On Monday, June 19th at 6:30 p.m, Todo Modo presents the book launch of Eric Gobetti’s latest book, I carnefici del Duce as part of the TMMT Authors and Essay Books press event. The author will be present and the event will be introduced by Filippo Focardi and moderated by Mauro Campus. 

Eric Gobetti writes that not all Italians were “good people.” On the contrary, thousands of them – in Libya, Ethiopia, Greece, Yugoslavia – were responsible for horrific atrocities and war crimes. Who were these “eager henchmen of Mussolini”? Where did they come from? And what were their motivations?

In Italy, the war crimes committed abroad during the fascist years constitute a repressed trauma that has never been addressed. We are not talking about isolated events, but widespread and repeated crimes: reprisals, execution of hostages, hangings, use of chemical weapons, concentration camps, massacres of civilians that devastated entire regions in Africa and Europe for over twenty years.

This book reconstructs the lives and stories of some of the men who ordered, conducted, or actively participated in those brutal acts of violence: young and old, generals and soldiers, fascists and non-fascists. Many contributed to that inferno. Did they do it out of convenience or ideological choice? Were they committed fascists or soldiers following orders? Or were they, as in the German case, ordinary men, “good Italians,” who chose horror out of self-interest or because they believed they were acting for the good of the country?