, 1939.]]

Gian Galeazzo Ciano, 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari (18 March 1903 – 11 January 1944) was an Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Benito Mussolini's son-in-law.

Early life

Ciano was born in Livorno, Italy, in 1903. He was the son of Admiral Count Costanzo Ciano and wife Carolina Pini, a World War I hero in the Royal Italian Navy, founding member of the National Fascist Party and re-organizer of the Italian Merchant Marine in the 1920s. The elder Ciano (he was nicknamed Ganascia, meaning "The Jaw") was not above making a private profit from his public office; and as a side effect his son was soon used to living a high-profile glamorous life, which he continued to maintain until almost the end. After receiving his law degree, the younger Ciano served as an attaché in Rio de Janeiro. On 24 April 1930, he married Benito Mussolini's daughter Edda Mussolini, with whom he soon left for Shanghai where he served as Italian Consul. Back in Italy, a few years later, he became the minister of press and propaganda.

Foreign Minister

, Édouard Daladier, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Ciano pictured before signing the Munich Agreement.]] , April 1939]] Ciano took part in the Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935–36) as a bomber squadron commander (his unit was dubbed "La Disperata") where his future opponent Alessandro Pavolini served as lieutenant. Upon his highly-trumpeted comeback as a "hero" he became Foreign Minister in 1936, replacing Mussolini. The following year he was allegedly involved in organizing the murder of the brothers Carlo Rosselli and Nello Rosselli, two exiled anti-fascist major activists killed in the French spa town of Bagnoles-de-l'Orne on 9 June 1937.

After 1939, Ciano became increasingly disenchanted with Nazi Germany and the course of World War II, although when the Italian regime embarked in the ill-advised "parallel war" alongside Germany, he went along fairly convinced, even through the terribly-devised Italian invasion of Greece and its subsequent setbacks. In the spring of 1943 following the Axis defeat in North Africa, other major setbacks on the Eastern Front, and the Anglo-American assault on Sicily looming on the horizon, Ciano turned against prosecution of the doomed war and actively pushed for Italy's exit from the conflict. He was silenced by being removed from his post and reassigned as ambassador to the Holy See. In this role he could remain in Rome, to be watched closely by Mussolini. The Regime's position had become even more shaky with the coming summer, however, and court circles were already probing the Allies commands for agreements of some sort.

On the night of 24 July 1943, Mussolini summoned the Fascist Grand Council to its first meeting since 1939. At that meeting, Mussolini announced that the Germans were thinking of evacuating the south. This led Count Dino Grandi to launch a blistering attack on his longtime comrade. Grandi put on the table a resolution asking the king to resume his full constitutional powers—in effect, a vote leading to Mussolini's total ousting from leadership. The motion won by an unexpectedly large margin, 19-7, with Ciano voting in favor.

Mussolini did not think the vote had any substantive value, and showed up at work the next morning like any other day. That afternoon, Victor Emmanuel III, the King, summoned him to the palace and dismissed him from office. Upon leaving the palace, Mussolini was arrested. For the next two months he was moved from place to place to hide him from the Germans. Ultimately Mussolini was sent to Gran Sasso, a mountain resort in central Italy (Abruzzo). He was kept there in complete isolation until rescued by the Germans. Mussolini then set up a puppet government in the area of northern Italy still under German occupation called the Repubblica Sociale Italiana (R.S.I.).

Death

Ciano, having been dismissed from his post by the new government, attempted to find shelter in Nazi Germany, alongside Edda and their three children. The Germans, however, returned him to R.S.I. agents and he was then formally arrested for treason. Under German and Fascist pressure, Mussolini had Ciano tried. After the Verona trial sentence, a Fascist firing squad, at a shooting range in Verona on 11 January 1944, executed Ciano and others (including Emilio De Bono and Giovanni Marinelli) who had voted for Mussolini's ousting. The executed Italians were tied to chairs and shot in the back as a further humiliation, though at the last moment Ciano managed to twist around in his chair to face the firing squad. Ciano was effectively executed for dissenting against Il Duce's will.

Ciano is remembered for his famous Diaries 1937–1943, a daily record of the his meetings with Mussolini, Hitler, von Ribbentrop, foreign ambassadors and other political figures that proved embarrassing to the Nazi leadership and the Fascist diehards. Edda tried to barter his papers in return for his life with the help of factions in the German high command; Gestapo agents helped her confidant Emilio Pucci rescue some of them from Rome. Pucci was then a lieutenant in the Italian Air Force, but would find fame after the war as a fashion designer. When Hitler vetoed the plan, Edda hid the bulk of the papers at a clinic in Ramiola, near Medesano and on 9 January 1944, Pucci helped her escape to Switzerland with the 5 diaries covering the war years. The diary was first published in 1946 in English in New York in an incomplete version. The complete English version was published in 2002.

