borrowing from mussolini nazi germany s

7/24/2019 Borrowing From Mussolini Nazi Germany s

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/borrowing-from-mussolini-nazi-germany-s 1/28

This article was downloaded by: [Patrick Bernhard]On: 14 October 2013, At: 07:39Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

The Journal of Imperial and

Commonwealth HistoryPublication details, including instructions for authors and

subscription information:

http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fich20

Borrowing from Mussolini: Nazi

Germany's Colonial Aspirations in the

Shadow of Italian ExpansionismPatrick BernhardPublished online: 11 Oct 2013.

To cite this article: Patrick Bernhard (2013) Borrowing from Mussolini: Nazi Germany's Colonial

Aspirations in the Shadow of Italian Expansionism, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth

History, 41:4, 617-643

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2013.836358

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources

of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions



http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2013.836358

http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fich20



Borrowing from Mussolini: NaziGermany’s Colonial Aspirations in theShadow of Italian Expansionism

Patrick Bernhard

Few topics have sparked more debate than the question of how colonialism related to

Nazism. While the mainstream historiography on Nazi Germany for many years has

denied the existence of any serious links between Hitler’s expansionist policies and Ger-

many’s short-lived colonial empire, with the rise of postcolonial studies this view has

come under massive attack. As scholars like Benjamin Madley and Jurgen Zimmerer

have argued, the colonial crimes committed especially in Southwest Africa have to be

seen as a sort of mental blueprint for the Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe. Astonish-

ingly, this debate has remained stuck in the national paradigm. This paper offers a differ-ent, a more European perspective. It illuminates how the colonialism of Mussolini’s Italy,

Europe’s first fascist dictatorship, was an inspirational force that appealed to Germany’s

postcolonial society as well as to Hitler himself. As will be argued, the Italian example

was important mainly in three respects: first, Mussolini’s policy of conquest was a signifi-

cant driver of colonial desires within German society. Second, for Hitler enthusiasm for

Italian colonialism was a means of consolidating his rule and legitimising his plans for

the brutal conquest of Eastern Europe. Third, Fascist Italy’s colonial empire served as a

model when the Nazis started to develop far-reaching plans for a future German colonial

empire in Africa. Thus it is argued that the history of Nazi Germany has to be understood

in a transnational and imperial perspective.

In late autumn 1938, a remarkable dispatch from Addis Ababa reached Berlin.1 In a

detailed report to his superiors in the Foreign Office the German consul, Gustav

Strohm, praised the colonial endeavours of Mussolini’s regime in Abyssinia

(modern-day Ethiopia). Just two years after the conquest of the country by a

massive force of 500,000 men supported by modern tanks and airplanes, the Duce

The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History , 2013

Vol. 41, No. 4, 617–643, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2013.836358

Correspondence to: Patrick Bernhard, Department of History, Trinity College Dublin, Arts Building, Dublin 1,

Ireland. E-mail: [email protected]

# 2013 Taylor & Francis



had established a highly successful colony. According to Strohm, this was a clear dem-

onstration of fascist pride. The German diplomat was profoundly impressed by Italy’s

settlement scheme, particularly by the scope of the programme and the speed of its

implementation. Mussolini aimed to settle 1.5–6.5 million Italians by the middle of

the century in the country’s East and North African possessions. Strohm describedthis programme as a ‘demographic colonisation scheme’ and effort to better the

‘Italian race’ which would increase population levels, thus setting the stage for

further expansion. On 28 October 1938—the sixteenth anniversary of the Fascist

seizure of power in Italy—the Duce had sent the first 20,000 settlers overseas. This

was a ‘feat that is unique in modern history’, the German consul commented, ‘and

has become for many in Germany a symbol of what Italy has set out to achieve in

Africa’.

While Strohm had only recently arrived in Abyssinia, he claimed he could already

feel the ‘immense dynamic power’ with which this ‘rejuvenated people’ was transform-ing the African soil. He witnessed huge bulldozers levelling the ground as well as the

installation of high-tech pumping stations to green the desert. As Strohm reported,

dozens of standardised model towns had been stamped out of the ground within

just a few months. Compared to the colonial undertakings of other European states,

the Italian efforts were thus completely new. By settling millions of Italian nationals,

Italian Africa was about to become ‘white men’s country’. Germany should take this

as an example, Strohm contended—by observing Italy, the Reich could learn how to

create an empire ‘from scratch’.

The German diplomat was not alone in his admiration of Italian imperialism.

Indeed, numerous German state and party representatives returned home deeply impressed by their visit to Africa Italiana, and many argued that the Reich should

copy Mussolini’s colonial experiment.2 Yet how did Italian colonial undertakings

impact on the thinking of the Nazi leadership? This leads us to a related and

broader question: how was Nazism linked to colonialism? Indeed, a frequent topic

of historical debate concerns whether a direct line can be drawn from the colonial atro-

cities committed in Germany’s colonies at the beginning of the twentieth century and

the mass killing of civilians in Poland and the Soviet Union by Germans in the Second

World War.3 While links between the two can be drawn, to do so would mean affirm-

ing the assumption of ‘national pathways’ in historical development. This paper offersa different perspective. It illuminates instead how the ‘sophisticated’ colonialism of

Mussolini’s Italy, Europe’s first fascist dictatorship, was a motivating and inspirational

force that appealed to Germany’s postcolonial society as well as to Hitler himself. Thus,

I argue that the way in which the Germans imagined expansionism and the idea of new

‘living space’ after 1918 in Eastern Europe was crucially informed by the observation of

Italian colonial policies in Africa.

My argument has three parts. I first show how Mussolini’s African endeavours reso-

nated positively with large segments of the German population. In this way, we find

that the ‘successful’ settlement policy of the Italian Fascist state was a significant

driver of German colonial desires. Thanks to Italy’s example, colonialism was nolonger a venture of the past, but of the future. The Abyssinian War of 1935–36

618 P. Bernhard



fundamentally challenging the post-First World War order, and served to kindle Ger-

many’s expansionist ambitions. Mussolini’s successes made Germany’s own dreams of

regaining overseas territories seem within reach.

The second section examines how Hitler and the Nazi apparatus engaged with

Italian colonialism and the desires it stirred within Germany. We find that Hitlernot only used colonial enthusiasm as a means of consolidating his rule. Italian colo-

nial violence also helped to legitimise Nazi plans for the brutal conquest of Eastern

Europe.

The third section shows how the Germans adopted heavily from the Italian Fascists

when it came to the practical techniques of colonialism. The extensive plans made by

the Nazi state for a future German empire in Africa borrowed heavily from Italian

experiences in Abyssinia and Libya. The Nazis mimicked numerous Italian policies,

including racist methods of population control and police repression, as well as

bureaucratic structures needed to manage the new colonial territories. I argue thatthe Italian ‘example’ helped to radicalise traditional German notions of colonialism

and to translate them into a fascist context. Thus, we find that Italian colonialism

was a ‘case study’ of sorts for the transformation and modernisation of German colo-

nialism along totalitarian lines.

From the Dusk of Versailles to the Dawn of Addis Ababa: The Ethiopian War,

Fascist Modernity and Germany’s Hopes for a New Empire

Fascist Italy’s role as a paradigm in interwar Europe can hardly be overemphasised.4

Mussolini took the stage early—in October 1922—and it was his regime, notNazism, that set the standard for right-wing dictatorships in Europe and beyond.5

As a radical new political order, fascism seemed to offer a fundamental alternative

to the liberal system that was in crisis as well as to the rising threat of communism.

Mussolini’s regime was regarded by many as the best form of government for master-

ing the challenges posed by modernity. Vibrant international interest was aroused by

the ostensibly modern character of Fascist Italy in many social and political realms,

including—to name but a few—its comprehensive social and family policies;6 a

highly efficient security apparatus, which crushed left-wing resistance within just a

few years;

7

lofty (if gigantomaniac) urban visions for the remodelling of entirecities;8 as well as its corporatism, which promised peaceful labour relations after

years of massive social tensions following the First World War.9 Yet it was one issue

in particular that attracted international attention: the vast state-run and scientific

colonisation programme that the Fascists tried to implement in its colonies, which

foresaw the resettlement of 1.5–6.5 million Italians. As the Italian regime repeatedly

emphasised, it did not pursue economic interests in Africa, in sharp contrast to

France and Britain.10 Rather, the first purpose of settlement was to bind a ‘rootless’

population to the soil and to end the exodus from rural areas that was seen as a

malign consequence of modernity. Italian demographic experts firmly believed that

the drop in Europe’s birth rate was due to urbanisation and that a consistent policy of rural settlement would increase fertility levels.11

The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 619



Italian Fascist settlement policy was more than merely pronatalist, however. The

regime also saw it as an opportunity to enhance the Italian population. The underlying

assumption was that improving the soil would improve those who worked it.12 The

Fascists believed that by selecting healthy settlers inclined to produce large families,

a new breed of Italian colonists would emerge—an army of ‘soldier-farmers’ whowould defend the borders of empire and better the Italian ‘race’.13

For Mussolini’s regime, the quantitative and qualitative improvement of the Italian

people was a precondition as well as justification for conquering new territories.14 The

country had to expand, as it needed an outlet for its ‘surplus population’. As Denis

Mack Smith has shown, this idea became an increasingly popular theme in Mussolini’s

speeches as early as the late 1920s.15 In its colonial claims the Fascist regime was helped

by intellectuals such as Luigi Valli, who spoke of a ‘right to land’ held by people living

in ‘overpopulated territories’.16 Yet Mussolini did not say in public that Italy also

sought to become the hegemonic power in the Mediterranean (ahead of France andBritain). The dictator’s dream was to create an immense empire that stretched from

Libya and Abyssinia to Egypt, the Sudan, and other territories in the Horn of

Africa.17 It was clear from the beginning that violence was to be used to pursue

these aims.

In their ‘biopolitical’ visions the Italian Fascists were to be supported not only by

thousands of soldiers and settlers who conquered the territories and cultivated

them, but also by scholars. In some respects, these visions were a manifestation of

the fascination with large-scale social engineering that was prevalent around the

world in the 1930s. In this context, scholars speak of a scientific colonialism that

arose as part of a new settlement colonialism after the First World War first in ImperialJapan and Fascist Italy.18 In the new Italian possessions, agronomists, hydrologists and

botanists tested the conditions of the ground and water and determined the most suit-

able crops for the region. Later the military and newly founded colonisation compa-

nies headed by engineers began constructing vast road and irrigation systems. Land

was also cleared and levelled to prepare for cultivation.19 Only then were farmhouses

and towns erected; in Libya alone some 40 towns were established. Every colonist was

given a modern and standardised house with running water, furniture, horses and

food supplies for the first weeks.

