Fascism in Germany & Italy: Primary Sources
Historic Newsreels
The Archivio Storico Luce, is an Italian archive of newsreels, photographs, and films put out by the Istituto Luce, a Fascist-sponsored corporation based in Rome, that chronicles life in Italy and the colonies during the ventennio and through the war.
British newsreels focusing on:
RBML Collections on WWII/Fascism
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace European Center records, 1910-1954. Correspondence, memoranda, financial documents, minutes, book and lecture typescripts, printed matter, reports, press releases, news clippings, posters, architectural plans, and photographs document the activities of the New York and Washington Offices of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from 1910 until 1954, as well as the founding, administration, and activity of the Centre Europeen (CEIP Paris Office) and the work of the Carnegie Endowment in Europe in 1911-1940.
- Marie Read Smith Papers, 1934-1938: Marie Read Smith was an avid supporter of Benito Mussolini. Likely affiliated with the women's division of the No Foreign War Committee, she was staunchly opposed to American involvement in World War II. In 1938, she was granted a fellowship by Casa Italiana and Barnard College to study in Italy. While there, she had a brief encounter with Mussolini, which is the subject of the letter in this collection.
- Society for the Prevention of World War III Records, 1945-1972: Founded at the end of the Second World War, the Society concerned itself with the problems of dealing with post-war Germany. The issues in which it was most interested were de-Nazification and de-industrialization, and many of its records relate to former Nazi leaders or German industrialists who assumed or attempted to assume positions of power after the war.
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Records of the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League to Champion Human Rights, 1836-1978: The Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League to Champion Human Rights (NSANL) was founded in New York City in 1933. Its goal was the coordination of a systematic trade boycott of all German-made goods in an effort to weaken the economy of Nazi Germany. This collection contains extensive correspondence, administrative records, NSANL publications, investigative files, and photographs, as well as a large collection of publications and pamphlets produced by extremist groups and some government and civil rights groups.
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Alexander Dallin Papers, 1934-1955: Almost all the materials concern World War II in the Soviet Union. Materials include reports, two diaries, documents, and printed materials. There are photocopies of reports concerning the German occuation of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, written by German military staff, and a mimeographed research report by Alexander Dallin entitled "Kaminsky: The History of an Experiment (1941-1945)." One diary is by Otto Bräutigam, a German Foreign Ministry official who worked in the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories; the other diary is by one Linge, apparently a secretary to Hitler, for his diary is a record of Hitler's daily appointments from 1934-1943.
Columbia Center for Oral History
The Columbia Center for Oral History (CCOH) was founded by historian and journalist Allan Nevins in 1948 and is credited with launching the establishment of oral history archives internationally. At over 10,000 interviews, the CCOH Archives is one of the largest oral history collections in the United States
Search the Oral History Portal here.
Columbia Subscription Databases
Conditions & Politics of Occupied W. Europe, 1940-1945
Selected from the PRO Class FO 371 files in the National Archives, London, Conditions and Politics in Occupied Western Europe, 1940-1945 features full-text documents received in the British Foreign Office from all European states under Nazi occupation during World War II. This unique collection includes a range of primary sources related to wartime conditions in France, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the Vatican, in addition to those from Spain and Germany itself. Subjects covered include: the German attempt to win over important groups within the territories; the psychological warfare of rival propaganda campaigns; resistance units; and the repercussions of such events as Germany's invasion of Russia.
The Economy & War in the Third Reich, 1933-1944
30,506 digitized pages from German publications of the period that illustrate a number of major topics, including: the importance of German trade with Eastern Europe; effect of new trade treaties with Southeastern European states concluded in 1934 and 1935; Germany's economic offensive beginning in1934; growth of a "command economy" and the requirements of the Rearmament Program; balance of payments problem; and the defeat of "the traditionalists" with the dismissal of Schacht and Neurath and the appointment of Ribbentrop. Sondernachweis der Aussenhandel Deutschlands is particularly important as it provides a thorough breakdown of German foreign trade by commodity, volume and value on a monthly basis. The December issue of each year gives a final listing of annual figures.
Providing perspectives from both the Vichy government and the resistance movement, this unique collection constitutes the sum of the French press that actually reached Britain during the Occupation of 1940-44. It is the record of what was known by the British about the hearts and minds of the French people throughout the war. Reproductions were made from materials held in the British Library.
Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees: the West's Response to Jewish Emigration
This collection comprises, in its entirety, the Primary Source Media microfilm collection entitled Records of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, 1938-1947. In July 1944, 37 governments participated in the work of the Committee. Of these, representatives of nine countries, including the United States, served on its Executive Committee. The primary responsibility for determining the policy of the United States with regard to the Committee was that of the Department of State. It ceased to exist in 1947, and its functions and records were transferred to the International Refugee Organization of the United Nations.
Japan at war and peace, 1930-1949: U.S. State Department records on the internal affairs of Japan
This collection comprises, in their entirety, the Scholarly Resources microfilm collections entitled Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs, Japan, 1930-1939; Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs, Japan, 1940-1944; and, Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs, Japan, 1945-1949, all reproduced from materials in the U.S. National Archives.
This collection of films from the communist world reveals war, history, current affairs, culture and society as seen through the socialist lens. It spans most of the twentieth century and covers countries such as the USSR, Vietnam, China, Korea, much of Eastern Europe, the GDR, Britain and Cuba.
Contains nearly 52,000 video testimonies of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust taped in 56 countries and in 32 languages between 1994 and 1999. Most testimonies have been indexed for keywords at one-minute segments.
World Council of Churches Online: WWII Era Records
Documents from 1932-1957 include: newspapers, press clippings, press releases, telegrams, correspondence, minutes, manuscripts and personal notes. The collection includes correspondence and personal letters of such notable individuals as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, George Bell, Hans Schönfeld, Karl Barth, James McDonald, Georges Casalis, Adolf Freudenberg, Martin Niemöller, Otto Dibelius, Gerhart Riegner, Marc Boegner, and Willem Adolf Visser 't Hooft.
Free Resources on Germany and Italy
The German Historical Institute has a useful compilation: German History in Documents and Images (GHDI). Some of the collections include:
- Wilhelmine Germany and the First World War (1890-1918)
- Weimar Germany (1918/19-1933)
- Nazi Germany (1933-1945)
- Occupation and the Emergence of Two States (1945-1961)
The U.S. Government Printing Office is also publishing a collection of translations of German documents in the series Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918-1945. Documents through 1941 have been translated, and are in the Butler Stacks at JX691 .A46.
Also see History of Germany: Primary Documents from EuroDocs and ANNO- AustriaN Newspapers Online as well as German Studies in North America, a GHI-sponsored directory of scholars in the U.S. and Canada whose research touches upon Germany and the German-speaking world.
Calvin College has an extensive Nazi Propaganda Archive (1933-1945). All of the content is in English, translated from German by Professor Emeritus Randall Bytwerk, including essays, posters, speeches, caricatures, etc.
Italian Life Under Fascism: Selections from the Fry Collection
The Fry Collection at the University of Wisconsin-Madison contains many hundreds of printed items, ranging from single broadsides to large volumes, along with hundreds of linear feet of archival material; many items date from the period 1922-1945.
The Avalon Project at Yale Law School
Features thousands of digitized documents in the fields of law, history, and diplomacy. Many, many items from the 20th century, including an unparalleled collection of WWII materials.
Includes many online resources including the freely available 2-volume Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettoes.
Duke University Special Collections have digitized many items in their 'Early Fascism' collection.
BYU's EuroDocs repository lists freely available digital collections relating to 20th Century Italy, including newspapers, pamphlets and government documents.