Giovanni Bassanesi

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Giovanni Bassanesi

Giovanni Bassanesi (born March 27, 1905 in Aosta , † December 19, 1947 in Montelupo Fiorentino ) was an Italian photographer and anti-fascist .

biography

After completing his training as a primary school teacher, Bassanesi began working in his father's photo lab. After the fascist seizure of power in Italy, he emigrated to Paris in 1927 , where he continued his work as a photographer and began studying in the law faculty of the Sorbonne . He was also active in the Italian League for Human Rights and was part of the anti-fascist movement Giustizia e Libertà G&L (Justice and Freedom). Bassanesi was very fond of flying and managed to get his pilot's license, although he suffered from a fear of heights.

Giovanni Bassanesi planned a flight over Milan with Alberto Tarchiani and Carlo Rosselli , the directors of G&L. On July 11, 1930 he started this flight together with Gioacchino Dolci at the Swiss airfield Lodrino , in the canton of Ticino. They flew over Italian territory and dropped 150,000 anti-fascist leaflets over the city of Milan, commemorating the Milan uprising of 1848 ( Five Days of Milan - Cinque giornate di Milano) and calling on the population to resist fascism.

On the return flight, Bassanesi dropped his companion in Lodrino and continued the flight to Zurich alone. Due to bad weather, he had to make an emergency landing at the Gotthard Pass and broke his left leg. He was arrested by the Swiss authorities and sentenced to four months in prison in Lugano for violating aviation regulations. The two co-defendants, Tarchiani and Rosselli, also Italian nationals, were acquitted, but all three defendants were expelled from Switzerland. Both the flight and the trial attracted international attention. After leaving Switzerland, he tried in vain to organize further flights via Italy. Barely back in Paris, Bassanesi had to leave France for Brussels , where he began studying political science .

Between 1931 and 1936 he was arrested repeatedly and expelled from various European countries: on November 8, 1931, he was first arrested and deported in Constance , Martin Venedey was his legal advisor there, and on February 6, 1933 in Hamburg , where he was not responsible previous deportation complied with was convicted and taken across the Danish border. He was expelled from the Netherlands on March 13, 1933 and later refused entry to England. The French police arrested him on April 21, 1933 and deported him across the Belgian border. Soon afterwards he was arrested in Belgium for forging documents and, although acquitted, was deported to Luxembourg, whereupon he was able to return to France with a temporary residence permit.

In the meantime he met the socialist Camilla Restellini and married her, they had three children. On December 12, 1936, Bassanesi went from Nice to Spain, where he took part in the Spanish Civil War as a photojournalist . He was arrested three times in Spain on charges of being an agent provocateur. On June 8, 1939, he returned to Italy and was immediately imprisoned by the fascist authorities, but was released thanks to a pardon from Mussolini .

In September 1939 Bassanesi and his wife were arrested again for distributing pacifist leaflets, his wife was pardoned, but Bassanesi was transferred to a psychiatric hospital; their children were put in a home. After two and a half years, his wife managed to obtain custody of her husband; so they could move to Aosta together . Before the end of World War II , he was imprisoned twice for short periods, both times as a fighter against fascism.

After the war he found a job as a teacher in a primary school for a short time, but was soon dismissed because he had a conflict with the headmaster of the school. He fell into poverty and was arrested on charges that he beat his children and that they were malnourished. Bassanesi was sent to the insane asylum in Montelupo Fiorentino , where he died on December 19, 1947.

His wife Camilla Restellini lived with their sons in Aosta until 1952. She then moved to Rome, where she founded an agency specializing in technical and linguistic services for conferences, conventions and meetings.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Historical Lexicon of Switzerland, Volume 2, page 63
  2. ^ Speech for the 80th anniversary of the flight. By Dick Marty , in: Andreas Gross , Fredi Krebs, Dani Schönmann, Martin Stohler (Eds.), Beyond Autumn , Editions le Doubs, St-Ursanne 2011, pp. 145 ff.
  3. ^ Paul Ferrari (ed.), L'aeronautica italiana: una storia del novecento , Franco Angeli, Milano, 2004, p. 186 ff.
  4. ↑ Keyword: What is the Bassanesi Affair? In: Georges Andrey, Judith Muhr and Katrin Krips-Schmidt: Swiss history for dummies . Wiley-VCH Verlag, 1st edition 2009. ISBN 978-3527704408 . P. 419 ( online )
  5. ↑ Among other things from Konstanz; s. German Bodenseezeitung from November 11, 1931
  6. ^ Adriano Dal Pont, Simonetta Carolini, L'Italia al confino 1926-1943. Le ordinanze di assegnazione al confino emesse dalle Commissioni provinciali dal novembre 1926 al luglio 1943 , Milano 1983 (ANPPIA / La Pietra), vol. I, p. 6; Adriano Dal Pont, Simonetta Carolini, L'Italia dissidente e antifascista. Le ordinanze, le Sentenze istruttorie e le Sentenze in Camera di consiglio emesse dal Tribunale speciale fascista contro gli imputati di antifascismo dall'anno 1927 al 1943 , Milano 1980 (ANPPIA / La Pietra), vol. II, p. 993

literature

  • Richard Carazzetti, Rudolf Huber, Svizzera e Italia negli anni trenta: la presenza dei fuorusciti; atti del convegno internazionale degli studi , Locarno, 1991, p. 91 ff.
  • Franco Fucci, Ali contro Mussolini: i raid antifascisti degli anni trenta , Mursia, Torino, 1978.
  • Gino Nebiolo, L'uomo che sfidò Mussolini dal cielo. Vita e morte di Giovanni Bassanesi , Rubettino Editore, Soveria Mannelli, 2006.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bassanesi, Giovanni
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian anti-fascist
DATE OF BIRTH March 27, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Aosta
DATE OF DEATH December 19, 1947
Place of death Montelupo Fiorentino