Italy neutral ww2 + jews

Italy would never agree to Germany just dumping the Jews on them. That said, I could see Italy accept Jewish refugees and allowing them to emigrate from Italy. Mussolini, though his 1938 anti-Semitic legislation suggests otherwise, wasn't anti-Semitic. Besides that, the Nazis would be very concerned to maintain this neutral Italy as an economic windpipe to import stuff and wouldn't burden the relationship by driving Jews across the border with machine gun fire or something (which they tried on the Soviets a couple of time and stopped when the Soviets were annoyed about it because Germany needed its shipments of raw materials).
 
What if Germany had deported all Jews to Italy colonies in WW2, and Italy was neutral?
Hitler can't and won't be able to just dump millions of Jews on the other side of the alps. The question is, would Mussolini agree to anything of the sort if Hitler asked? Jews being sent to Libya is probably not preferable (that's Italy's Fourth Shore!) but instantly massively altering the demographics of the Ethiopian Highlands may have some appeal.
 
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Skilled Jewish refugees would find jobs in factories Italy is using to sell goods to both sides.
I could see Jewish agricultural workers being settling in Ethiopia or even Albania.
A lot of refugees would be encouraged to book passage to other countries wherever possible.
 
Skilled Jewish refugees would find jobs in factories Italy is using to sell goods to both sides.
I could see Jewish agricultural workers being settling in Ethiopia or even Albania.
A lot of refugees would be encouraged to book passage to other countries wherever possible.

Not much different from how Spain and Portugal handled it. If you brought money & needed skills a way could be found around local anti Semitism. Otherwise passage to anywhere else was encouraged.
 
Duce, reguarded anti Semitic ideas much less murder as a distraction from the corporate state ideal. Fascists even worked with, early Zionist factions.
 
Neutral Italy likely means neutral Greece and Bulgaria as well, so there are a couple more factors in the refugee equation.
 
Jews is one things. Hundreds of thousands of German patriots? And then millions of Askenazi Jews from Poland? When the Germans deported people of Jewish descent, they weren't allowed to take enough money or property to get them through a week's rent. That would be very difficult for any country to deal with. Now, perhaps if you were talking about the Germans coming to some arrangment in which Catholics of Jewish descent or certain ones with advanced scientific knowldge who could speak Italian, as well as a large mixture of Sorbians, Czechs, German Catholics, Silesians,Lithuanians Poles, some exiled Frenchmen... Well, if they keep their property then perhaps the Italians set about some sort of refugee and resettlement program, in which they are all mixed together and placed around Italian East Africa to act as settlers, who due to the mixture will need to use Italian as a lingua franca. Good way to shore up settlements around somewhat hostile East Africans. I think the groups were Somalis, Tigrans.... Lots of groups that may up Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somali. But yes, the Germans can hardly get any ships with Jews over to Libya without actually invading Yugoslavia, Italy, or getting them to agree shipping them through there.
 

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...and Italy was neutral?

It depends on what your point of divergence is; if Italy was significantly neutral, never signing the Pact of Steel, then Mussolini would have had no reason to introduce the Nuremburg race laws into Italy, laws that were highly unpopular with both the Italian people in general and within the Fascist party itself, where Italy’s Jews were disproportionately represented and made up a significant portion of the upper echelon.

If that were the case then Mussolini would have welcomed Jewish immigration from Germany, just as he did welcome Austrian Jews fleeing the Anschluss; Mussolini himself considered Jews to be highly intelligent and hardworking people; his dentist, personal physician, family doctor and the heart specialist he had treat his brother-in-law, were all Jewish, as were the authors who wrote the only two authorised biographies of the Fascists leader. With Italy scrambling to catch up industrially, such refugees with a broad range of skills would have been greatly valued.
 
It depends on what your point of divergence is; if Italy was significantly neutral, never signing the Pact of Steel, then Mussolini would have had no reason to introduce the Nuremburg race laws into Italy, laws that were highly unpopular with both the Italian people in general and within the Fascist party itself, where Italy’s Jews were disproportionately represented and made up a significant portion of the upper echelon.

