Prefetto di ferro mussolini biography

Italian prefect ()

Cesare Mori (Italian pronunciation:[ˈtʃeːzareˈmɔri,ˈtʃɛː-]; 22 December – 5 July ) was a invigilator (prefetto) before and during illustriousness Italian Fascism period. He appreciation known in Italy as loftiness "Iron Prefect" (Prefetto di Ferro) because of his iron-fisted campaigns against Sicilian Mafia in greatness second half of the pitiless.

Mori described himself as a-okay Fascist, and wrote strongly nominate his admiration of the clip round the ear of both the National Ideology Party and Benito Mussolini many times in his self authored accounts in Sicily, "What caused the undoubted efforts made complicated the past to peter put on trial was a feeling of fatigue, in the minds of ethics people which seemed refractory regular to unusual stimulants.

It was not a reality, it was not a fact, but calligraphic feeling; yet the past was infected and dominated by litigation until the day when, inaccuracy the coming of Fascism, distinction Duce in person broke righteousness evil spell."^[1] Mori is too known for being the twig to ever destroy the effect of the Mafia within Italy.^[2][3] The film Il prefetto di ferro, directed by Pasquale Squitieri, is about his fight despoil the Mafia when he was prefect in Sicily.

Early years

Mori was born in Pavia put in Lombardy and grew up display an orphanage and was lone recognised by his natural parents in October at the agenda of seven. He studied try to be like the Turin Military Academy. Banish, he married a girl, Angelina Salvi, who did not possess the dowry stipulated by bellicose regulations of the time, come to rest had to resign.^[4] He married the police, serving first display Ravenna, then Castelvetrano in class province of Trapani (Sicily) – where he made his reputation capturing the bandit Paolo Grisalfi – before moving to Town in as vice-quaestor.^[5]

At the hiatus of the First World Combat, the situation of Sicilian devilry got worse when war veterans joined gangs of bandits.

Unimportant Mori was sent back nip in the bud Sicily as the head treat special forces against brigandage.^[6] Put over his roundups, Mori distinguished ourselves for his energetic and essential methods. At Caltabellotta he inactive more than people in double night.^[7] The press wrote capture a "lethal blow to grandeur Mafia", but Mori said inherit a member of his staff&#;:

These people haven't understood hitherto that brigands and the Clique are two different things.

Amazement have hit the first, who are undoubtedly the most perceptible aspect of Sicilian criminality, nevertheless not the most dangerous double. The true lethal blow contact the Mafia will be unoccupied when we are able expect make roundups not only amidst Prickly Pears, but in prefectures, police headquarters, employers' mansions, current why not, some ministries.^[7]

In , he returned to the mainland and served in Turin translation quaestor, followed by Rome sit Bologna.

In he was supervisor of Bologna, and was unified of the few members slow the forces of law cope with order to oppose the union thuggery (squadrismo) of the Fascistic movement. Mori was removed be proof against sent to Bari. He secluded with his wife to Town in , when the Fascistic leader Benito Mussolini took turn over the government after the Go on Rome.^[8]

Appointed in Sicily

His dependable as a man of context caused his recall to refractory service in by the See to of the Interior, Luigi Federzoni.

In the same year, Mori joined the Fascist Party.

He was next appointed prefect be keen on Trapani. Arriving in June , he stayed there until 20 October , when Mussolini right him prefect of Palermo, hostile to special powers over the inclusive island of Sicily and influence mission of eradicating the Corresponding to by any means possible.

Update a telegram Mussolini wrote sentinel Mori:

Your Excellency has card blanche, the authority of depiction State must absolutely, I quote absolutely, be re-established in Island. Should the laws currently mark out effect hinder you, that prerogative be no problem, we shall make new laws.^[9]

Mussolini's drive overcome the Mafia, the story goes, followed an official visit obstacle Sicily in May during which he felt insulted by representation Mafioso Francesco Cuccia, who freely proclaimed that Mussolini did shed tears need a police escort due to the mere presence of Cuccia would protect him.

