Gladio

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Gladio ( Italian "short sword"; from Latin Gladius ) was a stay-behind organization in Italy , which was supposed to carry out guerrilla operations and sabotage against the invaders in the event of an invasion by Warsaw Pact troops . It emerged from the cooperation between the Italian Post-War Military Intelligence Service ( SIFAR ) and the CIA and was integrated into NATO since 1964 .

The existence of the organization was revealed when in July 1990 the Italian examining magistrate Felice Casson, as part of his investigation into terrorist attacks, found documents in the archives of the then existing military intelligence service SISMI , which pointed to a secret organization called Gladio . In August 1990, Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti first informed the public about the existence of such an organization, which would have become active if the enemy had invaded and occupied the country.

Similar stay-behind organizations in other Western European countries became known as a result of the discovery of Gladio in 1990.

history

From 1950, agents were trained in Italy to carry out guerrilla operations and sabotage against the occupying forces in the event of an invasion by the armed forces of the Warsaw Pact . For these “stay-behind” operations, secret, illegal weapons depots were set up across Europe. The existence of the underground army was kept secret and was known only to a small circle of members of the government. In the individual countries, the recruitment and management of the agents was mostly taken over by subdivisions of the respective national secret services.

Officers who were designated for stay-behind operations trained together with the US Special Forces and the British Special Air Service , for example at a secret military base near Capo Marrargiu in Sardinia and in the Bad Tölz area in Bavaria . In the vicinity of the members of the secret troops there was a circle of civilian supporters who were only to be activated in the event of an emergency by the invasion of Soviet troops. The units were equipped with machine guns, explosives, ammunition and radio equipment via the CIA and MI6 . This equipment was hidden in burrows in the ground, often in wooded areas, or in underground bunkers.

The model was the Special Operations Executive , a British special unit that carried out covert operations behind enemy lines during the Second World War and supported and trained resistance groups such as the Resistance . The members of the secret troops formed in this way came from special military units , intelligence services or right-wing extremism , the latter in part with a criminal background.

According to Andreotti's 1990 statement, Gladio had 622 members and 139 arsenals, 12 of which were no longer accessible. Andreotti's information on the number of members was described by the political scientist Franco Ferraresi as "completely unconvincing". It is much too low.

Andreotti pointed out that similar units existed in all Western European countries, coordinated by a secret NATO committee, which their governments had to admit in the course of 1990.

Exposure

Investigation of the judiciary

In 1984, the coroner examined Felice Casson the bombing Peteano 1972 with three deaths, the perpetrators were not identified. He found many inconsistencies in the earlier investigation results, which indicated deliberate manipulation and falsification of evidence. Eventually he found the right-wing extremist Vincenzo Vinciguerra , a member of the terrorist organization Ordine Nuovo , who made an extensive confession. He testified that he had been covered by people from the state apparatus and that the attack was part of a comprehensive strategy. He also said in the process:

“You had to attack civilians, men, women, children, innocent people, unknown people who were far from the political game. The reason was simple. The attacks should make the Italian people ask the state for greater security. "

Policy response

The Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti confirmed the existence of an "Operation Gladio" of the SISMI on August 3, 1990 in response to a parliamentary question. However, he initially claimed that Gladio ended in 1972. Contrary to this statement, he admitted on October 22, 1990 that Gladio continued to exist after 1972.

European Parliament resolution 1990

The European Parliament expressed for a special debate on 22 November 1990 its "strong protest" against the NATO and the intelligence involved. It assumed that the activities emanated from the executive branch and were not subject to parliamentary control, i.e. the legislatures of the states concerned were not involved.

The EU resolution was followed by parliamentary questions in several countries and the resolution led to investigative commissions in Italy and Belgium. On November 5, 1990, NATO spokesman Jean Marcotta stated that "NATO has never considered guerrilla warfare or clandestine operations." A day later, another NATO spokesman said this was incorrect. The journalists received a brief communiqué stating that NATO should not have spoken out on secret military matters and that Marcotta should not have said anything.

