The history of Italian fascism from its beginnings to its fall. Brunello Mantelli describes how Italian fascism in the 1920s and 1930s became a model and template for German National Socialism and other European fascisms, portraying Hitler as Mussolini's student. Even before the rise to power in 1922, racist tendencies were present in Italy, and the colonial racism in Ethiopia, conquered in 1936, developed into a true apartheid system. In 1938, anti-Semitic laws were introduced. The Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 was the first step towards World War II. For Rome, the alliance with Nazi Germany was necessary to realize its hegemonic plans in the Mediterranean and the Balkans. Only military defeats and the weakening of Italy within the alliance could end the coalition of economy, population, and party.