The great divide? Notions of racism in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany: new answers to an old problem

ABSTRACT

One of Michele Sarfatti’s greatest accomplishments has been to challenge the notion that there was a fundamental difference between the biological racism predominant in Nazi Germany and the ‘cultural racism’ of Fascist Italy. I examine how this dichotomy took shape and the meaning it acquired over time. My basic argument is that this division is the result of dialogue between Italian and German population experts during the interwar period, and that making a sharp distinction between a ‘German’ and an ‘Italian’ style of racism helped them to construct their own identities. In other words, the debate on racism was a vehicle for defining what it meant to be a ‘true’ Nazi or Fascist. In this way, differences in racist ideology can be understood as a product of struggles over meaning. Ultimately, my aim is to de-essentialize the meaning of race in research on both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

RIASSUNTO

Uno dei risultati più importanti della ricerca di Michele Sarfatti è stata la messa in discussione l’idea di una differenza fundamentale tra il razzismo biologico, predominante nella Germania nazista, e il ‘razzismo culturale’ del fascismo italiano. Io esamino come questa dicotomia si è andata formando e il significato che ha acquisito nel corso del tempo. Il fulcro della mia interpretazione è che tale divisione sia stata il risultato del dialogo tra gli esperti di demografia italiani e tedeschi nel periodo tra le due guerre, che ha portato ad una forte distinzione tra lo stile ‘italiano’ e ‘tedesco’ del razzismo, necessaria per la costruzione delle rispettive identità. In altri termini, il dibattito sul razzismo era un mezzo necessario per definire cosa volesse dire essere un ‘vero’ nazista o fascista. In questo modo, le differenze nell’ideologia razzista possono essere interpretate come il risultato di uno scontro sui significati. In conclusione, lo scopo della mia ricerca è di de-essenzializzare il significato di razza nella ricerca sia nella Germania nazista che nell’Italia fascista.

KEYWORDS:

• Nazi Germany
• Fascist Italy
• racism
• anti-Semitism
• cultural history
• de-essentializing

PAROLE CHIAVE:

• Germania Nazista
• L’Italia fascista
• razzismo
• antisemitismo
• storia culturale
• de-essenzializzazione

Notes

1. German National Archives Berlin (BArch), R 1501, 126236, Report on the world conference on demographic problems in Geneva, 31 August–31 September 1927, p.16, p.26, p.32 and p.35.

2. City Archive Munich, B., Bürgermeister und Rat, 964/2, Letter of the N.S.D.A.P., Gau München Oberbayern, to Munich’s mayor Fiehler, 27 July 1933.

3. BArch, R 43/II, 1448, Memorandum of the Foreign Minister on his conversation with the Italian Ambassador, 7 December 1934, fol. 205.

4. Ibid., Confidential cable of von Hassell to the Foreign Office, 12 December 1934, fol. 206. See also Bavarian Main State Archives BayHStA, StK, 5203, Letter of the Bavarian Chancellery to the Foreign Office and the Reich Propaganda Minister in Berlin, 16 October 1935.

5. ACS, MI, DGPS, Divisione Polizia Politica, fascicoli per materia, b. 44, fasc. 10, report of a member of the political police in Milan, 30 November 1938.

6. Ibid., of a member of the political police in Florence, 20 November 1938.

7. Ibid., “Notizia fiduciaria” of the political police 23 November 1938.

8. British National Archives/Public Record office (NA/PRO), FO 371, 22442. Despatch of the British Ambassador in Rome to the Foreign Secretary, 22 July 1938.

9. British National Archives/Public Record office (NA/PRO), FO 371, 22442. Despatch of the British Ambassador in Rome to the Foreign Secretary, 16 July 1938.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Patrick Bernhard

Patrick Bernhard is Associate Professor in Modern European History at the University of Oslo. He has published widely on the sixties in Europe, war and peace in the twentieth century, consumerism, and more recently on Fascism in transnational, imperial and global frameworks. His more recent publications include (with Holger Nehring) Den Kalten Krieg denken: Beiträge zur sozialen Ideengeschichte seit 1945 (Essen: Klartext Press, 2014); “Colonial Crossovers: Nazi Germany and its Entanglements with Other Empires,” Journal of Global History 12 (2) (2017): 206–227; “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 (3) (2012): 425–446; and (with Anne Rohstock) “‘Writing about the ‘revolution’: Nuovi studi internazionali sul movimento del ‘68,” Ricerche di Storia Politica 11 (2008): 177–192.