We study the effect of Fascist Italy’s colonial campaigns in East Africa in the 1930s on contemporary political outcomes. We collect data on the surnames of all Italian soldiers buried in Eritrea and Ethiopia. Using today's distribution of surnames across Italian municipalities, and under the assumption that soldiers' mortality rates did not depend on their geographical origins, we estimate the geographical distribution of these soldiers' descendants. We show that municipalities with more descendants (out of the total population) are more likely to support far-right parties today. To address endogeneity concerns, we adopt an Instrumental Variable (IV) approach that exploits the historical geographical distribution of mountain troops, which were disproportionately deployed in East Africa because of Ethiopia's mountainous territory. The instrument is unrelated to pre-treatment electoral outcomes. The IV estimates confirm a causal interpretation for our results. Moreover, we show that the observed effects are stronger in municipalities with more African immigrants. We interpret our results as suggesting that past colonial wars may have created attitudes of European "superiority" that persist today and contribute to explain the rise of nationalist parties in today's Europe.