Thread by @cynicalsecurity

A historical set of tweets. Not recommended for Fascists or apologists.

Someone I knew particularly well was a rich Milanese industrialist during the advent of Fascism in Italy. In his factory he observed that the Fascist unions rapidly gained support amongst those who…

believed that working was beneath them and they should be paid to sit around all day. After the first round of bewilderment he saw this as a great opportunity, transferred them off the floor and into an “office job”. Productivity soared and, at the same time, the “office” was…

tasked with “important things” which made those involved feel like they finally had the statute which they deserved. At the same time he slowly made the working conditions in the office worse to the point that one day all the chairs failed. Immediate consternations, great…

anger at their precious Fascist bums hitting the ground whereby the industrialist calmly enquired as to their work. They stopped and wondered. You see, their office was the “Autarchy Office”, set up to implement the all-important directives of the Fascist party to reduce…

waste and dependency upon foreign sources. Part of the papers he submitted to them, and they rubber-stamped because they could barely read, was one which removed all padding and bearings from the office chairs as they originated from France and Germany, respectively. Immediate…

change of heart of the “Autarchy Office”: how could they possibly go against the directives of their better and elders? They replaced the comfy chairs with rickety wooden equivalents. Next came the coffee: surely the surrogate was just as good…then came the windows: the metal…

frames were essential for the war effort in Abyssinia, replaced with rickety wooden ones. You can imagine that this went on for years until they finally decided that allegiance to the Fascist union was not worth it and returned to work on the floor.

This same industrialist…

also noticed that most Fascists he encountered were people who joined because they thought they could avenge their social position and raise through classes easily. Boisterous, rude, but ultimately cowards scared of anyone with “old authority”.

As things got rough…

he realised he had a unique opportunity to use his position to smuggle Jews into Switzerland: they would board his American-built car and be driven, with him, to Switzerland. Never once did the Fascists dare stop him to ask for documents which, in theory, were essential to go…

anywhere North of Milan and close to the Swiss border. The Jewish families were not being hidden in the boot, they were sitting, with him, in the comfortable seats behind the driver in full livery.

This only ended when, in September 1943, Italy surrendered and the Nazis took…

over. The story takes a sad turn: the factories were bombarded by the Allies in the terrible bombings of the Summer of 1943, the family evacuated to the countryside and, in a last attempt to save Jews, he quietly employed many in the villa in the hills North of Milan.

His great regret was being unable to save more, he always wondered what more he could do and thought that convincing others in his position would have possibly helped but trusting other industrialists was dangerous as many saw Fascism as a way to get rid of Socialists from…

their factories.

There’s an epilogue: as the Nazis fled from North Italy in 1945 they dumped a huge amount of ammunition and weapons at the villa which they requisitioned for one night in their desperate rout. After 25th April 1945 the local partisans asked to take possession…

of the ammunition and weapons and he refused: he would not fuel the thirst of revenge despite the horrors which had taken place. That night he dumped the lot into the little lake adjoining the villa leaving the partisan “committee” forcing their way in the next day empty-handed.