In the Axis War on the side of Germany, Mussolini's Italy was responsible for serious war crimes, especially in Yugoslavia and Greece. This 'dark side' of the fascist war, however, is not present in the national memory built after 1945. To distinguish Italy from the former German ally and avoid a punitive peace, the monarchist and anti-fascist ruling classes elaborated a master narrative that highlighted the opposition of the Italian people to Mussolini's war and the humanitarian behavior of Italian soldiers, depicted as saviors of Jews. All responsibility for the crimes committed in the Axis war was placed on the shoulders of the Germans, who thus became a convenient alibi for the national conscience. 'Focardi offers a compelling, well-researched examination of how the ‘good Italian’ myth was constructed, sustained, and incorporated into Italy's national identity... I can wholeheartedly recommend this book.' Alessandro Salvador, Modern Italy This book interrogates how the stereotype of the evil German, in contrast to the good Italian, was developed by Italian elites across the political spectrum in the wake of the toppling of Mussolini by the Fascist Grand Council in 1943. From 1940 to 1943, Mussolini’s Italy fought a war of aggression, occupying parts of Southern France, half of Slovenia, and large areas of Croatia and Greece. Italy marched alongside Hitler’s troops in the Soviet Union as well as in North Africa. In the Balkans, Italian forces committed grave war crimes against the partisans and civilians. However, there is no trace of this bloody and repressive dimension of the Axis war in Italian National Memory. The bad German and the good Italian analyses what lies behind this silence of memory. After the signing of the Armistice with the Allies in 1943, Italy looked to a future determined by the nightmare of a punitive peace. The ruling classes responded by attributing all responsibility for the Axis war to the Germans, while Italian soldiers were depicted as good Samaritans who had shown solidarity towards the people of the occupied countries and saved the lives of thousands of Jews. The binary opposition of the ‘good Italian’ and the ‘bad German’ did have its origins in a kernel of truth. But the Germans provided a comfortable alibi for the avoidance of the settling of accounts of the dark episodes of the Fascist war. And this is still the case today. Concise and eminently readable, this book will appeal to students of Italian Studies, Memory Studies, the history of the Second World War and European history. Filippo Focardi is a Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Padua