Children

Gian Galeazzo and Edda Ciano had three children:

Fabrizio Ciano, 3º Conte di Cortellazzo e Buccari (Shanghai, 1 October 1931 – San José, Costa Rica, 8 April 2008), married to Beatriz Uzcategui Jahn, without issue. Wrote a personal memoir entitled Quando il nonno fece fucilare papà ("When Grandpa had Daddy Shot").

Raimonda Ciano (Rome, 12 December 1933 - Rome, 24 May 1998), married to Nobile Alessandro Giunta (1929 -), son of Nobile Francesco Giunta (Piero, 1887–1971) and wife (m. Rome, 1924) Zenaida del Gallo Marchesa di Roccagiovine (Rome, 1902 – São Paulo, Brazil, 1988)

Marzio Ciano, (Rome, 18 December 1937 – 11 April 1974), married to Gloria Lucchesi

In popular culture

A number of films have depicted Ciano's life, including Mussolini and I (1985) in which he was played by Anthony Hopkins.

Raúl Juliá played Ciano in the 1985's television mini-series, Mussolini: The Untold Story.

References

Bibliography

Galeazzo Ciano, Diary 1937–1943, Preface by Renzo De Felice (Professor of History University of Rome) and original introduction by Sumner Welles (U.S. Under Secretary of State 1937–1943), translated by Robert L. Miller (Enigma Books, 2002), ISBN 1-929631-02-2

The Ciano Diaries 1939–1943: The Complete, Unabridged Diaries of Count Galeazzo Ciano, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1936–1943 (2000) ISBN 1-931313-74-1

Ciano's diplomatic papers: being a record of nearly 200 conversations held during the years 1936–42 with Hitler, Mussolini, Franco; together with important memoranda, letters, telegrams etc. / edited by Malcolm Muggeridge; translated by Stuart Hood, London: Odhams Press, (1948)

Giordano Bruno Guerri – Un amore fascista. Benito, Edda e Galeazzo. (Mondadori, 2005) ISBN 88-04-53467-2

Чиано Галеаццо, Дневник фашиста. 1939–1943, (Москва: Издательство "Плацъ", Серия "Первоисточники новейшей истории", 2010, 676 стр.) ISBN 978-5-903514-02-1

Ray Moseley – Mussolini's Shadow: The Double Life of Count Galeazzo Ciano, (Yale University Press, 1999) ISBN 0-300-07917-6

R.J.B. Bosworth – Mussolini (Hodder Arnold, 2002) ISBN 0-340-73144-3

Michael Salter and Lorie Charlesworth – "Ribbentrop and the Ciano Diaries at the Nuremberg Trial" in Journal of International Criminal Justice 2006 4(1):103–127 doi:10.1093/jicj/mqi095

Fabrizio Ciano – Quando il nonno fece fucilare papà ("When Grandpa had Daddy Shot"). Milano: Mondadori, 1991.

Notes

Category:1903 births Category:1944 deaths Category:People from Livorno Category:20th-century executions for treason Category:Deaths by firearm in Italy Category:Executed Italian people Category:Executed politicians Category:Italian fascists Category:Italian Ministers of Foreign Affairs Category:People executed by firing squad Category:People executed by the Italian Social Republic

Category:Recipients of the Order of the White Eagle (Poland) Category:Knights of the Order of the Most Holy Annunciation

Edda Mussolini (1 September 1910 – 9 April 1995) was the eldest child of Benito Mussolini, Italy's fascist dictator from 1922 to 1943. Upon her marriage to fascist propagandist and foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano she became Edda Ciano, Countess of Cortellazzo and Buccari.

She strongly denied her involvement in the National Fascist Party regime and had an affair with a Communist after her father's execution by the Italian communist partisans in World War II.

Biography

Early life

She was born out of wedlock to Benito Mussolini and Rachele Guidi in Forlì, Romagna. Her parents did not marry until December 1915. In her early years, while her father was editor of Il Popolo d'Italia in Milan, Edda lived with Rachele in Forlì. Her father became Prime Minister of Italy in October 1922 and Dictator after January 1925.

