European anti-Semitism at the beginning of the twentieth century is widely known. One need only cite the Dreyfus case, Vienna's mayor Karl Lüger, and the 1903 Kishinev pogrom. When analyzing the situation in Italy, however, there is one important factor we must bear in mind: although anti-Semitic groups and leanings did exist in those years, no such overt instances of anti-Semitism occurred in Italy in the nineteenth or early twentieth centuries. Nor was Italy's ruling class basically anti-Semitic.

The case of Mussolini was different.

I would like to cite, first, two hitherto unknown episodes. The first occurred in 1922. Between the November 26 and 30 of that year, Mussolini – who at the time was both prime minister and foreign minister – received a report from the embassy in Budapest. It said that the Hungarian ambassador to Rome, Albert Nemes, had intimated that Fascism would not be “strong and lasting” and would end up by endangering the monarchy. Mussolini wrote in the margin of the report, in French: “c'est un juif et idiot par dessus le marché” (“He is a Jew and an idiot to boot”). The remark was of no small consequence. The handwritten jotting is still there, in the margin of the report, and was therefore read by foreign ministry officials. Mussolini was training his diplomatic service to become accustomed to his anti-Semitic leanings. The March on Rome had taken place only four weeks earlier.