Mario Balotta (Rome, 7 September 1886 – Viareggio, 28 July 1963) was an Italian general during World War II.

He was born in Rome, the son of artillery Colonel Emilio Attilio Francesco Giuseppe Balotta and Marquise Lavinia Carcano, and in 1904 he enrolled in the Military Academy of Turin, after which he attended the Army Application School.

In 1910 he married Emilia Falorni in 1910, the daughter of an upper-middle-class family from the Val d'Arno, who gave him two children, Alberto (who also became an Army officer) and Liliana.

During the First World War, Balotta fought as an artillery officer on the Karst Plateau, where he was wounded.

[3][4][5][6][2] After the destruction of the ARMIR, he was repatriated, and after the Armistice of Cassibile he was arrested by the Germans and later also imprisoned by the partisans.