‘Anyone who Abuses Animals is no Italian’: Animal Protection in Fascist Italy

Abstract

This article examines the animal protection policies in fascist Italy, placing them in the more general framework of Mussolini’s political and economic strategies and the history of Italian animal advocacy, which began in the second half of the nineteenth century. Focusing on fascist propaganda campaigns on animal welfare, legislation on animal experimentation and slaughter, state reorganization of animal protection societies, which were incorporated in 1938 into the Ente nazionale fascista per la protezione animale, the article aims to show the conceptual and political basis of fascist activism in the prevention of cruelty to animals. Far from being based on the recognition of animals as sentient individuals, it was determined by specifically human interests: autarky and economic efficiency, public morality, the primacy of ‘fascist civilization’, and the regime’s totalitarian design.