims and, 87; deprivation of youths’ autonomy and, 82; Großdeutsche Jugendbewegung (Greater German Youth Movement) and, 81; Großdeutsche Volksgemeinschaft and, 80; during Hitler’s imprisonment, 79, 80, 82; Hitler’s vision for, 81; HJ and, 82, 85–86, 94, 99, 113, 148, 262n58; ideology of, 83; initial lack of interest in youth and, 79; Institute for International Studies and, 172; leadership crisis during World War II and, 201, 202; members of within conservative groups, 88; Mussolini’s opinion of, 118; official anthem of, 255n64; as only German party after July 1933, 89; as party of youth, 79; physical education in platform of, 96; versus PNF, 76; political strategy of, 80–81; predecessor party to, 76–77, 251n2; regular German schools during World War II and, 202–3; relation of to dictatorship, 259–60n38; school authority and, 109.

See also relationship between Italian and German youth organizations Nationalsozialistische Lehrbund ( NSLB), 72, 110, 203, 260n42 Nationalsozialistisches Deutsches Studentenbund ( NSDSTB), 84–85, 86, 122 Nationalsozialistisches Schülerbund ( NSS), 84, 86 Natoli, Eduardo, 206–7 Naval Academy of Leghorn, 164 Nazi education: aim of, 4–5; children in the Nazi state and, 95; creation of “new man” and, 8; extraordinary commitment to, 12–13; German youth organizations and, 7; relationship of with Fascist education, 8–9, 230n23; scholarship on, 8, 229– 30n22; Walt Disney’s short cartoon on, 3–4 Nazi Jugendbund of Plauen, 79, 80, 82, 83, 252n17. See also Großdeutsche Jugendbewegung (Greater German Youth Movement) Nazi League of Teachers ( NSLB). See Nationalsozialistische Lehrbund ( NSLB) Nazi movement: anti-Bolshevism and, 126, 134; anti-individualism of, 95; antiintellectualism and, 109; building construction and, 143; Catholic Church and, 162, 256–57n91; complete subordination of youth to Nazi state and, 94–95; geographical dispersal of Nazi symbolism and, 150; German diplomatic strategy and, 171, 172; ideology of as eternal truth, 4; Italy as starting point for Fascism and, 214; jealousy within, 192–93; Lebens­ raum and, 140, 177, 194, 196; memories of participation in, 222–23, 224; Nazi martyrs and, 87, 100, 141; Nazi voices inconsistent with Hitler’s plans and, 180; pan-Europeanism with German hegemony and, 194; plans of for postwar Europe, 197; propaganda of, 79; proposed Fascist International versus, 282–83n69; racial ideology of, 79, 194; social revolutionaries in, 252–53n18; songs of, 135; Stalingrad and change in conduct of, 195; transforming youth into soldiers and, 199;

310

Index

Nazi movement (continued ) youth as peace ambassadors for, 171, 277n5; youth education as keystone for, 4. See also Italian Fascist versus German Nazi youth training; relationship between Italian and German youth organizations Nazionale Jeugd Storm ( Holland ), 190 Netherlands, the, 196 Neubauer, Kurt, 79 “new man”: Accademia Fascista di Educazione Fisica and, 70, 75; devotion to creating, 212, 213, 225; failure of projects to create, 12; Mussolini’s desire to mold, 5; Nietzsche and, 16; paradox of, 14; radical nationalism and, 17; totalitarian experiments in creating, 8–9; World War I and, 24; youth as metaphor for, 122 Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 15–16, 21 nonconformists, 96, 97, 272n18 Nordau, Max, 15 Norkus, Herbert, 125, 141, 265n38 Norway, 180, 183–84, 187, 190–91, 196–97 NSDAP. See Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei (NSDAP ) NSDSTB. See Nationalsozialistisches Deutsches Studentenbund (NSDSTB) NSLB. See Nationalsozialistische Lehrbund (NSLB) NSS. See Nationalsozialistisches Schülerbund (NSS) Nuremberg party rally (1935), 6, 92, 150, 256n83 OB. See Opera Balilla (OB) Ochs, Mathilde, 203 Ojetti, Ugo, 65 Olympics, 125, 150, 164 ONB. See Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB) ONB Institute. See Accademia Fascista di Educazione Fisica Opera Balilla (OB), 209, 210–12, 217–18, 239– 40n71 Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB): Accademia Littoria ( Lictor Academy) and, 73; activities of, 36, 48; all-encompassing nature of, 213; anticommunism of, 131; in anti-German political cartoon, 124;