In March 1925, Rachele and Edda with her brothers and sisters, moved from Milan to Carpegna and then to Rome in November 1929 to live with their father. Edda was, herself, a rebellious woman in her youth. Her powerful father made dating difficult, as most young men feared him. She has been described as being opinionated and outspoken. It was while in Rome that she met Galeazzo Ciano, son of Admiral Count Costanzo Ciano, a loyal Fascist and supporter of Benito Mussolini before his March on Rome. They were married on 24 April 1930 in a lavish ceremony attended by 4,000 guests.

Her husband was appointed Italian Consul in Shanghai and it was there their first son, Fabrizio Ciano, was born on 1 October 1931. The couple moved back to Italy in 1932, where Galeazzo took the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. By many accounts, theirs was an open marriage, and both had lovers. However, her father liked Galeazzo and so Ciano's career prospered.

World War II

After the Italian invasion of Albania in June 1939, the city of Santi Quaranta (Sarandë in Albanian) was renamed "Porto Edda" in her honour during the annexation.

In July 1939, she was depicted on the front cover of Time in a feature entitled "Lady of the Axis".

During the Greco-Italian War, Edda Ciano volunteered for service with the Italian Red Cross. On 14 March 1941, she was embarked near the Albanian port of Valona (now Vlorë) on the Lloyd Triestino liner Po, which had been converted into a hospital ship. British planes attacked and sank the ship, with some loss of life. But Edda managed to survive by swimming to the shore. She continued to work for the Red Cross until 1943.

It seems that Heinrich Himmler bestowed Edda the rank of an honorary SS leader (SS Ehrenführerin) in 1943, although this is still not known for certain.

After Edda's close call in the Adriatic Sea, Rachele and Benito Mussolini were doubly distressed when her brother, Bruno, died in August of the same year. War correspondent Paul Ghali of the Chicago Daily News learned of her secret internment in a Swiss convent in Neggio and arranged the publication of the diaries. They reveal much of the secret history of the Fascist regime between 1939 and 1943 and are considered a prime historical source. The diaries are strictly political and contain little of the Cianos' personal lives.

After World War II

After returning to Italy from Switzerland, Edda was held in detention on the island of Lipari and on 20 December 1945 was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for aiding Fascism.

Her autobiography, La mia vita, was published in translation as My Truth by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in 1975.

She died in Rome in 1995.

Legacy

It was widely reported at the time that the daughter of Hermann Göring and Emmy Göring (born 2 June 1938) was named Edda after her.

A number of films have been made about Edda's life, including Mussolini and I (1985) in which she was played by Susan Sarandon.

Her son Fabrizio Ciano wrote a personal memoir entitled Quando il nonno fece fucilare papà ("When Grandpa had Daddy Shot").

References

Sources

The Ciano Diaries 1939-1943: The Complete, Unabridged Diaries of Count Galeazzo Ciano, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1936-1943 (2000) ISBN 1-931313-74-1

Ciano's diplomatic papers: being a record of nearly 200 conversations held during the years 1936-42 with Hitler, Mussolini, Franco; together with important memoranda, letters, telegrams etc.; edited by Malcolm Muggeridge; translated by Stuart Hood; London: Odhams Press, (1948)

Чиано Галеаццо, Дневник фашиста. 1939-1943, (Москва: Издательство "Плацъ", Серия "Первоисточники новейшей истории", 2010, 676 стр.) ISBN 978-5-903514-02-1

Giordano Bruno Guerri - Un amore fascista. Benito, Edda e Galeazzo. (Mondadori, 2005) ISBN 88-04-53467-2

Ray Moseley - Mussolini's Shadow: The Double Life of Count Galeazzo Ciano, (Yale University Press, 1999) ISBN 0-300-07917-6

R.J.B. Bosworth - Mussolini (Hodder Arnold, 2002) ISBN 0-340-73144-3

Michael Salter and Lorie Charlesworth - "Ribbentrop and the Ciano Diaries at the Nuremberg Trial" in Journal of International Criminal Justice 2006 4(1):103-127 doi:10.1093/jicj/mqi095

Fabrizio Ciano - Quando il nonno fece fucilare papà ("When Grandpa had Daddy Shot") Milano, Mondadori,. 1991

Jasper Ridley - Mussolini, St.Martins Press, 1997

External links

Biography

Category:1910 births Category:1995 deaths Category:People from Forlì Category:Italian fascists Category:Italian people of World War II

Giuseppe Bottai (September 3, 1895 – January 9, 1959) was an Italian lawyer, economist, journalist, and member of the National Fascist Party of Benito Mussolini.

