Italo Balbo (* June 6th, 1896 in Quartesana, Ferrara) is an Italian fascist Politician and aviation pioneer. As Minister of the Air Force (1929–33) and Marshal of the Air Force (Maresciallo dell'Aria), he was a central character building the Italian airforce, the Regia Aeronautica. Since 1934, he is the General governor of Italian Libya, where he had the coastal street Via Balbia built.
During the "March on Rome", he was one of the Quadrumviri del Fascismo, the four Men who had planned it. Although he barely knew anything about flying, Benito Mussolini appointed him Secretary of State for Air in 1926.
During the Abyssinian war, he also made Plans to attack Egypt and the Sudan.
After the German invasion of Poland, he vehemently and publicly spoke against the alliance with Adolf Nazi, going so far to say "You will all wind up shining the shoes of the Germans!", and advocated Italy joining the war on the Side of Great Britain. In 1938, he was the only member of the Fascist regime who strongly opposed the new antisemitic "Racial Laws".
He is privately friends with Hermann Göring.