The activities of the Italian Fascists and their ‘modern dynamism’ deeply impressedforeign observers. In Britain, for example, the colonisation scheme was lauded not

only for its being carried out ‘on the strictest scientific lines’. As its purpose was

social and political rather than ‘purely economic’, it also differed fundamentally

from anything that had hitherto been put ‘into large-scale operation’, the British agri-

culturalist Edward John Russell said in 1939, shortly before the outbreak of war, strik-

ing an anti-capitalist tone.20 Meanwhile, according to the American artist Ruth

Sterling Frost, what made Fascist Italy’s colonisation scheme so unique compared to

other land reclamation undertakings such as Roosevelt’s Tennessee Valley Project

was its ‘utopian quality’ in terms of ‘racial improvement’.21 The fascination with

Italy’s colonisation project went so far that British crofters who wanted to improvetheir economic situation asked for a permission to settle in Libya as colonists.22

620 P. Bernhard



Interest in Italian colonialism was even greater in inter-war Germany, for the Reich

was eager to recover the colonial possessions in Africa and Asia it had lost under the

Treaty of Versailles. Fascist Italy showed how a ‘later-comer’ nation of ‘have-nots’

could prevail against the dominant colonial powers of France and Britain. As the Abys-

sinian campaign of 1935–36 demonstrated, even after the First World War the ‘Age of Empire’ was anything but over.23 Italy had not only managed to consolidate its colo-

nial possessions, but considerably to enlarge them as well, thus recapturing its lost

imperial grandeur of ancient times. Indeed, in terms of the size of its colonial posses-

sions, Mussolini’s Impero fascista became one of the largest colonial powers in 1936

(after Britain and France). Together with Libya, Albania, Abyssinia and other posses-

sions in the Mediterranean such as Rhodos, Imperial Italy covered an area of 1.5

million square miles. Ultimately, the lesson Italy taught was that expansionism was

not a futile effort from the past but a promising project for the future. In this way,

the colonial dream entertained by the Germans for decades was given new impetusby Italian success in Africa.

Max Knecht, a former officer of the German colonial forces and long-standing

member of the German Colonial Society, gave expression to the hopes inspired in

many Germans by Mussolini’s regime.24 In a public lecture on Abyssinia delivered

by Knecht shortly after Italy invaded Abyssinia, Knecht said that war in East Africa her-

alded a ‘colonial dawn’ for the new German Reich.25 As Knecht saw it, Italian conquest

in Africa represented a huge chance for the Reich to ‘step out’ into the world again as a

colonial power. Thus, in German eyes, Italy was breaking a path for an expanded

German Empire.

The notion of Italy as a ‘pioneer’ for German colonialism was propagated in a seriesof lectures on Libya and Abyssinia organised not only by the German Colonial Society,

which had 2.1 million members, but also by the German Geographical Society and the

Italo-German Cultural Society. The latter was a joint-venture of almost 30 associations

all over Germany aimed at fostering ties between German and Italian local elites, thus

providing the German-Italian alliance with a solid backing at the communal level.26

Not a year passed in which these forums for dialogue failed to host a German or

Italian expert on colonialism and to send one on a lecture tour. In Freiburg, for

example, a small university town in south-west Germany, four such events took

place during the short Abyssinian War.

27

And in 1942, despite the signs of crisis inthe Axis war effort, the Italian historian Franco Valsecchi toured Germany, speaking

in places like Augsburg, Celle and Hildesheim about Italian colonialism in Africa.

Meanwhile, a leading scholar of political geography of the Third Reich, Oskar Schmie-

der, lectured in Gottingen about the study trip he had made to Libya in the late

1930s.28

The degree to which Italy stirred German colonial fantasies is also demonstrated by

the many publications on Africa Italiana that were released in Germany between

Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 and 1943, when Italy lost its overseas territories. As

Dirk van Laak has noted, references to Italy’s ‘successes’ in Africa were commonplace

in the booming German literature on colonialism at that time.29 In fact, past studieshave counted dozens of major books and hundreds of articles in newspapers and




journals on this topic.30 In 1937 alone, the German Colonial Society’s catalogue—one

of the most important guides to books on the subject in Europe—featured ten major

German-language publications dealing with the Italians in Libya and Abyssinia.31 This

was exactly the number of German books published at the same time on the British

Empire, which had previously dominated the book lists, and is thus a good benchmark for comparison. Yet, while the authors depicted Italy’s undertakings as having bright

prospects, accounts concerning Great Britain’s colonialism told a story of misery,

decay and violence. Just a short look at the book titles is illuminating: Britain was

accused of ‘cultural imperialism’,32 of being a ‘pirate state’,33 of ‘robbing half the

world’34 and of ‘lying and leaving dead bodies’ on its way to empire.35 In sharp con-

trast, Abyssinia was ‘space as destiny’36 and ‘future colonial land’37 for the ‘rebirth’ of

‘immortal Rome’.38 In general, attributes such as ‘new’, ‘in the making’, ‘advanced’,

‘fresh’ and even ‘sober’ and ‘well organised’ were used repeatedly to describe Italian

colonialism. It would thus appear that traditional German stereotypes of Italians aslazy, dirty and chaotic began to erode at this time, if only for a short period.39 Ulti-

mately, however, the differing ways in which Fascist Italy and the British Empire

were presented to German audiences is more telling than the mere volume of

publications.

These books often rested upon the personal experiences of authors who had visited

Libya or Abyssinia, and thus appeared to be particularly authentic to German readers.

A good example is Louise Diel’s 1938 essay ‘Behold Our New Empire’.40 Diel, a very

popular journalist who published extensively on women as well as on Italian

fascism,41 was the first European to tour Abyssinia after the war had ended. In her

travel account she depicted East Africa as a ‘Holy Land’ for all Germans interestedin regaining the Reich’s colonies. Yet even Germans who had real experience with

the dirty business of colonialism showed enthusiasm, including Friedrich von Linde-

quist, the former governor of German Southwest Africa. Lindequist, who was part of a

German delegation of colonial experts that visited Libya in 1938, remained stunned by

the ‘enormous progress’ the country had made since his last trip twenty years prior.

Back home, he shared his impressions with a wider audience.42 Lindequist not only

delivered a lecture in 1939 to the Association for German Settlement Questions (an

important organisation that he headed), he also promoted fascist colonialism in his

function as a leading member of the German Colonial Society, which was the mostinfluential colonial lobby group.

These and other sources tell us that knowledge about Italian Africa was widespread

in Germany in the 1930s, and that it appealed to the colonial desires of many

Germans. This is important, as the Nazi leadership was able to capitalise on this

enthusiasm. Even though Hitler clearly favoured the Ostraum over African posses-

sions,43 he realised that he could use colonialism as a means of uniting German

society. It was particularly useful for winning the allegiance of the old bourgeois

elites who advocated recovering Germany’s lost overseas possessions.44 It is therefore

not surprising that the Nazi regime intensified its colonial propaganda after 1936.

Regaining territories on the ‘Dark Continent’ was presented as an additional goal of Nazi expansionism. As initial research suggests, the Nazi regime was quite successful

622 P. Bernhard



in propagating the notion that it was important to recover Germany’s colonial posses-

sions. When German soldiers who had been captured by the Allies during the Second

World War were asked during interrogations what they had been fighting for, many

not only answered ‘Lebensraum in Eastern Europe’, but also ‘colonies’.45 We thus

find that colonial ambitions, which were fuelled in part by the ‘positive’ exampleset by Fascist Italy, had a distinct role in mobilising German society to support the

Nazi dictatorship.

Eastern Europe as a German Abyssinia: Justifying Colonial Violence and Shaping

the Nazi Mind

The example furnished by Fascist Italy also served as a rhetorical tool for justifying the

territorial expansion envisaged by the Nazis in Eastern Europe. Furthermore—and

perhaps even more crucially—it shaped Hitler’s understanding of Nazism itself. It iscertainly true that the ‘grandeur’ of the British Empire appealed to the German dicta-

tor.46 Yet his famous statement of 1941 that ‘our India is Russia’—which is often

quoted, especially by British scholars47—is rarely juxtaposed against his frequent invo-

cation of various other models of expansionism, particularly Italian models.48 Musso-

lini’s regime was Hitler’s principal reference point for two reasons. First, Italy and

Germany occupied very similar geopolitical positions: in contrast to Britain and

France, both countries were ‘imperial parvenus’. Second, Italy was the first fascist dic-

tatorship in Europe and, in this way, was clearly the ‘benchmark’ for Hitler in terms of

racially justified expansionism.

Indeed, Hitler frequently made references to the Italian experience.49 As early as the1920s, long before the Rome–Berlin Axis, the future German dictator defended fascist

imperialism against its critics in Germany. While he at first backed Mussolini’s regime

primarily because he wanted to weaken France (Italian expansionism in the Mediter-

ranean clearly represented a threat to Germany’s main enemy),50 his emphasis soon

changed. In later speeches, Hitler repeatedly drew parallels between the Nazi move-

ment and Mussolini’s successful regime. These parallels helped to legitimise Hitler’s

own expansionist visions based on racism as well as Nazism in general. We must

keep in mind that well into the early 1930s, Hitler was in a very weak position politi-

cally: his racist worldview was not only harshly criticised, but also ridiculed as beingcompletely absurd. For a long time, it seemed as if his small Nazi Party would soon

perish, like many other volkish movements at the time. In such a situation, Fascist

Italy was of eminent importance—its role as a ‘beacon’ for Hitler can hardly be over-

estimated. Mussolini had already accomplished much of what Hitler still longed for.

The Duce had ‘simply done it’ and taken power, Hitler once said.51 By highlighting

Italy’s colonial experience, Hitler was able to allude to ‘achievements’ that Germany

could expect under his leadership. It goes without saying that Hitler had an idealised

image of Fascist Italy, yet precisely because his notions were idealised they were highly

attractive and could be instrumentalised in different contexts. By drawing parallels

between Mussolini’s regime and the Nazi movement, Hitler thus had a rhetoricaldevice to dignify and legitimise his own political struggle.




