The myth of Mussolini’s Jewish mistress and “Kosher fascism”
Many often site the story of Mussolini’s supposed Jewish mistress (Margherita Sarfatti) as an attempt to delegitimize the moral integrity of the Italian Fascist regime and to push the narrative that Mussolini was a hypocrite that was unconcerned with any Jewish question or Fascist ideal. This story of the Jewish mistress is repeated by anti-fascists and misinformed nationalists alike. Her presence as a journalist in the early years of the Fascist regime is often used by some to highlight the supposed Jewish influence in Italian fascism, usually as another angle of slander to display Italian Fascism as an inconsistent and hypocritical ideology.
Regarding this supposed affair with Margherita Sarfatti, this is a claim which derives from Sarfatti herself. Apart from her own accusation, there is no evidence whatsoever of her being Mussolini’s mistress. Sarfatti was an embittered Jewess who after the Italian anti-Semitic laws of 1938 leveled accusations of adultery against Mussolini and outrageously attributed to herself the role of having "created Fascism". Sarfatti's role in Fascist history is, due to her Jewish background, greatly exaggerated by modern writers. In her years as a supporter of the Fascist Party she contributed nothing to Fascism outside of editing a newspaper favorable to Fascism and to the Party, a role no more important than what was performed by hundreds of other writers and newspaper editors. Her only legitimate claim to fame, her authorship of a biography favorable towards Mussolini and to Fascism (The Life of Benito Mussolini, 1925), which by that time was an already established and widely accepted ideology, the product of Mussolini's genius, and nothing to do with Sarfatti.
Her own exaggerated claims as regards her role in shaping Fascism, and her slanderous assertions of carrying on an early love affair with Mussolini, are the product of strong bitterness towards Mussolini and the Fascist Party for enacting anti-Semitic laws in 1938. Additionally, already in 1932 she had been fired and not allowed to write articles in Fascist newspapers. All this, together with Sarfatti's delusion of an early "Kosher Fascism" of which she considered herself to be a part of, and of a later supposedly "corrupt Fascism", which she felt betrayed by, and falsely claimed was the product of German National Socialist influence.
Sarfatti's exaggerated, mythical, and slanderous claims regarding her role in Fascist history (such as claiming to have written articles in Mussolini's name, claiming to have been the theorist behind the March on Rome, claiming to have been Mussolini's personal adviser who helped shape Fascist ideology, etc.) and libels against Mussolini's character (such as claiming to have had love affairs with him during his marriage) are found mainly in her own post-war writings and testimonies, and it is primarily from these that modern writers base their own libels, exaggerations and gossip, treating them as if they were dogma. It is also worth noting that Sarfatti had converted to Christianity and was baptized Catholic in the 1920's, although her doctrinal orthodoxy and sincerity can be debated, especially given her behaviour. Her later actions puts her Jewishness and insincerity on full display.
Mussolini himself alluded to the accusations of his extramarital affairs in his book "Story of a Year” from 1944:
"Suddenly, the floodgates of gossip were thrown open, and the five percent of truth was embroidered with wild fancies of all sorts which, however, did not fail to excite the curiosity of the mob... It was necessary to make an end of me, first of all by a silence of the grave, and then by ridicule… 'Keep on slandering, some of the mud will stick.' And there is no doubt that some did stick."
The tale of Mussolini’s supposed Jewish mistress has no legitimacy whatsoever, and is on-par with the tales of Hitler supposedly having sexual relations with his niece or being partially Jewish: completely slanderous and baseless propaganda.
