Dubious Legacy
The source of the name Balbo Drive, the Italian aviator Italo Balbo, was a Fascist thug who backed Mussolini and was honored by the Nazis. Why do his memorials here persist?
Balbo (with cane) walking with Hermann Göring, the leader of the Nazi Luftwaffe
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When Alderman John Budinger rose from his seat in the City Council chambers one day in the fall of 1946, he held a petition supported by an odd assortment of Chicagoans—businessmen, VFW members, Gold Star mothers, the state PTA. They had a seemingly simple request: Change the name of a street in the heart of Chicago to honor an American hero of World War II, Lt. Com. John Waldron, leader of a famous but doomed attack at the epic battle of Midway. The petitioners assumed their wish would be granted. After all, the street they wanted renamed currently honored a brutal, scheming functionary of a recently defeated World War II foe, the Italian aviator Italo Balbo. But for Chicago's longtime mayor Ed Kelly and his loyal Democratic aldermen, the name change was not that simple.
Thirteen years before, Balbo had led a squad of 24 silver seaplanes on a transatlantic voyage, landing on Lake Michigan during the Chicago World's Fair of 1933, known as the Century of Progress. The pioneering trip caused a sensation, and Kelly capitalized on the excitement by renaming 7th Street in the flier's honor. Now, with an election looming and with the fortunes of the Democratic Party waning, the mayor worried that striking the name of an Italian hero from the street could alienate Chicago's Italian American community.
As the council dithered on the issue, it was bombarded with the opinions of Chicagoans. Groups like the Sons of Italy and the Legione Garibaldi demanded the council keep the name. But the local VFW and some mothers who had lost sons in World War II were part of a far larger faction insisting on the change. The leader of the state PTA admonished the aldermen that Chicago schoolchildren should learn of the "acts and sacrifices" of real American heroes. The Republican candidate for mayor, Russell Root, piled on, saying, "Chicago boys of Italian descent who fought in Italy do not wish to honor the Fascist who betrayed his own people as well as conducted a war against our country." The numbers seemed to favor changing the name.
It didn't happen then—and today, on the 75th anniversary of Balbo's flight, Chicago still honors the Fascist scoundrel. "Movements to change the street name have never gained steam, because the brutal actions of the Italian Fascists are overshadowed in the public's mind by the atrocities committed by Hitler," says Anthony Cardoza, a professor of history at Loyola University. In fact, Balbo Drive is one of three public monuments to the Fascist in Chicago, along with the Balbo column near Soldier Field and a tribute to him on the side of the Columbus Statue at the south end of Grant Park.
Today many Chicagoans know Balbo was a Fascist, but the extent of his villainy is less well known. "Balbo was one of the most violent warlords of the Fascist movement and had a pivotal role in bringing Benito Mussolini to power," Cardoza says. Perhaps if Mayor Kelly had known more about this side of Balbo, these memorials would have disappeared long ago.
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After returning home a war hero from the trenches of World War I, Italo Balbo joined Mussolini's Fascist Party. Looking to restore the glory of ancient Rome, the Fascists called for a strong nationalist state with a powerful leader—and no opposition.
The Italian economy was in shambles after the war. Buffeted by criticism from Socialists, Communists, Catholics, and democrats, King Victor Emmanuel III's weak government lived in constant fear of overthrow. Disgusted veterans like Balbo banded into Fascist gangs, the so-called squadristi, that would fight to replace the government with one backing Mussolini.
Balbo's organizational genius and charisma first shone through in the squadristi. Under his leadership, these disorganized bands of hooligans became disciplined paramilitary units. "In a matter of months, the paramilitary forces were responsible for transforming Mussolini's marginal movement into a major national political force," Cardoza says. Through threats, intimidation, and targeted violence against opposition leaders, the squadristi plunged the country into a civil war that killed hundreds and wounded thousands more. Balbo's men used beatings and murder to get their way. Their actions inspired other squadristi to adopt Balbo's battle tactics—and his fighter's uniform: the black shirt.
Smashing the opposition, Balbo ranged over northern Italy, intimidating and assaulting anti-Fascists who stood in his way. In April 1921, he led a raid on a group of Socialists in Venice, conducting a chaotic, nearly hourlong gun battle. A year later, in Parma, brazenly occupying a church steeple, Blackshirts fired on Communists below, and when the smoke cleared, a child was among the dead. Balbo's brash tactics and his willing embrace of violence made him indispensable in Mussolini's eyes. When Mussolini decided the time was right for a coup, he used the threat of a Balbo-led attack on the government in Rome to bully Victor Emmanuel III into capitulation on October 31, 1922.