Like Germany, Hitler argued, Italy was a ‘late-comer’ as a nation-state that had been

denied large overseas territories. Furthermore, as Hitler wrote in the second volume of

Mein Kampf , in which he explained his foreign policy and especially his pro-Italian

leanings, Mussolini’s regime had a right to conquer and rule over foreign territories,

just as Germany did.52 In various public speeches given in the late 1920s, Hitleremphasised that Germany’s and Italy’s right to expand was grounded in part on

their rapidly growing populations. As young and dynamic nations, they simply

needed new ‘living space’. To reduce overpopulation, Italy could no longer rely on emi-

gration to the United States, which was closing its borders to Southern Europe. Fur-

thermore, many Italians were living as ethnic minorities abroad, especially in

Corsica, Southern France and Tunisia. While the Reich had its ‘German question’,

Italy had an unsettled ‘Italian question’.53 For Hitler, Italy’s ‘natural region of expan-

sion’ was the Mediterranean rim.54 ‘The Italy of today’, Hitler said, had recognised that

it had to turn away from a policy of unification and towards an imperialist policy.Emulating the expansionism of ancient Rome, which Hitler greatly admired, was

thus a ‘pure necessity’. It was not only required because of the pressures of overpopu-

lation, but was also a ‘volkish task’, for the peoples of Europe were in a constant

struggle for survival.55

For Hitler, there was no doubt that Fascist Italy would prevail in this struggle for

supremacy over the Mediterranean. After years of political, social and cultural

decay, the Fascists had changed the country completely and made it the only true

nationalist state in Europe. Guided by Mussolini, whom Hitler described as an ‘out-

standing genius’, Italy was even the first country to take up arms against the imminent

dangers of internationalism, as represented above all by Bolshevism.56

Fascist Italy was thus an ideal partner for a future Germany run by the Nazis, and

vice versa. As Hitler made clear, the Duce needed a strong Nazi Germany as well. In his

view, it was dangerous for fascism to remain isolated in Europe: sooner or later even

Mussolini’s Italy would regress to old ways of thinking.57 But, Hitler stated, there

would come a day in which these ‘two great peoples’ would be united under the

banner of fascism and solve their territorial problems together.58 At the end of his

reflections on Italy in Mein Kampf , Hitler drew a very strong parallel between the

expansionist zeal of both systems: if Germany sought new soil in Eastern Europe

while Mussolini’s Italy enlarged its sphere of influence in the Mediterranean by colo-nising North Africa, then the two states were not satisfying their ‘thirst for power’, as

they were often accused, but simply taking care of their ‘natural interests’.59

In the following years Hitler’s views on Fascist Italy remained quite consistent. In

July 1941, even though Mussolini’s regime had suffered serious military setbacks

that outraged Hitler, the Fuhrer remarked how similar the developments in

Germany and Italy had been in the decades since the unification of both countries

and how much he owed to Mussolini’s regime. As he claimed, the brownshirts

would probably not have come into existence without the blackshirts.60 The Italians

were truly skilled at colonisation, the Fuhrer added in August 1942 in an intimate con-

versation with his closest aides.61 They had even turned Rhodos, which had sunk fordecades into complete inertia under the Ottoman Empire, into a bustling island.62

624 P. Bernhard



Thanks to their industry and their years of experience the Italians could start a gigantic

colonisation project once the war was over, Hitler concluded.63

Much more so than in the 1920s, during the war years Hitler attributed the ‘colo-

nising virtues’ of the Italians to their alleged racial superiority. In this way, he drew a

direct parallel with the conquest of Eastern Europe by the Germans, who as the ‘masterrace’ had a legitimate right to subjugate other peoples. These parallels between Nazi

Germany and Fascist Italy on racial issues may come as a surprise to some, as

common wisdom still holds that racism was a point of difference between the two dic-

tatorships. Yet, as new research has made clear, racist doctrines were an essential

element of Italian Fascism. For many years there were also fruitful exchanges

between Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s state in terms of racial policies.64 It is therefore

not surprising that Hitler, when talking about state building and the colonisation

efforts of the Italians in the early 1940s, lauded the ‘greatness of the blood’ that had

prevailed over the Mediterranean since ancient times.

65

As far as ideology was con-cerned, for Hitler, Italy was a natural ally.66

While these private statements appear to serve Hitler by confirming his social Dar-

winist worldview and by placing his movement in a wider historical context of con-

quest and dominion, the Nazi regime also publicly linked Italian expansionism to

the much quoted ‘German right to colonies’.67 The idea behind these publications

was, on the one hand, to accustom German society to violent expansionism and, on

the other hand, to foster ties with Germany’s main Axis partner by supporting one

of Fascist Italy’s most ambitious geopolitical projects.

In a widely read publication at the time, Colonies in the Third Reich, Heinz Wilhelm

Bauer claims that, in the post-war order, both Italy and Germany had been systema-tically denied their ‘needs for colonies’. While Germany in 1919 had been forced to

cede all its overseas possessions, Italy, despite being on the winning side, did not

profit from the post-war arrangements. When the established colonial powers

divided the former German colonies, Italy was left out in the cold. In fact, under

the Treaty of London, Italy, Britain, France and Russia had agreed in 1915 that Italy

would be granted territorial compensation if it entered the First World War. According

to Bauer, the Allies had cheated Italy, and this was the reason why Mussolini had taken

the initiative and conquered Abyssinia.68 The unspoken message was that Germany

should do the same and actively challenge the territorial status quo established by the Treaty of Versailles.

Contemporary German authors were also very interested in the Italian rhetoric of

conquest. The writings of Luigi Valli, for example, attracted a strong following in

Germany. Valli’s essay The Right of Nations to Land was translated into German just

one year after Hitler’s takeover and popularised by the well-known sociologist

Robert Michels.69 The ‘radical ideas’ that stood behind Mussolini’s invasion of Abys-

sinia were a considerable driver of interest in Valli’s essay, publicist Richard Bahr wrote

in 1935 in his book People beyond the Frontiers: The Problem of German Minorities .70 As

the book’s title indicates, Bahr was part of the vast nationalist-volkish movement that

advocated revising the borders in Central and Eastern Europe to bring ethnic Germansliving in these regions into the fold of a ‘Greater Germany’.




Mussolini in turn had realised by that time that he and Hitler needed one another to

reshape the post-war European order. Mussolini’s Abyssinian campaign was author-

ised with an embargo enacted by the League of Nations (which from the beginning

had marginalised Italy). In a public speech given on the occasion of the 15th anniver-

sary of the ‘March on Rome’ in October 1937, Mussolini backed German demands foroverseas territories. For Mussolini, the Reich was entitled to a ‘place under the African

sun’. Just one year after the announcement of the Axis alliance, this was a sign of vital

importance: Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s right-hand man, was among those in attendance; he

had come to Italy with a delegation of high-ranking NSDAP members not only to

foster exchange between the parties, but also to see for himself what Germany’s

main partner was doing in Libya.71 Hess also attended the inauguration of Aprilia,

one of the five ‘new towns’ in the newly drained Pontine Marshes south of Rome.

Hess even stood behind Mussolini as the latter gave a speech on the balcony of the

new town hall. This was a meaningful gesture that had symbolic significance for the‘African campaign’, since the Pontine Marshes were an international showroom for

Italian settlement schemes. There, the model cities for Italy’s African colonies had

been tested and developed.

After 1933 the justification of German conquest through reference to Fascist Italy

was common in the Nazi press. Raumnot , or ‘lack of living space’, was viewed as a

problem faced not only by Germany, but Italy as well. Raumnot became a major

concern of many German writers, including—perhaps most famously—the political

geographer Karl Haushofer, who gave the Nazi ideology of Lebensraum a scholarly

patina.72 Italy’s colonial aspirations were also officially taught in German classrooms.

Volk and Fuhrer , the basic history textbook for German grammar schools, made adirect comparison between the Reich’s and Italy’s expansionist goals, underlining

that both countries had been denied ‘vital space’ for many years.73 To prepare for

teaching this topic, the Nazi Teachers’ Organisation provided additional information

in its journal.74

German publications also justified acts of extreme violence committed by the Italian

military in its colonies. Although an estimated 100,000 people died in Libya because of

Italy’s murderous anti-guerrilla policy against Arabs, Berbers and Jews,75 it was first

and foremost the war in Abyssinia that received huge attention and media coverage

in Germany. As we now know, between 350,000 and 760,000 Abyssinians from a popu-lation of 10 million died during Italy’s war of aggression and the subsequent occu-

pation.76 During the conflict, which began in October 1935, Italian armed forces

under the command of Emilio De Bono and Pietro Badoglio not only made ample

use of modern tanks, artillery and aircraft against a poorly equipped Ethiopian

army, they also crushed military resistance with naked terror: they bombed unde-

fended villages and towns, killed hostages, mutilated enemy corpses, established

several forced labour camps, committed numerous massacres as reprisals, deported

the indigenous intelligentsia and used poison gas not only against combatants, but

also against cattle. By the end of the Ethiopian campaign in May 1936, the Royal

Italian Airforce had deployed more than 300 tons of arsenic, phosgene and mustardgas. Fascist Italy was thus the first European state after the First World War to

626 P. Bernhard



conduct a policy of repression against people deemed racially inferior.77 According to

Swiss historian Aram Mattioli, in light of the extreme violence of the Ethiopian cam-

paign, it was not a conventional colonial war, but a military conflict that presaged the

Second World War.78

Contemporary German publications quite frankly talked about violence. A remark-able example is the war accounts written by the Italian generals Emilio De Bono and

Pietro Badoglio, which were translated almost immediately into German.79 Although

the diaries mostly dealt with war preparations and logistics, readers could guess how

brutal the war had been. Badoglio, for instance, boasted himself of having attacked the

enemy ‘without restraint’ and ‘mercilessly’.80 This was confirmed by Oskar Schmieder

and Herbert Wilhelmy, two leading German colonial geographers who toured the

Italian colonies in the late 1930s. In their travel account, they spoke of the many thou-

sands killed in the conquest of these territories, yet did not show any pity for the

victims.