Avanguardisti in, 36, 45–46, 69, 90, 121– 22, 153–56, 199; Campo DUX and, 41– 42, 210–11; career plans of youth leaders and, 148; case del Balilla and, 48, 120, 210; continuation of Black Shirts’ Revolution and, 75; creation of, 35; curriculum of, 36, 96, 160; dangers of not joining, 157; decree 696 and, 40; diploma exam and, 212; disbandment of, 10–11, 47, 151–52, 155–56, 159–60, 271n1; elementary school teachers and, 168, 169, 249–50n98; elimination of rivals by, 7; fragile political consensus of, 12; in German book about Balilla, 125; GIL and, 167–68, 170; girls in, 36; growth of, 90; versus GUF, 46–47, 156; HJ and, 10, 76, 104; Italian education system and, 109; Italian-German youth exchanges and, 121–23; leadership and, 9–10, 47–48, 50–52, 68, 70–75, 108, 114–15, 168–69, 206–7, 244n12; members of in formation, 69; membership in as defense against charges of antifascism, 272n18; membership levels in, 157; memories of membership in, 224; middle and secondary schools and, 168, 169–70; military and political training and, 36, 46; Ministry of National Education and, 153, 155–56; monopoly of over youth education, 35–36, 39–41; Mussolini Forum and, 59–60, 61; Mussolini’s reorganization of, 45; name of, 228n18; Nazi League of Teachers and, 72; number of members of, 90; oath of, 44, 156; Opera Balilla (OB) and, 210–11; parades and marches and, 46; PNF and, 154, 155–66; recruitment for, 90; religious education within, 45, 93, 162; Renato Ricci and, 36–37, 154, 164, 239–40nn71– 72; revolutionary energy of youth and, 6–7; rites of, 271n1; schools founded by, 164; training processes of, 8, 45, 99, 230n23; Underscretariat for Youth and Physical Education and, 242–43n110; youth transformed into soldiers and, 199; youth who did not join, 294n56. See also Italian Fascist versus German Nazi youth training; relationship between Italian and German youth organizations

Index 311 Papini, Giovanni, 18, 21 Pareto, Vilfredo, 15 Paris Peace Conference, 27 Partito Nazionale Fascista ( PNF ): AC and, 162, 163; celebrations in schools and, 158; Cultural Manifestation Weimar-Florence and, 185; deprivation of youths’ autonomy and, 82; end to internal freedom of, 80; Fascist Saturday and, 273n28; Fascist state versus Fascist Party and, 238n51; Fascist style and, 161; FGC and, 46, 154, 155–56; formation of, 30; fourth congress of (1925), 35; GIL Academy and, 165, 170; GIL and, 155–56; Gran Consiglio del Fascismo and, 34; as Grande Pedagogo, 156, 170; GUF and, 31, 43, 46–47, 157; HJ learning from GIL and, 279–80n31; ideological propaganda and, 160–61; Italian-German mission in Romania and, 179–80; Italian-German youth exchanges and, 122, 123; Jews excluded from, 166; leadership and, 43, 167; membership in, 33, 34, 46, 157; Mussolini’s sanction of, 238n43; as nervous system for Mussolini’s will, 33, 238n51; versus NSDAP, 76; ONB and, 154, 156; PNF Statute of 1938, 156; power struggles within, 243n117; second phase of Fascist Revolution and, 157; as sole political educator in Italy, 152, 153, 155–56; as sole youth educational agency, 45; spread of, 161–62; strains and purges in, 37; subordination of Fascist youth groups to, 31, 32; successor organization to, 239–40n71; totalitarianism and, 33, 156 Partito Popolare Italiano ( PPI ), 28, 43–44, 236n17, 237n30, 238n43, 241–42n101 Partito Socialista Italiano ( PSI ): 1919 elections and, 28, 236n17; 1921 elections and, 237n30; Appeasement Pact (1921) and, 30; Fascist violence against, 236–37n25; Giovanni Giolitti and, 236–37n25; Italian Nationalists versus, 18; missed opportunity of, 26; moderate versus revolutionary wings of, 22, 234n53 Pavolini, Alessandro, 185, 239–40n71 Peiser, Werner, 215 Pende, Nicola, 208

