Conversations with Mussolini

In 1932, Conversations with Mussolini by the popular German writer Emil Ludwig was first published. The book was an immediate international bestseller. In March and April of that year, Ludwig had spoken for days with the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. His book, which contains the transcripts of those interviews, provides an insight into the life and thoughts of a despot who had eliminated all opposition in his own country and now cherished plans to modernize his country. At that time, he was at the height of his power. In conversation with Ludwig, he unfolded his worldview. After Mussolini had read the written version of the text, he had hardly any comments. But when the Italian translation appeared, his entourage panicked: Mussolini had really shown his cards very clearly. However, the first edition had already sold out; it was too late to stop the book. The great popularity of writer Emil Ludwig (1881-1948) – who became world famous in the 1920s and 1930s with popular biographies of Goethe, Lincoln and Napoleon, among others – was a thorn in the side of the Nazis. He was a Jew, a pacifist and a democrat, and a supporter of the Greater European idea. His work was burned at the stake in 1933 and Ludwig spent the war years in the United States. He also published books about his extensive conversations with Stalin and Roosevelt.