Ettore Bastico

Ettore Bastico 1942

Ettore Bastico (born April 9, 1876 in Bologna , † December 2, 1972 in Rome ) was an Italian marshal .

Military career

Bastico began his military career as a lieutenant in the 3rd Bersaglieri - Regiment . During the First World War he served as a general staff officer with several divisional headquarters . In 1927 he was promoted to brigadier general , and in 1932 he received his first division command. Mussolini commissioned him shortly thereafter to set up the first fascist " black shirt division " with which he took part in the Italian campaign in Abyssinia in 1935/36 . In East Africa he also commanded an army corps . During the Spanish Civil War , Bastico commanded the Italian Volunteer Corps Corpo Truppe Volontarie from 1937 as the successor to Mario Roatta .

In 1940, at the age of 65, he became governor of the Italian Aegean Islands , in 1941 governor general of Italian Libya and commander in chief of the Italian troops in North Africa. Formally, Rommel and the German Africa Corps were also subordinate to him . Bastico had repeated violent arguments with Rommel, which earned him the nickname "Bombastico". After Rommel's promotion to General Field Marshal , Mussolini appointed Bastico Marshal of Italy on August 12, 1942 . After losing the second battle at El Alamein and the loss of Libya, Bastico lost his post at the end of 1942 and waited until the end of the war for a new command.

post war period

After the war, Ettore Bastico worked as a military historian . Ettore Bastico died in Rome in 1972 at the age of 96 .

Web links

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