Gastone Gambara

Gastone Gambara (born November 10, 1890 in Imola , † February 27, 1962 in Rome ) was an Italian general .

Military career

Gambara initially embarked on a career as a sergeant . In October 1911 he was admitted to a special course at the Military Academy in Modena , after which he was promoted to sub- lieutenant. He then served in various Alpini associations , including during the First World War . After the war he commanded an alpine battalion . From 1923 to 1925 he completed a general staff course and then served in various staffs. From August 1927 he worked in Albania as a military advisor.

Gambara took part in the Spanish Civil War, where he commanded the fascist "Volunteer Association" Corpo Truppe Volontarie . From 1939 to 1940 he was the Italian ambassador to Spain . Gambara was on friendly terms with the dictator Franco .

In 1940 he led the XV. Army Corps in the Western Alps, then the VIII Corps in Greece and Albania . In May 1941 he came to North Africa, where he took part in the German-Italian counter-offensive with a motorized corps. In 1942 he took over the command of the XI. Corps that fought against partisans in Slovenia and Croatia and bloodily suppressed uprisings. Gambara was jointly responsible for the conditions in the concentration camps maintained by the 2nd Italian Army in Slovenia and Croatia. The partisans and resistance fighters captured there died of starvation in many cases. When Italian doctors presented him with a report on the conditions in the camps, he himself wrote a comment in the report which later (in Italy ) caused quite a stir: " Logico ed opportuno che campo di concentramento non significhi campo d'ingrassamento " (German : "Logical and appropriate, since it is called a concentration camp and not an adipose camp").

After the armistice of September 8, 1943, Gambara negotiated with the German troops that occupied Istria and finally joined the fascist republic of Mussolini in northern Italy. Here he served as Chief of the General Staff under Defense Minister Rodolfo Graziani and ended up in Allied detention at the end of the war. The People's Republic of Yugoslavia applied for his extradition several times without success because of the crimes committed during the occupation regime.