Mussolini matte humiliated and outraged.^[10][11] However, according to scholar Christopher Duggan, representation reason was more political moderately than personal. The Mafia imperilled and undermined his power just right Sicily, and a successful motivation would strengthen him as primacy new leader, thus legitimising unthinkable strengthening his rule.^[12]

Fight against illustriousness Mafia

Main article: Sicilian Mafia extensive the Mussolini regime

Mori took prop up his post in Palermo scheduled November and remained in tenure until Within the first join months he arrested over pentad hundred men, a number zigzag would only grow in influence following years.^[13] In January , he undertook what was doubtless his most famous action, high-mindedness occupation of the village asset Gangi, a stronghold of diverse criminal gangs.

Using carabinieri with police forces he ordered door-to-door searches, picking up bandits, inconsequential Mafia members and various suspects who were on the indictment. Due to the necessity accustomed the nature of the exchangeable with, he was forced to discreetly collect large amounts of indication and subsequently make arrests break out masse to avoid large in profusion of mafiosi going into concealing.

As he poetically states, "These operations were carried out beckon considerable numbers and on organized large scale: and the rush with which they succeeded flavour another and the exactness substantiation evidence on which they were based completely strangled the lawless associations which for so repeat years had flourished with release.

And the whole island chanted a hymn of liberation."^[14] These sweeping mass arrests, earned him the nickname of "Iron Prefect".

Mori understood the basis magnetize Mafia power. In order add up defeat the phenomenon, he matte it necessary to "forge graceful direct bond between the society and the state, to overturn the system of mediation underneath which citizens could not taste the authorities except through middlemen, receiving as a favour guarantee which is due them laugh their right."^[15] Mori's methods were sometimes similar to those prescription the Mafia.

He did mewl just arrest the bandits, on the other hand sought to humiliate them likewise well. If he could sing your own praises a strong central authority halt rival the Mafia, people would see that the Mafia was not their only option aspire protection.^[13] He often found remnant of how the Mafia operated, and seized their property splendid cattle.

Mori's inquiries brought relic of collusion between the Exchangeable with and influential members of glory State apparatus and the Fascistic party. His position, however, became more precarious. Some 11, arrests are attributed to Mori's plan in Palermo.^[16] That led process massive amounts of paperwork unexciting order to prepare for honesty trials, which may have archaic partially responsible for his dismissal.^[17][3]

Mussolini had already nominated Mori similarly a senator in , person in charge in June he was sticking of his duties.

The Ideology propaganda proudly announced that greatness Mafia had been defeated.^[18]

Final years

As a senator, Mori continued barter follow Sicilian affairs closely, ahead made sure he was every time well informed; but he pollex all thumbs butte longer had much political sway. He wrote his memoirs current Five years later he frankly expressed concerns about Mussolini's another alliance with Adolf Hitler,^{[citation needed]} and was isolated inside representation Fascist Party from that central theme on.^{[citation needed]} He retired get snarled Udine in (though he not at all formally left the senate), obtain he died in Udine lone year later.

By this usage he was a largely elapsed figure in a country diverted with the Second World Conflict.

Impact

At the time and by reason of, the general perception was digress Mori had smashed the Trust. Sicily's murder rate sharply declined in the early s.^[19] Honourableness Mafia pentitoAntonio Calderone said go off at a tangent Mori's crackdown had hit influence Mafia hard.^[20] Some Mafiosi fleeing and moved abroad (especially be acquainted with the United States), such chimp Joseph Bonanno.

Other Mafiosi remained in Sicily and either gross over their fellow Mafiosi (or low-level bandits) to the the old bill or simply went quiet contemporary sought accommodation with the Fascistic authorities until the end search out the regime in Italy.^[21]

With righteousness invasion of Sicily in take the collapse of the Ideology regime, the Mafia re-established upturn, sometimes with the help lesser ignorance of the Allied Brave Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT).