Perasso, Giovan Battista. See Balilla (Giovan Battista Perasso) Petter, Kurt, 110, 139–40 Pfarrer-Notbund, 255n58 Physical Education National Office (ENEF). See Ente Nazionale per l’Educazione Fisica ( ENEF ) Piazzesi, Mario, 27 Pimpfe, 90, 94, 98, 107, 110–12, 126–27, 149, 199 Pius XI ( pope): on anti-Semitism, 163; Concordat and, 44; defense of Catholic youth organizations by, 43; Divini Illius Magistri (encyclical by) and, 42, 45; Mit brennender Sorge (encyclical by) and, 93–94; Mussolini and, 42, 43–45, 162–63, 238n42; Non abbiamo bisogno (encyclical by) and, 43, 44– 45; as obstacle to totalitarianism, 93–94; PNF and AC and, 162–63 Pius XII ( pope), 163 PNF. See Partito Nazionale Fascista ( PNF ) Poincaré, Jules Henri, 15 Poland, 119, 141, 188 Pope, Generoso, 57–58 Portugal, 180, 190, 194 positivism, limits of, 15 PPI. See Partito Popolare Italiano ( PPI ) Prezzolini, Giuseppe, 17, 21 PSI. See Partito Socialista Italiano ( PSI ) race and racism: as criterion for leadershiptraining selection, 149–50, 166; extermination of “inferior” peoples and, 194; GIL Academy and, 166, 208; Herrenvolk (master race) and, 194; Italian race laws and, 152, 166; Nordic youth and, 196; OB Academy and, 211 Reichsakademie für Leibesübungen of Berlin Charlottenburg, 132, 133, 148, 151 Reichsausschuß Deutscher Jugendverbände (Committee of the German Youth Organizations), 78, 83, 88, 89, 90 Reichsführerschulen, 111–12, 116, 126, 138–39, 141 Reichsjugendführer : creation of office of, 85–86; HJ structure and, 107, 201; lists of future Akademie-Bewerber, 270n25 Reichsjugendführung, 102, 107, 110–11, 115–16, 139–40, 148, 174, 196, 200–202, 270n25

312

Index

Reichsschaft Deutscher Pfadfinder, 88 Reissinger, Hans C., 146 relationship between Italian and German youth organizations: 1936 Winter Olympics and, 125–26; Adolf Hitler Lager and, 175– 76; Adolf Hitler March and, 175; after collapse of Italian Fascist regime, 196; Axis cultural exchange networks and, 185– 86; Black Shirts and Brown Shirts and, 118; Campo DUX and, 175, 176; Cultural Manifestation Weimar-Florence and, 183– 87; deterioration in due to Hitler’s foreign policy, 123, 264n23; elective affinity and, 175; four phases of, 171–72; Germany’s pre–World War II diplomatic activity and, 173; growing competition between Nazism and Fascism and, 178–83; HJ and ONB and, 119, 120–21, 126; HJ learning from GIL and, 279–80n31; International Youth Sport competition and, 181–82; Italian cultural diffusion and, 186–87; ItalianGerman youth exchanges and, 119, 121– 24, 126–29, 131–37, 173–76; Italian influence on German leadership training programs and, 139, 149; Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia and, 126; Japanese youth and, 278n15; language barrier and, 134, 278n16; Mussolini and Hitler’s relationship and, 119–20; Nazi admiration for Fascist youth and, 129, 136, 137; proposed uniting of Germanic youth of Europe and, 171–72; Renato Ricci’s demotion and, 170, 173–74; revival of, 175; secret contacts and, 118; shared Fascist culture and, 134; shared ideology and, 127, 136– 37; South Tyrolean question and, 118–19, 124; Spanish War and, 126; youth hostels and, 175; Youth Winter Games and, 176. See also European Youth Association (EYA) Republican Youth Federation, 39 Rex Jugend, the (Wallonia), 190 Ricci, Giulio, 129, 130 Ricci, Renato, 38 ; 1936 Winter Olympics and, 125–26; academists’ gymnastics display for Hitler and, 134–35; Accademia Fascista di Educazione Fisica and, 9, 75, 129, 130;

