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by
Keith W. Stump
Today, few are aware of t he
prophetic
significance
of one of this century's pivotal events.
F
l FTY
yea rs ago t h is
mon th- O ctober 25,
1936, to be exact- the
" Rome-Berlin Axis" was pro–
claimed.
lt
bound Mussolini's
Italy and Hitler 's Germany in
an "indissoluble" friendship.
The Axis was the nucleus
around which developed t he
military coalition that would op–
pose the Allied Powers in World
War Il.
Fewer than one person in 15 to–
day is old enough to have any per–
sonal rccollection of that histori–
cally important occasion. Fewer
still are aware of the astounding
significance of the Rome-Berlin
Axis in the panorama of
Bible
prophecy!
Rise o f Fascism
How did the Axis relationship
come about?
Asan ambitious young politician
in postwar Germany of the 1920s,
Adolf Hitler had taken ltalian dic–
tator Benito Mussolini as his polit–
ical role-model. Mussolini- known
as
i/
Duce.
"the leader," of Italy's
Fascist Party-had brought down
the government in Rome in 1922,
announcing himself the defender of
law and order. In a throwback to
the one-man rule of the Caesars,
Mussolini seized power- Hitler's
own secret goal in Germany.
On January 30, 1933, Hitler fi–
nally attained the long-sought Ger–
man chancellorship, using his
6
country's growing economic cnsts
as a stepping-stone to power. Once
in office be proceeded to establisb
an absolute dictatorship. The Third
Reich was born.
The dictators of Jtaly and Ger–
many did not have their first per–
sonal meeting until June of 1934-
fully ayear and a half after Hitler 's
emergence as Chancellor. Hitler's
admiration of Mussolini , however,
was not immediately reciprocated.
Mussolini summed up his initial
impression of his German admirer
by calling him a
pulcinel/a-buf–
foon. The older, longer-established
Mussolini naively viewed Hitler as
his Fascist protégé, someone he
could easily manipulate to serve
Italy's interests. lt would prove to
be a gross underestimation of the
German corporal-turned-Fuehrer.
No concrete results were
achieved in that first meeting. It
failed to create the cordial personal
relationship for which H itler had
hoped. Relations between the two
dictators remained strained, tinged
with suspicion and mistrust. But
circurnstances would soon thrust
them into a close partnership.
Crucial Year-1936
T he year 1936 was pivota! in the
history of this century.
In June- a few months before
the inauguration of the Rome–
Berlin Axis- Mussolini had dra–
matically proclaimed the
resurrec–
tion
of the ancient Roman Empire,
in the wake of Italy's conques t and
annexation of Ethiopia. From the
balcony of the Palazzo Venezia in
Rome the Duce had declared:
"Legionnaires! In this supreme
certitude raise high your insignia,
your weapons, and your hearts to
salute, after fifteen centuries, the
reappearance of the empire on the
fated hills of Rome."
Mussolini's Ethiopian adventure,
however, had isolated Italy from
tbe Western democracies. Hitler,
too, stood a lone, having alienated
his European neighbors by bis dar–
ing military reoccupat ion of the
Rhineland, an area declared "per–
manently demilitarized" by t he
1919 Treaty of Versailles.
Events had thus driven the two
dictators into each other's arms.
Their mutual lack of foreign sup–
porters and shared Fascist ideology
created a common link between
their two countries despite histori–
cal enmities and differences in na–
tional temperaments.
Early in 1936 Mussolini told
H itler that there was a bond be–
tween them "dictated by destiny
and which was bound to become
stronger and st ronger." Hitler, too,
believed that an alliance with ltaly
was a fundamental necessity of
German policy.
It
would prove to
be a disast rous association that
would ruin them both.
First Steps
The first steps toward a closer part–
nership were taken late in October.
Mussolini sent his foreign minister
and son-in- law, Count Galeazzo
Ciano, to Berlín to work out the
The
PLAIN TRUTH