Even for Italian fascists, this stamp does not age well. At first Italy was an important ally of Germany and Mussolini’s rise to power was an inspiration to Hitler. Italians fortunes in the war went very badly and the King removed Mussolini and had him arrested. Only to have him “saved” by the Germans and named a figurehead of their occupied Italy. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
This stamp displays Hitler and Mussolini as equals. They were not even in early victorious days. Though he fashioned himself as the leader, il Duce, Mussolini was just a Prime Minister that the King could and did have him removed when things turned bad. There was a coup attempt against Hitler in 1944 as things went bad, but it failed because Hitler retained all his power. One wonders to what extent even Hitler realized the difference.
Todays stamp is issue A235, a 25 Centessimi stamp issued by the Kingdom of Italy in 1941. It was part of a five stamp issue in various denominations. There were additional denominations prepared but not actually issued. The post war Italian government auctioned them off to stamp dealers with the proceeds going to charity. According to the Scott catalog, this stamp is worth $2.25 used. The post war charity issue are worth $35 and of course are all mint.
Benito Mussolini was born the son of an active socialist. The name Benito was after a left wing Mexican President. As a young man, he himself was active in socialist politics especially when he emigrated to Switzerland to avoid Italian military service. He returned to Italy when there was an amnesty for draft dodgers but soon was working in the then Italian areas of Austria Hungary. Over time he became well read and multilingual and his politics became more right wing as a result of World War I. Like Peron in Argentina, his rise to power attempted to draw support from both the left and the right. As with Peron, in power he was a figure of the right. With him has Prime Minister, he signed alliances with Nazi Germany and Japan.
The Italian army proved to be a big liability once the war started. Their equipment was not up to date and Italian industry had no ability to correct that. Italy’s attempts to invade Greece from Albania and Egypt from Libya were failures. An even bigger mistake was sending over 200,000 troops to fight alongside the Germans in Russia. The force had little military capability and really fought alongside Romanian and Hungarian in what the Germans hoped would be quiet flanks near Stalingrad. They weren’t as this was where the Soviets counterattacked. The German client state troops folded like a cheap suit and the German position at Stalingrad was surrounded and the defeat was the turning point of the war. Barely half of the Italian troops made it back to Italy in early 1943. By then the Italian presence in Africa was at an end and the allies invaded Sicily.
Italian King Victor Emmanuel II removed Mussolini as Prime Minister and had him confined in a mountaintop hotel. In a daring raid, Germany landed commandos from gliders on the mountaintop recovering Mussolini and flying him off the mountain in a small Storch airplane. A haggard Mussolini was flown to Hitler and his new role as a colonial governor was explained to him. Germany had occupied the Italian boot and would contest the Allies in Italy for the rest of the war.
In April 1945 Mussolini attempted to again head for Switzerland where he hoped to fly to sanctuary in Franco’s Spain. He left his wife and children behind, perhaps as a continued presence in post war Italy. He was instead found by communist partisans, shot, hanged and his body desecrated publicly. His remains were later dug up by his supporters and Italy had a crazy corpse hunt on his hands. When the government finally found his remains they were at a loss as to what to do with them. Eventually in 1957, a right of center Italian government contacted Mussolini’s widow Rachele and turned over his remains for a Catholic burial in his hometown. By then, she was running a restaurant in her hometown. She was eventually granted a pension but for years was denied on the excuse that Mussolini had not taken a salary as Prime Minister. She died in 1979. This stamp equates Hitler with Mussolini, but the extent that he was part of the system allowed his family some normalcy eventually. Hitler had no descendants, but his henchman had no future in postwar Germany.
Well, my drink is empty and so I will open the conversation in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.