Achille Starace and, 152–55, 167–68, 243n117; age of, 108; age of leaders and, 105; background and career of, 239– 40n71; Baldur von Shirach and, 110, 173, 174, 277–78n8; Catholic chaplains and, 45; closure of ENEF and, 50; death of, 239–40n71; demotion of, 152, 154–56, 170, 173–74; EYA and, 190, 191; film award named for, 185; German admiration for, 131–32; goals of, 152–53; GUF and, 46–47; Hartmann Lauterbacher and, 173, 277– 78n8; HJ visit to Italy and, 122; ItalianGerman youth exchanges and, 123, 132, 133, 136; on Italian youth organizations, 6–7; leadership purges and, 104; Ministry of National Education and, 242–43n110; modernism and, 54; Mussolini Forum and, 59, 63, 164; ONB and, 9, 11, 36–37, 48, 50–53, 68, 71, 108, 154, 164, 168, 239– 40n71; ONB and HJ and, 120, 125–26; Opera Balilla (OB) and, 210–11; proposed Italian-German joint leadership institutes and, 128–29 Riefenstahl, Leni, 256n83 Risorgimento, 17, 18, 36, 127, 221, 228n18 Riviste Fiorentine, 16 Roatta, Mario, 292n39 Robotti, Mario, 292n39 Romania, 119, 178–80, 182–84, 190–91 Rome: ancient and new, 63; capture, or conquest, of, 238n43, 240n75; as part of papal state, 240n75; rebirth of, 59; Roman question and, 39, 240n75; Third Rome and, 35; as unitary Fascist city, 150. See also March on Rome Rome-Berlin Axis, 126, 130, 159, 175, 177, 179– 82, 184–90, 192–97, 209, 219–20 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 182, 188–90 Rosenberg, Alfred, 80, 149, 262n58 Rüdiger, Jutta, 175 Russia. See Soviet Union Rust, Bernhard, 110, 203, 262n58 SA (Sturmabteilungen): arrest and imprisonment of members of, 86; HJ and, 82, 83, 99; Italian-German youth exchanges and, 122; Jugendbund der NSDAP and,

Index 313 78; reorganization of, 253n21; shortage of leaders for, 104–5; SS and, 77; youth leadership crisis during World War II and, 201 Saint-Germain, treaty of, 251n2 SAJ. See Sozialistische Arbeiterjugend (SAJ ) Salvemini, Gaetano, 21 Santovincenzo, Magno, 58 Save the Children in the Countryside. See Kinderlandverschikung Schar (subdivision of HJ ), 106, 107, 111 Schemm, Hans, 120–21 Schenzinger, Karl Aloys, 265n38 Schlageter, Leo Albert, 100 Schleimer, Ute, 294n56 Schmitz, David, 54 schulen. See HJ-Führerschulen Schülerbund. See Nationalsozialistisches Schülerbund (NSS) Schwarz, Franz Xaver, 202 scientific rationality, failure of, 15–16 Scorza, Carlo, 43, 46–47 Scuola di Mistica Fascista, 66 Selbstfuhrungprinzip, 104, 105 Serena, Adelchi, 168 sexuality. See gender and sexuality Seyss-Inquart, Arthur, 262n58 shooting lessons, 37, 112, 113, 146 Siebert, Renate, 292n39 Sima, Horia, 179 Slataper, Scipio, 21 Slovakia, 180, 182–84, 190–91, 205 Social Democratic Party (SPD). See Sozialdemo­ kratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) Socialist Workers’ Youth (SAJ). See Sozialistische Arbeiterjugend (SAJ ) Soffici, Ardengo, 21 Sorel, Georges Eugène, 15 Soviet Union, 137, 160, 180–81, 187, 195, 205, 216, 221 Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD), 6, 79, 252n11 Sozialistische Arbeiterjugend (SAJ ), 87, 88, 252n11 Spain: Anti-Comintern Pact and, 182; civil war in, 126, 160, 162, 185; Cultural Manifestation Weimar-Florence and, 183–84; EYA

