Galeazzo Ciano

Galeazzo Ciano
Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office
9 June 1936 – 6 February 1943
Monarch Victor Emmanuel III
King of Italy
Prime Minister Benito Mussolini
Preceded by Benito Mussolini
Succeeded by Benito Mussolini
Personal details
Born Gian Galeazzo Ciano
18 March 1903
Livorno, Tuscany, Italy
Died 11 January 1944 (aged 40)
Verona, Italian Social Republic
Political party National Fascist Party (PNF)
Spouse(s) Edda Mussolini Ciano (September 1, 1910)
Children Fabrizio
Raimonda
Marzio
Parents Costanzo Ciano (father), Carolina Pini (Mother)
Profession politician, diplomat
Religion Catholic

Gian Galeazzo Ciano, 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari (Italian pronunciation: [ɡaleˈattso ˈtʃano]; March 18, 1903 – January 11, 1944) was Foreign Minister of Fascist Italy from 1936 until 1943 and Benito Mussolini's son-in-law. On January 11, 1944 Count Ciano was shot by firing squad at the behest of his father-in-law, Mussolini, under pressure from Nazi Germany.[1] Ciano wrote and left behind a diary[2] that has been used as a source by several historians, including William Shirer in his The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and in the 4-hour HBO documentary-drama Mussolini and I.

Early life

Gian Galeazzo Ciano was born in Livorno, Italy, in 1903. He was the son of Costanzo Ciano and his wife Carolina Pini; his father was an Admiral and won the medal of honor in World War I hero in the Royal Italian Navy (for which service he was given the aristocratic title of Count by Victor Emmanuel III), founding member of the National Fascist Party and re-organizer of the Italian merchant navy in the 1920s. The elder Ciano (he was nicknamed Ganascia, meaning "The Jaw") was not above making a private profit from his public office. He would use his influence to depress the stock of a company, after which he would buy a controlling interest, which would increase his wealth after its value rebounded. He owned among other holdings a newspaper, farmland in Tuscany and other properties worth millions. As a result, his son Galeazzo was accustomed to living a high-profile and glamorous life, which he maintained until almost the end. Father and son both took part in Mussolini's 1922' March on Rome'. After studying Philosophy of Lawat the University of Rome, the younger Ciano had a brief job as a journalist before choosing a diplomatic career, and served as an attaché in Rio de Janeiro. On April 24, 1930 when he was 27 years old, Galeazzo Ciano married Benito Mussolini's daughter Edda Mussolini, and they had three children together (Fabrizio, Raimonda, and Marzio). Soon after their marriage Ciano left for Shanghai to serve as Italian Consul. On his return to Italy in 1935, he became the minister of press and propaganda.

Foreign Minister

Ciano (far right) standing alongside (right to left) Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Édouard Daladier, and Neville Chamberlain prior to the signing of the Munich Agreement.
Ciano arriving in Albania, April 1939.

Ciano volunteered for action in the Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935–36) as a bomber squadron commander (his unit, 15ª Squadriglia da Bombardamento, was dubbed "La Disperata") where he received two silver medals of valor, reached the rank of captain, and where his future opponent Alessandro Pavolini served as lieutenant. Upon his highly trumpeted comeback as a "hero" in 1936, he was appointed by Mussolini to Foreign Minister,whom he also replaced. Ciano began to keep a diary a short time after his appointment to Foreign Minister and kept writing in his diary up to its dismissal as foreign minister in 1943. The following year he was allegedly involved in planning the murder of the brothers Carlo Rosselli and Nello Rosselli, two exiled anti-fascist activists killed in the French spa town of Bagnoles-de-l'Orne on June 9, 1937. In 1937, prior to the Italian annexation, Count Gian Galeazzo Ciano was named an Honorary Citizen of Tirana, Albania.[3]

Ciano was skeptical and did not agree with Mussolini's war plans and knew that Italy's armed forces were ill-prepared for a major war. When Mussolini formally declared war on France, he wrote in his diary "I am sad, very sad. The adventure begins. May God help Italy!" After 1939, Ciano became increasingly disenchanted with Nazi Germany and the course of World War II, although when the Italian regime embarked on the ill-advised "parallel war" alongside Germany, he went along, despite the terribly-executed Italian invasion of Greece and its subsequent setbacks. Prior to the German campaign in France in 1940, Count Ciano leaked a warning of imminent invasion to neutral Belgium. When the Nazis declared war Ciano wrote in his diary, "I am sad, very sad. The adventure begins. May God help Italy!" In late 1942 and early 1943, following the Axis defeat in North Africa, other major setbacks on the Eastern Front, and with the Anglo-American assault on Sicily looming on the horizon, Ciano turned against the doomed war and actively pushed for Italy's exit from the conflict. He was silenced by being removed from his post as Foreign Minister, the rest of the cabinet was removed as well on February 5, 1943. He was offered the post of ambassador to the Holy See, and presented his credentials to Pope Pius XII on March 1.[4] In this role he remained in Rome, watched closely by Mussolini. The Regime's position had become even more unstable with the coming summer, however, and court circles were already probing the Allied commands for some sort of agreement.

