Giuseppe Calderone

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Giuseppe Calderone (born November 1, 1925 in Catania , Sicily , Italy , † September 8, 1978 ibid) was a powerful Sicilian mafioso. He was the first chairman of the Cosa Nostra Interprovincial Commission .

Life

Giuseppe Calderone was born in 1925 into a poor family. In the same year, the Catania Mafia family was founded. His uncle Antonio was involved in the establishment. Like some other men of honor, he was a member of a family from Palermo, but lived in Catania; Catania and the east of Sicily were not traditional strongholds of the Cosa Nostra. Calderone's uncle was exiled by the "Iron Prefect" Cesare Mori and later fled to Tunis , where he was murdered by other mafiosi.

A second uncle of Calderone, Luigi Saitta, was also a member, and soon after the Mafia reconstituted itself after the Allied invasion in 1943 , Giuseppe Calderone also became a member. In the mid-1950s, Calderone rose in the hierarchy, also favored by the fact that his uncle was long boss or vice-boss of the family. His younger brother Antonino Calderone was also included in the Catanesian Cosa Nostra. In the late 1960s, Giuseppe Calderone was even a boss at times and his brother Antonino was vice-boss.

The Calderones experienced the First Mafia War in Palermo in 1962/1963 on the sidelines; they had very good relations with most of the bosses from Palermo, b. to Stefano Bontade . Calderone was very close friends with Giuseppe di Cristina , boss of the Riesi family; this was even his best man.

At the beginning of the 1970s, Calderone managed to convince the other major bosses of the Cosa Nostra to set up an interprovincial commission , which was supposed to cover all of Sicily , based on the example of the commission already meeting in Palermo . He became its first chairman and therefore had to vacate his post as representative of the Catania family in favor of his friend Nitto Santapaola . During this time, the climate in the Cosa Nostra deteriorated noticeably and a gap formed between the Palermo bosses who were friends with the Calderones and the up-and-coming Corleonesi around Luciano Liggio , Salvatore Riina , Bernardo Provenzano and Leoluca Bagarella . The Corleonesi, allied with the mighty Grecos, soon allied themselves with Santapaola, who sought sole power over the family of Catania. He soon created a loyal following who followed only him and gradually increased his power.

Relations within the Catania family continued to deteriorate. Before the Corleonesi started the Second Mafia War for supremacy, they tried to eliminate the supporters of their opponents in Palermo and replace them with people like Santapaola, who were absolutely loyal to them. In 1978 Di Cristina was murdered by the Corleonesians. Shortly afterwards, in September 1978, Calderone and his bodyguards were also assassinated. Giuseppe Calderone died on September 8th as a result of his injuries. His brother Antonino soon fled to Nice . There he was arrested in 1986 and decided to testify against the Cosa Nostra as a key witness. He also wrote an autobiography with the Italian sociologist Pino Arlacchi.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Calderone, Giuseppe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION powerful Sicilian mafioso
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Catania
DATE OF DEATH September 8, 1978
Place of death Catania