MUSSOLINI BENITO: (1883-1945)

MUSSOLINI BENITO: (1883-1945) Italian Fascist dictator who served as Prime Minister of Italy 1922-43. T.L.S., Mussolini, one page, 4to, Rome, 26th August 1930, to the Minister of Public Works, on the printed stationery of the President of the Supreme Defence Commission, in Italian, marked Riservatissimo (´Strictly Confidential´). Mussolini writes on the subject of the use of underground railways and other tunnels as anti-aircraft shelters in the major cities and states that he has examined the Draft regulations for the adaptation of urban tunnels as permanent anti-aircraft shelters, along with an accompanying report and memorandum, continuing to remark ´having heard on the matter the opinions of the Ministers concerned (Interior, War, Navy, Air Force and Communications), I approve them with the amendments indicated in the attached memorandum´ (no longer present) and further instructing ´I request Your Excellency, in agreement with the Ministry of the Interior, to prepare the legislative measure necessary to give immediate effect to these regulations. Your Excellency is to report upon the first applications of these regulations at the forthcoming Session of the Supreme Defence Commission´. With blank integral leaf. Some light, minor age wear to the upper left corner, otherwise VG

Araldo di Crollalanza (1892-1986) Italian Fascist politician, Minister of Public Works 1930-35. A veteran Fascist and former Podestà of Bari, Crollalanza played a prominent role in the extensive programme of public works and infrastructural development undertaken by Mussolini's regime during the 1930s.

The present letter provides an interesting insight into the development of Italian civil air-defence planning more than a decade before the country experienced sustained Allied aerial bombardment during World War II. By 1930 the Fascist government was already considering how existing urban infrastructure, particularly underground railway tunnels and other subterranean passages, might be adapted as permanent shelters against aerial attack. The involvement of the Ministries of the Interior, War, Navy, Air Force, Communications and Public Works demonstrates the increasingly coordinated approach being taken towards the protection of the civilian population and strategically important cities. Such preparations acquired considerably greater urgency during the following decade as advances in bomber aircraft transformed the threat of large-scale attacks upon urban centres.