Why is it that Mussolini is not vilified in the same way as his Axis partners.
I understand that although there were concentration camps in Italy they were not as geared to mass killings as those in Germany. Despite that there were many political prisoners and Jewish persons who did suffer and even starve to death in the Italian camps. A Google will confirm this.
The Duce was after all a part of the Axis and in Italy a policy of anti-semitism was implemented around 1924 (if memory serves me right)
Could it be because the Italian people strung Musso up and switched sides that he is not held in the same contempt as Hitler and Tojo?.
If this is the case, then what happened to the commandants and the guards of the Italian camps, were they subject to a war crimes tribunal or not, if not, why not?
The reason that Mussolini has not been held in the same form or same degree of contempt as Hitler and Tojo in the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st is that he is regarded (at least in most English speaking countries) as a bit of a joke. After getting Fascism started and putting Italy forth as a World Power, he was only barely able to conquer Ethiopia fighting a(n almost) 19th century army with the most moder weapons available at the time. He then invaded Greece and got his head handed to him until Hitler sent in troops to rescue his fiasco. Hitler treated him with barely concealed contempt on several occasions and he was very definitely the “junior” partner of the Axis, despite having been the first one to take power.
As to War Crimes tribunals in Italy, I do not have detailed information. The Wikipedia article on Italian War Crimes does not even address the issue of support Nazi Holocaust activities, but it notes that no one was tried for the actual battlefront warcrimes.
ETA: Even The Nizkor Project appears to have no information on Italy that warrants a separate page and a search of the site shows Italy being mentioned in passing for general Axis activities without specific “Italian” events.
(I believe, although I am open to correction) that one reason for this is that Italy never directly participated in the extermination of Jews, Rom, homosexuals, etc. My memory is that while those people were made second class citizens fairly early on, it was not until the Germans took command of Italy that camps and trains were organized to carry out the exterminations.)
There is a story told about the German General Staff advising Hitler on the Italians before the Germans started the war.
General #1: “If the Italians don’t join us, it will take 2 crack Brigades to hold them off.”
General #2: “Yes, but if they do join us, it will take 20 Brigades to give them any backbone.”
The list of atrocities by the Italians is very short compared to Hitler and Japan.
The fact that reports from the POW camps made it sound like being captured by the Italian’s was a pretty soft landing, where as the Germans were much more brutal and we all know about the “Bataan Death March” and other similar Japanese War crimes against POWs.
The Italians actually appeared to follow the Geneva conventions as much as the allies did. There are no wide scale brutalities to report. They do come off as rather bumbling. The Navy was nearly a joke despite the money invested in it.
Thankfully, there was no mass exterminations, no carefully documented eradication of the Jews or others. They lacked the full-blown trappings of evil and in some ways come off more like the Comical Evil of a Hollywood Farce.
The list of Italians tried for War Crimes related to WWII is very short compared to Germany.
I said **POW ** camps. There was a huge difference between POW and concentration camps.
For the record though, as far as I know, Italian concentration camps were less brutal than German ones. They were horrible, but consider the German concentration camps and the numbers involved and you will see a difference.
To add to what’s been said, Mussolini was at heart a bluff expert. The whole (idiotic) invasion of Ethiopia was just an exercise to show the people that the mighty Italian Army was capable of imperial conquests-Ethiopia was a dirt poor, worthless acquisition that never had any value to Italy. Likewise, the invasion of Albania-it was a cheap victory for prestige purposes. The Italian Navy was impressive (on paper), but Mussolini refused the admiral’s request for aircraft carriers-and without air cover, a surface fleet was worthless. Mussolini really thought that the allies would not fight, so he could march into Egypt and declare victory-when the British fought back, the Italian forces were flattened. The Italians were really decimated in Russia-they were totally ill-equipped for that theatre, and suffered horrible losses.
That said the Fascist regime never descended to the depths of depravity of the Nazis-the Italians never bought into the racism of naziism
Antother reason could be that Ciano’s diary reveals that the Italian government was pretty ambivalent about the war to begin with. Mussolini was mainly interested in dominating the mediterrenean, and that was more of a long-term plan than something he was ready to act upon.
It didn’t, for the most part, but remember, the main character and his son weren’t sent to a concentration camp until after the Italian government had collapsed and northern and central Italy were under German control.
It was only after the Germans were occupying Italy that there was any big roundup of Jews, and the Germans mostly sent them to camps outside of Italy.
As for the Italians and the Holocaust – if I remember correctly, in his memoirs Primo Levi (an Italian Jewish author who survived the Holocaust) said that the concentration camps in Italy that he was first held in were not as bad the ones in Germany and Poland he was later sent to.
I don’t know who said this but someone once described Mussolini as “Hitler Lite - 100& of the oppression, 25% of the atrocities.”
Not that I’m discounting the awfulness of Mussolini. Asking to choose between Hitler and Mussolini is like asking whether you want to get shot in the belly or the back.