Carlo Favagrossa

Carlo Favagrossa (born November 22, 1888 in Cremona, † March 22, 1970 in Rome ) was an Italian general and during the Second World War Secretary of State or Minister for War Economics .

Life

Favagrossa became a pioneer officer after graduating from the military academy . He commanded engineer units and units and in 1939 briefly an infantry division. From 1939 to 1943 he was "General Commissioner for War Production", then his office was briefly expanded to become a ministry.

Favagrossa, but also Chief of Staff Pietro Badoglio and other leading military figures such as Italo Balbo and Mario Roatta, urgently advised the dictator Benito Mussolini not to enter the war in 1940. According to Favagrossa, because of the war in East Africa and the involvement in the Spanish Civil War , the Italian armed forces had at best a third of the level of performance and equipment necessary for a European war. For a general mobilization was missing u. a. a million uniforms including boots , the fuel reserves only lasted for eight months (with Great Britain controlling the most important supply channels with Gibraltar and Suez ), in the artillery area there were only outdated guns, modern medium tanks were practically missing. In a report to Mussolini, Favagrossa calculated that raw materials worth 4.5 billion lire (1940) would have to be imported annually and that Italian industry would have to work at full speed for three years (two daily shifts of ten hours each) to make up for the deficits , and that entry into the war was not possible before 1943 .

Shortly after the war, Carlo Favagrossa wrote a book entitled Perchè perdemmo la guerra: Mussolini e la produione bellica (Rizzoli, 1946), in which he showed the Italian army's inadequate preparation for a world war.

Web links

• Newspaper article about Carlo Favagrossa in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .