Thoughts on war: Italian Admiral Inigo Campioni on “The Hour of Dictatorships”, 1944 (Published on 02/09/2026)
I. Inigo Campioni
Inigo Campioni, born on November 14, 1878, in Viareggio, Italy, was an admiral and senator of the Kingdom of Italy. He began his military career in 1893 at the Naval Academy in Livorno and served on various warships during World War I. In 1938, he became deputy chief of the Naval General Staff, and in 1939, he was appointed senator for life.
When Italy entered the Second World War in 1940, Campioni commanded the Italian main fleet. Beginning in November 1941, he served as governor of the Italian Aegean Islands (the Dodecanese) and, as such, was commander of all Italian forces in that region; his headquarters were on Rhodes.
After the Kingdom of Italy withdrew from its alliance with the German Reich upon the signing of the Cassibile Armistice with the United States and Great Britain on September 3, 1943, the German Reich initiated the disarmament of Italian troops and the occupation of Italy (“Operation Axis”), which had already been prepared for such an eventuality.
Inigo Campioni refused to cooperate with the Germans and initially ordered his troops to put up resistance. After the military situation became hopeless and a German air raid on Rhodes loomed, Campioni surrendered on September 11, 1943. He was taken prisoner and imprisoned in the German prisoner-of-war camp for officers, Oflag 64/Z, in Schokken in what was then the German Reich Province of Wartheland (today Skoki, Poland). After Mussolini’s fascists established the Italian Social Republic (“Republic of Salò,” Repubblica Sociale Italiana, or “RSI” for short) on September 23, 1943, as a puppet state of the German occupying power, Campioni was handed over to its authorities in late January 1944 after he had refused to recognize the RSI. There, on May 22, 1944, he was charged with high treason, among other crimes, before a special court in Parma and sentenced to death.
The death sentence was carried out on May 24, 1944.
II. Campioni‘s thoughts on war
The following reflections by Inigo Campioni from the time of his imprisonment have been preserved (source: Bähr, Die Stimme des Menschen – Briefe und Aufzeichnungen aus der ganzen Welt 1939 – 1945, p. 416 [translated from German language]):
“1944
»There is much light for those who simply wish to see, but much darkness for those who seek the opposite«: This statement by Pascal encapsulates the entire history of humankind. Light and darkness are locked in a struggle. But for human beings, it is all simply a matter of »choice«: It is enough for him to desire the light for truth to triumph over error and good to prevail over evil. One must have lived in concentration camps and seen what happens there to be able to rightly assert that we have lost the most vital and precious part of our civilization: love and respect for human beings. Torture, cruel reprisals, crematoria, gas chambers, executions by hanging, and bloodbaths are not inventions of propaganda. They are the most terrible and inhuman reality that history has ever recorded. Everything is possible today, even the worst infamy. Today is the hour of dictatorships. And dictatorships would always remain just as despicable – even if they succeeded in performing miracles, building roads and bridges, draining swamps, waging victorious wars, and founding new empires – because they ignore human beings, humiliate their dignity, and deny their fundamental values.
Human beings, as the sole and irreplaceable value, as the pinnacle of creation and the center of cosmic reality (as Pascal felt and believed), no longer exist. That is the truly tragic aspect of our time. Who knows? Perhaps society will one day, after so much bloodshed, so much misfortune and grief, come to understand the need to look within? In the meantime, however, we must pay the price.”
Will this price have to be paid once again more than 80 years later?
(Head picture: Grave crosses at the
US military cemetery Henri Chapelle/Belgium, November 2025)
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