‘Goebbels Illustrious Visitor of Latina’ Post Deleted

Latina: Apost recalling that Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels was an “illustrious visitor” to Latina, south of Rome, was published on the council’s official website only to be deleted a day later amid protests, a local leftwing writer said Wednesday. Latina, a town built by Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini from the reclaimed Pontine Marshes and inaugurated as Littoria in 1932, found itself at the center of controversy.

According to Ansa News Agency, on the page dedicated to ‘illustrious visits, for the inauguration of Littoria’, Goebbels’ name appeared with the description “Hitler’s trusted man”. As the city approaches its centenary, a state law since last year, the municipality’s website referenced the Nazi second in command, listing him among the figures that visited “Littoria” after the “Great Reclamation” and “the new situation created by Fascism”. Other names mentioned included King Vittorio Emanuele III, Umberto of Savoy, and Soviet Foreign Affairs Commissar Maksim Litvinov.

Marco Omizzolo, a sociologist, writer, and author of numerous studies on the mafia and gangmasters, condemned the incident. “In the year that celebrates the eightieth anniversary of the liberation of Italy, to include among the illustrious visits of Latina, ‘the minister of propaganda of the Reich and Hitler’s right-hand man’, the Nazi Joseph Goebbels, is unacceptable,” Omizzolo remarked.

He further expressed that, “It matters little that it was deleted the day after publication. The offense to all of democratic and republican Italy remains.” Omizzolo also voiced concerns that in Latina, also known as “ex Littoria”, there might be an attempt by the administration to revert to the town’s Fascist roots.