“Portrait of the Regard Dictators Have…” (May 25, 1939)
by L Day
15 x 20 in., grease pencil on board
Coppola Collection
I can find no other evidence for an L Day (or even more than a handful of “Day”s) as artists. This could be a one-off, although the complexity of the composition suggests otherwise. The fires of war stir up the brew of human suffering while the dictators soak in the admiration of others — even as they pour them into the cauldron.
Fascists believe that liberal democracy is obsolete, and they regard the complete mobilization of society under a totalitarian one-party state as necessary to prepare a nation for armed conflict and respond effectively to economic difficulties. Such a state is led by a strong leader—such as a dictator and a martial government composed of the members of the governing fascist party—to forge national unity and maintain a stable and orderly society. Fascism rejects assertions that violence is automatically negative in nature, and views political violence, war, and imperialism as means that can achieve national rejuvenation
Nazi Germany’s obvious political and military ally in Europe was Italy. The Italians had been governed by a fascist regime under Benito Mussolini since 1925. Italian fascism was very much the elder brother of Nazism, a fact Hitler himself acknowledged. And from the late 1920s, Mussolini had provided some financial support to the rising Nazi Party; he also allowed SA and SS men to train with his own paramilitary brigade, the Blackshirts. Hitler’s ascension to power in 1933 was publicly praised by Mussolini, who hailed it as a victory for his own fascist ideology.
Mussolini, who was prone to egomania, also had a low opinion of Hitler’s elevation to power, which he thought less glorious than his own. The first meeting between the two, held in Venice in June 1934, was disastrous. Mussolini spoke some German and refused to use a translator – but he had great difficulty understanding Hitler’s rough Austrian accent. The Italian was subjected to some of Hitler’s long monologues, which bored him greatly. Both men emerged from the Venice summit thinking much less of each other. But they were two peas in a pod, and the world is a big place to plunder. The Rome-Berlin Axis was formally announced on November 1, 1936, by Mussolini in a speech in Milan.
Hitler’s influence on Mussolini became evident in the Italian leader’s Manifesto of Race (July 1938). This decree, which proved very unpopular in Italy, stripped Italian Jews of their citizenship and removed them from government occupations. In September 1938 Mussolini was part of the four-nation summit on the Czechoslovakian crisis and a signatory of the Munich Agreement.
The Rome-Berlin Axis was formalized in May 1939 with the creation of another pact, in which Mussolini, the great phrasemaker, coined the Pact of Steel.