81

The Germans were also well aware that Italy’s imperial project involvedthe deportation of the native population to make way for Italian settlers, but they

described such measures as necessary. ‘Some resettlement of the native population’

was inevitable, observed Friedrich Vochting, a well-known agronomist and an impor-

tant academic intermediary between Italy and Germany.82 German publications even

addressed forms of warfare banned by the Geneva Convention, such as the use of

poison gas.83 This weapon had brought victory to the Italians, the author of Italy’s

Road to the Empire explained to his German readership.84

Yet the one to praise Italian war crimes the most was Rudolf von Xylander, a retired

Reichswehr colonel and military historian. Von Xylander, who was an early advocate of

Italo-German reconciliation after the First World War,85 published a book in 1937 onthe Abyssinian conflict, which he called the ‘first modern war of annihilation on colo-

nial soil’.86 Using this phrasing, von Xylander did not mean to accuse the Italians of

genocide. Rather, he saw it as a compliment. The term ‘war of annihilation’ (Vernich-

tungskrieg ) referred to the complete destruction of the enemy and its erasure as a

socio-political force.87 According to von Xylander, in this sense Italy’s war effort was

exemplary, including its use of poison gas and forced deportations. As an instructor

von Xylander had an opportunity to propagate his knowledge of Italian methods in

Abyssinia; he taught not only at the Military Academy in Berlin, but also at the

German Institute for Foreign Relations, where the future political elite of the Naziregime was being trained. There, von Xylander and other experts on Italy gave

courses on ‘people and space within the Fascist Empire’.88

Von Xylander’s book was received very favourably by military experts and scholars

who voluntarily supported the Nazi leadership in their plans for conquest and forced

resettlement. A good example was the positive review published in the Journal of

Geography , Germany’s leading specialised journal which was edited, among others,

by Heinrich Schmitthenner.89 As a professor of colonial geography at the University

of Leipzig, from 1940 onward Schmitthenner helped to circulate scholarly arguments

in favour of Hitler’s expansionist course. Schmitthenner became editor-in-chief of a

huge book project entitled Questions of Living Space of European People,90 whichlent the murderous biopolitics of the Nazi regime in Eastern Europe a scientific




basis. Not surprisingly, a large chapter was dedicated to Italy’s brutal colonial policy:

based on the studies of von Xylander, Vochting, Schmieder and others, the African

conquests of Germany’s main partner were rationalised as a quest for Lebensraum.91

One of the most prominent individuals in the Third Reich to make of use these jus-

tifying arguments was Carl Schmitt. A political theorist and leading German jurist whohad been of one the many scholars in the 1920s to praise Mussolini’s state as a way of

discrediting the Weimar Republic,92 Schmitt explicitly linked Italy’s invasion of Abys-

sinia to the Reich’s aggression against its eastern neighbours. Following the Wehr-

macht’s occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 and Hitler’s annexation of the

country, which was dubbed the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Schmitt

wrote that the Reich’s expansionism was justified by international law, just as Italy’s

expansionism had been justified in Abyssinia. According to Schmitt, a minimum of

order was required to call a state a state. Yet this essential precondition had not

been met in East Africa or in Bohemia, for ‘not all people are able to give proof of their abilities in terms of nation building’.93 Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany thus

had a natural right to annex these territories as protectorates, and to dominate the

Slavs and Africans living there. In this way, Schmitt advanced a highly tendentious

reading of international law, harnessing it as a weapon in Nazi Germany’s struggle

for ascendancy.

Schmitt’s essay played an important role in discussions concerning the intellectual

foundations of the ‘new order’ in Eastern Europe. It was only around 1941 that his

understanding of Großraumordnung (which translates roughly as ‘the order of large

spaces or regions’) was rejected and replaced by even more radical approaches,

approaches that denied the very existence of international law.94 At the very sametime that Italy suffered major military setbacks, Hitler began to use other historical

analogies to justify his political policies, such as the colonialism of the British

Empire. It is in this historical context that we must understand Hitler’s famous

remark (mentioned earlier) concerning Eastern Europe as Germany’s India. Until

1941, however, as German publications and Hitler’s internal statements on Italian

colonialism clearly demonstrate, Mussolini’s regime was an important point of refer-

ence and role model for the inner circle of the Nazi regime as well as for German

society at large.

Apartheid and Fascist Law and Order: Learning Colonial Lessons

German interest in Italian colonialism was not simply an abstract intellectual endea-

vour. Indeed, on a practical level the Germans borrowed heavily from the Italian colo-

nial experience when developing plans for their own future colonies.95 Beginning in

1933 and with increasing intensity after the spring of 1940, the Nazi regime developed

very detailed plans for a German Mittelafrika. These plans, which called for the exploi-

tation of Africa’s resources, envisioned German colonies encompassing the former

German East Africa, the Belgian Congo, French Senegal and Madagascar. Indeed,

before the ‘Final Solution’ was decided upon in 1941, it was thought that Madagascarcould serve as a ‘super ghetto’ for the relocation of Europe’s Jews.96

628 P. Bernhard



Italian colonialism was ‘inspirational’ because many Nazi officials did not want to

rely on German colonial experiences when planning future colonies. Rather, they

wanted to break with their country’s traditions. There were two reasons for this.

First of all, the simple reinstatement of former German colonial rule was not feasible.97

Many years had passed since the country had lost its overseas possessions, as an officialof the Reich’s Ministry of Justice explained during a meeting tasked with developing

guidelines for the legislation of future colonies. In the interim period, the Reich’s pol-

itical and legal situation had not only changed, but the natives and their way of dealing

with the Europeans were ‘profoundly’ different as well. It was thus necessary to enlarge

and bring the country’s ‘colonial archive’ up to date by studying the methods other

European powers were now applying in their colonies. In this context, Mussolini’s

regime was said to be of ‘particular importance’. Yet what distinguished Italian colonial

rule from that of other European countries was that it developed its territories ‘in the

spirit of the Fascist idea’. A ‘strong inspiration’ for Nazi Germany was in particular thestrict stance the Italians took in ‘race relations’, the German official explained. Musso-

lini’s regime had introduced laws prohibiting ‘racial mixing’ and severely punished any

transgressions of the ‘colour lines’. London and Paris, by contrast, were said to have

adopted a weak line in racial affairs. While the British contented themselves with dis-

criminating against ‘half-castes’ in economic terms, the French even allowed ‘coloured

people’ to assimilate.

As the Germans looked more closely at Africa Italiana, they also became aware of

what they termed as fundamental flaws in their former overseas policies; the colonisa-

tion undertaken under the Kaiser was now seen as appallingly outdated. The colonial

activities in, say, German Southwest Africa had been a ‘complete disaster’, since settlershad been left alone by a laissez-faire German state. Therefore, ‘completely different

methods’ had to be applied, said Fritz Tiebel, the head of the Reich’s Association

for Civil Servants, an organisation that was very active in developing plans for the

future colonies.98 What were needed were massive state interventions and a long-

term development plan, Heinrich Walter, an expert on colonial geobotany and scien-

tific advisor to the Nazi planning staff, said. In this regard, Italy could serve as a model.

Walter knew the social and political realities both in the former German colonies and

Italian Africa quite well, as he had undertaken comparative field trips to Libya and

Namibia.

99

Italian colonialism in Africa informed German planning in three different areas: in

its overarching settlement policies; in its conception of future colonial infrastructure;

and in its approach to racist population management. With the German invasion of

France, Belgium and the Netherlands, Germany’s new colonial empire seemed

within grasp: the Nazi regime hoped to take over these countries’ African possessions.

For many German colonial experts, huge opportunities thus arose for implementing

racist utopias of social engineering. Yet thousands of German settlers were needed

to occupy these new territories. As a result, Germany needed new settlement policies.

In this situation, the German think tanks commissioned with spatial planning almost

immediately turned to Italy for inspiration. In March 1940, Paul Ritterbusch strongly recommended studying ‘modern Italian colonisation methods’ and sponsoring further




scholarly work on Libya. As he explained in an internal meeting, Germany could

benefit very much from the experiences the Italians had gained in Africa.100

Another fervent admirer of Fascist Italy was Oskar Schmieder, an expert on German

migration to Latin America, president of the German Geographical Society and a high-

ranking member of Ritterbusch’s team. As Schmieder explained, Mussolini had redir-ected the flow of emigrants. Instead of ‘losing’ thousands of people every year to the

Americas, the Italians had re-settled them in their own colonies. During a study trip to

Libya a few years prior, he had learned how successful the Duce had been with his

policy; thousands of Italians already lived in Africa and many more were soon to

join them. As Schmieder said, the Reich should be able to ‘repatriate’ ethnic

Germans as well.101 Spurred by the Italian example, the German scholar advocated

an enormous population transfer between South America and the ‘Dark Continent’:

no less than 200,000 of the 1.2 million people of German origin Schmieder had ident-

ified in his scholarly work as living in Argentina and Brazil were to be relocated toAfrica in the near future.102 In his radical plans he felt backed by Hitler, who also sup-

ported the return of ethnic Germans living in the Americas to the Volksgemeinschaft .103

As soon as Germany had won the war, these plans were to be put into practice.

Italy was also an intriguing model for the ‘imperial infrastructure’ Germany planned

to implement in its future colonies.104 The Germans were particularly interested in the

extensive road system the Italians had built in East Africa in order to develop and

control their new possessions. Between 1936 and 1941 the Italians laid more than

4,000 kilometres of asphalt roads. Leading Nazi officials and the military alike were

impressed by the project, in which Mussolini’s regime took great pride.105 One of

the first to articulate his admiration was Colonel Heinz Guderian, who played acrucial role in developing Germany’s modern armoured tactics. Even though the

Wehrmacht could not learn much from the Abyssinian campaign in terms of

armoured warfare (as Guderian rightly remarked, there had been no panzer battles,

for the Ethiopian forces did not possess a single tank), Guderian was ‘most impressed’

by the communication systems developed by the Royal Italian Army and private com-

panies.106 Guderian’s remarks were by no means mere lip service to Germany’s ally. In

1942, Hitler himself lauded the technical skills of Italian engineers and drew yet

another parallel between Africa and the Ostraum. What was crucial in German-occu-

pied Russia as well as in Italian-occupied Egypt was the penetration of the territorieswith the necessary physical infrastructure, Hitler said, adding that the Italians had

been ‘great road builders’ since ancient times. Hitler was convinced that the Italians,

who had already shown themselves to be ‘extremely industrious’ in Abyssinia and

Libya, would turn their newly conquered territories into ‘colonial paradises’ as well.107

The degree to which the Germans were impressed by Italian road building was

demonstrated by yet another incident. In October 1940, Fritz Todt, who was respon-

sible for the Reich’s motorways, commissioned a colonial working group on road con-

struction with the task of preparing for the return of Germany’s colonies. Todt

expressly stated that Italy should serve as a ‘model’, and recommended sending

German engineers to Abyssinia to gain first-hand information about the Italians’activities.108 Todt, who had completed his PhD in engineering on the technical

630 P. Bernhard



aspects of modern road construction, had long-standing ties with Italian experts, and

had been in close contact with the building contractor Piero Puricelli since the mid-

1920s.109 Under Puricelli’s guidance, Fascist Italy had become the first country in

Europe to build motorways. Long before Hitler instrumentalised motorway construc-

tion for propaganda purposes, the Italian Fascists were spotlighting autostrade as oneof their great achievements and as proof of their commitment to progress and mod-

ernisation. It was thus no coincidence that immediately after Hitler’s takeover, Todt

was charged with modernising Germany’s road network. Once again Italy served as

the main point of reference. It was argued that, just like Italy, Germany needed a cen-

tralised agency to manage the modernisation of its road infrastructure. Thus, Todt

owed his job as inspector general for German roadways at least in part to the Ita-

lians.110 Against this backdrop, it was natural for him to look in 1940 to Italian colo-

nialism for inspiration, all the more so because the main constructor of the Abyssinian

road system was his friend Puricelli. Indeed, until 1943, when Germany was forced tobury all hopes for an African empire following its defeat at El Alamein, Todt’s working

group elaborated a very detailed road plan for the future colonies. With characteristic

German efficiency, maps had even been printed for the roads still to be built.

