Edda Ciano

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Edda Ciano in the middle of the picture, on the right, Zhang Xueliang

Edda Mussolini Ciano, Countess of Cortellazzo and Buccari (born September 1, 1910 in Forlì ; † April 8, 1995 in Rome ) was the eldest daughter of the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini and wife of the Italian diplomat and later Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano (1903-1944) .

Life before World War II

In the birth certificate of Mussolini's first-born (and declared favorite daughter), the entry of the mother Rachele Guidi was missing , as the parents lived in a wild marriage until they were four years old. According to Italian law, this was the reason for the missing name and not the rumor that later emerged that she was the illegitimate daughter of Angelica Balabanoff , a Russian émigré of Jewish origin, who Mussolini met in Geneva and who later led him to work for both of them Daily newspapers Avanti! and Popolo d'Italia became.

She met Count Gian Galeazzo Ciano in early 1930 through his sister Maria, with whom Edda often went to Roman parties. At that time, Galeazzo had just completed his diplomatic training to become an embassy secretary in Brazil, Argentina and China and was temporarily back in Rome, where he was awaiting his appointment as consul in Shanghai . Mussolini, for his part, was close friends with his father Costanzo Ciano , an old comrade in arms who later became the fascist President of the Chamber of Deputies , and therefore had no qualms about accepting the aspiring young party member as his son-in-law. Just two months after Ciano's first visit to Villa Torlonia , on April 24, 1930, the couple were married in the nearby church of San Giuseppe . Immediately after their honeymoon, the couple embarked for Shanghai, where Ciano was appointed consul general. Her son Fabrizio, called Ciccino , was born there in 1931 . In fact became Ciano for business support , then he was "special envoy General of" in Beijing . In June 1933 the family returned to Rome; At this point Edda was pregnant with their daughter Raimonda, whom she later nicknamed Dindina . Her younger son Marzio, called Mowgli (after the fictional character from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book ), was also born in Rome in 1937. Outside of marriage, both had numerous affairs.

Her husband's arrest and the Ciano diaries

Edda campaigned in vain for both Hitler and her father on behalf of her husband, who was to be sentenced to death. She wrote the following sentences to Hitler:

"Leader! For the second time I took your word for it and was betrayed again. The very fact that our soldiers fell side by side on the battlefields has kept me from going over to the enemy. If my husband is not released on the terms stated to your general, I shall not hold back any further thought. For some time now, the documents have been in the hands of people who are the only ones authorized to use them in the event that anything should happen to my husband and me, my children and the family. "

After the petitions for clemency of the other co-convicts had not even been presented to their now lethargic father, the latter looked for a similar ultimate letter from his daughter the night before the execution by telephone to the highest German SS general and police chief in Italy, Karl Wolff , who is said to have answered him verbatim:

"In the Fuehrer's opinion, the Ciano case should be seen as a purely domestic and exclusively Italian matter."

However, for fear of the more powerful Axis partner Hitler, Mussolini did not make use of his position, which would have allowed him a pardon. Gian Galeazzo Ciano was executed on the morning of January 11, along with four other convicts.

Even while her husband was imprisoned in Verona , Edda teamed up with "Felizitas" Beetz . Together with another friend of the family, Emilio Pucci , she organized both her escape with the children and the transfer of complete copies of Ciano's seven diaries to Switzerland , in which Ciano recorded his views of political events from 1937 to 1943.

On January 9, 1944, she and the children illegally crossed the Swiss border ( Gaggiolo ). However, she was not granted asylum in Switzerland. At first she lived in Neggio , then in Ingenbohl and Monthey ; finally she had to return to Italy on August 30, 1945, four months after the end of the war. There she was interned on the island of Lipari and sentenced on December 20, 1945 to two years imprisonment for supporting fascism. After her early release on July 2, 1946, she went to France for a short time, where she wrote her memoirs with the help of the journalist Albert Zarca. Then she returned to Italy and lived partly in Rome, partly in her villa on Capri .

She died in 1995 and was buried next to her husband in Livorno .

Others

  • In a letter of September 2, 1943 to Heinrich Himmler , she referred to her honorary membership in the SS , which he had personally awarded her.

literature

  • Renata Broggini, Edda Mussolini Ciano, da Livorno alla Svizzera (1943-1945). In: Arte & Storia , anno 14, numero 62, agosto 2014, Edizioni Ticino Management, Lugano 2014, pp. 358–367.
  • Mauro Cerutti: Edda Ciano. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . May 2, 2005 , accessed December 11, 2019 .
  • Giordano Bruno Guerri: Un amore fascista - Benito, Edda e Galeazzo , Mondadori, Milano 2005 ISBN 978-88-04-56187-3 (Ital.).
  • Edda Mussolini Ciano: My Truth. As told to Albert Zarca. Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London 1977, ISBN 0-297-77302-X (translated into English from the French by Eileen Finletter).
  • Antonio Spinosa: Edda. Una tragedia italiana. Mondadori, Milano 1993, ISBN 978-88-04-37169-4 (Ital.).

Edda Ciano in the film

Web links

Commons : Edda Ciano  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Romansh law also provides for a “declaration of maternity”.
  2. ↑ on the other hand R. Moseley: According to Italian law, only the name of the father could be given under such circumstances. ( Between Hitler and Mussolini , p. 22)
  3. ↑ Edda Ciano: My Truth , p. 31f.
  4. ↑ Edda Ciano: My Truth , pp. 54ff.
  5. ^ Ray Moseley: Between Hitler and Mussolini. The double life of Count Ciano , Henschel Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-894-87311-6 , pp. 22-25.
  6. ↑ Erich Kuby : Treason in German. How the Third Reich ruined Italy , Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1982, ISBN 3-455-08754-X , p. 389.
  7. ↑ Erich Kuby: Treason in German. How the Third Reich ruined Italy , Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1982, ISBN 3-455-08754-X , p. 391.
  8. ↑ The stadium was inaugurated unfinished, see Italian Wikipedia it: Stadio Armando Picchi “Nell'autunno del 1933 il cantiere subisce una sosta, ma lo stadio viene comunque ufficialmente inaugurato incompleto ed intitolato ad Edda Ciano Mussolini”.
  9. ↑ Heinz Höhne : The Order under the Skull - The History of the SS. 4. Continuation of the preprint , Der Spiegel - 46/1966 (accessed on August 15, 2014)
personal data
SURNAME Ciano, Edda
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Edda Rosa Edvige Mussolini Ciano, Countess of Cortellazzo and Buccari
BRIEF DESCRIPTION eldest daughter of Mussolini, wife of Galeazzo Ciano
DATE OF BIRTH September 1, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Forlì
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 1995
Place of death Rome