Manifesto of Race

[1] The manifesto demonstrated the substantial influence of Adolf Hitler over Benito Mussolini since Fascist Italy's growing relations with Nazi Germany, following the Second Italo-Ethiopian War.

[1][3] In the Kingdom of Italy, Eritreans were to be addressed as "Africans" and not as "natives", as was the case with Ethiopian peoples subjected to the colonial rule of the Italian Empire[3] from 1936 onwards.

[10][11] On 13 July 1938 the Kingdom of Italy promulgated a publication mistitled "Manifesto of the Racial Scientists"[12] which mixed biological racism with history; it declared that Italy was a country populated by people of Aryan origin, that Italians belonged to the Aryan race, that Jews did not belong to the Italian race, and that it was necessary to distinguish between Europeans and Semites, Hamites, black Africans, and other non-Europeans.

[17] Thus, Mussolini increasingly decided to harmonize Italian Fascism with German Nazism by introducing anti-Semitic laws in Italy as evidence of his good faith towards Hitler.

In Italian Fascist literature and periodicals, a shift toward a less refined racism, accentuating the biological, Indo-European element occurred, emphasizing the ancient Latins and Romans as a nucleus of warlike Aryans closely related to the Celts and other Indo-European ethnic groups; therefore, Italian Fascist nationalism merged with the doctrine of Aryan racism.

Yet the concern for a corporate national identity, as opposed to what Gentile called the "solipsist ego" enshrined by demo-liberal politics, was always part of the Italian Fascist worldview.

In any case, it was not unusual for Fascist intellectuals to oppose themselves to the more excessive and irrational components of Ariosophy, before the outbreak of World War II.

[18][full citation needed] For the most part, the Racial Laws were met with disapproval from not just ordinary Italian citizens but also members of the National Fascist Party themselves.

"[19] William Shirer in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich suggests that Mussolini enacted the Racial Laws in order to appease his German allies, rather than to satisfy any genuine anti-Semitic sentiment among the Italian people.