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Altreitalie_34pdf.qxd 26-06-2007 16:43 Pagina 1 . ALTREITALIE gennaio-giugno 34/2007 Rivista internazionale di studi sulle migrazioni italiane nel mondo International journal of studies on Italian migrations in the world Altreitalie_34pdf.qxd 26-06-2007 16:27 Pagina 2 INDICE Saggi Migrazioni italiane in Australia Gianfranco Cresciani A not so Brutal Friendship. Italian Responses to National So- cialism in Australia 4 Amedeo Tosco Origine e primi sviluppi della stampa italiana in Australia: il caso dell’Italo-Australiano (1885) 39 Sommario | Abstract | Résumé | Resumo | Extracto 69 Roberto Tomassetti Il progetto «Trentini nel mondo» di ICoN 73 Sommario | Abstract | Résumé | Resumo | Extracto 92 Gerald Meyer Carlo Tresca: The Dilemma of an Anti-Communist Radical 94 Sommario | Abstract | Résumé | Resumo | Extracto 112 Intervista Danilo Catania e Gianfranco Zucca Prospettive di una cultura (finalmente) italo-americana: Camaiti Hostert, Carravetta, Tamburri, Viscusi 115 Altreitalie_34pdf.qxd 26-06-2007 16:27 Pagina 3 Rassegna Convegni Italian Vote Abroad. Looking Back to Move Forward (Stefano Luconi) 144 Libri Enrico Miletto, Istria allo specchio. Storia e voci di una terra di confine (Patrizia Audenino) 147 Gustavo Corni e Christof Dipper (a cura di), Italiani in Germania tra Ottocento e Novecento. Spostamenti, rapporti, immagini, influenze Francesco Carchedi e Enrico Pugliese, Andare, restare, tornare. Cinquant’anni di emigrazione italiana in Germania (Alvise del Pra’) 149 Richard N. Juliani, Priest, Parish, and People. Saving the Faith of Philadelphia’s «Little Italy» (Stefano Luconi) 156 Mary Ellen Mancina-Batinich, Italian Voices. Making Minnesota Our Home (Patrizia Audenino) 159 Segnalazioni 161 Riviste Segnalazioni 163 Film e video 164 Altreitalie_34pdf.qxd 26-06-2007 16:27 Pagina 4 Saggi Migrazioni italiane in Australia A not so Brutal Friendship. Italian Responses to National Socialism in Australia Gianfranco Cresciani Ministry for the Arts, New South Wales, Australia On 28 October 1932, the Italian Fascist Regime celebrated with great pomp, in Italy and within its Italian migrant communities abroad, the Decennale, the tenth anniversary of its seizure of power. Three months later, on 30 January 1933, Chancellor Paul von Hindenburg swore Adolf Hitler as the new Chan- cellor of Germany, in a «Cabinet of National Concentration». Both Mussoli- ni’s colpo di stato (coup d’état) and Hitler’s Machtergreifung (seizure of power) had been achieved with the connivance of the countries’ ruling élites and conservative Establishments. Following Hitler’s rise to power, German diplomatic representatives, in col- lusion with officers of the German National Socialist Workers’ Party (NSDAP) and of the Gestapo in Australia endeavoured to rescue German immigrants to the idea of Deutschtum, of belonging to the German nation, through the Bund, the Alliance of Germandom in Australia and New Zealand. The Bund was offi- cially established on 30 May 1933 and acted as a channel for the permeation of Nazi ideology to German immigrants. Unlike Nazism in Germany, by 1933 Fascism was firmly entrenched in Italy, having ruthlessly suppressed all organised opposition to its rule. In the following eight years, it intensified its efforts to «nationalise» Italian mi- grants. The Regime had established a network of associations aimed at bring- ing Italian migrants under its political control and at spying upon and com- bating the activities of anti-Fascist Italians. Their programs included the use of propaganda by means of radio, the press, rallies and commemorations. In Australia this network included twenty Fasci all’Estero (Fascist Party Branches Abroad), the Gruppo Giovanile (Fascist Youth Group), the Associa- 4 © Centro Altreitalie, Edizioni della Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli Altreitalie_34pdf.qxd 26-06-2007 16:27 Pagina 5 gennaio-giugno 2007 zione Nazionale Combattenti (Returned Soldiers National Association), the Italian Army and Navy Union, the Alpini National Association, the Unione Universitaria Italiana (Italian University Students’ Union), the Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro (National «After Work» Organisation), and the Italian Reserve Officers’ Association. Party members were also at the head of Italian clubs, of cultural associations like the Dante Alighieri Society, of the Italian language Press and Italian Shipping Companies. At first, the Regime looked upon the Führer and his Reich with an ill-dis- guised sense of superiority. Fascist Italy had been subsidising Nazism, at least by 1932, and during the ’Twenties harboured Nazi leaders in exile, like Her- mann Goering1. Emblematic of this attitude was Mussolini’s condescending attitude towards Hitler during their meeting in Venice in June 1934. When, the following month, Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss was murdered by Nazi thugs, an infuriated Mussolini mobilized the Army at the Brenner Pass to thwart any German threat to Austria’s independence. Italy’s war in Ethiopia and the Axis Alliance brought about a rapprochement between the two dicta- torships, even if some Italians still subconsciously believed in the civilising influence of «Rome» over her Teutonic neighbour. Franco Battistessa, editori- alist of Sydney’s pro-Fascist paper Il Giornale Italiano, wrote in 1936 that «Rome and Berlin have again stretched the hand to each other... the two mod- ern Caesars, Mussolini the Teacher and his pupil Hitler, will meet again»2. From 1936, Nazi Germany offered a «brutal friendship», to use the ex- pression used retrospectively by Hitler in April 19453, which would plunge Italy into a tragic, downward spiral of submission to its German master. Its landmarks were the intervention by the two Powers in the Spanish Civil War, the signing of the Axis Alliance on 21 October 1936, Mussolini’s visit to Ger- many in September 1937, Italy signing the Anti-Comintern Pact on 6 Novem- ber 1937, Hitler’s visit to Italy in May 1938, the signing of the Pact of Steel on 7 May 1939, Italy’s entry into the conflict on 10 June 1940, the Wehrma- cht’s occupation of the peninsula following the collapse of the Fascist Regime on 25 July 1943, the war of liberation against the German occupier and its puppet Salò Government and the virtual annexation by the Third Reich of the Italian regions of Trentino and Venezia Giulia, under the Gauleiters Franz Hofer and Friedrich Rainer respectively. In Australia, the relations between Italian and German migrants between 1933 and 1939, during the war years and following the conflict, could not be termed as being brutal, nor altogether friendly. The two communities had set- tled in Australia since the mid-Nineteenth Century. The first German settlers arrived in South Australia in 1836, while a number of Italian migrants were attracted by the discovery of gold in Victoria during the 1850s. The 1933 Census registered 16,842 persons of German birthplace residing in Australia, © Centro Altreitalie, Edizioni della Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli 5 Altreitalie_34pdf.qxd 26-06-2007 16:27 Pagina 6 gennaio-giugno 2007 while the Italian-born tallied 26,7564. If the second and third generation of Australian-born Italians and Germans are taken into account, during the 1930s people of Italian heritage in Australia totalled 40,000, while people of German heritage were roughly 60,000, although the then German Consul- General, Dr Rudolf Asmis, in a letter to the Auslandsorganisation, the For- eign Department of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party in Ham- burg, claimed that «the Germans in Australia, meaning those persons of Ger- man origin in Australia, who still consider themselves of German origin num- ber about 100,000 people»5. While German settlers were mainly concentrated west of Brisbane, in Syd- ney, Melbourne, Bendigo and Ballarat in Victoria, and in the Barossa Valley in South Australia, the main concentrations of Italians, outside the capital cities, were in the Riverina, Port Pirie in South Australia, Fremantle in Western Aus- tralia and the cane fields of North Queensland. To a large extent, therefore, the two communities were not in close proximity. Both communities were watched over by the diplomatic and consular representatives and by members of the lo- cal Party organisation, who were at the top of their socio-economic structure. A second tier comprised people involved in business and commerce, staff of the shipping companies and newspapers, executives of cultural associations and clubs, and the very few intellectuals and academics striving to make a living in Australia. The bottom tier included unskilled and semi-skilled workers, agri- cultural workers, farmers and manual labourers. Italians mainly found employ- ment as cane-cutters, orchardists, shopkeepers, fishermen, stonemasons, fruit growers and pickers. German immigrants, Adelaide’s German Consul, Dr Os- car Seger disparagingly lamented, «are simple locksmiths and turners, whom one meets for the sake of Volksgemeinschaft (racial community) but whom one naturally differs in thought and subjects of conversation»6. In another letter, Seger regretted that «merchants and other circles to whom [sic] one can get closer intellectually are lacking. The Reichsdeutsche colony consists rather of turners, locksmiths, bakers, the last being for the most part sailors who jumped ship, deserters»7. While the first two tiers were usually pro-Fascist and pro-Nazi, the lower tier was not so committed to the two ideologies. Seger complained that «the more educated – also among the German-Australians – the Freemasons, the German-Lutheran Church circles,