Galeazzo Ciano
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Gian Galeazzo Ciano, Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari (March 18, 1903 – January 11, 1944), was Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Benito Mussolini's son-in-law.
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[edit] Early life
Ciano was born in Livorno, Italy, in 1903. He was the son of Admiral Count Costanzo Ciano, a World War I major hero in the Royal Italian Navy, founding member of the Fascist Party and re-organizer of the Italian Merchant Marine in the 20s. Ciano Sr was not above making a side profit from his public office (he was nicknamed "Ganascia" - "The Jaw") and as a side effect his son was soon used to living a high-profile glamorous life which he was to remain fond of until the end. After receiving his fairly earned law degree, Ciano served as an attaché in Rio de Janeiro. In 1930, he married Benito Mussolini's daughter Edda Mussolini, with whom he soon left for Shanghai where he served as Italian Consul. Back in Italy, a few years later, he became the minister of Press and propaganda.
[edit] Foreign Minister
He took part in the Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935-36) as a bomber squadron commander (his unit was dubbed "La Disperata") where Alessandro Pavolini (later to be his persecutor) served as lieutenant. Upon his highly-trumpeted "hero" comeback he became Foreign Minister in 1936, replacing Mussolini. The following year he was allegedly involved in organizing the murder of the Rosselli Brothers(Carlo and Nello, two exiled anti-fascist major activists killed in the french spa town of Bagnoles-de-l'Orne on June 9th, 1937. After 1939, Ciano became increasingly disenchanted with Nazi Germany and the course of World War II, although when the Italian regime embarked in the ill-advised "parallel war" alongside Germany, he went along fairly convinced, even through the terribly-devised invasion of Greece and its subsequent setback. Change came again in his unresty personality, and in the spring of 1943 following the Axis defeat in North Africa, other major setbacks on the Eastern Front, and the Anglo-American assault on Sicily looming on the horizon, Ciano turned against prosecution of the doomed war and actively pushed for Italy's exit from the conflict. He was silenced by being removed from his post and reassigned as ambassador to Vatican City. In this role he could remain in Rome, under close watch of Mussolini. The Regime's position had become even more shaky with the coming summer, however, and court circles were already probing the Allies commands for agreements of some sort.
On the night of July 24, Mussolini summoned the Fascist Grand Council to its first meeting since 1939. 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 total ousting from leadership. The motion won by an unexpectedly large margin, 19-7, with Ciano voting in favor.
Mussolini did not think the vote had any substantive value, and showed up at work the next morning like any other day. That afternoon, Vittorio Emanuele II, the King, summoned him to the palace and dismissed him from office. Upon leaving the palace, Mussolini was arrested. For the next two months he was moved from place to place to hide him from the Germans. Ultimately Mussolini was sent to Gran Sasso, a mountain resort in central Italy (Abruzzo). He was kept there in complete isolation until rescued by the Germans. Mussolini then set up a puppet government in the area of northern Italy still under German occupation called R.S.I. Italian Social Republic.
Ciano, having been dismissed from his post by the new government, tried, against all reasoning, to find shelter in Nazi Germany, alongside is Nazi-enamoured wife Edda and his three children. The Germans though managed to return him in the hands of R.S.I. agents. Ciano was then formally arrested for treason. Under German and Fascist pressure, Mussolini had to have Ciano tried, although he was heavily battled in his heart until the very last hour; but it appeared everybody wanted Ciano's bones, from the top officials in RSI and Nazi advisors, to the folk attending the trial. After the sentence, a devout Fascist firing squad executed Ciano and four more who had voted for Mussolini's ousting, at a shooting range in Verona on January 11, 1944.
Ciano is remembered for his famous Diaries 1939-1943, a daily record of the his meetings with Mussolini, Hitler, von Ribbentrop, foreign ambassadors and other political figures that proved embarrassing to the Nazi leadership and the Fascist diehards. The diary was smuggled into Switzerland by his wife Edda in 1943-44 and first published in 1946 in English in New York in an incomplete version. The complete English version was published in 2002.
[edit] Miscellaneous
A number of films have depicted his life, including Mussolini and I (1985) in which he was played by Anthony Hopkins.
His son Fabrizio Ciano wrote a personal memoir entitled Quando il nonno fece fucilare papà ("When Grandpa had Daddy Shot").
[edit] References
- Galeazzo Ciano, Diary 1937-1943, Preface by Renzo De Felice (Professor of History University of Rome) and original introduction by Sumner Welles (U.S. Under Secretary of State 1937-1943), translated by Robert L. Miller (Enigma Books, 2002), ISBN 1-929631-02-2
- The Ciano Diaries 1939-1943: The Complete, Unabridged Diaries of Count Galeazzo Ciano, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1936-1943 (2000) ISBN 1-931313-74-1
- Ciano's diplomatic papers: being a record of nearly 200 conversations held during the years 1936-42 with Hitler, Mussolini, Franco; together with important memoranda, letters, telegrams etc / edited by Malcolm Muggeridge; translated by Stuart Hood, London: Odhams Press, (1948)
- Giordano Bruno Guerri - Un amore fascista. Benito, Edda e Galeazzo. (Mondadori, 2005) ISBN 88-04-53467-2
- Ray Moseley - Mussolini's Shadow: The Double Life of Count Galeazzo Ciano, (Yale University Press, 1999) ISBN 0-300-07917-6
- R.J.B. Bosworth - Mussolini (Hodder Arnold, 2002) ISBN 0-340-73144-3
- Michael Salter and Lorie Charlesworth - "Ribbentrop and the Ciano Diaries at the Nuremberg Trial" in Journal of International Criminal Justice 2006 4(1):103-127 doi:10.1093/jicj/mqi095
- Fabrizio Ciano - Quando il nonno fece fucilare papà ("When Grandpa had Daddy Shot"). Milano: Mondadori, 1991.
| Preceded by Benito Mussolini | Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs 1936–1943 | Succeeded by Benito Mussolini |
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