and, 190, 191; send-off of Italian troops and, 178–79; sixth Winter Games of the HJ and, 180; victory of Fascism in, 159 SPD. See Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) Sport Championship of the European Youth, 191, 194–95 Spring’s Awakening ( play), 14 SS (Schutzstaffel): HJ and, 83, 148, 269–70n23; military training and, 200; prosecutions of war criminals and, 294n49; shortage of leaders for, 104–5, 201 Stachura, Peter, 85 Stamm (subdivision of HJ ), 107, 111 Stang, Axel, 183 Starace, Achille: AC and, 162, 163; Accademia Fascista di Educazione Fisica graduates and, 167; Baldur von Shirach and, 174; control of university students and, 153; Fascist style and, 161; GIL and GIL Academy and, 157, 161, 167–70; ItalianGerman youth exchanges and, 174; ONB and, 168, 169–70; ONB versus GIL and, 210; ONB versus GUF and, 47; PNF and, 156, 161–62; Renato Ricci and, 152–55, 167–68, 243n117 State Justice Administrations for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes, 294n49 Steinhoff, Hans, 265n38 Strasser, Gregor, 80 Strasser, Otto, 80 Stuckart, Wilhelm, 177 Student Vanguard (AS). See Avanguardia Studentesca (AS) Sturmabteilungen (SA). See SA (Sturm-­ abtei­lungen) Sudetenland, 96, 171, 205 Sweden, 196 Swing-Jugend, 97 Tacchi Venturi, Pietro, 40, 163 Taviani, Paolo, 293n45 Taviani, Vittorio, 293n45 Tempel, Wilhelm, 84 Third Italian War of Independence (1866), 17, 232n17 Toller, Ernst, 23

314

Index

Treuman, Peter, 95–96 Triumph des Willens (film), 256n83 Turati, Augusto, 33, 37, 49 Turkey, 172 Undersecretariat for Youth and Physical Education, 55, 242–43n110 United Kingdom. See Great Britain United Nations, 188, 189 United States, 49, 54–59, 188, 189, 214, 246n35, 292n39 Universal Exposition (Paris, 1900), 14–15 University of Rome, 53, 208, 246n35 Ustascia, the (Croatia), 190 van Geelkerken, Cornelius, 183 Vatican: 1870 capture of Rome and, 238n43; breaking of diplomatic relations with Italy by, 43; Conciliation of 1929 and, 43; Fascist education monopoly and, 10–11, 40; full sovereignty of the Holy See and, 44; GIL and, 162–64; Italian state and, 39, 41, 42–43, 44, 238n43, 240nn75–76; Lateran Pacts with Italy and, 41; Mit brennender Sorge (encyclical) and, 93–94; Mussolini and, 39, 41; PPI and, 28, 238n43. See also Catholic Church; Concordats Verlain, Paul, 15 Versailles, treaty of, 27, 106, 251n2 Versari, Riccardo, 165, 208 Vidussoni, Aldo, 185, 187, 190 Vignoli, Lamberto, 163 Vittorio Emanuele III, 156 Volksgemeinschaft, 4, 78, 94–95, 103, 105–6, 113, 149, 177 von Epp, Ritter, 121 von Hassell, Ulrich, 124, 128 von Hindenburg, Paul, 85, 87, 88, 89, 254n47 von Mackensen, Hans Georg, 182–83, 186 von Plato, Alexander, 222–23 von Renteln, Adrian Theodor, 84, 86 von Ribbentrop, Joachim, 177, 192–93, 195 von Schirach, Baldur: at Accademisti parade, 129; versus Adolf von Trotha, 88, 89; age of, 108; assumption of command of Nazi youth by, 10, 99–100; background of, 84– 85; career of after HJ leadership, 180;