On the afternoon of July 24, 1943, Mussolini summoned the Fascist Grand Council to its first meeting since 1939, prompted by the Allied invasion of Sicily. At that meeting, Mussolini announced that the Germans were thinking of evacuating the south. This led Count Dino Grandi to launch a blistering attack on his longtime comrade. Grandi put on the table a resolution asking the king to resume his full constitutional powers—in effect, a vote leading to Mussolini's ouster from leadership. The motion won by an unexpectedly large margin, 19-8, with Ciano voting in favor. Mussolini's replacement was Pietro Badoglio, who was an Italian general in both World Wars.

Mussolini did not think the vote had any real value, and showed up at work the next morning like any other day. That afternoon, King Victor Emmanuel III summoned him to Villa Savoia and dismissed him from office. Upon leaving the Villa, Mussolini was arrested. For the next two months he was moved from place to place to hide him and prevent his rescue by the Germans.

Ultimately, Mussolini was sent to Gran Sasso, a mountain resort in Abruzzo. He was kept in complete isolation until rescued by the Germans on September 12, 1943. Mussolini then set up a puppet government in the area of northern Italy still under German occupation called the Repubblica Sociale Italiana (R.S.I.), also known as the Italian Social Republic.

Death

Ciano did not agree with Mussolini and because of this he was dismissed from his post by the new government. Ciano, Edda and their three children (Fabrizio, Raimonda, and Marzio) fled to Germany on August 28, 1943, in fear of being arrested by the new Italian Government, but the Germans returned him to Mussolini and the R.S.I. He was then formally arrested on charges of treason. Under German and Fascist pressure, Mussolini had Ciano imprisoned for nearly a year before he was tried and found guilty. After the Verona trial and sentence, on January 11, 1944, Gian Galeazzo Ciano was executed by a Fascist firing squad along with 17 others (including Emilio De Bono and Giovanni Marinelli) who had voted for Mussolini's ousting. The executed Italians were tied to chairs and shot in the back as a further humiliation. Ciano was essentially executed for dissenting against Il Duce's will. His last words were "Long live Italy!" [5]

Ciano is remembered for his famous Diaries 1937–1943, a daily record of his meetings with Mussolini, Hitler, Ribbentrop, foreign ambassadors and other political figures that later proved embarrassing to the Nazi leadership and the Fascist diehards. Edda tried to barter his papers to the Germans in return for his life; Gestapo agents helped her confidant Emilio Pucci rescue some of them from Rome. Pucci was then a lieutenant in the Italian Air Force, but would find fame after the war as a fashion designer. When Hitler vetoed the plan, Edda hid the bulk of the papers at a clinic in Ramiola, near Medesano and on January 9, 1944, Pucci helped her escape to Switzerland with the five diaries covering the war years.[6] The diary was first published in English in London in 1946, edited by Malcolm Muggeridge, for the years 1939 to 1943. The complete English version was published in 2002.

Children

Gian Galeazzo and Edda Ciano had three children:

In popular culture

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Moseley, Ray (2004). Mussolini : the last 600 days of il Duce (1. ed. ed.). Dallas: Taylor Trade Publ. p. 79. ISBN 1589790952.
  2. ↑ Ciano, Caleazzo (2002). Diary, 1937-1943 (1st complete and unabridged English ed. ed.). New York: Enigma Books. ISBN 1929631022.
  3. ↑ Municipality of Tirana
  4. ↑ Pius XII speech at the presentation of credentials (in Italian)
  5. ↑ "Mussolini’s Daughter’s Affair with Communist Revealed in Love Letters". The Telegraph. 17 April 2009. Retrieved 20 January 2010.
  6. ↑ McGaw Smyth, Howard (1969). "The Ciano Papers: Rose Garden". Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 23 April 2008.Detailed CIA account of Ciano's last weeks and how his papers escaped Italy – good source if anyone wants to expand this article

Bibliography

External links

Italian nobility
Preceded by
Costanzo Ciano		 Count of Cortellazzo
1939–1944 		Succeeded by
Fabrizio Ciano
Political offices
Preceded by
Benito Mussolini		 Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs
1936–1943 		Succeeded by
Benito Mussolini