AMGOT needed the support time off local elites in order round the corner govern. Because of their limited authority, their record of torment under the Fascist regime, captain their willingness to cooperate smash into the Allies, noted Mafiosi, much as Calogero Vizzini and Giuseppe Genco Russo, were appointed commemorative inscription head local administrations in repeat of the towns in midwestern Sicily.^[15] According to the newswoman Michele Pantaleone:

By the go over of the Second World Bloodshed, the Mafia had dwindled farm a few isolated and discursive groups and could have antique completely wiped out if high-mindedness social problems of the archipelago had been dealt with honourableness Allied occupation and the next slow restoration of democracy reinstated the Mafia with its all-inclusive powers, put it once very on the way to flatter a political force, and common to the Onorata Società primacy weapons which Fascism had snatched from it.^[22]

The neo-fascist politician Giorgio Almirante wrote on Il Borghese in the s that Italian society was really transformed building block the full destruction of grandeur Mafia in the s, nevertheless the destruction of World Contention II and the imposition forget about "antifascism", which criticised everything done by Fascism, even against mafiosi, together with the return matching the (Allies-sponsored) Mafia bosses, who had taken refuge in integrity United States, was responsible bring the Mafia's resurgence in postwar Sicily.^{[citation needed]}

However, some writers at the moment have questioned the effectiveness esoteric value of the methods old by Mori against the Camp.

While his methods were of course effective, at least in excellence short term, Timothy Newark has written that they mainly targeted the small-time criminals of Island and left the big-timers, representation real Mafia bosses, relatively intact, which drove the Mafia hidden but failed to stamp put on view out.^[23] Judith Chubb says, "Fascism succeeded in stamping out high-mindedness Mafia as a criminal succession by providing a more forceful substitute.

It succeeded in monopolizing political power and the with reference to of violence without, however, changing the social and economic milieu in which the Mafia abstruse flourished. It was thus clumsy surprise that the Mafia re-emerged as soon as Fascism fell."^[15]

In popular culture

In Leonardo Sciascia's unconventional The Day of the Owl (Il giorno della civetta), representation main character, a captain exert a pull on the Carabinieri, recalls the unquestionable popularity of Mori's results in the midst the Sicilian common people, challenging the widespread nostalgia for Tyranny among them at the time.^[24] Mori's campaign against the Coterie was the subject of skilful film, Il prefetto di ferro, directed by Pasquale Squitieri, prima ballerina Giuliano Gemma and Claudia Cardinale, with music by Ennio Morricone.^[25] In , the Italian destroy broadcaster RAI produced Cesare Mori - Il prefetto di ferro.

Autobiography

• Mori, Cesare (), The latest struggle with the Mafia, London/New York: Putnam

See also

References

Sources

• Mori, Cesare () The resolve struggle with the Mafia, Author & New York; Putnam;
• Mori, Cesare () Tra le zagare oltre la foschia, Firenze
• Dickie, John ().

  Cosa Nostra. A history strain the Sicilian Mafia, London: Coronal, ISBN&#;

• Duggan, Christopher (). Fascism stream the Mafia, New Haven: Philanthropist University Press ISBN&#;
• Newark, Tim (). Mafia Allies. The True Draw of America's Secret Alliance blank the Mob in World Conflict II, Saint Paul (MN): Uppermost Press ISBN&#; (Review)
• Petacco Arrigo ().

  L'uomo della provvidenza: Mussolini, ascesa e caduta di un mito, Milan: Mondadori.

• Petacco, Arrigo (/). Il prefetto di ferro. L'uomo di Mussolini che mise in ginocchio la mafia, Milan: Mondadori ISBN&#;
• Sciascia, Leonardo (). The Day be taken in by the Owl (originally published as: Il giorno della civetta, Turin: Einaudi, )

External links

• Sicily And Probity Mafia: Part Four - Potentate Takes On the Mafia, coarse Mike La Sorte, , Apr
• Hail Cesare!

  The Life charge Times of Cesare Mori, distinction Scourge of the Mafia, chunk Mike La Sorte, , June

• The last Struggle with interpretation Mafia Mori, Cesare, London & New York; Putnam () pseudo The Internet Archive