Balbo continued his crusade against anti-Fascists long after Mussolini came to power. When the Catholic priest and anti-Fascist organizer Don Giovanni Minzoni was brutally clubbed to death in Balbo's hometown of Ferrara, the Blackshirt leader instantly became a prime suspect in the eyes of the local community, although he was never charged.
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After 1923, Balbo increasingly turned his attention to flying, achieving international fame as a daring aviator. As minister of the Italian Air Force, he organized the first-ever mass transatlantic flights, one to South America and the second to Chicago during the 1933 world's fair. Balbo's squad of 24 seaplanes, each with a massive engine mounted atop a single wing, received a hero's welcome at Chicago's lakeshore on July 15, 1933. One rapturous Tribune columnist described the "swanlike" landings, called Balbo the "D'Artagnan of the air," and estimated that three million people, including men dressed in homemade Blackshirt uniforms, standing on "roofs, piers, and boulevards and . . . in crowded windows of skyscrapers," watched the spectacle unfold.
Mayor Kelly, swept up in the excitement, proclaimed the 15th "Italo Balbo Day" and announced that Chicago's 7th Street would be renamed Balbo Drive. The name change was the first in a litany of honors to the Fascist in the five-day hoopla that followed. The Sioux nation declared Balbo a full-blooded member of the tribe, naming him Chief Flying Eagle. Loyola University awarded Balbo an honorary degree.
The celebration of Balbo's squadron was literally carved in stone during his visit. The statue of Christopher Columbus at the corner of Roosevelt Road and Columbus Drive bears an inscription that honors the "wings of Italy" and Italo Balbo. On the statue and the surrounding plaza appears an axe bundled by wooden rods—the fasces, which are the ancient Roman symbol for authority. The fasces gave Mussolini's movement its name and appeared in all of the regime's propaganda. The swastika would serve the same purpose in Hitler's Third Reich.
The five-day stay, which also included a mass at Holy Name Cathedral celebrated by Cardinal Mundelein, ended with a raucous parade down Michigan Avenue in front of one million cheering Chicagoans. Looking to return Chicago's graciousness and perhaps steal the limelight from Balbo, Mussolini later donated an ancient Roman column to the people of Chicago, both to commemorate Balbo's voyage and to symbolize the greatness of Fascist Italy. The uprooted column was dedicated to Balbo's flight in the "eleventh year of the Fascist era." Today, the column—the last remnant of the Century of Progress exhibition in its original spot—is located a few feet off Chicago's lakefront bike path, a mere hundred yards from Soldier Field and adjacent to the Gold Star Memorial, recently constructed to honor Chicago police officers killed in the line of duty.
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Nazi luminaries never tired of celebrating Balbo's accomplishments. In August 1938, Balbo visited Adolf Hitler at Hitler's retreat in Berchtesgaden, where Hitler honored him by coming to the door to greet him personally. Nearly two years later, on June 28, 1940, Balbo perished when friendly fire shot down his plane over Libya. Hitler sent a telegram to Mussolini describing Balbo's death as a terrible loss for both the leader and the Italian people. And in a 1942 speech, at the height of the Nazi empire and in the midst of the deadliest war in human history, Hitler harked back to Balbo's success, saying his "brown shirt might perhaps not have arisen without the black shirt."
Over the years, some writers have tried to provide a dose of reality for people wrapped up in the myth of Balbo. In 1983, on the 50th anniversary of the flight, the Chicago Tribune columnist Vernon Jarrett wrote, "Within two years after Balbo's royal treatment in Chicago, the air machine that he built was dropping bombs and turning its machine guns on unarmed Africans during Mussolini's unprovoked invasion of Ethiopia."
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But nothing has been done to erase the Balbo name from Chicago. Alderman Budinger's 1946 petition to rename Balbo Drive was sent to the subcommittee on streets and alleys, where it died a quiet death. Lieutenant Com. Waldron did get his memorial, though—a new street just south of Soldier Field, not far from Balbo's monument.
The persistence of the tributes to Balbo puzzles Rand Smith, a professor of politics at Lake Forest College. "That the city of Chicago honors a man who organized thug squads and helped bring Mussolini to power and keep him there is, at best, a gross anomaly and, at worst, a moral outrage," he says. A tourist walking through Rome today would see an occasional building inscribed with Fascist slogans but would not come across a single public monument to Balbo. Visitors to Chicago, an ocean away and Balbo's onetime enemy, can find three.
