Karl Haushofer, Ernesto Massi e le origini della geopolitica italiana

This essay aims to re-examine the personal and intellectual contacts between Karl Haushofer (1869-1946) and Ernesto Massi (1909-1997) from the Thirties to the Second World War. The main outcome of the relationship between the German geopolitician and the Italian geographer was the birth of the journal «Geopolitica» (1939-1942). Therefore, an underlying theme of the whole article is represented by the role played by Karl Haushofer in giving shape to the Italian version of geopolitics. This is an highly controversial issue. While many scholars had argued that the Italian geopolitics shared merely the name with the German «Geopolitik», focusing on archival materials this essay attempts to reevaluate the intellectual influences of Haushofer on the Italian geopolitical movement, rejecting the thesis of a «good» and «implicitly anti-German» Italian geopolitics.