competing youth organizations and, 87; confessional youth organizations and, 91–92, 93; Congress of Vienna and, 190; disdain for teachers and culture and, 108– 9; European Youth Exchange Service, 255n54; EYA and, 181–83, 189, 190, 192– 93, 196; Franklin Delano Roosevelt criticized by, 189–90; German youth associationalism and, 90; German Youth Hostel Association and, 255n54; Großdeutsches Bund and, 88; Hitler and, 134–35, 173; Hitlerjugend Akademie and, 10, 139–40, 141, 142, 147, 149; HJ and, 86, 88, 95, 99– 105, 112, 114–16, 126–29, 256n83; ideal youth leaders and, 104–5; Italian-German youth exchanges and, 131, 132, 174, 175; leadership of challenged and affirmed, 89; main school system and, 110; NSDSTB and, 84–85, 86; NSS and, 86; Politischer Erzieher (“ideal” political educator) and, 110–11; Ponte Culturale and, 190; proposed federation of pro-Nazi youth organizations and, 174; proposed ItalianGerman joint leadership institutes and, 128–29, 130–31; regular German schools during World War II and, 203; Reichsaus­ schuß Deutscher Jugendverbände and, 88, 89; Renato Ricci and, 110, 173, 174, 277–78n8; reviewing Accademisti in formation, 130; State Youth Day and, 110; at tomb of the Italian Unknown Soldier, 128; training system preceding Hitlerjugend Akademie and, 139; youth as peace ambassadors for Nazi regime and, 171, 172– 73; youth leadership crisis during World War II and, 200 von Trotha, Adolf, 88, 89 von Tschammer und Osten, Hans, 89, 132, 134, 149, 262n58 Waffen SS, 196 Wagner, Adolf, 140 Walker, Jimmy, 56 Wallonia, 119, 190, 196, 197 Wanderlehrer, 114 Wandersportverein Vogtland. See Nazi Jugendbund of Plauen

Index 315 Wandervögel, the, 7, 9, 14, 19–21, 78, 83, 94, 101, 225 war: enthusiasm for, 21, 23; at the heart of Nazi and Fascist ideology, 199; as rite of passage for men, 21, 22, 23; as tragedy, 23 Weber, Max, 15 Wedekind, Frank, 14 Wehrmacht, 96, 200, 205–6 Weimar Republic, 24, 77, 79, 81, 88–89, 97, 104 Weisse Rose, 97 Wessel, Horst Ludwig, 92, 135, 255n64 Wilson, Woodrow, 189 Windthorstbund, 252n11 Wochenendelehrgänge, 111–12 World War I: ambivalence about, 23; attraction of for young people, 9; as beginning of new era in Italy and Germany, 142; Campo DUX and, 42; cult of Nazi victims and, 87; destructive power of, 235n59; end of, 23–24; First Battle of Ypres in, 141; as first holocaust, 24; HJ leaders and, 105, 106; Italian generational clash following, 26; Italian interventionists and, 22–23, 234n53; Italian neutrality proclamation (1914) and, 21–22; Italian provinces reclaimed during, 56; Italian victory in, 60; Italian “war aristocracy” and, 25; Italy and Germany as opponents in, 137; myth of war and, 27, 76; new era and, 42; psychological effects of, 24; radiose giornate (bright days) of May 1915 and, 22; requirements for GIL leadership and, 167; rupture with the past and, 24; South Tyrolean annexation and, 118–19; as tragedy, 23; veterans demands after, 235n3; Wandervögel opposition to, 20–21; war as at the heart of Nazism and Fascism and, 199; young soldiers after, 23–24 World War II: Anti-Comintern Pact and, 182; Axis cultural exchange networks and, 185–86; Battle of Stalingrad and, 195, 213; as birthplace of new Fascist culture, 186; destruction of younger generation and, 202; disabled veterans as youth trainers during, 205–6; Fascist and Nazi education at end of, 212; Germany’s expansion and, 177; Germany’s plans for postwar

