The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1308: Late-War Mussolini w/ Kurt from Antelope Hill

Episode Date: December 21, 2025

47 MinutesPG-13Kurt works for Antelope Hill Publishing.Kurt joins Pete to talk about the speeches of Mussolini in the late war years, detailed in "Rise and Fight: Speeches from the 1943–1945 Italian Social Republic," which Antelope Hill recently published in English.Antelope Hill - Promo code "peteq" for 5% offRise and Fight: Speeches from the 1943-1945 Italian Social RepublicThe Battle for BerlinPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekiniano Show. Kurt from Anilopil is back. How are you doing, Kirk? Hey, I'm doing well. Thanks for having me back on. Awesome. Awesome. If Kurt from Antelope Hill is here or anyone from Anilip Hill is on the show, we're probably going to be talking about one of the amazing books that you published, that you translate very often, and books of people are forgotten about. So I asked you to come on

and talk about a book of Mussolini's speeches that you, that Anilipil put out called rise and fight and these are speeches from the uh the period of night from nineteen forty three to nineteen forty five so just jumping right in uh why speeches from this time frame well i think we we figured we wanted to do something uh with mussolini he's sort of underappreciated historically um often just sort of becomes the butt of the joke about Italy's performance in the Second World War. But, of course, he did sort of do it first, and the national socialists in Germany took a lot of cues from him, took a lot of value from the things that he had done and the example that he had set. And in terms of why specifically this period, we found this existing publication in Italian, and we just kind of liked the idea of it.

The period of the war that took place in Italy is also quite often overlooked in favor of either the Eastern Front or the sort of D-Day and post-D-Day fighting in Western Europe. But the fighting in Italy was also really quite interesting and quite difficult for all the parties involved. Mussolini himself, of course, he's basically betrayed. by the royalists, by army officers, and even by members of his own fascist party. And there was, of course, the well-known story of the daring mountaintop rescue by German paratroopers and Otto Scorzini and some members of the SS. After that, Mussolini is sort of whisked off to, I believe, to Vienna, first and then returns as the leader of a new Italian government in the north under German

backing, the Italian Social Republic. And long story short, the reason that this period is interesting is because this is the first time that Mussolini and the loyal fascists really get to do all the things that they wanted to do. They get to set up the ideological apparatus of their new state without the sort of dead weight of these conservative army officers and the monarchy and all of these other sort of relics of Italy's liberal unification. Yeah, it seems he comes out of the, comes out of prison, just ready to, just raring to go. You mentioned something about how basically he becomes a punchline a lot for a lot that happened and you know what i will always remember and

you know he he should be remembered for is that he i mean he was one of the reasons why the nationalist won in spain you know he sent people to fight he sent planes he did he did what he could. And that can't go, that can't go unnoticed in, you know, the fight against Bolshevism on the continent. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's another thing. It's often forgotten. Everyone remembers, you know, the Condor Legion, the German forces that were sent over and the German Air Force was involved. And obviously, it was sort of a testing ground for the Panzer forces. But Italy, if I'm, if I'm not mistaken contributed the lion's share of the manpower in terms of foreign volunteers far more than the Germans did and I believe they were the first to do so as well right yes yes 100%

and it was his planes that were brought the army of Africa over from from Morocco So, yeah, very important role in keeping the Southern Peninsula Bolshevik free. If they, if the nationalist would have lost that war, there's no telling what would have happened if Stalin would have gotten his invasion prior to Barbarossa, which, you know, if you read Hoffman and you read Suvroff, you know, that that's what he was planning. So let's jump to this. He's definitely comes out and reaffirms his commitment to the Tripartite Pact. And so much so, he talks about, he does a radio message talking about Japan's entry of the war. This is December 1943. So I think in a time when a lot of people think that Italy and that Mussolini had, they were told and court history tells us that he had basically given up.

