Fascism in Europe - Foreign Affairs

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Italian nationalist and Pan-German claims clashed over the issue of Tyrol. The region had been administered with Italy (as the province of Italia) by the Roman Empire, but had been populated primarily by ethnic Germans and part of Austrian Empire and then Austria-Hungary for centuries afterward. With the collapse of Austria in World War I, an independent Austria was no longer a serious threat to Italy, but the popularity of Pan-German nationalism in both Germany and Austria remained. The Fascist regime opposed the Nazis expansionist efforts towards Austria and supported Austria's sovereignty and promoted the adoption of fascism in the country.

In the 1920s, Hitler wanted an alliance of the Nazi movement with Mussolini's regime, and recognized that his pan-German nationalism was being seen as a threat by Italy. In Hitler's unpublished sequel to Mein Kampf, Hitler attempts to address concerns among Italian Fascists about Nazism. In the book, Hitler puts aside the issue of Germans in Tyrol by explaining that overall Germany and Italy have more in common than not and that the Tyrol Germans must accept that it is in Germany's interests to be allied with Italy. Hitler claims that Germany, like Italy was subjected to oppression by its neighbours, and he denounces the Austrian Empire as having oppressed Italy from completing national unification just as France oppressed Germany from completing its national unification. Hitler's denunciation of Austria in the book is important as Italian Fascists were skeptical about him he was born in Austria which Italy long considered to be its primary enemy for centuries and saw Germany as being an ally to Austria. By declaring that the Nazi movement was not interested in the territorial legacy of the Austrian Empire, this is a way to assure the Italian Fascists that Hitler, the Nazi movement, and Germany were not enemies of Italy.

Despite public attempts of goodwill by Hitler to Mussolini, Germany and Italy came into conflict when in 1934, when Engelbert Dollfuß, the Austrofascist leader of Italy's ally Austria, was assassinated by Austrian Nazis on Hitler's orders in preparation for a planned Anschluss (annexation of Austria). Mussolini ordered troops to the Austrian-Italian border in readiness for war against Germany. Hitler backed down and defer plans to annex Austria.

When Hitler and Mussolini first met, Mussolini referred to Hitler as "a silly little monkey" before the Western Allies forced Mussolini into an agreement with Hitler.

Mussolini also reportedly asked Pope Pius XII to excommunicate Hitler.

From 1934 to 1936, Hitler continually attempted to win the support of Italy; the Nazi regime endorsed the Italian invasion of Ethiopia (leading to Ethiopia's annexation as Italian East Africa) while the League of Nations condemned Italian aggression. With other countries opposing Italy, the Fascist regime had no choice but to draw closer to Nazi Germany. Germany joined Italy in supporting the Falange fascist Nationalists under Francisco Franco with forces and supplies in the Spanish Civil War.

Later, Germany and Italy signed the Anti-Comintern Pact committing the two regimes to oppose the Comintern and Soviet communism. By 1938, Mussolini allowed Hitler to carry out Anschluss in exchange for official German renunciation of claims to Tyrol. Mussolini supported the annexation of the Sudetenland during the Munich Agreement talks later the same year.

In 1939, the Pact of Steel was signed, officially creating an alliance of Germany and Italy. The Nazi official newspaper Völkischer Beobachter published articles extolling the mutually benefit of the alliance:

Firmly bound together through the inner unity of their ideologies and the comprehensive solidarity of their interests, the German and the Italian people are determined also in future to stand side by side and to strive with united effort for the securing of their Lebensraum and the maintenance of peace. —Völkischer Beobachter (May 23, 1939)

Hitler and Mussolini recognized commonalities in their politics, and the second part of Hitler's Mein Kampf ("The National Socialist Movement," 1926) contains this passage:

I conceived the profoundest admiration for the great man south of the Alps, who, full of ardent love for his people, made no pacts with the enemies of Italy, but strove for their annihilation by all ways and means. What will rank Mussolini among the great men of this earth is his determination not to share Italy with the Marxists, but to destroy internationalism and save the fatherland from it. —Mein Kampf (p. 622)

Both regimes despised France (seen as an enemy which held territories claimed by both Germany and Italy) and Yugoslavia (seen by the Nazis as a racially degenerate Slavic state and holding lands such as Dalmatia claimed by the Italian Fascists). Fascist territorial claims on Yugoslav territory meant that Mussolini saw the destruction of Yugoslavia as essential for Italian expansion. Hitler viewed Slavs as racially inferior, but did not see importance in an immediate invasion of Yugoslavia, instead focusing on the threat from the Soviet Union.

Mussolini favored using the extremist Croatian nationalist Ustaše as a useful tool to tear down Yugoslavia, led by the Serbs and with a Serbian dynasty, the House of Karađorđević. In 1941, the Italian military campaign in Greece (the Greco-Italian War, called the Battle of Greece for the period after the German intervention) was failing. Hitler reluctantly began the Balkan Campaign with the invasion of Yugoslavia. German, Italian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, and Croatian insurgents (under the Axis puppet Independent State of Croatia) decisively defeated Yugoslavia.

In the aftermath, with the exception of Serbia and Vardar Macedonia, most of Yugoslavia was reshaped based on Italian Fascist foreign policy objectives. Mussolini demanded and received much of Dalmatia from the Croats in exchange for supporting the independence of Croatia. Mussolini's policy of creating an independent Croatia prevailed over Hitler's anti-Slavism and eventually the Nazis and the Ustashe regime of Croatia would develop closer bonds due to the Ustashe's brutal effectiveness at suppressing Serb dissidents.