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Achille Starace (; 18 August 1889 – 29 April 1945) was a prominent leader of Fascist Italy before and during World War II.
Starace attended the Lecce Technical Institute and earned a degree in accounting. In 1909 he joined the Italian Royal Army and by 1912 had become a second lieutenant (sottotenente) of the Bersaglieri. A dedicated bellicist, he entered singlehanded in a brawl with pacifist demonstrators at the Biffi Cafe in Milan in August 1914 and gained quite a reputation by this action.
Seeing action during World War I, Starace was highly decorated for his service, winning one Silver Medal of Military Valor plus four bronze. After the war, he left the army and moved to Trento, where he first came into contact with the growing Fascist movement. He also joined the Freemason lodge La Vedetta ("The Sentinel") in Udine in March 1917.
An ardent nationalist, Starace joined the Fascist movement in Trento in 1920 and quickly became its local political secretary. In 1921, his efforts caught the attention of Benito Mussolini, who put Starace in charge of the Fascist organization in Venezia Tridentina. In October 1921, Starace became vice-secretary of the National Fascist Party (Partito Nazionale Fascista, or PNF). In 1922, Starace participated in the March on Rome, leading a squad of Blackshirts in support of Mussolini.
In 1924, Starace was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies and made national party inspector. In 1926, Achille Starace once again became vice-secretary of the PNF, and, in 1928, he was appointed secretary of the Milan branch of the party.
Although Starace was successful in increasing party membership, he failed in the later years of his tenure as secretary to reorganize the Italian Fascist Youth Organization ( Opera Nazionale Balilla) along the lines of the Hitler Youth ( Hitler-Jugend ). He also failed to inspire a nationwide enthusiasm for Fascism on par with the popularity that the Nazi Party enjoyed in Germany. Starace served as secretary for a total of eight years. This was longer than any other Secretary had served. But, by the mid-1930s, he had gained numerous enemies in the party hierarchy. Rumors circulated that Starace's family, especially his brothers, had made lucrative illegal deals.
The roadbuilding skills of Starace's men played an equally important role to their combat prowess. The following morning, April 1, Starace and the column entered Gondar and two days later reached Lake Tana, securing the border region with British Sudan. The East African Fast Column ( Colonna Celere dell'Africa Orientale) had covered approximately 120 km in three days.
Starace's brutality during the invasion shocked some of his comrades. Allegedly, he arbitrarily executed prisoners of war, shooting them alternatively in the heart and genitals.
During the Munich Crisis in 1938 which ended with Nazi Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland, Starace was a vocal proponent that the French should agree to cede Tunisia to Italy.
He wanted party officials to look virile and fit and on official ceremonies had them parading at the bersaglieri pace, an Italian variant of .
He is specially and more significantly remembered also for a policy of enrollment of the Italian people (either young or not) in Fascist party-linked organizations that bore some semblance to the Scout movement: Opera Balilla, Figli della lupa, Avanguardisti, Giovane fascista and the labour-related Organizzazione del Dopolavoro (after-work sports).
Sports were of particular importance in Fascist propaganda, heavily exploiting the successes of Italian athletes in international competitions (like boxer Primo Carnera or the Italy national football team), and Starace was quite instrumental in this field, tackling both the mass organisation and the elite side of Italian sports.
After unsuccessfully attempting to regain Mussolini's favour in the German-backed Italian Social Republic of Salò, Starace was again arrested. This time he was imprisoned in a concentration camp in Verona and was arrested by his former colleagues on charges that he had weakened the party during his tenure as Party Secretary.
Starace was eventually released and moved to Milan. On 29 April 1945, during his morning jog, he was recognized and captured by anti-Fascist Italian partisans. Starace was taken to Piazzale Loreto and shown the body of Mussolini, which he saluted just before he was executed. His body was subsequently strung up alongside Mussolini's.
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