Nazi Germany’s principal ally during the Second
World War was Benito Mussolini’s fascist Italy.
There had been much destruction, particularly of
housing, as the Allied armies pushed up the
Italian peninsula after their landings in the south,
but the country’s industrial north-east region,
where the Germans surrendered without severe
fighting taking place, would allow Italian indus-
try to recover quickly. Agriculture too could be
brought back to normal within one or, at most,
two seasons. The immediate dislocation caused
by the war was, nevertheless, enormous. Even
though most Italian cities, unlike Germany’s, had
not been turned into rubble heaps, the standard
of living of most Italians had dropped to subsis-
tence level and below. Communications and
infrastructure had to be rebuilt. Relief from
abroad was essential if the poorest Italian families
were not to starve, and it came principally from
the US. In 1945 Italy was producing less than
half of what had been its gross national product
in 1938, yet three years after the end of the war
the Italian economy had already caught up with
pre-war levels.
In many respects the Italians were in a more
fortunate position than the Germans at the end
of the war. Italy was not divided; it was occupied
and in reality under the control of the Western
Allies alone. The Allied perception of Italians,
reinforced by the way the war came to an end in
Italy, was far more favourable than their percep-
tion of the Germans. At about the same time inthe autumn of 1944 as the Morgenthau Plan of
pastoralisation and minimal living standards was
being regarded as appropriate treatment for the
Germans, Britain and the US promised to help
Italy recover from the wounds of war. Why the
great difference? Mussolini had presided over a
vicious puppet regime in northern Italy while the
Allies in 1944 were slowly battling up the Italian
peninsula. But the fighting had not been left to
the Allies alone. A powerful anti-fascist partisan
movement had attacked and harried the German
troops and the Italian fascist militia. In this way
the Italians had actively assisted in the liberation
of their country. The Germans had fought for
Hitler’s Germany to the end.
The Allies had looked upon the fascists with
contempt rather than hatred during the war. The
Italian fascists, moreover, had not committed
atrocities on the terrible scale of the Germans.
Although Mussolini’s regime was increasingly
ready to accept German dictation, the Italian
army high command during the Second World
War had not become as depraved as much of the
Wehrmacht leadership did; Italian generals had
even shown resistance to criminal orders. The
Italian people had tired of the war and genuinely
welcomed the British and American troops as lib-
erators. The cause of Italy was also assisted by the
presence in the US of a large Italian-American
community whose members had not lost their
love for their homeland: Roosevelt wanted to
secure their support in the presidential election of(^1) Chapter 30
ITALY
THE ENEMY FORGIVEN