Spiegel on Mussolini 007: The British Promoted Fascism

The British revelations on Mussolini being financed by British intelligence in 1917 are reverberating in ways perhaps unwished by London. Today's Spiegelonline, in its historical section, "Einestages," covers the revelations under the headline, "Mussolini 007," and raises the general issue of the British sponsorship of fascism. Author Christoph Gunkel asks: "The archive finding raises new questions: Did the British possibly boost Mussolini's rocket career, who in March 1919 had founded his Fascist Party and within three years became 'Duce' and dictator of Italy? Did London grant him the decisive money injection which made his rise possible, to become Hitler's main ally?"

The author does not raise the next question, which is whether the British promoted Nazism as well. However, a reader does it, by filing a comment with a reference to a book published in 2005, entitled Conjuring Hitler, by University of Washington scholar Guido Giacomo Preparata. The book tells how the British supported Nazism deliberately "in order to destabilize any alliance between Germany and Russia." An excerpt of the book online cites Chaitkin's Treason in America in its bibliography.

Samuel Hoare, who financed Mussolini in 1917 and later, as Foreign Minister, signed the Hoare-Laval pact which gave Mussolini control over Abyssinia, was indicated as a key member of the synarchist "nazi-communist" cabal in Britain, cited in a U.S. intelligence report of 1940, covered in Jeff Steinberg's 2003 article "Synarchism, the fascist roots of the Wolfowitz Cabal." Together with Lord Beaverbrook, Hoare was a player in the group that worked at an alliance with French fascists and even attempted a coup in Britain.