52 Facts About Indro Montanelli

Indro Montanelli was one of the fifty World Press Freedom Heroes according to the International Press Institute.

Indro Montanelli was a popular novelist and historian, especially remembered for his monumental Storia d'Italia in 22 volumes.

Indro Montanelli returned to the Corriere della Sera in 1995 and worked there until his death.

Indro Montanelli was born in Fucecchio, near Florence, on 22 April 1909.

Indro Montanelli's father, Sestilio Montanelli, was a high-school philosophy teacher and his mother, Maddalena Doddoli, was the daughter of a rich cotton merchant.

The name Indro Montanelli was chosen by his father after the Hindu god Indra.

Indro Montanelli obtained a law degree from the University of Florence in 1930, with a thesis on the electoral reform of Benito Mussolini's Italian fascist regime.

Indro Montanelli began his journalistic career by writing for the fascist newspaper Il Selvaggio, then directed by Mino Maccari, and in 1932 for the Universale, a magazine published only once fortnightly and that offered no pay.

Indro Montanelli admitted that in those days he saw in fascism the hope of a movement that could potentially create an Italian national conscience that would have resolved the social and economic differences between the north and the south.

One of the students had asked him to explain the meaning of the essay that Indro Montanelli had just read out.

Indro Montanelli told him he would repeat it since he clearly did not understand.

Undaunted, Indro Montanelli pressed on that the automobile and Ford's revolutionary assembly line system had forever transformed the country.

Ford looked shocked, and Indro Montanelli realized that, like all geniuses, Ford had not had the slightest idea of what he had really done.

When Mussolini invaded Abyssinia in 1935 with the intent of making Italy an empire, Indro Montanelli immediately abandoned his collaboration with the United Press and became a voluntary conscript for this war.

Aged 23, Indro Montanelli was put in charge of a 100-strong army of local men.

Indro Montanelli began writing about the war to his father who, without Indro Montanelli's knowledge, sent the letters to one of the most famous journalists of those times, Ugo Ojetti, who published them regularly in the most prestigious Italian newspaper, the Corriere della Sera.

On his return from Abyssinia, Indro Montanelli became a foreign correspondent in Spain for the daily newspaper Il Messaggero, where he experienced the Spanish Civil War on the side of Francisco Franco's Nationalist troops.

The stand Indro Montanelli took against fascism led him to his first serious conflicts with the Italian authorities.

Indro Montanelli began to correspond for this newspaper from Estonia and Albania during the Italian annexation of this country.

Indro Montanelli was sent to report from the front in a Mercedes accompanied by German state functionaries.

Apart from this episode, which Indro Montanelli was forbidden to report, there had been little to report because the invasion of Poland was completed so rapidly that it was over within weeks.

Indro Montanelli was not welcome in Italy, and decided to move to Lithuania.

Indro Montanelli's instinct was correct because shortly after his arrival in Kaunas, the seat of the Lithuanian government, the Soviet Union issued its ultimatum to the Baltic republics.

At this point, Indro Montanelli continued to travel towards Tallinn as it was his wish to see the last of a free and democratic Estonia, which was invaded by the Soviet Union.

At this point, Indro Montanelli was not popular in Italy nor Germany because of his pro-Estonian and pro-Polish articles, and had been expelled by the Soviet Union for being a foreigner.

In Finland, Indro Montanelli began writing articles about the Sami and the reindeer, although this was not for long as Vyacheslav Molotov had made requests on the Finnish government for the annexation of part of the Finnish land to the Soviet Union.

Indro Montanelli was not able to write about the details of the talks between the Soviet and Finnish delegations, as they were shrouded in strict secrecy; he was able to interview Paasikivi, who was happy to fill him in on everything except for the content of the talks.

Back in Italy, Indro Montanelli's stories had been followed with great enthusiasm by the public but not so enthusiastic was the response of the fascist leaders who were committed to an alliance with the Soviet Union.

Indro Montanelli escaped with the help of his friend Vidkun Quisling and made a run for the north of the country where British and French troops were disembarking at Narvik.

Indro Montanelli was met by the one-eyed, one-armed Major Carton de Wiart who explained that there were no more than 10,000 Allied troops in Norway, many of them not even trained for battle.

Indro Montanelli was assigned the responsibility of following the Italian military campaign from Greece and Albania as correspondent.

Indro Montanelli was eventually captured by the Germans, tried, and sentenced to death.

In 1959, Indro Montanelli interviewed for the first time in history a pope, office at the time held by Pope John XXIII; the pope declared that he picked Indro Montanelli exactly because he was an atheist and not a Catholic sympathizer.

About the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Bettiza said that Indro Montanelli was convinced the revolt was due to workers wanting true socialism.

On 2 September 1977, Indro Montanelli was shot four times in the legs by a two-man commando of the Red Brigades, outside the Milanese head-office of Corriere della Sera.

Indro Montanelli credited his indoctrination as a child in the Balilla fascist youth and its mantra, "to die on your feet", for saving his life.

Indro Montanelli maintained that had he not held on to the railing during the incident the fourth shot would have surely hit him in the stomach.

In later years, Indro Montanelli said that he expected the attack and was not surprised by it, and came to forgive the terrorists, who saw him as a servant of the regime, as well as of multinational corporations.

When Silvio Berlusconi, who since 1977 had held the majority of shares in il Giornale, entered politics with the founding of a new populist political party, Forza Italia, Indro Montanelli came under heavy pressure to switch his editorial line to a position favourable to Berlusconi.

La Voce, which had garnered a devoted but limited readership, folded after about a year, and Indro Montanelli returned to the Corriere della Sera.

In 1994, Indro Montanelli was awarded the International Editor of the Year Award from the World Press Review.

From 1995 to 2001, Indro Montanelli was the chief letters editor of Corriere della Sera, answering a letter a day on a page of the newspaper known as "La Stanza di Indro Montanelli".

Indro Montanelli was a mentor to a significant group of colleagues, followers, and students including Mario Cervi, Marco Travaglio, Paolo Mieli, Roberto Ridolfi, Andrea Claudio Galluzzo, Beppe Severgnini, Marcello Foa and Roberto Gervaso.

Indro Montanelli died on 22 July 2001 at the La Madonnina clinic in Milan.

Indro Montanelli had been nicknamed "The Prince of Journalism" by his own colleagues while he was still alive, gaining large esteem and consent even from liberals and political left-oriented journalists; Enzo Biagi, Giorgio Bocca, Aldo Grasso, Gianfrancesco Zincone, and many others considered him a master of the profession and his objectivity and attention to history as a model to teach and replicate.

Politically, Indro Montanelli was an anti-communist who defended the idea of another political right, which was an alternative to that of Silvio Berlusconi, whom he opposed.

Angelo Del Boca, the historian who first researched Italian war crimes in Ethiopia and made Indro Montanelli acknowledge the use of poison gas in 1996 that he had previously denied, retained great esteem for Indro Montanelli and defended his marriage with the young girl.

Details are confused and Indro Montanelli was inconsistent when talking about it.

Indro Montanelli loved that little girl, he wanted to become Abyssian, and adapted to a tradition.

Indro Montanelli denied the use of poison gas during the war in Ethiopia; he acknowledged their use in 1996.

The practice of the madamato, which Indro Montanelli referred to in the interview, was a temporary more uxorio relationship between Italian citizens and local women, often girls between 8 and 12 years of age, which was legal at the time in the Italian colonies; it was abolished by the Fascist Racial Laws that prohibited miscegenation.

In 1999, during the trial of the Nazi captain Theodor Saevecke for the Piazzale Loreto massacre, Indro Montanelli was cited by the defence as a witness.