Cesare Mori

Cesare Mori

Cesare Mori (born December 22, 1871 in Pavia , † July 6, 1942 in Udine ) was an Italian prefect and senator before and during the time of fascism . Because of his tough crackdown on the Cosa Nostra , he was also known as Prefetto di Ferro (Iron Prefect).

biography

Childhood and youth

Mori grew up in an orphanage before he was recognized and accepted by his birth parents in 1879. He studied at the Turin Military Academy . However, when he married Angelina Salvi, who did not have the dowry required by the military, he had to leave the service. He then switched to the police, first in Ravenna , from 1904 in Castelvetrano in the province of Trapani .

First experiences in Sicily

Mori immediately began to act with force, resolutely and independently employing unorthodox methods for which he would become known throughout Sicily in the years to come . He was arrested numerous times and avoided several assassinations.

The attorney general in Palermo wrote of him:

“Finalmente abbiamo a Trapani un uomo che non esita a colpire la mafia dovunque essa si alligni. Peccato, purtroppo, che vi siano semper i cosiddetti "deputati della rapina" contro di lui ... ”

“We finally have a man in Trapani who can take action against the mafia wherever it takes hold. But it's a shame that he always has the so-called «Deputies of Robbery» against him ... "

In January 1915, Mori was transferred to Florence as Vice Questore . After a deterioration in the situation in Sicily, when Italy entered the First World War, he was transferred back as commander of a special unit to combat gangs ( brigantaggio ). During his renewed deployment there, he distinguished himself through his energetic and radical crackdown. In Caltabellotta he had over 300 people arrested in a single night; Overall, the results of his measures were very positive. When the newspapers wrote of a "fatal blow against the Mafia", Mori told one of his employees:

“Costoro non hanno ancora capito che i briganti e la mafia sono due cose diverse. Noi abbiamo colpito i primi che, indubbiamente, rappresentano l'aspetto più vistoso della malvivenza siciliana, ma non il più pericoloso. Il vero colpo mortale alla mafia lo daremo quando ci sarà consentito di rastrellare non soltanto tra i fichi d'india, ma negli ambulacri delle prefetture, delle questure, dei grandi palazzi padronali e, perché no, di qualche ministero. "

“They still haven't understood that the brigands and the mafia are two different things. We have dealt a blow to the former, which are without a doubt the most conspicuous part of Sicilian crime, but not the most dangerous. We will carry out the real fatal blow against the Mafia when we are given permission to carry out raids not only between the prickly pear cacti, but also in the prefectures, bursaries, the great mansions and - why not? - also in one or the other ministry. "

Mori questore was promoted and awarded the “silver medal for military bravery” ( medaglia d'argento al valore militare ) in Turin , and later in Rome and Bologna .

The fascist squadrismo in Bologna

In 1922, Mori - as a loyal state servant determined to apply the law without exceptions - as Prefect of Bologna was one of the few members of the law enforcement officers who opposed the fascist squadrismo , the systematic use of armed militias and street fighting to destabilize the state.

The violence escalated after Guido Oggioni, fascist and deputy commander of the Semper Pronti (the “always ready”, nationalist militia led by Domenico Pellegrini Giampietro ) returned injured by a punitive expedition against the “Reds” and the secretary of the Fascio , Celestino Cavedoni , was killed was. Mori opposed the fascists' punitive expeditions and their violent repression by confronting them with the police, making him a highly controversial figure. An official who confessed to him that he supported the Gioventù Nazionale ("National Youth") of Benito Mussolini , Mori replied in an equality of the fascists and the "Reds":

“Gioventù nazionale un corno! Quelli sono dei sovversivi come gli altri. "

“I don't give a damn about the national youth! They are subversive like the others. "

Because of these incidents, after the rise of the fascists to power, Mori fell from grace and was dismissed from active service. In 1922 he retired and settled in Florence with his wife .

The fight against the mafia

Because of his reputation as an energetic man and as a non-Sicilian with no contacts to the local mafia, but who was nevertheless familiar with Sicily, Mori was recalled to work by Interior Minister Luigi Federzoni in June 1924 and sent to Trapani as prefect. He stayed there from June 2, 1924 to October 12, 1925. As a first measure, he immediately withdrew all weapons permits. In January 1926, he set up a provincial commission to take care of permits that he made mandatory for areas traditionally controlled by the Mafia.

After his outstanding work in Trapani, Mori was appointed Prefect of Palermo on the orders of Benito Mussolini and was given special powers for the entire island with a mandate to exterminate the Mafia by all means. He took up his post on October 22, 1926 and stayed there until 1929. The beginning of Mussolini's telegram read:

“... vostra Eccellenza ha carta bianca, l'autorità dello Stato deve essere assolutamente, ripeto assolutamente ristabilita in Sicilia. Se le leggi attualmente in vigore la ostacoleranno, non costituirà problema, noi faremo nuove leggi ... ”

“… Your Excellency has a free hand, the authority of the state must in any case, I repeat: in any case, be restored in Sicily. If the laws get in your way, that won't be a problem, we will make new laws ... "

There he introduced a particularly tough fight against the crimes of the Mafia and also took action against brigands and local landlords. On January 1, 1926, he carried out what is probably his most famous act, the occupation of Gangi , a stronghold of numerous criminal groups. Together with numerous men from the Carabinieri and the local police , he then had people searched house by house and arrested bandits, mafiosi and other people who had fled. The methods used in this operation were particularly harsh and Mori did not even hesitate to take women and children hostage in order to force the criminals to surrender. Because of the harshness of his measures he was nicknamed "Iron Prefect" during this time.

