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The Rome-Berlin Axis Focus The Rome-Berlin Axis was published by Oxford University Press in 1949 and later a revised edition in 1966 by the Collins (London). The book focuses on the relationship between Italy and Germany before and during the Second World War. The book focuses to understand the background and the personality between Mussolini and Hitler. The most crucial aspect is the will of Hitler to partnerd with Mussolini to overcome another possible German isolation and later be able to conduct military operations through the Balkans and to replace Italy, nevertheless the matter never resolved of the german minority in South Tirol (and the consequent italianization promoted by Rome) started a progressive deterioration of the collaborations between Germany and Italy which ended in an enslavement of Salò Republic by the nazis. The Style The author uses of a mass of documentary like the diplomatic documents from Italy, Germany and Great Britain and various memories of different personalities of this period like Ciano, Anfuso, Rahn R. The author describes history following a chronological order of the events to make clear to notice the development of the relationships and for understanding the formation of the Axis and the outbreak of the war. The Structure The book includes in its fifteen chapters the background and the personal life of the Hitler and Mussolini, their relations under different events like the Abyssinia war, Austria Anschluss, the diplomatic missions of Mussolini in Germany and Hitler in Italy, the Mediation of the Munich, the Pact of Steel, the outbreak of the war and the alliance during the war since the fall of the regimes.

Reviewes Raimond J. Sontag judges this book as a good historical study of the negative period, the different personalities of the dictators and how their background influenced the developing their future agendas (Mussolini was a journalist and Hitler was a abnormal adolescent).1 Martin Wight analyzes how the alliance between Italy and Germany got influenced by the personalities of the two dictators. Before the war Mussolini started a campaign of Italianization through all the regions close the boundaries eventually changing his political view after Hitler came to power. During the war and the following the armistice of Italy it became clear that the territories occupied by the Nazis (especially in the northern borders) discovered a renewed anti-italian sentiment declaring de facto a complete deprivation of power of Mussolini2. Criticism The book sets the two dictators under Nietzsche’s culture, but the the Nazism originated from Hitler’s Mein Kampf which turned to be a culture destroying medium promoting racism especially against jews (stating that Protocols of Zion were real) and other minorities. Mussolini and Fascism born in different and historical context. The translation of the book itself is often inaccurate and the unpublished sources are not always clear and defined.3

References �  Raymond J. Sontag in American Historical Review Vol. 55, No. 1 (Oct., 1949), pp. 139–140. � Martin Wight in International Affairs, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Jul., 1949), pp. 370–371. � Martin Wight in International Affairs, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Jul., 1949), pp. 370–371.