Controversy

Responsibility for terrorist attacks

From the mid-2000s, following the publication of the doctoral thesis NATO Secret Armies in Europe by the historian Daniele Ganser, it was often assumed that Gladio - understood here as a generic term for stay-behind organizations in the Cold War in general - was for terrorist attacks in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, especially in Italy the anni di piombo , responsible, so that the term "Gladio" has meanwhile become a "synonym for state terror" in common parlance. The secret service historian Thomas Riegler speaks of a “downright stay-behind or gladio myth”, which is “especially worrying in the social media sector”.

The terrorist attacks of the 1970s and 1980s occupied a number of committees of inquiry in the Italian parliament, in particular the Commissione Stragi ("Massacre Commission "), which worked in the 10th to 13th legislative period from 1988 to 2001. It is considered to be highly politicized and did not come to a final conclusion as to the possible involvement of Gladio in terrorist attacks. In 2010, the historian Hans Woller came to the conclusion that there was "some indications" but not "hard evidence" for cooperation between Gladio and neo-fascist terrorists in Italy, which also applies to left-wing terrorism. Based on this, the historian Tobias Hof wrote in 2015 that it would remain the task of "later research" to find out "to what extent ... secret services and Gladio consciously promoted and instrumentalized right-wing extremism". The frequently put forward thesis that Gladio promoted left-wing terrorists is, according to the court, "[n] och less plausible" - there is "no meaningful evidence". In 2016, the Italian historian Vladimiro Satta evaluated the research conducted by parliamentary investigations into the terrorist attacks of the anni di piombo in his overall presentation I nemici della Repubblica . He sees no evidence that state and secret service conspiracies such as Gladio are responsible for the terrorist attacks. According to Satta, the examining magistrate Felice Casson did not assume that Gladio was responsible for the assassination attempt on Peteano and, although the secret organization was illegitimate, it was not involved in terrorist attacks and did not accuse any Gladio member of participating in such an act of terrorism . Thomas Riegler described the thesis of a “involvement in terrorism” in 2018 as a “presumption”. However, there are indications that other parallel structures of the Italian secret services were involved in both coup preparations and attacks.

Relationship with NATO

According to Daniele Ganser , the Allied Clandestine Committee was a division of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), the military command of the NATO armed forces. According to a statement by a NATO Secretary General in 1990, Gladio and the other NATO stay-behind organizations were coordinated within this military command. In the process, targeted false information was also scattered in order to deny the existence of such a network. Thomas Riegler also thinks that the various (par) military groups were coordinated within the framework of NATO. Olav Riste and other historians take the view, however, that the stay-behind organizations such as Gladio were part of the national emergency preparations and had no direct connection to NATO. Riste points out, however, that precise statements on this point are difficult to substantiate, since the files of the NATO committees, which were responsible for advising and supporting the stay-behind groups, were destroyed. In most countries, the preparations were part of the intelligence services and they organized joint meetings for the purpose of coordination - for example, the procurement of radio equipment. Since most European countries were part of NATO, in 1990 the impression arose that it was a NATO-wide organization. In his 1991 report, the Swiss investigating magistrate Pierre Cornu came to the conclusion that although most NATO countries had prepared for resistance, these organizations and their coordinating bodies had been institutionally independent of NATO.

Daniele Ganser examined Gladio as part of his dissertation published in 2005 on NATO secret armies in Europe on the basis of media reports and parliamentary investigative reports and wrote: “Washington, London and the Italian military secret service feared that the entry of the Communists into the [Italian] government would destroy NATO could weaken from the inside. ”In order to prevent this, the people were manipulated: Right-wing extremist terrorists had carried out attacks, these were blamed on the political opponent through falsified traces, whereupon the people themselves after more police, fewer freedoms and more surveillance by the Intelligence services would have asked. In response to Ganser's book in January 2006, the State Department stated that one of the documents Ganser cited, the United States Army Field Manual 30-31B , was a Soviet forgery; the terrorism allegations are false. In 1982, a KGB defector had claimed the document's Soviet origin before a congressional hearing. Ganser, on the other hand, cited statements from US intelligence officials such as Ray Steiner Cline, a former CIA leadership cadre, and the ex-head of the clandestine P2 lodge in Milan, Licio Gelli , as evidence of the authenticity of the document . Both would have attested to the authenticity of the manual.

