How bad was Fascist Italy's behavior in World Wae II

While German and Japanese war crimes are widely known, what about the junior partner in the Axis?I know that the Italians committed atrocities such as concentration camps (though the death toll in those could be measured in the tens of thousands rather than the millions), use of gas weapons, brutality against civilians, etc.

That being said, was Italian brutality in a league of its own, like that of its two partners, or were Italian atrocities unremarkable by mid 20th century standards?
 
I would say unremarkable but that could be self selection bias. Mussolini was not of the first rank of evil dictators (but evil enough) of the 20th century such as Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin and Tojo but that isn't saying much. I am not sure if he was that unremarkable or the others were so horrible that they come to mind . Saying someone isn't as bad as Hitler or Pol Pot isn't saying much.
 
I think not as bad as Nazi and Imperial Japanese atrocities (but not very tolerable either lest one accuses me of Fascist apologism) and sort of unremarkable; granted the concentration camps come close but Italy's fascist ideology wasn't as extreme as that of the other two powers. Not to mention not as anti-Semitic as Nazism, up until the latter years of WWII to my knowledge.
 
They were too incompetent to be as consistently evil as the Nazis and Imperial Japanese were.

And while Adolf Hitler is a reviled figure that no (decent) person views with anything but contempt, it's kind of hard not to find Benito at least a little amusing. I mean, seriously:

wtf-the-headquarters-of-benito-mussolini-and-the-italian-fascist-party-a-little-non-traditional-i-know-but-still-wtf-worthy.jpg
 
While German and Japanese war crimes are widely known, what about the junior partner in the Axis?I know that the Italians committed atrocities such as concentration camps (though the death toll in those could be measured in the tens of thousands rather than the millions), use of gas weapons, brutality against civilians, etc.

That being said, was Italian brutality in a league of its own, like that of its two partners, or were Italian atrocities unremarkable by mid 20th century standards?

War on Ethiopia was before WW2 but uspeakable brutal nevertheless.
 

Wendigo

Banned
They played along with what the Nazis wanted, especially on the issue of concentration camps, but they were rather incompetent. Still, what they did was not nice.

Excerpt from article:

The Province of Ljubljana saw the deportation of 250,000 people, which equaled 7.5% of the total population. The operation, one of the most drastic in Europe, filled up many Italian concentration camps, such as Rab, Gonars, Monigo, Renicci di Anghiari and elsewhere. The survivors received no compensation from the Italian state after the war. In early July 1942, Italian troops operating opposite Fiume, were reported to have shot and killed 800 Croat and Slovene civilians and burned down 20 houses near Split on the Dalmatian coast.[8] Later that month, the Italian Air Force was reported to have practically destroyed four Yugoslav villages and killed hundreds of civilians in revenge for a local guerrilla attack that resulted in the death of two high-ranking officers.[9] In the second week of August 1942, Italians troops were reported to have burned down six Croatian villages and shot dead more than 200 civilians in retaliation for guerrilla attacks.[10] During September 1942, the Italian Army was reported to have destroyed 100 villages in Slovenia and killed 7,000 villagers in reprisal against local guerrilla attacks.[11]

Clearly the Italian Army could be vicious bastards when they wanted to be.
 

Art

Monthly Donor
But if you read the book It Happened In Italy, you would know that the Italians did not take the Nurenberg laws that were passed by Mussolini seriously. They kept the Jews in camps, but they could leave with permission from the local police chief, and were fed well, not on starvation rations. As for the Slavic and Greek regions, they were no better than the Bulgarians, and way better than the Germans. Of course, Ethopia was run horribly, and Libya as well. Watch Lion of the Desert for information about the Italian occupation of Libya from 1911, when they won the Italo-Turkish War, to 1942. They killed tens of thousands of Libyans in their occupation of the country.
 
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