Photography: (Image 1) New York Times Co./Getty Images; (Image 2) Topical Press Agency/Getty Images; (Image 3) Scott Ackman
This article appears in the August 2008 issue of Chicago Magazine.
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Reader Comments:
Informative piece! Thanks.
Thank you for helping to provide an informative, historical narrative. Hopefully, this will help push the constituents & politicians of the city toward consideration of rededicating the drive to a person more deserving.
Gee, a piece of propaganda from two Zionist sympathizers! Where is the information about the struggle against Anarchists/ant-fascists/communists that committed terrorist acts and committed heinous murders?
A mendacious and selective reading of the biography of Balbo. If these two guys are high school history teachers, are they also teaching about the "terrorist acts" and "nationalism" of Zionists like Menachem Begin? Why is there a "Ben Gurion Way" in the Loop? Will they protest that too? We can all doubt it.
Propagandists never give a fair reading of history, and the authors of this smear piece are no exception to that rule. Balbo was against Italian involvement with the Nazis. These authors should be ashamed to call themselves history teachers with the article they produced.
A passionate opponent of Anti-semitism and a true humanitarian (acording to some) like Balbo would likely be terribly disappointed in the baseless vitriol in the above post.
To the post 2 above this one:
Your arguement doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And furthermore Italo Balbo was a life-long member of the Fascist party and there is absolutely no reason to have a street in Chicago named after him. Yes, you are correct that Balbo was against Italian involvement with the Nazis, but he did help with the Fascist takeover of Italy.
On top of all this you offer no facts that prove that the authors of "Dubious Legacy" are incorrect in their analysis of history. I would check your facts before you say "Gee, a piece of propaganda from two Zionist sympathizers" again.
When Mussolini suddenly turned antisemit in order to please Hitler (up until mid-1930s, Italian jews had not been not persecuted and many of then had actually been member of Fascist Party!), he promulgated antisemitic laws in 1938. Despite of that Italo Balbo, who was governor of Libya at that time, proudly refused to apply them, resisting huge pressures from national government and from Germany. As a consequence of that, Jews living in Libya were not persecuted as it occured in mainland Italy.
Moreover, in 1940 he tried to convince Mussolini not to enter WWII along with Germany.
I don't think, however, that this two courageous actions can justify the brutal behavior of Balbo in all other circonstances, as it has been well described in the article. So I suggest that the City of Chicago change the street name!
An Italian reader.
P.S. If an Italian mayor (even a Fascist simpathizer) would ever try to dedicate a street to Italo Balbo he would be overrun by national protests!
Yitzhak Shamir, ex Prime Minister of Israel, one of the fathers of Israel was for the Uk a criminal because he has killed more than 40 UK soldiers in a hotel with a terrorist bomb attack; But he is an hero for Israel, perhaps with a named street too.
On Italy, some years ago the MOSAD agents have destroyed, over Venice, with a bomb an airplane with more death people. Perhaps the agents have a street in Israel. In the 1998 The US Marines major Richard Ashby, on the Italian’s Cermis mountain has killed 20 (men, women and children) during a joke with his Grumman EA-6B Prowler Marines airplane.
Why don’t give his name to that street? Unfortunately Balbo haven’t killed anyone.
Near me there is an US air force base with a large quantity of US people so one or two time at the year a keep a little revenge, like written in the Bible eye for eye and tooth for tooth .
An anon wrote: "Moreover, in 1940 he tried to convince Mussolini not to enter WWII along with Germany."
Gee, our two dishonest Jewish propagandists (Scott Ackman and Christopher Schwarz) didn't include that fact in their article now did they? Instead they chose the blatantly propagandist photo at the top of the article, in order to HIDE the facts and SKEW the reader's sensibilities using sensationalism.
Gee, Balbo met Adolf Hitler? Gee whiz. How many other people met this German head-of-state also, over a 10 year period when he ruled? The authors conveniently don't mention that Hitler didn't even like Balbo, nor did he like Count Ciano.
This article is an utterly dishonest practice of academic research geared towards a Jewish point-of-view. If this was peer-reviewed it wouldn't have made it to publication outside of something like the NY Sun. It says something about "Chicago Magazine" however that it got published.
