ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the history of translation in four twentieth-century ‘fascist’ regimes: Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, Franco’s Spain and Salazar’s Portugal. It shows that there is a direct correlation between the extent to which these regimes were genuinely fascist and the degree of hostility towards translation. The chapter considers how the level of hostility shown towards the translations was linked to the adoption of anti-Semitic policies. The very thorough surveillance applied by all four regimes to mass forms of entertainment makes it more difficult to detect whether or not a regime was adopting a specific policy for translations – given that all products were censored, regardless of their origin. The chapter provides how the political and ideological differences between the regimes are reflected in their attitudes towards translation and whether these attitudes shed light on the nature of their fascism. A Fascism study is a rich and complex disciplinary area comprising historians, political scientists and historical sociologists.
