Banality of Evil 3: Mussolini's Fascist Jews
December 23, 2025
by William P. Meyers

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Loyalty comes first to dictators

Prior essays in this series:
Banality of Evil 1: Overview
Banality of Evil 2: When Zionists Loved Nazis

Hannah Arendt in Eichmann in Jerusalem, A Report on the Banality of Evil, gives many examples of the uneven application of anti-Jewish measures during the Holocaust. One reminds us that the current view of Fascism is a bit of a parody, or at least a set of choices agreed to about a historically complex phenomena. We think of fascism as inherently anti-semitic. That comes from the conduct of the National Socialist Party of Deutschland under Hitler.

The original fascists were Italian, led by Benito Mussolini. He migrated from atheism to Roman Catholicism as he rose to power. (His father was an atheist, but his mother was Catholic.) He was dictator of Italy for about a decade before Hitler became dictator of Germany. According to Arendt "When Mussolini, under German pressure, introduced anti-Jewish legislation in the late thirties he stipulated the usual exemptions — war veterans, Jews with high decorations, and the like — but he added one more category, namely, former members of the Fascist Party, together with their parents and grandparents, their wives and children and grandchildren." [p. 178]

Arendt believes that almost all Jews were exempted because so many Jews had joined the Fascist Party since its inception in 1921.

In short, the core feature of fascism is promoting an authoritarian, totalitarian, nationalist dictatorship. Antisemitism is an optional feature. One might even end up with a Jewish fascist leader. Say Benjamin Netanyahu.

In the U.S.A. we have seen Donald Trump teach major and minor lessons in the banality of evil. He makes racist and ethnic remarks, but if you are loyal to him, you can get an appointment to office, or a pardon, no problem. He can destroy the world's ecosystem and make a mockery of the free-market capitalism, but clap for him, tell him he is great, and maybe donate to one of his causes like crypto or the Big Ballroom, and you are golden in his eyes.

Even Hitler's image must be softened a wee bit if you look too closely at the facts. According to Arendt "Even Hitler himself is said to have known three hundred and forty "first-rate Jews" whom he had either altogether assimilated to the status of Germans of granted the privileges of half-Jews." For instance SS leader Reinhard Heydrich and Field Marshall Erhard Milch were known, in inner circles, to be half-Jewish. Interestingly, Arendt (and most others) considers Heydrich to be truly evil, not merely banally evil.

Many Germans, pro-semite and anti-semite alike, had their favored Jewish friends. Not all were treated equally. The Theresienstadt concentration camp was established specifically to provide good accommodations for these friends of the influential. It was used as a showplace by the Nazis to claim Jews were well treated in the camps.

For the rabidly anti-Semitic Nazis (after the war most former Nazis claimed, Not Me), this distinguishing of good and bad Jews was a problem. Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, complained there were "eighty million good Germans, each of whom has his decent Jew. It is clear the others are pigs, but this particular Jew is first-rate."

Keep in mind that these people we know are evil did not think of themselves as evil. I know there are a relative few people who think of themselves as evil, but they are usually too mentally ill to became a Hitler, Mussolini, or even a U.S. president. Hitler thought he talked to God and was acting in His behalf. Mussolini saw nothing but the Italian perfection of manliness in the mirror. And look at Trump. And weep for the planet.

The Bondis, Vances, Rubios, Bessents, Hegseths, Noems et. al., so far, stand in the complex gray areas between the sort of just-following-orders banality of Adolf Eichmann and the true evil of people like Hitler and Himmler. Generally, I have not been that much better impressed by the broader political class of America. I can only hope the Democrats will win the national elections in 2026 and 2028. I hope those elections are not too late to finally do what needs to be done to protect the earth from environmental catastrophe.