Our two "history teachers" wrote:
"On the statue and the surrounding plaza appears an axe bundled by wooden rods—the fasces, which are the ancient Roman symbol for authority. The fasces gave Mussolini's movement its name and it appeared in all of the regime's propaganda."
Then they (cheaply) try to smear the fasces with a guilt-by-association to (booga, booga) the swastika!! Couldn't pass that one up, boys, could you? A tried and true propaganda method.
Do our "history teachers" know that the (booga, booga) fasces symbol is on the wall of the US House of Representatives? on both sides of the House Speaker's chair? That it is on many US buildings and insignia?
Nice smear attempt boys, but it looks as if you didn't do your homework. Ackman and Schwarz get a C-. Too narrow-minded and they have a blind spot when it comes to WW2 history it appears.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces#The_fasces_in_the_United_States
Mr. Anti-semite -
It is pathetic that you would go out and make such ridiculous comments regarding the authors and content of the article "Dubious Legacy". To call people "Jews" as if it is a crime to follow the Jewish tradition is pathetic and uncalled for especially today when such racism is completely unacceptable. Do you know the authors personally? What makes you think that they are Jewish and if they are why does it matter? If you must argue your point regarding Balbo please do so without making vicious attacks on other people based on their race, religions, or beliefs.
Now, yes you are correct about the fasces symbol. It is in the house of represntatives, but on the other hand the swastika waas a symbol of good luck in the Hindu culture. Would you then also argue that it would be ok if the swastika was in a statue in our city? (I'm guessing you would come up with some ridiculous reason as to why its ok)
Finally, if you know so much more about WW2 history than Ackman and Schwarz do, why don't you have an article published showing the "true" side of the Balbo story? Responding with hate speech and half truths? Thats your well-educated arguement? Pathetic.
I agree wholeheartedly with the comments of the previous author. I do know both authors personally, since I work with them. I am sorry to disappoint our neo-Nazi writer(?), but neither is Jewish. However, they both do study World War II extensively and even-handedly. The fact that they are unsympathetic to Fascist causes is probably due to their families losing loved ones during the war, or a love of civil liberties-the pride of being an American! While I often engage in contentious dialog with both, it is sad to see them demeaned by somebody who condemns everyone with whom he disagrees with vile and personal attacks. Next you will be denying the Holocaust, because you seem of that ilk. Not everything is propaganda. Eisenhower warned us about people like you, when he found the survivors! This article was well written, unlike a few of the comments it has spurred.
"The fact that they are unsympathetic to Fascist causes...."
That proves the exact point. These guys produced an unbalanced piece of propaganda to fit their ideological position. They are trying to erase Chicago history based on their narrow view.
More from these two ideological bullshitters:
"Balbo continued his crusade against anti-Fascists long after Mussolini came to power. When the Catholic priest and anti-Fascist organizer Don Giovanni Minzoni was brutally clubbed to death in Balbo's hometown of Ferrara, the Blackshirt leader instantly became a prime suspect in the eyes of the local community, although he was never charged."
That's a long paragraph of nothing, not proven. Innuendo. Boy, is it crafted cleverly to make one think otherwise. I love how these two history teachers throw in the "Catholic" reference!!! As if to say the Catholics sided with the heroes of "Ackman and Schwarz": the Anarchists, Communists, Socialists, Jews and other revutionary anti-Italian rabble. Catholics supported the Fascist regime because their alternative was Communism and Judeo-Bolshevism. These two "history teachers" know this, but they are masters of propaganda and deception.
This same deception is found here:
"Buffeted by criticism from Socialists, Communists, Catholics, and democrats, King Victor Emmanuel III's weak government lived in constant fear of overthrow."
Ackman and Schwarz cleverly throw the "Catholics" in a list with the socialists and communists.
They include "democrats" for good measure to make this list seem longer, whoever the "democrats" were.
PS I don't know how many actual ancient Roman columns are in Chicago, Illinois, or even the USA, but I supposed Ackman and Schwarz think Chicagoans should return it? Or destroy it? That's intolerant of any sort of rational reading of history.
Here Ackman and Schwarz are really quite dishonest. This is a perfect example of what they SHOULD NOT be teaching students. The technique of smear by "guilt-of-association." Pathetic.