He came out a defeated man. No, that's not that's not nearly true. He came out ready to double down in the commitment that he made. Absolutely. And obviously there were a lot of. of problems that they had to work through in terms of trying to stand up some sort of Italian army to fight alongside the Germans in the wake of the surrendered by the royalist government. But they did manage to raise a few solid divisions of troops and committed to the fighting

in at least an appreciable way. There are some famous units. the San Marco Marines, for example, are mentioned in here. The Decima MAS, they're the sort of famous naval commandos. So they did continue fighting under Mussolini's leadership with the northern government that he set up in Milan. And he really stresses revolutionary optimism and vitality. the Social Republic, many would think that by this point, his commitment to fascism as a vital and dynamic force would start to wane. But no, he's telling people to double down. He calls on all Italians to persevere in the face of adversity and encourages unwavering loyalty to the access

cause yeah absolutely and there's there are a lot of cases of of really determined resistance even by everyday civilians especially in some of these northern cities i believe at one point in one of these addresses he he notes that when the allies have advanced into florence he credits the civilian population with a lot of feats of resistance including just sniper fire in the cities just notes that the allies are not in fact being received as liberators as the sort of common court history narrative but that many Italians were not ready to simply roll over as the as the king and his government had yeah and the the commitment to keep troops training even training you know especially training with with the Germans

as elite defenders of the fascist cause. You know, he holds, he once again is just holding on to the ideology that, you know, it's going to be steadfast. And he, I mean, I guess the question is, is, you know, by 44, when you read German accounts, it's victory is, you have different factions who are questioning victory. And it seems like Mussolini didn't, he wasn't at least convinced that they were, they were going to lose, especially after the occupation, the German occupation of Rome as liberators from the allies. Yeah, it's, it's, the situation on the ground certainly wasn't looking good for them at this point. In 43, I think it's not irrational to think that there was a way that they could win

or at least not lose, fighting a defensive war. By 44, it's pretty clearly hopeless, especially by late 44, in the wake of some pretty heavy, well, of course, the D-Day landings and the destruction of a large amount of German forces in the fillets pocket and then in the east with the the soviet advance in operation bagration basically wiping out an entire german army group it's it's pretty desperate and of course it's hard to know exactly musilini's private thoughts on the matter but i think that he felt that they had to fight for their cause even if just for for history for posterity even if the military situation itself was was hopeless they couldn't or or he

couldn't accept the the shame of surrendering before it was well and truly over when it there is the the new radicalism that's like suggested by these speeches even when he he knows it's I mean, he's, he's still going on and preaching against the annihilation of the parasitic plutocracy, the struggle against usurious capitalism in favor of a rising labor state. Yeah, I mean, I guess the question is, is what you mentioned is, is this just propaganda to keep people energized or, I mean, is he bringing these things up at the time? just that's just what it seems to be it seems to be the rallying cry that that's existed all along and just to keep people fighting to um you know to in some hope well i've always felt that if they accomplished anything by by their resistance sort of to the bitter end uh both in Italy and in Germany and a number of other European states that remained with the access

to the end, it's that we're still talking about them. And we still find these causes inspirational in large part precisely because of how far these men were willing to go in their resistance and their commitment to those ideals. I think that's an important part. I think that's an important part. of of uh well it it's i think it must have weighed on on his mind right he he might not say as much publicly in in these speeches but i i think it must have yeah you know the you know it's come it's come out in in subsequent years that the um in late years that you know one of the reasons why the Germans fought to the last at Berlin was, it gave a chance for any German citizens who wanted to get west and get away from the, get away from the Bolshevik army that they

could, that doesn't seem to, it doesn't seem to be the same as far as, you know, what was, you know, what was eventually going to happen in Italy. I would have to assume by this point, Mussolini had understood what his fate was. Oh, for sure. Yeah. It almost makes it more impressive that there was as much resistance in Italy because the Italians were not being threatened with the same sort of destruction of their people that the Germans were being threatened with. And of course, not only from the Soviets, but there was also, and I forget exactly when it came out in the German press, But they had gotten wind of the Morgenthau plan.

