Can physical education be part of a totalitarian project to control and reshape the masses? Both the leader of Fascist Italy, Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), and the leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), believed that sports could be used to forge the bodies and minds of their nation's youth, preparing them for their future role as warriors.
In both fascist regimes, one of the first steps for the creation of the ‘new citizen’ was the political use of physical activities, even from a young age and for both boys and girls. Sports became fundamental to build consensus and to build the national conscience, strengthening discipline, team spirit, and virility.
The State as a Body, the Body as a State
Benito Mussolini, the founder of fascism and dictator (‘Duce’) of Italy from 1922 to 1945, was represented countless times engaging in physical activities. The duce has been portrayed swimming, running, playing tennis, fencing with a sabre, riding a horse, racing a bobsleigh, and even going shirtless while skiing. All these images created the myth of Mussolini as the ‘first sportsman of Italy’. The public perception of a leader as an athlete, capable of practising with (obvious) success any kind of sport was fundamental to creating a strong emotional bond with public opinion. The athleticism of Mussolini was presented as a superhuman prototype of the ideal Italian man. His body soon became the metaphor of a strong political assertiveness, in contraposition with the image of the weak bourgeoisie that had characterised Italy’s politics before the seizure of power by the fascists in 1922.
The exaltation of Mussolini as a symbol was strongly connected with Fascism’s view on the State as a human body. This ‘political body’ was composed of organs working together for a greater aim, under a strict hierarchical control. On the top of the pyramid there was Mussolini himself – an unattainable model able to inspire the whole population who had to be shaped in his image and likeness. But was Mussolini the best athlete that Italy had ever seen? Actually, the duce started his fitness journey in his late thirties, concurrent with his rise to power. He wanted to be depicted as a dynamic leader, connected with his people’s passion for sport. In this sense, he was not only a precursor of modern trends, but also an exception in the panorama of fascist leaders of his generation. Neither Adolf Hitler in Germany nor the dictator of Spain Francisco Franco (1892-1975) ever tried to show themselves as sportsmen.
What is certain is that the duce guaranteed his presence at every major sporting event. His attendance was considered the major stimulus for Italian athletes, who were thus further encouraged to win every competition. Mussolini knew clearly that sports were a powerful means of mass distraction, so he did not want to miss any opportunity to be seen together with winning athletes. Furthermore, every victory achieved, every record broken was presented as a success of the Fascist rejuvenation of the Italian people. The leader's presence was assured even in the competitions that bored him the most, like football matches. Despite the dictator’s apathy for football, it represented the perfect example of the Fascist concept of sport, because it implied a virile teamwork subjected to the authority of a coach. In addition, the popularity that football reached in the 1930s, especially after the Italian victories in the World Cups of 1934 and 1938, boosted the regime’s consciousness on the potential of sports-related propaganda. Another example was the Mille Miglia ('Thousand Miles'), a motorsport race that showed the image of a modern and technological country thanks to improvements made to the road network and automotive industries. Mussolini, who was an able journalist before becoming a dictator, was known for his flamboyant and convoluted speeches, through which he praised the sporting prowess of the Italians. Even bocce (a type of bowls) deserved to be poeticized, as it had “the living earth as a playing field, the sun as a lamp, a glass of Noah's drink as a door: a game of healthy and happy people, masters of the world” (Canella, 42).
If Mussolini was the model of the perfect sportsman, the prototype of the fascist man was embodied by the statues of the Foro Mussolini in Rome. This was a massive sports complex in Rome inspired by imperial Roman architecture and decorated with a series of statues representing athletes of different disciplines. The statues were the idealized version of virility that were meant to serve as inspirational models for the youth. There was a strong connection between fascism and masculinity. Fascist propaganda has always insisted on the virile image of the soldier-man, forged and strengthened in constant training. But to obtain the perfect fascist man, it was first necessary to intervene in the education of young people and revolutionize it.
Shaping the Youth in Fascist Italy
Mussolini believed that it was necessary to transform Italian society to create the perfect fascist society. The regime started, therefore, to train and indoctrinate even children, in order to create the perfect fascist of the future. The particular attention to youth was a consequence of the lack of trust in the adult population, because it was considered still too influenced by the political convictions of the previous regimes. The transformation would involve not only the mentality or the way of life, but also the body.
However, schools and families could not have been the sole drivers of a cultural revolution, because they were still too influenced by past traditions and education. In Italy, Mussolini created a series of organizations that aimed at indoctrinating youth. All children between the ages of 8 and 13 could be enrolled as Balilla, then be upgraded to enter the Avanguardie Fasciste, and, finally, after having reached 17 years old, they were able to obtain membership of the Fascist national party.