"Nazi luminaries never tired of celebrating Balbo's accomplishments. In August 1938, Balbo visited Adolf Hitler at Hitler's retreat in Berchtesgaden, where Hitler honored him by coming to the door to greet him personally. Nearly two years later, on June 28, 1940, Balbo perished when friendly fire shot down his plane over Libya. Hitler sent a telegram to Mussolini describing Balbo's death as a terrible loss for both the leader and the Italian people. And in a 1942 speech, at the height of the Nazi empire and in the midst of the deadliest war in human history, Hitler harked back to Balbo's success, saying his "brown shirt might perhaps not have arisen without the black shirt.""
None of this has anything to do with Balbo or his historic flight that took place in 1933, many years before the horrors of WW2 were inflicted on many European people.
Someone earlier, in defending Ackman and Schwarz, used the overused ad hominem slurs of "anti-semitism" etc. to deflect from discussing the inaccuracies and dishonesty weaved into this article.
Someone else even tried to bring in "holocaust denial" for some bizarre reason, presumably because they have been taught well by Ackman and Schwarz in the art of the smear.
Ackman and Schwarz reveal their true ideology here, which IS UNWORTHY OF ANY RATIONAL HISTORY TEACHER. They should be ashamed to be called history teachers. This is their goal? This is how they want to teach history?
The write: "But nothing has been done to erase the Balbo name from Chicago."
Erase?
Um, guys when is the next book burning? Will we see you demonstrating against the First Amendment?
History teachers should never REVISE, never ERASE history.
Since you seem to know so much more about WW2 and history than these two teachers and authors, I have to ask you, what kind of qualifications do you have to say such outlandish and ridiculous remarks regarding not only Chicago history but the history of the entire world?
Regarding the post on July 26th- commenting about "the two Jews" that wrote the article- how ignorant are you? I happen to know Schwarz- he's Roman Catholic- suppose you think he's Jewish because of his last name- yea- your comments should be considered. I don't think so!
Listen to the authors here:
"Through threats, intimidation, and targeted violence against opposition leaders, the squadristi plunged the country into a civil war that killed hundreds and wounded thousands more."
This same statement could be made about the Communists who did plenty of "plunging" Europe into conflicts. Here the authors screwed up admitting it was a "civil war" meaning there were 2 sides. Well boys, in "war" people get hurt.
If in this Italian "civil war" only (cough, cough) "hundreds" were killed on both sides, that is nothing compared to the number of deaths in the US Civil War, and it certainly is far less than the deaths at the hands of the Bolsheviks in Russia. The authors know the March on Rome didn't involve mass bloodshed, but they are deceitful in their presentation here, and they know it.
"I have to ask you, what kind of qualifications do you have to say such outlandish and ridiculous remarks regarding not only Chicago history but the history of the entire world?"
What do "qualifications" have to do with fair presentation of history? It's the fact that these two guys are actual school teachers is what makes their mendacity so disturbing. I think their work is only fit for a magazine, certainly not anything scholarly.
What SPECIFICALLY makes them "outlandish" and "ridiculous"? Could you at least back up your comment?
Let us see.
Can you offer a single fact to support your consistent assertions of a smear campaign, propaganda, and Zionist point of view???? Their article was subject to careful editorial scrutiny, have your statements been similarly vetted? Since your OPINIONS appear on a blog, the answer is obvious. Can you refute a single fact in the article? You don't like what it says, that's fine. Can you offer anything from the historical record that refutes a single assertion in the article? Characterize the events any way that you like, they still happened. Look at the American papers of the time, check out Balbo's biography, read something scholarly. Balbo was a Fascist, he was vitally involved in the establishment of the Fascist state of Italy. He endorsed the invasion of Ethiopia, he even wanted to lead it. He was anti-individualist, anti-unionist, anti-capitalist, anti-communist, anti-socialist, anti-democratic. It's all right there for you to look at. You won't and you won't offer anything new to the discussion. Ad Hominem???? An awfully big phrase for a narrow mind.
Since qualifications have nothing to do with presenting history fairly, I look forward to your next lecture at a major, or minor for that matter, institution of higher (maybe even lower) learning. Keep writing on the blog, it keeps you off the streets where you would likely do more damage. Mendacity????? You're the leading practitioner. But, it's a free country-- that would disappoint Balbo wouldn't it? Can you seriously suggest that the existence of Italian Fascism was not a major contributing factor to the start of World War Two???? He helped create it! Will you ever dispute the facts in the article with ACTUAL FACTS accepted in mainstream academic circles? (sorry, Wikipedia doesn't cut it)
Let US see.