If that were the case then Mussolini would have welcomed Jewish immigration from Germany, just as he did welcome Austrian Jews fleeing the Anschluss; Mussolini himself considered Jews to be highly intelligent and hardworking people; his dentist, personal physician, family doctor and the heart specialist he had treat his brother-in-law, were all Jewish, as were the authors who wrote the only two authorised biographies of the Fascists leader. With Italy scrambling to catch up industrially, such refugees with a broad range of skills would have been greatly valued.
Also helps with the whole 'ancient lineage of Rome' thing. Maybe he also plays it up for propaganda in Ethiopia, which claimed itself as the descendants of King David and the Queen of Sheba. They had propaganda posters in the area giving Mussolini a different facial structure that looked more like locals, so it wouldn't be too out of bounds.
 
... But yes, the Germans can hardly get any ships with Jews over to Libya without actually invading Yugoslavia, Italy, or getting them to agree shipping them through there.

If Germany pays for it, anything is possible. Of course even with the loot from France the west Europe occupied nations German promises of payment were not taken very seriously. A mass expulsion of Jews from occupied Europe is akin to the Madagascar proposal. It also runs counter to the nazi rediscovery of the short term benefits of slave labor. Tho there was not yet the addiction to forced labor of 1942-43 its still late in the game to avoid & send all those potential slaves off to freedom Africa (Does anyone see the irony in that?)
 
A certain number of skilled refugees would likely be accepted and not necessarily just in the colonies.

Perhaps if the American Jewish Committee contributed to their transportation and upkeep, a sizable amount could be hosted in East Africa.

Also some would spill to Kenya/Uganda, possibly reopening the 1903 proposal.

I also wonder if a transfer of the indigenous population toward the interior would be encouraged. In that case, at least some parts of the colony would become majority European and not demand independence, at least in the decolonisation sense.

After the war, depending on the numbers, this would open a new scenario in Israel: many could move there and the Ashkenazi have a significant majority and also more combatants overall, allowing to conquer more land.

Last but not least, could their permanence, however temporary, affect the country's ideological leaning? If fascism is not as discredited as in OTL, would Israel tilt more that way?
 
Mussolini himself considered Jews to be highly intelligent and hardworking people; his dentist, personal physician, family doctor and the heart specialist he had treat his brother-in-law, were all Jewish, as were the authors who wrote the only two authorised biographies of the Fascists leader.

You left out his mistress.
 
I don't know how much political clout Jewish interest groups had at the time.

Any chance they could influence the government or private industry to effect some economic benefit to offset for that expense?

Not a lot. Nationally the Jewih vote was to small. & The WASP anti semetics to opposed to Jewish interests. Even when the Quakers weighed in for the Jews there was not much traction.
 
No. Never going to happen.

Don't think in terms of "Jews". Think in terms of "foreigners". Which country, in the late 1930s, would stomach allowing in some 4 million foreigners in say 8 years? None. Not an enlightened, progressive, multi-national country. Not to mention a country ruled by a Fascist, i.e. hyper-nationalist, regime.
For all it mattered, they could have been no Jews at all, good Catholics, well educated, speaking Italian, and being a valuable and healthy manpower pool. They'd still be a bunch of Germans, Poles and Ukrainans. No go. It's actually worth a removal to the ASB subforum, IMHO.
 
No. Never going to happen.

Don't think in terms of "Jews". Think in terms of "foreigners". Which country, in the late 1930s, would stomach allowing in some 4 million foreigners in say 8 years? None. Not an enlightened, progressive, multi-national country. Not to mention a country ruled by a Fascist, i.e. hyper-nationalist, regime.
For all it mattered, they could have been no Jews at all, good Catholics, well educated, speaking Italian, and being a valuable and healthy manpower pool. They'd still be a bunch of Germans, Poles and Ukrainans. No go. It's actually worth a removal to the ASB subforum, IMHO.

Autocracies (forcibly) moved peoples around all the time if they thought it was to their benefit, going back to Nebuchadnezzar and beyond. Nothing ASB about it.
 
Which country, in the late 1930s, would stomach allowing in some 4 million foreigners in say 8 years?

That's the keyword. Would sending them to the colonies, possibly to displace natives, count as "allowing in"?

The ASB part is the number. Perhaps a few hundred thousand (and with a few caveats) would have been feasible.
 
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