Europe and, 187, 193–94, 195–97; Hitlerjugend Akademie and, 149; Italy as moral victor in, 220–21; Italy’s armistice with the Allies and, 209; Italy’s entrance into, 178, 206; Italy’s poor performance in, 197, 215; Nazi goals and, 180; Nazis as dominant over Italy and, 176–77, 178; Operation Barbarossa in, 182; postwar amnesia and remembering and, 11, 213, 219; regular German school system during, 202–3; relationship between Italian and German youth and, 171, 176; use of radio during, 188; youth reeducation after, 213–17 Young Fascists. See Fasci di Combattimento ( Fighting Fasces) Young Italian Explorers ( Boy Scouts), 39 youth: adaptation versus dissent for, 12; antimodernism among, 20; attraction of to World War I, 9; as cannon fodder for Hitler, 189; civilizational transition and, 5; complete subordination of to Nazi state, 94–95; cult of, 16, 79; delayed attainment of adulthood and, 233n33; in Fascism in Italy versus Germany, 79, 81–82, 87, 90; as Fascist propaganda instruments, 132; Fascist Saturday and, 273n28; as guarantee of Nazi success, 6; as incarnation of “new man,” 16, 122; Italian Fascism as revolt of youth and, 25; versus Italian liberal state, 26–27, 29; militarization of in Italy, 160; myth of, 122; Nazi goals for eastern Europe and, 196; Nietzsche as prophet for, 16; nontotalitarian programs for, 7–8; as peace ambassadors for Nazi regime, 171, 174, 277n5; permanent revolution of, 47; personal book required of Italian youth and, 157; rebellion of against elders, 14, 18; reeducation of after World War II, 213–17; transformation of into Nazis, 96; transformation of into soldiers, 199; valorization of, 5–6, 26–27; young and adult leadership of, 7; youth myth and, 26, 79 Yugoslavia, 119, 180, 188, 220, 292n39 Ziemer, Gregor Athalwin, 3, 214–15 zu Putlitz, Erich, 142

­ eorge L. Mosse Se­ G r ies in Mod­ern Eu­ro­pean Cul­t ural and In­tel­lec­tual His­t ory Se­r ies Ed­i­tors Ste­ ven E. Asch­ h eim, Stan­ l ey G. Payne, Mary ­ Louise Rob­ e rts, and David J. Sor­ k in

Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism Jan Assmann The Enemy of the New Man: Homosexuality in Fascist Italy Lorenzo Benadusi; translated by Suzanne Dingee and Jennifer Pudney The Holocaust and the West German Historians: Historical Interpretation and Autobiographical Memory Nicolas Berg; translated and edited by Joel Golb Collected Memories: Holocaust History and Postwar Testimony Christopher R. Browning Cataclysms: A History of the Twentieth Century from Europe’s Edge Dan Diner; translated by William Templer with Joel Golb La Grande Italia: The Myth of the Nation in the Twentieth Century Emilio Gentile; translated by Suzanne Dingee and Jennifer Pudney Carl Schmitt and the Jews: The “Jewish Question,” the Holocaust, and German Legal Theory Raphael Gross; translated by Joel Golb Some Measure of Justice: The Holocaust Era Restitution Campaign of the 1990s Michael R. Marrus Confronting History: A Memoir George L. Mosse

Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Cultural, and Social Life in the Third Reich George L. Mosse What History Tells: George L. Mosse and the Culture of Modern Europe Edited by Stanley G. Payne, David J. Sorkin, and John S. Tortorice The Perils of Normalcy: George L. Mosse and the Remaking of Cultural History Karel Plessini Shaping the New Man: Youth Training Regimes in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany Alessio Ponzio The Jews in Mussolini’s Italy: From Equality to Persecution Michele Sarfatti; translated by John and Anne C. Tedeschi Jews and Other Germans: Civil Society, Religious Diversity, and Urban Politics in Breslau, 1860–1925 Till van Rahden; translated by Marcus Brainard An Uncompromising Generation: The Nazi Leadership of the Reich Security Main Office Michael Wildt; translated by Tom Lampert