Italy marks 100 years since the dictator Benito Mussolini grabbed power in Rome this week. The city has yet to shake off his fascist legacy as monuments glorifying Mussolini's command dot around Rome
While Germany systematically scrubbed clean any symbols of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime after World War Two, Italians took a much less rigorous approach to removing traces of their dictator's 21-year rule.
Monuments glorifying Mussolini's command dot Rome, emblems of his fascist party adorn pot-hole covers, and carvings of his square-jawed troops embellish public spaces. "Germany has a past that can never pass. They can never forget the Holocaust or Hitler," said British historian Paul Corner, who last month published a book, "Mussolini in Myth and Memory", that delves into Italy's persistent nostalgia for fascism. "Italy has a past that just doesn't present a problem. No-one is asking that these monuments to fascism be destroyed. They just blend in," he told Reuters. The country this week marks 100 years since Mussolini's blackshirt supporters' marched on Rome to seize power. To avoid bloodshed, the king simply handed him government. The anniversary has coincided with the swearing in of Italy's most right-wing administration since World War Two, led by Giorgia Meloni, whose own party, the Brothers of Italy, has post-fascist roots.that she had "never felt any sympathy for fascism" and denouncing the racist, anti-Jewish laws of 1938 as "the lowest point of Italian history".Unlike Germany's devastated capital Berlin, Rome and its fascist ornaments emerged relatively unscathed from World War Two. When Allied forces took charge in 1944, many photographs and symbols glorifying "Il Duce" were removed. But some larger monuments were left untouched. They include an imposing obelisk outside Rome's Olympic stadium that bears his name, and a bas-relief of Mussolini in the modernist Eur district that the fascists built to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their march. Tens of thousands of Romans worked for the fascist administration and took little or no part in the resistance. After the war, they saw no need to rub out their past.A man walks past a bas-relief depicting fascist leader Benito Mussolini at the EUR neighbourhood known for its fascist architecture in Rome, Italy, October 19, 2022. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane
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