Achille Starace

Starace (center) visiting an Alfa Romeo factory, around 1930

Achille Starace (born August 18, 1889 in Sannicola , † April 29, 1945 in Milan ) was an Italian fascist politician .

Life

Achille Starace attended the Technical Institute in Lecce and completed an apprenticeship as an accountant. He joined the Italian Army in 1909 and became a lieutenant in 1912 . During the First World War he received high awards as a front-line fighter.

Immediately after the war, Benito Mussolini commissioned him to work with Roberto Farinacci to build fascism in northeastern Italy . In 1920 he joined the fascist party (PNF), built up a local group in Trento and organized the fascist intervention troops in Alto Adige (comparable to the German SA; see also Bozen Bloody Sunday on April 24, 1921). In October 1921 he became deputy party secretary of the PNF and took part in the March on Rome in 1922 . In the same year he was appointed party inspector of Sicily . In 1924 he was elected to the Italian House of Representatives.

In 1928 he was appointed party secretary of the Milan branch of the PNF and eventually became party secretary of the PNF in 1931. He achieved this position through his unconditional allegiance to Mussolini. As party secretary he organized huge parades and marches, proposed racist measures and largely spread the personality cult around Mussolini. Numerous rites of fascism go back to his initiative. At the same time he was also the President of the Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano . During this time the greatest triumphs of Italian sport fall (victory in the soccer world championship in 1934 , 2nd place in the Olympic summer games in 1932, etc.). This enabled Starace to increase the membership of the fascist party. Both the connection between party youth and state youth in the Balilla and the state promotion of sport served as role models for National Socialist Germany . He remained party secretary for eight years - longer than any of his predecessors, but made numerous enemies in the fascist party since the mid-1930s.

In 1935, Starace resigned from his position as party secretary to take part in the Second Abyssinian War. In October 1939 he was finally deposed as party secretary in favor of Ettore Muti .

After Mussolini's overthrow in 1943, Starace was arrested by the Badoglio government , although he had not had any real influence over the past two years. After trying in vain to regain Mussolini's support during the time of the fascist republic of Salò , he was imprisoned in a fascist concentration camp in Verona . He was accused of weakening the party during his time as party secretary. He was eventually released and went to Milan, where he was recognized in April 1945 and captured by partisans. On April 29th, Starace was taken to Piazzale Loreto in Milan and shot, at the place where the dead Mussolini was hung.

Starace was a bearer of the Grand Cross of the German Eagle Order .

Web links

Commons : Achille Starace  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stefan Lechner: The "Bolzano Blood Sunday": Events, Background, Consequences . In: Hannes Obermair , Sabrina Michielli (Ed.): Cultures of Remembrance of the 20th Century in Comparison - Culture della memoria del Novecento a confronto (Booklets on the history of Bozen / Quaderni di storia cittadina 7). Bozen: Stadtgemeinde Bozen 2014. ISBN 978-88-907060-9-7 , pp. 37–46, reference p. 41.
2. ↑ Arnd Krüger : The Influence of the Fascist Sports Model of Italy on National Socialist Sports. In: Morgen A. Olsen (Ed.): Sport and Politics. 1918-1939 / 40. Universitetsforlaget, Oslo 1986, pp. 226-232; Arnd Krüger: Sport in Fascist Italy (1922-1933). In: G. Spitzer, D. Schmidt (Ed.): Sport between independence and external determination. Festschrift for Prof. Dr. Hajo Bernett . P. Wegener, Bonn 1986, pp. 213-226.
3. ^ Rappa, Sebastian B .: Achille Starace and the Italian Fascist Party, 1931-1939: The Creation of the Totalitarian Myth. Diss NYU. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International, 1987