The first reform of education by the fascist government in 1923 was not considered sufficient for ideological indoctrination; it was also considered too elitist and humanistic. The reform was criticized, too, for the little space left for physical education, so much so that in 1926 the Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB) was created for the assistance and physical and moral education of young people aged 8-18, gathering together all previous groups. The ONB aimed to train young Italians so that they eventually became disciplined soldiers. The organization included young people from 6 to 18 years old, divided into three sub-institutions: figli della lupa (6-8 years old), balilla (8-14 years) and avanguardisti (14-18 years) and aimed not only at spiritual, cultural, and religious education, but also at pre-military, gymnastic-sports, professional and technical education according to fascist ideology. Membership was free, but there were pressures to join as well as scholarships and prizes to encourage people to sign up. The ONB also had the right to interfere with the life of schools, creating much friction with teachers. Nonetheless, the school system was forced to adapt to the imposed militarisation of the curricula. For example, from year two, children had to learn how to march and how to do the ‘Roman’ salute, the fascist gesture with an outstretched arm that substituted the bourgeois and less hygienic handshake. High school students received training that simulated war scenarios, like shot put to practise the throwing of hand grenades.
Competing for the Formation of the Youth
In the Italian case, there was not a monopoly of the formation of the youth. Many Catholic youth organisations were already competing to win the hearts and the minds of young Italians, like the Italian Catholic Youth Society or the Italian Catholic University Federation, both under the umbrella of an association called Azione Cattolica. In the early 20s, the relations between Italy and the Holy See were still damaged by the annexation of Rome, the city of the Pope in virtue of his role as bishop of Rome, to the Kingdom of Italy in 1870. Many historians argue that fascist Italy was not a full totalitarian state in virtue of the powerful pervasiveness of the Catholic Church in society, especially in youth education. Mussolini could not openly go against the popularity of the Church, so he chose to compromise with the Pope. But behind an apparent stabilization of relations, the issue of the education of youth would constitute one of the main points of conflict between the Church and Mussolini. In 1931, the press started an aggressive campaign against Azione Cattolica. It was followed by a crescendo of controversies, leading to Mussolini ordering the prefects to dissolve all Catholic youth associations. Pope Pius XI responded with the encyclical Non abbiamo bisogno ('We do not need'), in which he rejected the regime’s claim to monopolize education, condemning statist and pagan pedagogy. The duce then decided to calm the press and signed an agreement that saved Azione Cattolica and its organizations, but they were reorganized for spiritual formation only. The crisis of 1931 demonstrated the impossibility of ‘fascistizing’ Catholicism, but also to ‘catholicise’ Fascism.
From Sportsmen to Warriors
The first president of the ONB was Renato Ricci, who decided to focus efforts on the physical education of young fascists. He was responsible for the creation of the Foro Mussolini and the Fascist Academy of Physical Education, thus focusing on gymnastic training. The attention given to physical training was not a prerogative of the under 18s: since 1920, the GUF - Gruppi universitari fascisti (Fascist University Groups) formed the backbone of the attempt to ‘fascistizise’ universities. One of the most important activities of the GUF was participating in the organization of the Littoriali dello sport. From 1932, Littoriali were the most important sport competitions, a sort of Olympics for Italian youth. Every year more than 2000 athletes participated either in the winter edition, the ‘Littoriali of the snow and the ice’, or in the summer edition. The event became so important that in 1935 the Agonali were instituted, regional competitions to select the participants for the Littoriali. Each athlete competed for his own university group, and the GUF that could gather most points across all the different competitions was proclaimed ‘GUF Littoriale’ and honoured with the right to wear a gold 'M' on its uniforms. For those who did not continue their studies at the university, the regime created a specific organization, the Fasci giovanili di combattimento ('Fascist combat youth'), whose training sessions represented their core activity. Every member of the group was encouraged to practise any kind of sport, thanks to discounts for the purchase of sports equipment or the participation in competitions.
Training usually had an important propagandistic role. Gymnastic displays involved every level of the youth organizations, and bodyweight movements or choreographies with gym equipment frequently preceded Mussolini’s public speeches. Displays were considered so important for disciplining the masses that there was even a competition for them. From 1929, the Concorso Dux evaluated the best team performances. For both children and teenagers participating in these displays, which were accompanied by the clamour of drums and the applause of the crowd, the feeling of being a part of a disciplined and harmonious group was strengthened, as was the sense of identification in the rites and aesthetics of the Fascist regime.