Fascism

Born in Rome, he served as a volunteer in World War I, and met Mussolini in 1919, helping him establish the Fasci in Rome, and later becoming editor of Il Popolo d'Italia's Roman edition. A law graduate, he sat in the Italian Chamber of Deputies after 1921. Bottai was active in the October 1922 March on Rome that brought the fascists to power, being responsible for the violent actions of the Blackshirts under his command (who killed several persons as the March met with protests).

In 1923, Bottai founded the Critica fascista magazine, and in 1926-1929 was deputy secretary of the Corporations (the reshaped Chamber of Deputies under Mussolini's command), issuing the Carta del Lavoro legislation.

After the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, Bottai was also the first Italian Governor of Addis Ababa for twenty-two days (between May 5 and 27 1936). He was Italy's minister of Education 1936-1943, the editor of several journals, and the Mayor of Rome, initiating a number of anti-democratic and anti-semitic measures. Bottai also ordered Jewish teachers and students removed from Italy's schools and universities.

Opposition to Mussolini

Together with other 19 members of the Grand Council of Fascism, Bottai voted in favor of Dino Grandi's July 1943 move to oust Mussolini and side Italy with the Allies, and for that reason he was sentenced to death by Mussolini's revived Italian Social Republic in the Verona trial (held in Verona on January 8 1944, and lasting two days).

In the meantime, he had entered the French Foreign Legion, where he remained up to 1948, taking part in Allied campaigns in France and Nazi Germany.

He later returned to Italy after being subject to an amnesty in 1947, and edited the political journal A.B.C. in Rome, where he died in 1959. In 1995, the proposal to name a street in Rome after him caused controversies, and was later abandoned.

Works

Trade organisation in Italy under the act and regulations on collective relations in connection with employment

Economia fascista (1930)

Grundprinzipien des korporativen Aufbaus in Italien (1933)

Esperienza corporativa (1929-1935) (1935)

Corporazioni (1935)

Scritti giuridici in onore di Santi Romano ... (1940)

Funzione di Roma nella vita culturale e scientifica della nazione (1940)

Pagine di critica fascista (1915-1926) (1941, edited by F. M. Pacces)

Romanità e germanesimo : letture tenute per il Lyceum di Firenze (1941, edited by Jolanda de Blasi)

Von der römischen zur faschistischen Korporation (1942)

Köpfe des risorgimento (1943)

Contributi all'elaborazione delle scienze corporative : (1939-XVIII--1942-XX) (1943)

Vent 'anni e un giorno, 24 luglio 1943 (1949). Republished as Vent'anni e un giorno (24 luglio 1943) (1977).

Legione è il mio nome (1950). Republished as Legione è il mio nome : il coraggioso epilogo di un gerarca del fascismo (I memoriali) (1999, edited by Marcello Staglieno)

Scritti (1965, edited by Roberto Bartolozzi and Riccardo Del Giudice)

Diario, 1935-1944 (1982, edited by Giordano Bruno Guerri )

Carteggio 1940-1957, correspondence between Bottai and Don Giuseppe De Luca; edited by Renzo De Felice and Renato Moro (1989)

La politica delle arti: Scritti, 1918-1943 (1992, edited by Alessandro Masi).

Quaderni giovanili: 1915-1920 (Atti testimonianze convegni) (1996).

References

Incontro con Bottai by Mario Carli and Bruno D'Agostini (1938)

Giuseppe Bottai, un fascista critico : ideologia e azione del gerarca che avrebbe voluto portare l'intelligenza nel fascismo e il fascismo alla liberalizzazione by Giordano Bruno Guerri (1976 - Republished as Giuseppe Bottai, fascista, 1996).

Bottai : il fascismo come rivoluzione del capitale (1978, edited by Anna Panicali)

Scuola e la pedagogia del fascismo by Maria Bellucci and Michele Ciliberto (1978).

Giuseppe Bottai e la riforma fascista della scuola by Rino Gentili. (1979)

Bottai tra capitale e lavoro by Amleto Di Marcantonio (1980)

Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890 by Philip Rees (1990)

Category:1895 births Category:1959 deaths Category:People from Rome (city) Category:Italian economists Category:Italian fascists Category:Italian journalists Category:Italian lawyers Category:People of the former Italian colonies Category:Soldiers of the French Foreign Legion Category:Syndicalists