It was a big reason for German resistance. And Goebbels' propaganda ministry made a huge deal out of that. But that was only pointed at Germany and not Italy. And yet, the Italians continue to resist all the same. And I think in large part, because of Mussolini's example, his commitment to the cause, refusal to sort of acknowledge the possibility of defeat what do you think the lasting legacy is of this I mean you've already mentioned that um so much for this rhetoric um you know and I I don't say that I don't call it rhetoric punitively it's

important that you know every once in a while somebody on um on social media will post up a picture of you know musilini hung upside down and it'll be like somebody who thinks they're a right winger and i'll be like you know the people who did that are just the the forbearers of the people who are transing kids now right yeah i mean they would do the same thing to you right yeah well i mean they they just i think that's the problem is is that yeah And I also think that, like, fascism in Italy is maybe not as something that, like, the average American can look at and see as clearly as something to be like, hey, that is something that I might be interested in as the person who looks at national socialism and is like, well, I mean, that seems to be more European, more where we're, where we come from. It may not be the Anglo-Saxon tradition that we're taught,

but I mean, I can look at it and I can be like, oh, well, you know, I can see exactly what they were doing there, where Italy also seems to be a little more, I mean, what's a word, exotic or even a little bit backwards, even perhaps. Yeah, a little too Mediterranean, maybe. a little too, a little too, oh, there's a word, ethnic. Yeah, yeah, I think it's, I think you're right. I think it's a lot easier for people to see,

to see themselves in the uniquely German manifestation. It's just a little bit closer to the sort of Northern European ethos and aesthetic. But I also think in large part it's because people don't really know that much about Italian fascism or Mussolini, which is, of course, something that we're trying to remedy here. But, you know, you turn on the history channel, how much are you going to see about Mussolini that isn't sort of, like I said, making him the butt of the joke about Italian incompetence in the war? Or portraying him as sort of Hitler's hanger on his sidekick, right?

It's often how he sort of thought of as Hitler's sidekick. But people really underestimate the contributions that the Italian fascists made. We've also, we've published some other stuff from what was sort of a precursor movement to fascism, the whole futurist sphere, Philippo Marinetti and, oh goodness, what's his name? The guy who took over Fiumé? Gabriel denoncio. That's it. Yeah. I bet we've actually one of the guys

has been on to talk about, do an episode. Yeah, and all of this stuff is, it's really a lot more interesting and a lot more meaningful than people give it credit for. Now, I'll say, I don't, I do think that there are some people out there in the right wing sphere

who make too much of the difference between fascism and national socialism as if they are sort of inimical in some way or that they have a fundamental ideological disagreement I don't think so I think that they are part of the same movement

part of the same fundamental alignment in like 98% of ways and you can see definitely even in Mussolini's rhetoric in this book by the 40s, Italian fascism and especially the fascism that takes place in the social republic is much more influence by national socialism in some of its ideological prescriptions. But far from being a deviation from earlier fascism, I think it's the natural evolution of it. It is actually a more pure form of what Mussolini and the fascists in Italy.

set out to do in the first place. They were stymied in a lot of respect by the need to accommodate the old guard, the monarchists, the conservatives who had somewhat made their peace with the fascist movement, but remained a political power bloc within Italy that had to be reckoned with. Of course, Hitler in 33 takes sort of the opposite tack, when he gets brought into the coalition with the other conservative parties, he just sees his power. He excludes them. He says, thanks for inviting me. Now all of you get out. We're running things here, which is probably what the Italian fascists should have done in

the first place. Well, it's interesting. I've told many people that I've talked to that I've talked to who have read Marx and understand Marx. I think most people who read Marx don't understand Marx. I think even people who call themselves Marxists or communist don't understand Marx. I hate to say. But people who are like, okay, I read this. And it makes sense. The criticisms make sense.

But obviously the prescription is insane. It's anti-human. And I've told many people, I said, Well, after you read Marx, read the manifesto of the fascist intellectuals by Benjamin Teeley, and tell me what you think. And when it comes to Italian fascism, what I was going to say is, once you read that, you're like, okay, this seems to fill in the spaces where Marx, you know, obviously went insane. And, you know, the insane parts of Marx and the anti-human parts of Marx. And it seems like Italian fascism does was the first and did a very, very good job of answering those questions and saying, look, this is the way, this is the way you answer that.

