Pact of Steel

The Pact of Steel (Stahlpakt, Patto d'Acciaio), formally known as the Pact of Friendship and Alliance between Germany and Italy, was a military and political alliance between Italy and Germany. The pact was initially drafted as a tripartite military alliance between Japan, Italy and Germany. While Japan wanted the focus of the pact to be aimed at the Soviet Union, Italy and Germany wanted the focus of it to be aimed at the British Empire and France. Due to this disagreement, the pact was signed without Japan and as a result, it became an agreement which only existed between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, signed on 22 May 1939 by foreign ministers Galeazzo Ciano of Italy and Joachim von Ribbentrop of Germany. The pact consisted of two parts. The first section was an open declaration of continuing trust and co-operation between Germany and Italy. The second section, the "Secret Supplementary Protocol", encouraged a union of policies concerning the military and the economy. Germany and Italy fought against each other in World War I. Popularity and support for radical political parties (such as the Nazis of Adolf Hitler and the Fascists of Benito Mussolini) exploded after the Great Depression had severely hampered the economies of both countries. In 1922, Mussolini secured his position as Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Italy. His first actions made him immensely popular - massive programs of public works providing employment and transforming Italy's infrastructure. In the Mediterranean, Mussolini built a powerful navy, larger than the combined might of the British and French Mediterranean fleets. When he was appointed Chancellor in 1933, Hitler initiated a huge wave of public works and secret rearmament. Fascism and Nazism shared similar principles and Hitler and Mussolini met on several state and private occasions in the 1930s. On 23 October 1936, Italy and Germany signed a secret protocol aligning their foreign policy for the first time on such issues as the Spanish Civil War, the League of Nations and the Abyssinia Crisis.