Dino Alfieri

Edoardo Alfieri (first name usually shortened to Dino; 8 December 1886 – 12 December 1966) was an Italian fascist politician and diplomat.

Biography

Dino Alfieri supported the Ordine del Giorno Grandi that led to the fall from power of the Fascist government

Alfieri was born in Bologna. In 1911 he finished law studies and soon after joined the nationalist group formed by Enrico Corradini. A volunteer in World War I, he was critical of the merger between Corradini's group and Benito Mussolini's Partito Nazionale Fascista (PNF). Nonetheless, he was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies on the PNF list in 1924.

Under Mussolini's government, Alfieri was assigned several tasks: between 1929 and 1934, he was co-director of the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution, deputy secretary of the Corporazioni, and deputy secretary for Press and Propaganda from 1935, assuming the duties of Minister Galeazzo Ciano during the latter's mission in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. When Ciano moved on to become Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dino Alfieri found himself appointed Minister of People's Culture in 1937, and declared himself to the Antisemitical racial segregation laws passed in 1938.

He was Italy's envoy to the Holy See starting 7 November 1939, and five months later to Nazi Germany (where he often met Adolf Hitler). A member of the Grand Council of Fascism, he supported Dino Grandi's coup d'état in July 1943, that led to the fall from power of the Italian Fascist government after 21 years and the arrest of Mussolini. When the Wehrmacht occupied Italy (see Operation Achse), Alfieri fled to Switzerland to save his life.

In January 1944, he was sentenced to death in absentia by a kangaroo court during the Verona trial. The Swiss government did not give him political asylum, but tolerated his attendance in Switzerland.

On 12 November 1946, an Italian court stated his innocence; on 6 February 1947, an inquiry of the Italian Foreign Ministry ended. Then, he was officially pensioned off.

In 1947, he returned to Italy and a year later published his memoirs as Due dittatori di fronte ("[Two] Dictators Face to Face" – i.e.: Mussolini and Hitler).

External links

• Lettere Inedite Di Vittorio Alfieri Alla Madre, a Mario Bianchi, E a Teresa Mocenni (online at Archive.org)
• Newspaper clippings about Dino Alfieri in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

Bibliography

• Christian Zentner, Friedemann Bedürftig (1991). The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. Macmillan, New York. ISBN 0-02-897502-2