Of course, it's Italian and it's ethnic and it is an ethnic, you know, it's, it's an ethnic group that can actually come together and much better than a multicultural, you know, shitstorm like we have now yeah absolutely um the the whole modern marxist constellation uh in the west just remains perpetually ignorant of how fascism actually sought to contend with with liberalism right um they they have this uh this idea that they'll quote endlessly about fascism being like the rear guard of capitalism

like whenever capitalism is threatened it pulls out fascism to go beat up communists in the streets or whatever to protect capitalism which is as you and I know is entirely the opposite

of the truth fascism from the beginning yes like if you read Gentile and a lot of these other intellectuals is just as inimically opposed to liberalism as it is to Bolshevism. Right. Yeah. I mean, when you look at Italian fascism, it's not saying that the, it's not reducing the human, you know, the man down to a unit of labor, you know, which is what Marx, you know, clearly, clearly is doing and it's very anti-human and it's if you really understand like dialectal materialism

it is probably probably the most anti-human concept in history of mankind because it just strips man of of history it strips man of who he is a strips man of his his heritage where he comes from who his people are and it terror you know. It tears them from the land. It doesn't matter what land is. It doesn't matter who you are. Basically, it just takes blood and soil right out of the picture, right out of the picture and says, you know, what somebody can do with their hands is the most important thing.

And once somebody can't do anything with their hands anymore, their life is basically useless. It's another example of people. accusing fascists of what actual Marxists believe? Well, additionally, a lot of the especially

present day Marxists, again, sort of so-called because we know most of these people don't read or don't understand Marx even. They confuse, they have this idea that there's a

a sort of capitalist culture that has to be attacked to break down the sort of superstructure of capitalism. And they identify all sorts of things as being culturally capitalist, like family structures, right? It is one of the things that they started with very early on, like wanting children to be raised communally and, You know, of course, in the Soviet Union early on, they had no-fault divorce before, like anyone else, resulted in a total collapse of family structure in the Soviet Union in the early years before they kind of reeled that back in a little bit, which is just insanity. I mean, they identify basically any aspect of what you might call traditional culture. as being sort of supportive of capitalism or liberalism. I think that's one of the things that really turned people away from the left and towards these new fascist movements is regardless of what these communist movements

said about capitalism and liberalism that might have been largely correct in many cases. I'll agree with them. their whole manner of operation, the way that they constantly attacked any manifestation of like a traditional culture caused people to see them as little more than barbaric despoilers. Not without good reason. That's where the fascists come in and have their own opposition to liberalism to capitalism, but make their attack on it in a way that isn't just catching normal people in the crossfire, right?

They actually give people purpose and identity in their people and where they come from in the social relations that they are traditionally accustomed to. And that is a much better path forward. That's one of the reasons that the fascists, basically, basically across Europe ended up being victorious against communism domestically. Well, I mean, when you have a group of people basically pushing the ideology and running the country who don't have a, you know, don't have ties to it, then it's all ideology. there is there's nothing grounding the ideology it's just an ideology up in the air and it's just basically it's like liberalism liberalism doesn't have an ideology there's no it it can't liberalism

could have an ideology but it's not tied to anything it's not moored to anything and you know it's yeah i mean it's no it's no wonder that the that it got so out of it got as out of hand in Russia as it did especially in the especially in the 20s and I'm not even talking about the Stalin's purges and everything those are most people don't even really understand what was happening there but the um when you have a group of people who are in charge who go from play up who are basically gypsies going from place to place. Yeah, of course, the, they're not going, any time they try to do something in a country that does have, you know, blood and soil nationalism or just that kind of history,

it's going, it's, you're going to come up against people who are, even if your ideology is completely anti-human and slaughterous, you're going to come up against people who are going to be willing to fight to the death for what they know and what they believe and what their ancestors have handed down to them yeah and in in the early USSR of course they even they had this campaign against what they called great russian chauvinism um great russian meant like basically the people of today's russia as opposed to uh like belarus or ukraine ukraine ukule Ukrainians were also known as little Russians or like people from, people from lesser Russia, not in the sense of being, like, bad or worse than the rest of Russia, but like as this sort of more minor part of it,

