Italian racial laws

Front page of the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on 11 November 1938: "Le leggi per la difesa della razza approvate dal Consiglio dei ministri" (English: "The laws for the defense of race approved by the Council of Ministers").

The Italian racial laws, otherwise referred to as the Racial Laws (Italian: Leggi Razziali), were a series of laws promulgated by the government of Benito Mussolini in Fascist Italy from 1938 to 1944 in order to enforce racial discrimination and segregation in the Kingdom of Italy. The main victims of the Racial Laws were Italian Jews and the African inhabitants of the Italian Empire.[1][2][3]

In the aftermath of Mussolini's fall from power and the invasion of Italy by Germany, the Badoglio government suppressed the laws in January 1944. In northern Italy, they remained in force and were made more severe in the territories ruled by the Italian Social Republic until the end of the Second World War.[2]

  1. ^ Shinn, Christopher A. (2019) [2016]. "Inside the Italian Empire: Colonial Africa, Race Wars, and the 'Southern Question'". In Kirkland, Ewan (ed.). Shades of Whiteness. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. 35–51. doi:10.1163/9781848883833_005. ISBN 978-1-84888-383-3. S2CID 201401541.
  2. ^ a b Gentile, Emilio (2004). "Fascism in Power: The Totalitarian Experiment". In Griffin, Roger; Feldman, Matthew (eds.). Fascism: Critical Concepts in Political Science. Vol. IV (1st ed.). London and New York: Routledge. pp. 44–45. ISBN 9780415290159.
  3. ^ Negash, Tekeste (1997). "Introduction: The legacy of Italian colonialism". Eritrea and Ethiopia: The Federal Experience. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. pp. 13–17. ISBN 978-91-7106-406-6. OCLC 1122565258.