Italian professor to be disciplined for tweeting Hitler praise

Education minister announces measures to be taken against Emanuele Castrucci, who hailed Nazi leader for having ‘fought against the true monsters’

By AP 3 December 2019, 7:58 am 0 Edit

Italy's Education Minister Lorenzo Fioramonti meets with journalists at the foreign press association in Rome, November 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

ROME — Italy’s education minister said a state university professor will be disciplined for Twitter posts defending Hitler.

Minister Lorenzo Fioramonti tweeted University of Siena’s rector informed him Monday that he intended to take unspecified “measures’’ against Professor Emanuele Castrucci.

Castrucci, in a reply on his Twitter feed, wrote: “Hitler, even if certainly no saint, in that moment was defending the entire European civilization.”

Rector Francesco Frati decried the “revisionist and neo-Nazi” posts as “shameful.”

Castrucci’s reply followed his posting a photo of the Nazi dictator flanked by a dog. The professor’s caption read: “They said I’d been a monster to not inform you that I fought against the true monsters that today govern you, dominating the world.”

Castrucci didn’t reply to an emailed request for comment.