Guido Keller

Guido Keller (6 February 1892 – 9 November 1929) was an Italian aviator and political activist who was closely associated with Gabriele D’Annunzio and played an important role in the seizure of Fiume in 1919.

When Baracca did not return from the action which saw him shot down over Montello, Keller undertook a reconnaissance mission flying over the enemy front line several times searching vainly for his commander.

[1]: 45 On 12 September 1919 a column of around a thousand irregular troops commanded by Gabriele D’Annunzio marched into Fiume, whose annexation to Italy was opposed by US President Woodrow Wilson.

This adventure was the beginning of the Regency of Carnaro, and D’Annunzio named Keller “Secretary for Action” and head of the “Ufficio Colpi di Mano”, commonly known as the “Uscocchi”.

[2] These units were named after medieval privateers of the Adriatic, the Uskoks, and their role was to secure the weapons and supplies needed by D’Annunzio's regime, resorting in many cases to outright piracy.

As a protest against the signing of the Treaty of Rapallo, he flew over Rome in an Ansaldo SVA biplane to drop bouquets of flowers on the Vatican and Quirinale hills, as a gesture of homage, as well as an enamelled chamber-pot with a bunch of carrots and turnips on Palazzo Montecitorio, seat of the Chamber of Deputies, as a gesture of contempt, with a message attached that read “To the parliament and government based on lies and fear, the allegorical embodiment of their value.” During the return flight, bad weather forced him to land, and when peasants came to his assistance, he discovered that he had inadvertently landed in the Republic of San Marino.

With his friend the writer Giovanni Comisso, Keller founded a yoga group in Fiume,[4] which adopted the swastika as one of its symbols.

[1]: 46  He then asked to be returned to active service and was sent to Benghazi in Libya during the period when Italian forces were engaged in operations against rebel tribes.

Keller was awarded the Silver Medal of Military Valor three times for his valour as a pilot during the First World War.