The son of a Carabiniere became already with 20 years director/conductor of a small enterprise, left at the age of 30 years the marks and went to Milan, where he successfully represented a chemistry enterprise, which supplied the Italian army, the Resistenza followed later, a well-known partisan and boss of the catholic resistance movement in Italy became. It represented the Democrazia Cristiana in the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale (LN; dt. national release committee of the Resistenza).

The Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale appointed it 1945 to the point of Agip to close the national Italian oil company, which had been created by the fascists, with the order, it immediately.

Mattei worked however hard to restrukturieren the society and to one of the most important industrial enterprises of its country umzugestalten.

1949 communicated Mattei for general surprise: The underground of north Italy is rich at oil and methane occurrences; Italy can satisfy all its energy needs by the use of its own resources. In the Italian press it promoted the conception, the nation (still at the consequences of the Second World War suffered) soon would be rich. Agips stock exchange value rose and the society (those the state belonged, but worked like a private society) became very fast solid and important.

The reality was a little drier than announced: In the region Cortemaggiore in the Poebene had been found a certain quantity methane with a small quantity oil.

Agip requested nevertheless an exclusive concession for the within the national territory and the associated profits. The political opinions were divided: It and the conservative ones supported a linking together with the Industriellen were against him.

At that time Mattei is to have used allegedly unofficial resources in particular of Agip for expanded bribery of politicians and journalists. Regarding the Movimento italiano (MSI), it said sociale to the postwar fascist party: "„I used it like a taxi: I entered, paid for the journey and stepped out. "“Agip received control of hundreds of societies in all sectors of the economy. Obviously Mattei of the press large attention zollte, because Agip took over the property of some newspapers and two press agencies.

1953 the duck Nazionale Idrocarburi, better admits as ENI, by law created, in the Agip than mark of the gas station net came up. Mattei was an establishment president, administrator and general manager in one. ENI Mattei and Mattei ENI was actual. The parallels to Pierre Guillaumat and its structure of the eleven Aquitaine in France are indeterminable.

Mattei observed the international oil market. It invented (or told gladly) the history of the small cat: "„A small cat occurred, as if some large dogs made themselves over a plate food. The dogs attacked it and barked them. We [Italians] are like the small cat and on the plate are oil for all, but someone does not want to leave us to the plate. "“

This fable made Mattei in poor postwar Italy and it kept the public support, which is necessary for the political support rather popular. In order to break the oligopoly of the large oil companies, Mattei of agreements with the poorest states of the middle east and states from the Eastern Bloc was received. When ENI stood already 1957 in the competition with giants such as Esso or Shell, he financed the Algerian independence fighters in the secret one against the colonial France. It forged contracts with Tunesien and Morocco, to which it offered 50:50 partnerships for the exploitation of their oil, on clearly different conditions than the concessions, which were normally offered by the large oil companies. He offered to Iran and Egypt in addition to let take over that folder ion risk completely by ENI: If there were no oil, the countries would have to pay no cent.

After the signing of an agreement with the Soviet Union 1960 and during the negotiations with the People's Republic of China avowed Mattei the American oil monopoly on terminates. The reaction failed at first mildly and ENI to a participation in a Prospektierungskarte into the Sahara was invited. It succeeded to Mattei nevertheless to make the independence of Algeria a condition of its participation. It would not give an agreement, before this was reached. As consequence of this point of view Mattei was regarded as a goal of the right-wing extremists French terrorist organization OAS, which was against of Algeria independence and sent it clear threats.

1962 were sabotaged its airplane, but this could be recognized coincidentally by the pilot in time.

There were rumors the fact that the CIA would not mourn around him because while the cold war was it the USA a thorn in the eye that Mattei with the Soviet Union contrived a larger Rohstoffdeal, while the USA saw their embargo broken against the Soviet Union due to the Cuba crisis. Although the Italian secret service Servizio Informazioni Forze Armate was occupied with loyalen supporters, Mattei trusted it not and furnished a kind to personal security agency with former Resistenza partisans, coworkers of ENI (most of them surely communists) and felt protected by it.

During a flight of Catania, Sicily after Lignate, Milan in October 1962 had an accident to matte ice airplane in the environment of a small village in the Lombardei between Pavia and Milan during a storm. The official investigations explained the crash as an accident.

Mattei was a disputed person in the history of Italy 20. Century. Some described it as a kind Paladin, when nationalists, while others stressed its craving for power and its coolly calculating nature. Fact is that Mattei was a Industrieller, who engaged itself for a dynamic Petrochemieunternehmen in the national possession extraordinarily.

The doubts about the theory of a technical defect are more convincingly, so that some safe facts earn here, to be shown:

• Francesco Rosi asked 1970 the journalist Mauro De Mauro to investigate the last days of Mattei on Sicilies for a film over Mattei the Rosi prepared. De Mauro discovered fast a tape recording of the last speech of Mattei and spent days with studying it. De Mauro disappeared eight days, after whom he had sought out the volume, without trace. Its body was never found.

• Most investigators of the Carabinieri and the police, which looked for De Mauro and therefore consequently examined its assumed kidnapping, were murdered later. Among them was the well-known general Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa.

• The notorious reuige Mafioso Tommaso Buscetta explained to the famous examining magistrate Giovanni Falcone that the affair De Mauro was not an Mafia affair. The strange is to be exposed that the confusion resulted from disappearing De Mauro would force "„usually "“the mafia, the responsible persons or more badly still. Buscetta manufactured a connection between De Mauros determinations to death matte ice and its disappearing. A further reuiger Mafioso, Gaetano suggested a special agreement between the Cosa Nostra and "„to unite to foreigners "“for the elimination of Mattei.

• Admiral Fulvio Martini, later boss of the Italian military secret service SISMI explained that matte ice airplane was shot.

• 1986 explained the former Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani the incident as firing, possibly the first act of terrorism in Italy.

see also

Strategy of the tension

Related links

The case Mattei (in Italian)

Articles in category "Enrico Mattei"

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