ABSTRACT
Few alliances better typify that overused cliche, 'a love-hate relationship', than the Fascist-Nazi partnership. The attitudes of Mussolini and his lieutenants toward the Germans were shaped by contradictory feelings. On cultural and historical levels, animosity between the ancestors of the Italians and Germans extended back several millennia. Roman legions and Teutonic armies had clashed repeatedly from the second century BC to the fall of the Western Empire. Beginning in the late eleventh century, the forces of the Popes and the German Holy Roman Emperors had fought up and down the Italian peninsula. These wars culminated in the sack of Rome in 1527 by the Lutheran landsknechts of Charles V. After the German-speaking Austrians had supplanted the Spanish as the overlords of Italy in the early eighteenth century, they thwarted the Italian dream of national freedom. Ultimately futile Austrian attempts to prevent the unification of Italy during the Risorgimento cemented Italian hatred of 'Germans'. True, the new Kingdom of Italy had aligned itself with the Germans of Prussia against Austria to gain Venetia in 1866. Furthermore, Italy had joined with the German Empire and its Austro-Hungarian imperial ally in 1882 to form the Triple Alliance. However, the Germans almost always supported the
Austro-Hungarians when any conflict of interest had arisen between Rome and Vienna.