the part that was added to it later. And so they basically, they attacked this idea of Russian identity, as paramount in the Soviet state, which is, of course, bound to fail because Russians were the overwhelming majority in their new state. This would, of course, get rolled back under Stalin, and especially during the Second World War,

they do a full 180, and they start appealing to things that actually motivate people. They're appealing to the legacy of, like, Ivan the Great and, you know, the resistance against the Teutonic Order and all of this kind of historical identity to motivate people. And of course, you know, they bring back the church, they bring back all these other parts of traditional Russian identity. In many ways, you can say with a good deal of truth,

that Stalin's regime pivoted towards a sort of red fascism in a lot of ways. but I think I want to return to this point about liberalism and how inimical the fascist or national socialist worldview is to it when you look at these addresses by Mussolini he barely talks about the communists now of course it's true that the communists are not on Italian soil at this point it is the Western allies isn't so naturally, most of his ire would be directed against them.

But you have to ask yourself, if you're one of these people who thinks that fascism is sort of a rear guard for capitalism, why didn't they just give up? Why didn't they just allow themselves to be taken over by the West? Why was there so much resistance if, after all, they were ideologically aligned? And yet, resistance only increased after the invasion. Resistance only got stronger and stronger, and they kept fighting, and the Italian front turned into this bloody quagmire for the Western allies. I think to any thinking person, this has got to make you ask some questions.

Well, let me ask you this. I think this probably seems pretty obvious. But it seems like Italian fascism, because of everything that was all of the sort of manifestos that were written, it seemed to be more fleshed out and more, I would say, systematic than German national socialism, British fascism, French fascism. it really seems like they like they knew what they wanted and where this was going and better than better than the other countries not not throwing shade on any of the other countries obviously I have you know I have sympathies to all of them but it definitely seems like the the Italians figured this out early and were and had that at least that advantage over the other countries.

Yeah, I think you'd be right to say that it was more sort of formally ideological in nature. National socialism is made up of sort of a collection of somewhat disparate tendencies, the vulkish movement, and, of course, the sort of reactionary element of just wanting to fight the Bolsheviks. along with all these sort of contingent geopolitical realities that Germany was faced with. Italy being in a different position after the First World War, being at least on paper a victorious power, it is a little bit different.

They had a little bit more time to develop all of this stuff systematically. And I think in a way that also made it a little bit more exportable. Yeah. And, you know, let us not forget that they, they weren't always friendly with Germany. They, uh, southern Germany suffered some suffered at the hands of Italy after the war. There was, uh, definitely some incursions there that caused problems. So, um, yeah, they, um, is as nationalistic as they, um, they were trying to be, there was still, uh, they were still crossing the border and causing some problems for the for the southern german people for sure and austrians too oh yeah i mean up until uh what 36 there were some some very serious disagreements between the german and italian governments the uh the italians had signed uh what's what's known as the stressa front um which is an agreement between Italy, France, and Britain.

So, yeah, in this sort of alignment between Italy, France, and Britain, who were, of course, the victorious powers in the First World War, wasn't really broken until Mussolini's whole Ethiopian adventure, which

put a lot of friction between Italy and the other Western powers. Funny enough, the Germans actually are supplying weapons to the Ethiopians during this conflict, hoping to put pressure on Italy, which is the major roadblock

to their desired annexation of Austria. Anyway, so it's not until after this that the Italians actually realign with Germany and break away from the West. There had been a lot of rivalry between France and Italy during the interwar period, but this is the first time

that there's a real rupture, between them. And it's also very similar in a lot of ways to the German rivalry with Japan in the interwar period. It's worth remembering also Japan was on the opposite side to Germany in the First World War, seized a lot of their Pacific colonies, which Germany never recovered. And during the interwar period, the Germans are actually supplying the Chinese with weapons and even with training. The Kuomantang, the Chinese nationalists, their best divisions were actually trained by German officers. Chinese troops are equipped mostly with Mauser rifles, and if you look at any period depiction of nationalist Chinese troops, they are wearing German-style helmets. But with