With similar means, Mori continued his actions in the whole two years 1925-26, which was remembered for many as a post- risorgimental "fight against the brigands ". The judgments for the Mafiosi were also extremely harsh. Mori's investigation, however, began to touch upon the relationship that existed between the Mafia and Risorgimento-era politicians; and he also came into conflict with a main figure of fascism in Sicily, Alfredo Cucco , whom he was able to expel from the party in 1927 and banish from public life. In 1929 he was retired because of his seniority. On June 16, Mori was named senator at Mussolini's suggestion, while propaganda across Italy proudly claimed the Mafia had been defeated.

The last few years

As a senator, Mori continued to deal with the problems of Sicily, which he kept abreast of, but with no effective powers and significantly curtailed in his influence.

“The misura del valore di un uomo è data dal vuoto che gli si fa dintorno nel momento della sventura”

"The measure of a person's worth is the extent of the emptiness that forms around him at the moment of his misfortune."

- Cesare Mori

His habit of tackling the problem of the Mafia was viewed with suspicion by the fascist rulers too, and he was asked to "stop speaking of a shame that fascism has erased." In 1932, Mori wrote his memoirs and his famous book Con la mafia ai ferri corti ("At war with the mafia"; Mondadori 1932, new edition: Pagano di Napoli 1993).

Mori eventually retired to Udine , where he died unnoticed by the public in 1942, while Italy had already turned entirely to World War II . He was buried in the Pavia cemetery.

Effectiveness of Mori's measures

To this day, the methods used by Mori in the fight against the Mafia are examined and discussed. Undoubtedly he had cracked down on him and achieved something: he had the reputation of being uncomfortable and not afraid to strike, even when he was opposed to the fascists of the first hour. By the late 1920s, the prefetto di ferro was well known, and some of its actions, reported by the regime's propaganda machinery, almost reached the level of public approval of Mussolini himself. Mori also did not hesitate (with the Duce's approval ) against prominent representatives of the Regimes like Alfredo Cucco or the influential General Antonino Di Giorgio to proceed.

The main steps of his action, thanks to the carte blanche he had received and with the help of others such as the Prosecutor General of Palermo, Luigi Giampietro , and the Calabrian MP Francesco Spanò, were :

• Send a signal with a major, successful operation to restore the authority of the state (the occupation of Gangi)
• win back popular support by involving them directly in the fight against the mafia,
• By fighting omertà and educating young people, creating a cultural environment that is hostile to the Mafia and increases opposition to the Mafia,
• directly attack the patrimonial cohesion of the mafia and the interdependence of its economic interests,
• restore the functionality and viability of the Sicilian economy and
• fight the climate of impunity by punishing criminals harshly.

His strategy was based on the following scheme: The Mafiosi essentially belonged to the rural middle class and controlled both the large landowners and the poorest sections of the population. By destroying the “mafia middle class”, the big landowners should no longer be victims of the Mafia and at the same time no longer the target of the public anger of their fraternization with the Mafia.

The effectiveness of Mori's measures was evident in the first year in the province of Palermo, when the number of murders fell from 268 in 1925 to 77 in 1926 and the number of robberies from 298 to 46; other crimes were also much rarer than before. Convicted mafiosi recognized that the mafia found itself in a difficult position after this period.

Mori dealt not only with the lowest strata of the Mafia, but also with their political connections - including those of the fascists of Palermo and Cucco's expulsion, who was after all a member of the Grand Fascist Council .

After his retirement, he was very aware that the Mafia phenomenon would re-emerge in Sicily. In 1931 a Sicilian lawyer wrote in a letter to Mori:

“Ora in Sicilia si ammazza e si ruba allegramente come great. Quasi tutti i capi mafia sono tornati a casa per condono dal confino e dalle galere ... ”

“Today in Sicily there is just as much murder and robbery as it used to be. Almost all the leaders of the Mafia have returned home from exile or penitentiaries ... "

In reality, the leaders of the mafia had only bowed their heads during the fighting and took the opportunity offered by the Allied landings to rise again, the Americans often using them in the administration of Sicily because they were undoubtedly anti-fascists were.

Mori in literature and film

• The character Moris is mentioned in Leonardo Sciascia's novel Il Giorno della Civetta .
• In 1977 Mori's work in Il prefetto di ferro with Giuliano Gemma and Claudia Cardinale in the lead roles was filmed. Pasquale Squitieri directed the film and Ennio Morricone wrote the score .

literature

• Arrigo Petacco : Il prefetto di ferro. L'uomo di Mussolini che mise in ginocchio la mafia. Mondadori, Milano 1975.
• Pino Arlacchi : Gli uomini del disonore. La mafia siciliana nella vita del grande pentito Antonino Calderone. Mondadori, Milano 1992.
  • German: Mafia from inside: The life of Don Antonino Calderone . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-10-033615-1 .
• Giuseppe Tricoli: Il fascismo e la lotta contro la mafia. ISSPE, Palermo 1986.
• Cesare Mori: Con la mafia ai ferri corti. Mondadori, Milano 1932.
• Matteo Di Figlia: Alfredo Cucco, storia di un federale. Mediterranea, Palermo 2007.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Arrigo Petacco : Il prefetto di ferro . Mondadori, 1975.
2. ^ Pino Arlacchi: Gli uomini del disonore. La mafia siciliana nella vita del grande pentito Antonino Calderone . Mondadori, 1992.