German strategies for managing the populations ‘inherited’ from the Italians were

similarly detailed. A striking example is the apartheid system Mussolini’s regime

applied to overseas possessions to segregate natives and nationals.111 In the numerous

new towns the Fascists built in East Africa, there were quarters established exclusively

for Italians and for Ethiopians, buffered by a ‘neutral zone’ consisting of official build-

ings and public facilities such as schools, administrative buildings, cinemas, medical

facilities, hotels and party offices. Thus, there was a clear racist vision behind Fascistcity planning; cities were designed to prevent the ‘superior’ Italian stock from being

‘contaminated’ by inferior Africans. Accordingly, in 1937 the Italians prohibited

‘race mixing’, intermarriage as well as regular extramarital sexual intercourse

between Italian settlers and colonial subjects.

Even though the Italians did not always manage to enforce their apartheid

system,112 the German colonial planning staff was fascinated by Italy’s efforts. As an

official of the Nazi Party’s Colonial Office explained in 1942 in a lengthy memo, an

apartheid system was essential for reasons of ‘racial policy’.113 It was stated that this

was a good means of preserving the ‘integrity’ of the ‘Aryan race’. Furthermore, thenew towns with their vast social and recreational facilities also guaranteed a ‘well-

ordered family life’. Women and children simply needed schools and maternity hospi-

tals, it was asserted, and the advantage of the Italian model was that these facilities

existed even before the first settlers had arrived. In sharp contrast to the former

German colonies, where public services had always lagged behind, the official con-

cluded, Italian authorities were thus able to meet the settlers’ needs right from the

beginning. Finally, the various cultural and social facilities the Italian new towns

offered to white settlers were vital for fostering a ‘sense of community’, which was

the quintessence of Nazi ideology. The Italians thus demonstrated ‘prudent colonial

policy’, he concluded.




This very same official designed a one-to-one copy of the Italian layout for such a

town. Here, again, Italy’s role as a model became manifest. As one can see from Figures

1 and 2, the scheme for a model German settlement in Mittelafrika was almost iden-

tical to the town map of Adama, a city in central Ethiopia 60 miles south-east of Addis

Ababa. In both schemes, we find the same well-defined quarters for nationals (markedin light grey), quarters for natives (marked in dark grey) and neutral zones with public

facilities in between. The two ethnic groups were supposed to enter the neutral zone

from their respective quarters, thus reducing interracial contact to a minimum. Spatial

segregation was also accompanied by legal discrimination. When drafting racial laws

for their future colonies, German planners drew specifically on Italian Fascist legis-

lation (in addition to South Africa’s Immorality Act of 1927).114 This means that,

when prohibiting ‘racial mixing’, the Germans did not refer exclusively to their own

racist traditions, but, again, looked to a wider international context of exclusion

and repression.The Germans were also eager to learn from the Italians in another field: policing. It

was Heinrich Himmler himself, the head of the SS and a friend to the long-serving

chief of the Italian police Arturo Bocchini, who pushed for closer ties with the Polizia

dell’Africa Italiana (PAI).115 The PAI saw itself as an elite formation of the Fascist

regime. Founded only in 1936, it was composed mainly of veterans of the Spanish

Figure 1 Scheme for a model German settlement in Mittelafrika.Source: German National Archives in Berlin (BArch), NS 52/42.

632 P. Bernhard



Civil War who had experienced the brutality of modern warfare. For this reason, the

PAI was much more appealing to Himmler than the carabinieri, which he considered

to be a traditional force that had never truly breathed the ‘Fascist spirit’.

From 1936 onwards German and Italian colonial police collaborated in numerous

ways. The PAI put its entire intelligence service in Africa at Himmler’s disposal.

116

Fur-thermore, the corps also helped to train the future German colonial police. In 1939,

Himmler and his Italian counterpart agreed that SS officers would be schooled at

the PAI’s Police Academy in Tivoli, near Rome. Between 1940 and 1943, more than

150 German policemen received training in colonial geography, tropical hygiene

and ‘race relations’, among other subjects. They constituted the core of the future colo-

nial security force, the creation of which Hitler himself had urged in 1940 to prepare

for the return of Germany’s colonial possessions.117

The PAI also served as a blueprint for organising colonial counterinsurgency.

German police experts were particularly struck by the highly effective way in which

the Italians had crushed native resistance in Abyssinia. As Fritz Kummetz, a liaisonofficer of the German Schutzpolizei, reported back home after a meeting with his

Figure 2 City map of Adama, Abyssinia.Source: Annali dell’Africa Italiana, 14 (1939), p. 429.




colleagues in Rome in June 1939, the Italian authorities had established heavily

equipped and motorised quick reaction forces to fight ‘rebels’ and to ‘pacify’ the Abys-

sinian countryside.118 Indeed, after the Italian victory in May 1936 numerous Ethio-

pians had challenged Fascist dominion and started what turned out to be a protracted

guerrilla conflict.119

Soon after his visit to Africa, Fritz Kummetz developed a special forces unit for colo-

nial counterinsurgency operations. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he described the unit using

almost exactly the same words with which he had characterised the Italian formations.

According to Kummetz, what Germany needed was a cohesive, well-equipped and

highly mobile expeditionary force to eliminate revolt and unrest in its nascent

stages.120 In the final analysis, the Germans adopted heavily from the Italian Fascists’

experiences with the occupation of Abyssinia. The example furnished by the Italians

thus helped to prepare the Reich for its own expansionist undertakings, not only in

terms of the rhetoric and ideology, but also in practical terms in the administrationand enforcement of empire.

Concluding Remarks

These findings challenge our understanding of colonialism and Nazism in at least

two respects. First, it becomes clear that colonial thought after 1918 had a much

greater impact on postcolonial Germany than has been commonly held. It was not

a mere tool of Nazi foreign policy, as Klaus Hildebrand argued in his influential

book from 1969.121 For Hildebrand, German demands for colonies were first and

foremost a bargaining chip in negotiations with the British, for they would allow Hitler to establish a favourable negotiating position when it came to his expansionist

goals in Eastern Europe. From this perspective, colonialism was of little actual

importance to the Germans. Yet Hildebrand analysed German colonialism only as

it related to foreign policy. A broader perspective reveals that colonialism had an

important social and cultural dimension for the Germans, and that Fascist Italy’s

expansionist policies in Africa played a key role in Hitler’s political thinking.

Italian Africa served as an alluring example of how Germany could regain its

former imperial grandeur. In this way, Germany did not have to mourn the loss of

its colonies, but could look forward to a promising future and make plans for a‘modern’ and thus much improved German colonial empire. Hitler, in turn, felt vin-

dicated by the Italians when it came to his own visions of brutal conquest. As his

statements make clear, the highly successful Fascist example encouraged him to

plough ahead against difficulties. He saw his own dictatorship and Mussolini’s

regime as parts of a much wider and necessary historical process—namely, the

victory of fascism as the dominant political regime of the twentieth century in its

struggle against liberal democracies and communism.

Second, Hitler’s recurrent references to the Italian example provide a new perspec-

tive on Nazi Germany. The Third Reich was not as sovereign, independent, isolated or

singular as historical research has long suggested.122 Instead, by constantly drawingreferences to Mussolini’s state, which had set the ‘international standard’ for right-

634 P. Bernhard



wing dictatorships, the Nazis reassured themselves that they were on the right path as

they entered into unknown territory. At the same time, Italian fascism allowed for a

clear break with German traditions, colonial or otherwise. As previous research has

made clear, Hitler had a quite ambivalent relationship to German history.123 For

him, Germany’s past was characterised for centuries by defeats, foreign rule and alack of political unity. Drawing reference to Fascist Italy, and especially to colonialism

as one of its most prestigious projects, was thus a good way of escaping Germany’s own

inglorious past and of propelling the country towards a form of modernity that was

seen by many as a forward-thinking and dynamic. Gustav Strohm’s report from

Addis Ababa, quoted at the very beginning of this article, is a good example of how

this process of distancing actually worked out: by describing Mussolini’s colonialism

as a unique endeavour, he repositioned Nazi Germany in a glorious new fascist world.

Notes

[1] Dispatch of the German Consul General in Addis Ababa, Gustav Strohm, 22 Nov. 1938 (copy),

1, National Archives Berlin (hereafter BArch), series Reichskolonialamt (R 1001), 9714.

[2] Bernhard, ‘Die Kolonialachse’.

[3] For more on this discussion, see Baranowski, Nazi Empire; Stone, Histories of the Holocaust ,

ch. 5.

[4] For the US, see Alpers, Dictators. For Latin America, see Finchelstein, Transatlantic Fascism. For

the UK, see Stone, Responses. For Portugal, see Saraiva, ‘Fascist Labscapes’. For the Asian world,

see, among others, Delfs, Hindu-Nationalismus; Hoffmann, The Fascist Reflection.

[5] Bauerkamper, ‘Interwar Fascism’.

[6] On the reception of Fascist family policy in Austria, see Weindling, ‘A City Regenerated’;Walter, Frauenpolitik .

[7] For Spain’s and Germany’s interest in fascist policing, see Ivani, Esportare il fascismo; Bern-

hard, ‘Konzertierte Gegnerbekampfung’.

[8] Bernhard, ‘Metropolen auf Achse’.

[9] Liebscher, Freude und Arbeit .

[10] For thelink between pronatalism and colonial expansion, see Ben-Ghiat, Fascist Modernities, 20.

[11] Ipsen, Dictating Demography ; Quine, Italy’s Social Revolution.