If Fascism aimed at the creation of the ‘new man’, what can be said for the ‘new woman’? Under fascism, physical education started to be practised by an increasing number of women, even though there was strong resistance to women’s sport activities. While for the male population sport had the role of shaping strong soldiers of the future, women were still expected to carry out their traditional role as mothers. The Church strongly opposed the extension of physical education to women, and many detractors thought, incorrectly, that sport could have impaired the integrity of reproductive organs. Nevertheless, the ONB had a female section, divided in figlie della lupa (6-8 years), piccole italiane (8-14 years) and giovani italiane (14-18 years). All the ‘daughters of Italy’ were destined for a future as perfect wives and mothers, capable of bringing into the world future generations of strong and robust Italians. Docility, fertility, robustness, and submission were trained through sports considered harmonious, like gymnastics or skating, but also through activities like swimming or skiing, that would have made girls resistant without making them aggressive.
The Monopoly of the Youth in Nazi Germany
Nazism was heavily influenced by Italian fascism. In particular, the attention towards the youth and its physical education in Italy were closely observed by Nazi Germany as pioneering work. And Italian Fascism considered Nazism as its offshoot. But there was a strong link between the two for the development of a racist policy also applied to sports. The tones of Italian propaganda did not assume, at least at the beginning, explicitly anti-Semitic tones. But the development of markedly racist connotations following Italian colonial development and the adoption of racial laws in Italy in 1938 lead to a more explicit manifestation of racism in sport propaganda.
The first Nazi youth group (Jugendbund der NSDAP) was founded in 1922. Structured like a paramilitary organization, it encompassed (only Aryan or non-Jewish) youth between 14 and 18 years, forming new adepts for the Sturmabteilung (SA), the first paramilitary group of the Nazi Party. The Jugendbund did not have the success hoped by Hitler: it was only one of the many youth organizations in Germany and it struggled with recruitment. The Jugendbund did not last long, as, after the failed coup of 1923 (the Beer Hall Putsch), the organisation collapsed while Hitler was imprisoned and the Nazi Party banned. It is worth mentioning that youth played a different role in Nazi Germany, compared to its Italian counterpart. While the myth of youth was one of the pillars of Fascist ideology, the cornerstone of Nazism was race. Only later did the necessity to create an ideological compact youth at the service of the party emerge.
In 1926 a new, unitary youth organization for boys was established: the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth). It was organized by age and divided between the Jungenmannschaften (14-16 years old) and the Wanderabteilungrn (16-18 years old). Girls (14 to 18) were encouraged to join the League of German Maidens (Bund Deutscher Mädel). Additional groups were later created for boys and girls aged from 10 to 14. All boys and girls were instructed in the benefits of physical exercise and team-building. The organizations did not grow rapidly in the first years of their existence, even after Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933. Only with the compulsory membership to all Third Reich youth in 1940 did this permit a mass education in Nazi ideology to begin.
The Nazi establishment actively promoted the sporting growth of the German youth. Sport became the instrument to raise the ‘Aryan race’ to its maximum potential through physical training and discipline, the purpose of which was to show the world Germanic superiority. In this project there was no place for anyone who was not considered Aryan. Hitler issued racist directives that led to the expulsion of non-Aryans from sports associations, excluding them from every kind of competition. Many Jewish athletes, but also Romani people and Sinti people, had no choice but to emigrate.
In Nazi Germany, sport and racist propaganda became an inseparable pairing, as demonstrated at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, an event that should have instead celebrated global brotherhood. The Olympic Games were at risk from threats to boycott them by democratic countries and human rights pressure groups, but the regime managed to defuse them. The Nazi government even had a Jewish fencer, Helene Mayer. Theodor Lewald, who was Jewish and a former member of the German Olympic Committee, was allowed to remain in his position, although he was effectively stripped of all decision-making power. These two individuals were part of the reassuring representation of reality bolstered by the regime. There has been much discussion about the partiality, pro-fascism and veiled anti-Semitism of the main leaders of the International Olympic Committee who, while showing sympathy for the organizational and sporting effectiveness of Nazi Germany, underestimated the international dangers of Nazism and its allies. The Berlin Olympics, the first in history to be broadcast live, were an indisputable propaganda success for Hitler, who was able to put up a show that was organized down to the smallest detail to exalt the new Nazi Germany. However, the Berlin Games went down in history above all for the victories of an African American athlete, Jesse Owens (1913-80). But despite this humiliation for the Nazi establishment, the 1936 Olympics represented a success for Hitler.
Both Nazism and Italian fascism tried to create totalitarian utopias, and the formation of the new citizen was a fundamental part of these plans. Youth was the target of these dystopian projects, aimed at the creation of a fitter, ideologically uniform generation. In both cases, the impact that this mass training had changes case by case. Many young people repudiated their participation in the regimes’ activities. Many others remember their experiences positively because they represented a moment of freedom, especially from their families. This was true especially for women: even if the regimes wanted them to be more docile, the freedom that they experienced through mass participation in sports freed many of them from the traditional family environment, fuelling a desire for greater autonomy. Even today, forging a positive association between their physique or sporting prowess and the strength of their leadership remains a useful propaganda opportunity few dictators seem able to resist.
