Guido Buffarini Guidi
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Guido Buffarini Guidi (August 17, 1895 — July 10, 1945) was an Italian politician notable for his involvement in the Fascist regime during the Second World War.
Buffarini Guidi was born in Pisa.
When Italy entered World War I, he volunteered in an artillery regiment. He was promoted to rank of Captain in 1917, and remained on active duty in the Italian Army until 1923 - in the meantime, he earned his bachelor's degree in law from the University of Pisa in March 1920.
After leaving the army, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, he became active in Fascist circles, and joined the National Fascist Party (PNF). A mayor of Pisa in April 1923, Buffarini Guidi headed the local Party hierarchy from 1924 (his notoriety being increased by his career as a lawyer). He rose to become honorary Consul of the MVSN Blackshirts - the voluntary militia after the March on Rome.
In May 1933 he was appointed to be Undersecretary Minister of Interior, and forged an alliance with Galeazzo Ciano - opposing the Party bureaucracy, creating several secret services, and attempting to lessen the effects of Antisemitic legislation passed by the regime. Nevertheless (and unlike Ciano), on June 25, 1943, Buffarini Guidi voted in favor of Benito Mussolini during Dino Grandi's attempt to have the latter deposed and get Italy to sign a peace with the Allies. As reward, after Nazi Germany intervened and rescued Mussolini in September, Guido Buffarini Guidi was appointed Minister of the Interior of the new Italian Social Republic (established by Nazis in Northern Italy). Seen as extremely avaricious, he was distrusted even by most of his cabinet colleagues.
Near the end of the Republic's life, in February 1945, Mussolini dismissed Buffarini Guidi from office. After a failed attempt to escape to Switzerland, the latter was arrested by the partisans on April 26. He was sentenced to death by an Extraordinary Court of Justice in Milan, and was shot on July 10, having tried (like French collaborator Pierre Laval) and failed to commit suicide while in captivity.