[12] Dogliani, Il fascismo, 103; Mantovani, Rigenerare la societa.

[13] See especially Pergher, Tale of Two Borders, 293.

[14] Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire.

[15] Smith, Mussolini, 170.[16] Valli, Il Diritto. On Valli, see briefly Gregor, Mussolini’s Intellectuals, 38.

[17] Salerno, Vital Crossroads, 105– 06.

[18] See Horn, ‘Constructing the Sterile City’; Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt , 531– 23.

[19] See Pergher, Tale of Two Borders, 465– 70.

[20] Russell, ‘Agricultural Colonization’.

[21] Sterling Frost, ‘The Reclamation’, 595.

[22] See the memo ‘Colonization of Libya’ by the military attache of the British Embassy in Rome,

15 June 1939, Public Record Office (hereafter PRO)/The National Archives, Kew (hereafter

TNA), series Foreign Office (hereafter FO), 371, 23391.

[23] Indeed, as the latest research has made clear, the age of empire was to wane only in the second

half of the twentieth century. See Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung , 606.

[24] On Knecht, see Wegmann, ‘Kokospalme mit Hakenkreuz’.

[25] ‘24 Jahre in Abessinien’, evening edition of the Freiburger Stadtanzeiger , 24 Oct. 1935.




[26] Bernhard, ‘Kulturachse Munchen-Verona’.

[27] For the complete list of lectures given, see http://www.freiburg-postkolonial.de/Seiten/uni-va.

htm (accessed 17 May 2012).

[28] ‘Chronik der Deutsche-Italienischen Gesellshaft’, 156, 283.

[29] Laak, Imperiale Infrastruktur , 289. On the booming book market, see Borsenblatter , 48.

[30] Bartikowski, ‘Italy’s Abyssinian Campaign’, 39; Hoffend, Zwischen Kultur-Achse und Kultur-

kampf , 194.

[31] See Katalog der Bibliothek . The author has counted the books on Italian colonialism in

German listed under the category ‘Fremde Kolonialpolitik’ and complemented it with

similar publications catagorised as ‘Allgemeine Kolonialgeschichte’.

[32] Thierfelder, Englischer Kulturimperialismus.

[33] Gadow, Seerauberstaat England .

[34] Henner, Sie raubten.

[35] Springborn, U ¨ ber Lu gen.

[36] Herrmann, Abessinien.

[37] Von zur Muhlen, ‘Abessinien als zukunftiges Kolonialland’.

[38] See Gruhl, Die Wiedergeburt des Imperiums; Mayer, Imperium– Fascismus.[39] For more detail, see Dipper, Traditionen.

[40] Diel, Sieh unser neues Land ; in English, Behold our New Empire.

[41] Schieder, ‘Audienz bei Mussolini’, 127.

[42] Lindequist, Die Entwicklung .

[43] See, in particular, Dulffer, ‘Kolonialismus ohne Kolonien’.

[44] Kundrus, ‘German Colonialism’, 31.

[45] Gentile, ‘Wehrmacht’.

[46] Similarly Graml, Hitler und England , 14, who points out that Hitler understood the British

Empire only superficially.

[47] See, for instance, Kay, Exploitation, Resettlement, Mass Murder , 80.

[48] Entry of 17 –18 Sept. 1941, Adolf Hitler: Monologe, 62.[49] See the almost identical insights of Stone, Histories of the Holocaust , 225.

[50] As stated by Hitler in a speech during a party reunion in Munich on the 30 March 1927. Hitler:

Reden, vol. 2, 221–25.

[51] Woller, Rom, 28 Oktober 1922, 192– 93.

[52] Hitler: Reden, vol. 2A, 137.

[53] As stated by Hitler during a speech during a Fuhrertagung in Bamberg on 14 Feb. 1926. See

ibid., vol. 1, 294.

[54] As stated by Hitler on 12 Feb. 1926. See ibid., vol. 1, 280.

[55] Ibid., vol. 2A, 138– 39.

[56] Ibid, vol. 1, 270. Almost identical is Hitler’s article ‘Warum mußte ein 8. November kommen?’

of April 1924. See Hitler: Samtliche Aufzeichnungen, 1226.[57] Hitler: Reden, vol. 2A, 180.

[58] As stated by Hitler in a speech in Munich on 13 April 1927. See ibid., vol. 2, 277.

[59] Ibid., vol. 2A, 139.

[60] Entry of 21 –22 July 1941, Adolf Hitler, Monologe, 43–44.

[61] Entry of 5 Aug. 1942, ibid., 328.

[62] Entry of 12 Nov. 1941, ibid., 62.

[63] Entry of 5 Sept. 1942, ibid., 333.

[64] Gordon, ‘Race’.

[65] Entry of 17 Feb. 1942, Adolf Hitler, Monologe, 278; see the very similar entry of 31 Jan. 1942,

ibid., 244 –48.

[66] Entry of 5 Aug. 1942, ibid., 328.[67] Hildebrand, Vom Reich zum Weltreich, 236.

636 P. Bernhard

http://www.freiburg-postkolonial.de/Seiten/uni-va.htm






[68] Bauer, Kolonien im Dritten Reich, 59.

[69] Valli, Il Diritto. In German under the title Das Recht . Michels, ‘Prolegomena’.

[70] Bahr, Volk jenseits der Grenzen, 447.

[71] For the visit, see Patzold and Weissbecker, Rudolf Heß, 184.

[72] Haushofer, Deutsche Kulturpolitik , 38. For other examples, see Lengauer, Wir rufen Europa;

Westermanns Monatshefe 159 (1935): 67.

[73] Volk und Fuhrer , 189. For the textbook, see Pine, Education in Nazi Germany , 68.

[74] Der Deutsche Erzieher 7 (1940): 218.

[75] Bernhard, ‘Behind the Battle Lines’.

[76] Mattioli, ‘Entgrenzte Kriegsgewalt’.

[77] De Grand, ‘Mussolini’s Follies’.

[78] Mattioli, Experimentierfeld der Gewalt .

[79] De Bono, Die Vorbereitungen; Badoglio, Der abessinische Krieg .

[80] Badoglio, 137– 38.

[81] Schmieder and Wilhelmy, Die faschistische Kolonisation, 8– 12.

[82] Vochting, ‘Italienische Siedelung in Libyen’, 145.

[83] Klein, Warum Krieg in Abessinien, 73.[84] Herrmann, Italiens Weg , 85.

[85] Von Xylander had been member of the Society for Italo-German Reconciliation, a forerunner

of the Italo-German Cultural Society, since the early 1930s. See Newsletter No. 10 of the

Gesellschaft fur Deutsch-Italienische Verstandigung, 5 Dec. 1932, City Archive of Munich

(hereafter StA Munchen), B., Burgermeister und Rat, 1173.

[86] Von Xylander, Die Eroberung Abessiniens 1935/36 .

[87] Foley, ‘From Volkskrieg to Vernichtungskreig’; Kuß, ‘Von der Vernichtungsschlacht’.

[88] Schedule of lectures for the year 1940 of the Auslandswissenschaftlichen Fakultat, University

of Berlin, BArch, R 1501, 127190, 160.

[89] Geographische Zeitschrift 44 (1938): 180–81.

[90] Lebensraumfragen europdıscher Volker , vol. 2.[91] See Bernhard, ‘Lebensraumwissenschaft’.

[92] Balakrishnan, The Enemy .

[93] Schmitt, Volkerrechtliche Großraumordnung , 59.

[94] Majer, ‘Fremdvolkische’ im Dritten Reich.

[95] Even though these plans have attracted much scholarly attention, Italy’s role as a model has

been almost totally neglected. For the most recent account, see Linne, Deutschland jenseits

des Aquators? .

[96] Baranowski, Nazi Empire, 257.

[97] Confidential memo of Oberjustizrat Cusen, Reich’s Ministry of Justice, on the Organization of

the Protectorates. Guidelines for German Colonial Legislation, Dec. 1938, BArch, R 3001,

22364, 145.[98] Fritz Tiebel, head of the Reichsbeamtenbund, in a conversation with Colonel Osti, secretary of

the Italian Ministry for Africa Italiana. See letter of Bernardo Attolico to Foreign Minister

Ciano, 19 Nov. 1938, in I Documenti, vol. 10, 460.

[99] Walter had toured Libya in 1939. See his report on the 8th International Congress of Tropical

and Sub-Tropical Agriculture in Tripoli [probably March 1939], BArch Berlin, R 1001, 8680, 84.

[100] Memo No. 1972/40 of the Reichsforschungsstelle fur Raumplanung, March 1940, BArch

Berlin, series Reichsstelle fur Raumordnung (R 113), 1586, 13.

[101] Report on the special meeting of the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft fur Raumforschung, 13 April

1940, ibid., 27–28.

[102] See also Bernhard, ‘Lebensraumwissenschaft’, 354– 56.

[103] Adolf Hitler, Monologe, 90.[104] Laak, ‘Ist je ein Reich’.




[105] For the important role played by roads for the Fascists, see Baxa, Roads.

[106] Macksey, Guderian, Panzer General , 72; Habeck, Storm of Steel .

[107] Tischgesprache, 435.

[108] Linne, ‘Weiße Arbeiterfuhrer’ , 396.

[109] Zeller, Driving Germany , 48.

[110] Akten der Reichskanzlei, vol. 1, 560.

[111] Fuller, Moderns Abroad .

[112] Fuller, ‘Oases of Ambiguity’.

[113] Memo of the Colonial Office of the NSDAP regarding the creation of cultural centers in the

colonies, 14 July 1942, BArch, NS 52, 42.

[114] Kundrus, ‘Von Windhoek nach Nurnberg?’, 120–26.

[115] Bernhard. ‘Konzertierte Gegnerbekampfung’.

[116] Confidential report of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt regarding the colonial intelligence

service of Maraffa, the chief of the Italian colonial police, 23 March 1941, BArch, RSHA

Film D, 750, fol. 70001–03.

[117] Schreiber, ‘Die politische und militarische Entwicklung’, 258. Cf. the letter of Daluege, chief of

the Ordnungspolizei, 13 Jan. 1942, Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv (BayHStA), Reichsstatthal-ter Epp, 362, 2.

[118] See his notes on the meeting in Rome, 7 June 1939, 1, BArch, R 1001, 9714.

[119] Dominioni, Lo sfascio dell imperio.

[120] Guidelines for the colonial police ordinance, 30 April 1940, BArch, R 1001, 9759.

[121] Hildebrand, Vom Reich zum Weltreich.

[122] Kershaw, ‘Hitler’.

