22 Facts About Achille Starace

Achille Starace attended the Lecce Technical Institute and earned a degree in accounting.

Achille Starace joined the Freemason lodge La Vedetta in Udine in March 1917.

An ardent nationalist, Achille Starace joined the Fascist movement in Trento in 1920 and quickly became its local political secretary.

In October 1921, Achille Starace became vice-secretary of the National Fascist Party.

In 1922, Achille Starace participated in the March on Rome, leading a squad of Blackshirts in support of Mussolini.

Later in 1922, Achille Starace was appointed party inspector of Sicily and made a member of the Executive Committee of the PNF.

In 1924, Achille Starace was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies and made national party inspector.

In 1926, Achille Starace became vice-secretary of the PNF, and, in 1928, he was appointed secretary of the Milan branch of the party.

Achille Starace was appointed to the position primarily for his unquestioning, fanatical loyalty to Mussolini.

Achille Starace failed to inspire a nationwide enthusiasm for Fascism on par with the popularity that the Nazi Party enjoyed in Germany.

Achille Starace served as secretary for a total of eight years.

The roadbuilding skills of Achille Starace's men played an equally important role to their combat prowess.

Achille Starace was a sports fanatic and instituted president of the CONI.

Achille Starace is remembered for such unlikely sports stunts as jumping through a fire circle at the Marmi Stadium in 1938 or horse jumping over a saloon car.

Achille Starace wanted party officials to look virile and fit and on official ceremonies had them parading at the bersaglieri pace, an Italian variant of goose stepping.

Achille Starace is specially and more significantly remembered for a policy of enrollment of the Italian people in Fascist party-linked organizations that bore some semblance to the Scout movement: Opera Balilla, Figli della lupa, Avanguardisti, Giovane fascista and the labour-related Organizzazione del Dopolavoro.

Sports were of particular importance in Fascist propaganda, heavily exploiting the successes of Italian athletes in international competitions, and Achille Starace was quite instrumental in this field, tackling both the mass organisation and the elite side of Italian sports.

In October 1939, Achille Starace was finally dismissed as party secretary in favour of the popular aviator Ettore Muti.

Achille Starace was made chief of staff of the Blackshirts and he held this position until being dismissed for incompetence in May 1941.

In 1943, following the demise of Mussolini's regime, Achille Starace was arrested by Pietro Badoglio's Royalist government.

Achille Starace was arrested even though his real power under Mussolini had ended two years earlier.

Achille Starace was taken to Piazzale Loreto and shown the body of Mussolini, which he saluted just before he was executed.