this whole realignment in the 30s, these old enemies realign on ideological rather than purely geopolitical lines. And that's sort of what turns the Second World War into fundamentally an ideological conflict, which was probably inevitable, but it's interesting to see how long it took for that realignment to take place. It's interesting when you understand the ideological angle. Obviously, countries like Romania and border countries, countries that are immediately threatened by the Soviet Union, you would understand why they would side with Germany, with the Allies, with the Allies, with the Axis, and fight. And, but a lot of those were just basically anti-Bolshevik. a lot of the volunteers that came in to Germany were basically anti-Bolshevik and anti-communist, but, you know, someone like the country like Italy did have a, did have an ideology that they were,

that they were hanging on to more so than, you know, I mean, I could say Romania, but, you know, Montescu pretty much, you know, Cadreanu was out of the picture at that point. So, and that would have been the ideological, the ideological center for Romania. But yeah, the country, Italy being that ideological is interesting when so many other countries and even countries that weren't immediately threatened by the Soviet Union decided that they were going to join in the fight just to cross. crushed the Bolshevism. Yeah, I mean, I think the threat that they posed was readily apparent to quite a lot of people,

and especially after Spain. I think there was probably their greatest foreign policy blunder by the Soviet Union. Getting involved in this war in Spain and sponsoring these Bolsheviks over there, who are just completely off the reservation, all of Europe basically is looking at that and going, okay, who's going to be next? This is a huge motivator for a lot of people to get involved on whatever side is the most opposed to whatever that is. And that is one of the main reasons why the Spanish narrative needed after the war. people that that old tired saying that the victors write write the history books well not in this case

they had it almost seems like they had to make sure that the uh the quote unquote republican side uh wrote the book wrote the history books on this so that uh to whitewash the soviet you know the soviet union it is until guys like pain come along and start writing that you actually get a clear vision of what happened there. Yeah, although as I'm saying this, I think this is one thing that makes the Italian ideological development sort of different from a lot of these other European fascist movements. Because the Italian fascists had sort of begun this development

prior to when the Soviet Union really appeared as this great looming threat. If you're an Italian in, let's say, the early 20s, liberalism and capitalism are much more hegemonic, and they appear to you as perhaps the most relevant opponents to what you want to accomplish. and there was even early on some mutual admiration between the Italians and the Soviets I think in as late as 33

or perhaps it was a little earlier than that had signed like a mutual friendship pact some of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet had actually been built in Italian shipyards there was there was some cooperation The Italians saw in them at least an ally of convenience against the sort of Western plutocracies, which is kind of interesting. If you're some of these later fascist movements that are appearing mostly in response to Soviet aggression in Europe to the common turn communist international, some of the opposition to liberalism and capitalism might be. be de-emphasized or even forgotten entirely, which I think is a mistake.

Well, I think we should probably wrap up there. Do you have any other, any thoughts, any closing comments on this subject? I mean, it's, like you said, it's one of, you know, we always talk about Germany and, you know, even probably mostly in England, but a lot of what, a lot in America of what the Italian fascists were doing seems to get left out of the conversation. Yeah, I would say, of course, this is a very interesting book for a sort of wartime look into what was going on in Italy with Mussolini as the resistance, as they were attempting to put up resistance to the conquest by the Western allies. But I also, I really recommend that people go and look into early Italian

fascism as well. And where it came from, how it developed through the 20s, especially is very often left out. We have some books on this topic. We would like to have more, but check those out. Gentile and Denoncio and Marinetti, but also check out books from other sources. If you're interested in understanding this ideological development, they did do it first. it's very critical to understanding everything that came afterwards and it's just very much worth your time. Kurt, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Everybody go over to go to Antelope Hill. I have a promo code there. It's Pete PQ, a 5% off your order. I'm redoing my library right now. I just put in, I just put in. built-in bookshelves and I'm going through all of my books and reorganizing them and the amount of Antelope Hill books I am pulling out is I'm there are some there that I've read that I've completely forgotten about so I can't you know I can't recommend enough the work you guys are

doing over there and just continue to do it and thank you very much You know, I'm going to be. I don't know. Thank you.