[123] Wirsching, Vom Weltkrieg zum Burgerkrieg? , 348–49.

References

Adolf Hitler, Monologe im Fuhrer-Hauptquartier 1941–1944: Die Aufzeichnungen Heinrich Heims,

edited by Werner Jochmann. Hamburg: Knaus, 1980.

Akten der Reichskanzlei: Regierung Hitler (ARH) 1933–1938, Vol. 1, 30. Januar bis 31. August 1933,

edited by Konrad Repgen. Boppard am Rhein: Boldt, 1983.

Alpers, Benjamin L. Dictators, Democracy, and American Public Culture: Envisioning the Totalitarian

Enemy . Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

Badoglio, Pietro. Der abessinische Krieg . Munich: Beck, 1937.

Bahr, Richard. Volk jenseits der Grenzen: Geschichte und Problematik der deutschen Minderheiten . 2nd

edn. Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1935.

Balakrishnan, Gopal. The Enemy: An Intellectual Portrait of Carl Schmitt . New York: Verso, 2000.Baranowski, Shelley. Nazi Empire: German Colonialism and Imperialism from Bismarck to Hitler .

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Bartikowski, Kilian. ‘Italy’s Abyssinian Campaign.’ In Fascism, Communism and the Consolidation of

Democracy , edited by Gerhard Besier, Francesca Piombo and Katarzyna Stokłosa. Berlin: Lit

Verlag, 2006.

Bauer, Heinz Wilhelm. Kolonien im Dritten Reich, Vol. 1. Cologne: Westdeutscher Beobachter, 1936.

Bauerkamper, Arnd. ‘Interwar Fascism in Europe and Beyond: Toward a Transnational Radical

Right.’ In New Perspectives on the Transnational Right , edited by Martin Durham and Margaret

Power, 39–66. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Baxa, Paul. Roads and Ruins: The Symbolic Landscape of Fascist Rome. Toronto: University of Toronto

Press, 2010.

Ben-Ghiat, Ruth. Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922–1945. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,

2001.

638 P. Bernhard



Bernhard, Patrick. ‘Behind the Battle Lines: Italian Atrocities and the Persecution of Arabs, Berbers,

and Jews in North Africa during World War II.’ Holocaust and Genocide Studies 26, no. 3

(2012): 425–446.

Bernhard, Patrick. ‘Die Kolonialachse: Der NS-Staat und Italienisch-Afrika 1935 bis 1943.’ In Die

‘Achse’ im Krieg, Politik, Ideologie und Kriegfuhrung 1939 bis 1945, edited by Thomas Schlem-

mer, Lutz Klinkhammer and Amedeo Osti Guerrazzi, 147–175. Paderborn: Schoningh, 2010.

Bernhard, Patrick. ‘Konzertierte Gegnerbekampfung im Achsenbundnis: Die Polizei im Dritten

Reich und im faschistischen Italien 1933 bis 1943.’ Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte 59

(2011): 229–262.

Bernhard, Patrick. ‘Kulturachse Munchen-Verona: A Town Twinning Project Spanning Fascism and

European Reconciliation.’ Paper presented at the 33rd Annual Conference of the German

Studies Association, Washington, DC,11 Sept. 2009.

Bernhard, Patrick. ‘Lebensraumwissenschaft: Die Kieler Geographen, die NS-Volkstumsforschung

und der Traum von einem deutschen Kolonialreich.’ In Wissenschaft an der Grenze: Die Uni-

versitat Kiel im Nationalsozialismus, 2nd edn, edited by Christoph Cornelißen and Carsten

Mish, 341–358. Essen: Klartext, 2010.

Bernhard, Patrick. ‘Metropolen auf Achse: Stadtebau und Großstadtgesellschaften Roms und Berlinsim faschistischen Bundnis 1936 –1943.’ In Berlin im Nationalsozialismus: Politik und

Gesellschaft 1933– 1945, edited by Rudiger Hachtmann, Thomas Schaarschmidt and Winfried

Suß, 132–157. Gottingen: Wallstein, 2011.

Borsenblatter fur den deutschen Buchhandel , Vol. 160. Frankfurt am Main: Borsenverein des

Deutschen Buchhandels, 1993.

‘Chronik der Deutsch-Italienischen Gesellschaft.’ Italien: Monatsschrift der Deutsch-Italienischen

Gesellschaft 1 (1942): 156, 283.

De Bono, Emilio. Die Vorbereitungen und die ersten Operationen zur Eroberung Abessiniens. Munich:

Beck, 1936.

De Grand, Alexander. ‘Mussolini’s Follies: Fascism in its Imperial and Racist Phase, 1935–1940.’

Contemporary European History 13, no. 2 (2004): 127–147.Delfs, Tobias. Hindu-Nationalismus und europaischer Faschismus: Vergleich, Transfer- und Bezie-

hungsgeschichte. Hamburg-Schenefeld: EB-Verlag, 2008.

Diel, Louise. Behold our New Empire—Mussolini. London: Hurst & Blacket, 1939.

Diel, Louise. Sieh unser neues Land mit offenen Augen: Italienisch-Ostafrika. Leipzig: List, 1938.

Dipper, Christof. ‘Traditionen des Italienbildes in Deutschland.’ Dolce Vita? Das Bild der italienischen

Migranten in Deutschland , edited by Oliver Janz and Roberto Sala, 39–61. Berlin: Campus,

2011.

I Documenti Diplomatici Italiani, ottava serie: 1935–1939 , Vol. 10. Rome: Ist. Poligrafico e Zecca dello

Stato, 2003.

Dogliani, Patrizia. Il fascismo degli italiani: Una storia sociale. Turin: UTET Libreria, 2008.

Dominioni, Matteo. Lo sfascio dell’impero: Gli italiani in Etiopia 1936–1941. Rome-Bari: Laterza,2008.

Dulffer, Jost. ‘Kolonialismus ohne Kolonien. Deutsche Kolonialplane 1938.’ In Machtbewußtsein in

Deutschland am Vorabend des Zweiten Weltkriegs, edited by Franz Knipping and Klaus-

Jurgen Muller, 247– 270. Paderborn: Schoningh, 1984.

Finchelstein, Federico. Transatlantic Fascism: Ideology, Violence, and the Sacred in Argentina and Italy,

1919–1945. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2010.

Foley, Robert. ‘From Volkskrieg to Vernichtungskrieg: German Concepts of Warfare, 1871–1935.’ In

War, Peace and World Orders in European History , edited by Beatrice Heuser and Anja Hart-

mann, 214– 225. London, Routledge, 2001.

Fuller, Mia. Moderns Abroad: Architecture, Cities, and Italian Imperialism. London: Routledge, 2007.




Fuller, Mia. ‘Oases of Ambiguity: On How Italians Did Not Practice Urban Segregation in Tripoli.’ In

La Libia tra Mediterraneo e mondo islamico, edited by Federico Cresti, 163–181. Milan:

Giuffre, 2006.

Gadow, Reinhold. Seerauberstaat England . Berlin: Junker & Dunnhaupt, 1940.

Gentile, Carlo. ‘Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS im Kampf gegen Resistenza und Zivilbevolkerung.’ In Die

‘Achse’ im Krieg, Politik, Ideologie und Kriegfuhrung 1939 bis 1945, edited by Thomas Schlem-

mer, Lutz Klinkhammer and Amedeo Osti Guerrazzi, 492–518. Paderborn: Schoningh, 2010.

Gordon, Robert S. C. ‘Race.’ In The Oxford Handbook of Fascism, edited by Richard J. B. Bosworth,

296– 316. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Graml, Hermann. Hitler und England: Ein Essay zur nationalsozialistischen Außenpolitik 1920–1940 .

Munich: Oldenbourg, 2010.

Gregor, Anthony James. Mussolini’s Intellectuals: Fascist Social and Political Thought . Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 2005.

Gruhl, Max. Die Wiedergeburt des Imperiums: Entscheidungskampf im Mittelmeer? Eine geopolitische

Abhandlung . Berlin: Schlieffen-Verlag, 1937.

Habeck, Mary R. Storm of Steel: The Development of Armor Doctrine in Germany and the Soviet Union,

1919–1939 . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003.Haushofer, Karl. Deutsche Kulturpolitik im indopazifischen Raum. Hamburg: Hoffmann & Campe,

1939.

Henner, Friedrich. Sie raubten eine halbe Welt: Ein Englandbuch. Wurzburg: Sturtz, 1940.

Hermann, Gerhard. Italiens Weg zum Imperium. Leipzig: Goldmann, 1938.

Herrmann, Gerhard. Abessinien: Raum als Schicksal . Leipzig: Teubner, 1935.

Hildebrand, Klaus. Vom Reich zum Weltreich: Hitler, NSDAP und koloniale Frage 1919 –1945.

Munich: Fink, 1969.

Hitler: Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen. Februar 1925 bis Januar 1933, edited by the Institut fur Zeit-

geschichte, Vol. 1, Die Wiederbegrundung der NSDAP Februar 1925–Juni 1926 , edited by

Clemens Vollnhans. Munich: Saur, 1992.

Hitler: Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen. Februar 1925 bis Januar 1933, edited by the Institut fur Zeit-geschichte, Vol. 2, Vom Weimarer Parteitag bis zur Reichstagswahl Juli 1926–Mai 1928, Part 1,

Juli 1926 –Juli 1927 , edited by Barbel Dusik. Munich: Saur, 1992.

Hitler: Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen. Februar 1925 bis Januar 1933, edited by the Institut fur Zeit-

geschichte, Vol. 2A, Außenpolitische Standortbestimmung nach der Reichstagswahl Juni–Juli

1928, edited by Gerhard Weinberg, Christian Hartmann and Klaus A. Lankeit. Munich:

Saur, 1995.

Hitler: Samtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924, edited by Eberhard Jackel and Axel Kuhn. Stuttgart:

Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1980.

Hoffend, Andrea. Zwischen Kultur-Achse und Kulturkampf: die Beziehungen zwischen ‘Drittem Reich’

und faschistischem Italien in den Bereichen Medien, Kunst, Wissenschaft und Rassenfragen.

Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1998.Hoffmann, Reto. ‘The Fascist Reflection: Japan and Italy, 1919–1950.’ Diss., Columbia University,

2009.

Horn, David G. ‘Constructing the Sterile City: Pronatalism and Social Sciences in Interwar Italy.’

American Ethnologist 18 (1991): 581–601.

Ipsen, Carl. Dictating Demography: The Problem of Population in Fascist Italy . Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1996.

Ivani, Mario. Esportare il fascismo: Collaborazione di polizia e diplomazia culturale tra Italia fascista e

Portogallo di Salazar (1928–1945). Bologna: Clueb, 2008.

Katalog der Bibliothek der deutschen Kolonialgesellschaft in der Stadt- und Universitatsbibliothek

Frankfurt am Main, Vol. 2, Gliederung nach der ehemaligen Aufstellung . Frankfurt am Main:

Stadt- und Univ.-Bibliothek, 2004.

640 P. Bernhard



Kershaw, Ian. ‘Hitler and the Uniqueness of Nazism.’ In Comparative Fascist Studies: New Perspectives,

edited by Constantin Iordachi, 238– 254. London: Routledge, 2009.

Kay, Alex J. Exploitation, Resettlement, Mass Murder: Political and Economic Planning for German

Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1940–1941. New York: Berghahn, 2006.

Klein, Fritz. Warum Krieg in Abessinien. Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut AG, 1935.

Kundrus, Birthe. ‘German Colonialism: Some Reflections on Reassessments, Specificities, and Con-

stellations.’ In German Colonialism: Race, The Holocaust, and Postwar Germany , edited by

Volker Langbehn and Mohammad Salama, 29–47. New York: Columbia University Press,

2011.

Kundrus, Birthe. ‘Von Windhoek nach Nurnberg? Koloniale “Mischehenverbote” und die national-

sozialistische Rassengesetzgebung.’ In Phantasiereiche: Zur Kulturgeschichte des deutschen Kolo-

nialismus, edited by Birthe Kundrus, 110–131. Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus,

2003.

Kuß, Susanne. ‘Von der Vernichtungsschlacht zum Vernichtungskrieg: Militarpublizisten in der der

Zwischenkriegszeit (1920–39).’ In Der Zweite Weltkrieg und seine Folgen: Ereignisse—Auswir-

kungen—Reflexionen, edited by Bernd Martin, 51–71. Freiburg: Rombach, 2006.

Laak, Dirk van. Imperiale Infrastruktur: Deutsche Planungen fur eine Erschließung Afrikas 1880 bis1960 . Paderborn: Schoningh, 2004.

Laak, Dirk van. ‘Ist je ein Reich, das es nicht gab, so gut verwaltet worden? Der imaginare Ausbau der

imperialen Infrastruktur in Deutschland nach 1918.’ In Phantasiereiche: Zur Kulturgeschichte

des deutschen Kolonialismus, edited by Birthe Kundrus, 71– 90. Frankfurt am Main and

New York: Campus, 2003.

Lebensraumfragen europaischer Volker , Vol. 1, Europa; Vol. 2, Europas koloniale Erganzungsraume, Vol.

3 (1), Gegenwartsprobleme der Neuen Welt, Nordamerika, edited by Karl Heinrich Dietzel,

Oskar Schmieder and Heinrich Schmitthenner. Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1941– 1943.

Lengauer, Rudolf. Wir rufen Europa: die antibolschewistische Front, die Rettung des Abendlandes .

Munich: Bruckmann, 1937.

Liebscher, Daniela. Freude und Arbeit: zur internationalen Freizeit- und Sozialpolitik des faschistischenItalien und des NS-Regimes. Cologne: SH-Verlag, 2009.

Lindequist, Friedrich von. Die Entwicklung und Besiedlung Libyens unter italienischer Herrschaft .

Berlin: Vereinigung fur Deutsche Siedlung und Wanderung, 1939.

Linne, Karsten. Deutschland jenseits des Aquators? Die NS-Kolonialplanungen fur Afrika. Berlin:

Christoph Links Verlag, 2008.

Linne, Karsten. ‘Weiße Arbeiterfuhrer’ im ‘Kolonialen Erganzungsraum’: Afrika als Ziel sozial- und

wirtschaftspolitischer Planungen in der NS-Zeit . Munster: Monsenstein & Vannerdat, 2002.

Macksey, Kenneth. Guderian, Panzer General . London: Greenhill Books/Lionel Leventhal, 2003.

Majer, Diemut. ‘Fremdvolkische’ im Dritten Reich. Boppard am Rhein: Boldt, 1993.

Mantovani, Claudia. Rigenerare la societa: L’eugenetica in Italia dalle origini ottocentesche agli anni

Trenta. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2004.Mattioli, Aram. ‘Entgrenzte Kriegsgewalt: Der italienische Giftgaseinsatz in Abessinien 1935–1936.’

Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte 51 (2003): 311–337.

Mattioli, Aram. Experimentierfeld der Gewalt: Der Abessinienkrieg und seine internationale Bedeutung

1935-1941. Zurich: Orell Fussli, 2005.

Mayer, Anton. Imperium—Faschismus: Unsterbliches Rom. Halle (Saale): Buchandlung des Waisen-

hauses, 1937.

Michels, Robert. ‘Prolegomena zum weltpolitischen Bevolkerungsproblem Italien und Frankreich.’

Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 26 (1927): 168–222.

Osterhammel, Jurgen. Die Verwandlung der Welt: Eine Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts . 5th edn.

Munich: C.H. Beck, 2010.

Patzold, Kurt and Manfred Weissbecker. Rudolf Heß: Der Mann an Hitlers Seite. Leipzig: Militzke,1999.




Pergher, Roberta. ‘A Tale of Two Borders: Settlement and National Transformation in Libya and

South Tyrol under Fascism.’ Diss., University of Michigan, 2007.

Pine, Lisa. Education in Nazi Germany . New York: Berg, 2011.

Quine, Maria Sophia. Italy’s Social Revolution: Charity and Welfare from Liberalism to Fascism.

Houndmills: Palgrave 2002.

Rodogno, Davide. Fascism’s European Empire: Italian Occupation during the Second World War .

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Russell, E. J. ‘Agricultural Colonization in the Pontine Marshes and Libya.’ The Geographical Journal

94, no. 4 (1939): 273–289.

Salerno, Reynolds Mathewson. Vital Crossroads: Mediterranean Origins of the Second World War,

1935–1940 . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002.

Saraiva, Tiago. ‘Fascist Labscapes: Geneticists, Wheat, and the Landscapes of Fascism in Italy and

Portugal.’ Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 40, no. 4 (2010): 457–498.

Schieder, Wolfgang. ‘Audienz bei Mussolini: Zur symbolischen Politik faschistischer Diktatur-

herrschaft 1923-1943.’ In Italien, Blicke: Neue Perspektiven der italienischen Geschichte,

edited by Petra Terhoeven, 107–132. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010.

Schmieder, Oskar and Herbert Wilhelmy. Die faschistische Kolonisation in Nordafrika. Leipzig: Quelle& Meyer, 1939.

Schmitt, Carl. Volkerrechtliche Großraumordnung: mit Interventionsverbot fur raumfremde Machte:

Ein Beitrag zum Reichsbegriff im Volkerrecht . 4th edn. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1941.

Schreiber, Gerhard. ‘Die politische und militarische Entwicklung im Mittelmeerraum 1939/40/’ In

Das Deutsche Reich im Zweiten Weltkrieg , Vol. 3, Von der ‘non belligeranza’ Italiens bis zum

Kriegseintritt der Vereinigten Staaten, edited by Gerhard Schreiber, Bernd Stegemann and

Detlef Vogel, 3–271. Stuttgart: dva, 1984.

Smith, Dennis Mack. Mussolini. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1981.

Springborn, Arnold. U ¨ ber Lu gen und Leichen zum Empire: Englands blutiger Weg zur Weltmacht .

Berlin: Verlag P. Hochmuth, 1939.

Sterling Frost, Ruth. ‘The Reclamation of the Pontine Marshes.’ Geographical Review 24 (1934):584–595.

Stone, Dan. Histories of the Holocaust . Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Stone, Dan. Responses to Nazism in Britain 1933– 1939: Before War and Holocaust , 2nd edn. Basing-

stoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Thierfelder, Franz. Englischer Kulturimperialismus: der British Council als Werkzeug der geistigen Eink-

reisung Deutschlands. Berlin: Junker & Dunnhaupt, 1940.

Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier, 1941– 1942, edited by Henry Picker. 3rd edn. Stuttgart:

Seewald, 1976.

Valli, Luigi. Il Diritto dei popoli alla terra. Milan: Alpes, 1926.

Valli, Luigi. Das Recht der Volker auf Land . Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlags-Anstalt, 1934.

Vochting, Friedrich. ‘Italienische Siedelung in Libyen.’ Jahrbucher fur Nationalokonomie und Statistik 151 (1940): 145.

Volk und Fuhrer: Deutsche Geschichte fur Schulen, Vol, 5, Der Weg zum Großdeutschen Reich, edited by

Dietrich Klagges and Walter Franke. Frankfurt am Main: Diesterweg, 1941.

Von Xylander, Rudolf. Die Eroberung Abessiniens 1935/36: Militarische Erfahrungen und Lehren aus

dem ersten neuzeitlichen Vernichtungskrieg auf kolonialem Boden. Berlin: Mittler, 1937.

Von zur Muhlen, Leo. ‘Abessinien als zukunftiges Kolonialland.’ In Deutschlands Erneuerung , Vol. 24,

Unsere Kolonien: die Aufgaben der deutschen Wissenschaft in den Kolonien. Munich:

J. F. Lehmann, 1941.

Walter, Ilsemarie. Frauenpolitik im italienischen Faschismus und im Austrofaschismus: Ein Beitrag zur

vergleichenden Faschismusforschung . Munich: GRIN Verlag, 2003.

Wegmann, Heiko. ‘Kokospalme mit Hakenkreuz: Die Kolonialbewegung in Freiburg wahrend desNationalsozialismus.’ Informationszentrum 3: Welt 313 (2009): 12–14.

642 P. Bernhard



Weindling, Paul. ‘A City Regenerated: Eugenics, Race and Welfare in Interwar Vienna.’ In Interwar

Vienna: Culture between Tradition and Modernity , edited by Deborah Holmes and Lisa Silver-

man, 89 –113. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2009.

Wirsching, Andreas. Vom Weltkrieg zum Burgerkrieg? Politischer Extremismus in Deutschland und

Frankreich 1918–1933/1939: Berlin und Paris im Vergleich. Munich: Oldenbourg, 1999.

Woller, Hans. Rom, 28. Oktober 1922: Die faschistische Herausforderung . Munich: dtv, 1999.

Zeller, Thomas. Driving Germany: The Landscape of the German Autobahn, 1930–1970 . New York:

Berghahn, 2007.


borrowing from mussolini nazi germany s

Documents