Documentaries

As part of their Timewatch story series , the British BBC broadcast a documentary by Alan Francovich in three parts about Gladio in 1992 . Numerous key persons in the operation have their say in partially anonymized interview sequences , including Vincenzo Vinciguerra , who was convicted of murder , former top officials of the Italian military intelligence services and a number of high-ranking CIA agents deployed in Italy. The films are the only documents in which significantly involved people report themselves.

In 2011, for was Arte documentary produced secret armies in Europe - Gladio (Germany 2010 85 min. Director Wolfgang Schoen , Frank Gutermuth ) first aired.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Leopoldo Nuti: The Italian 'Stay-Behind' network - The origins of operation 'Gladio'. In: Journal of Strategic Studies 30 (2007), p. 972.
  2. ^ A b Daniele Ganser: NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe: An Approach to NATO's Secret Stay-Behind Armies. Cass, London 2005, ISBN 3-8000-3277-5 , pp. 1 ff.
  3. ^ Peter Murtagh : The Rape of Greece. The King, the Colonels, and the Resistance. Simon & Schuster, London 1994, p. 29. Quoted in Daniele Ganser: NATO-Geheimarmeen , 2008, p. 213
  4. ↑ The Bloody Sword of the CIA . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 1990 ( online ).
  5. ^ Franco Ferraresi: "A secret structure codenamed Gladio". In: Italian Politics 7 (1992), pp. 29-48, p. 37.
  6. ↑ a b c Gunther Latsch: The dark side of the west . In: Der Spiegel . No. 15 , 2005, pp. 48-50 ( online ).
  7. ^ Karl Hoffmann: 25 years ago: Bomb attack in the train station in Bologna. In: Deutschlandfunk , August 2, 2005.
  8. ↑ Giampiero Buonomo: Profili di liceità e di legittimità dell'organizzazione Gladio. In: Questione giustizia No. 3, 1991.
  9. ^ Franco Ferraresi: "A secret structure codenamed Gladio". In: Italian Politics 7 (1992), pp. 29-48, p. 29.
  10. ^ Resolution on the Gladio Affair . (PDF) In: Official Journal of the European Communities No. C 324. European Community, December 24, 1990, accessed on February 4, 2016 : “ ... protest strongly against the fact that certain American military circles of SHAPE and NATO have usurped the right to to create a secret infrastructure in Europe to transmit messages and carry out actions ... "
  11. ^ Daniele Ganser (Neue Zürcher Zeitung, December 15, 2004): The secret armies of NATO.
  12. ^ The European , November 9, 1990
  13. ↑ Thomas Riegler: Gladio - Myth and Reality: Origin & Function of Stay Behind in Post-War Austria. In: Thomas-Riegler.net , April 9, 2018 (blog entry, private website). See also Thomas Riegler: Review by: Titus J. Meier: Preparations for resistance in the event of occupation. Switzerland in the Cold War, Zurich: Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung 2018. In: Sehepunkte . Volume 19, 2019, No. 1, January 15, 2019.
  14. ↑ Full name “Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sul terrorismo in Italia e sulle cause della mancata individuazione dei responsabili delle stragi”. See the evidence of the investigation reports from Tobias Hof: State and Terrorism in Italy 1969–1982 (= sources and representations on contemporary history. Volume 81). Oldenbourg, Munich 2011, p. 373 .
  15. ^ Tobias Hof: The Moro Affair - Left-Wing Terrorism and Conspiracy in Italy in the Late 1970s. In: Historical Social Research. Volume 38, 2013, No. 1, pp. 232–256, here p. 241 (PDF) ; David Moss: Lost Leaders. In: Ruth Glynn, Giancarlo Lombardi (eds.): Remembering Aldo Moro. The Cultural Legacy of the 1978 Kidnapping and Murder (= Italian Perspectives. Volume 23). Routledge, Abingdon, New York 2012, pp. 38–61, here p. 41 .
  16. ^ Hans Woller: History of Italy in the 20th century. CH Beck, Munich 2010, p. 309 ; Tobias Hof: Anti-Terrorism Laws and Security Forces in the Federal Republic of Germany, Great Britain and Italy in the 1970s and 1980s. In: Johannes Hürter (Ed.): Combating Terrorism in Western Europe: Democracy and Security in the 1970s and 1980s. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin, Munich, Boston 2015, pp. 7–34, here pp. 22 f., Fn. 84 .
  17. ^ Vladimiro Satta: I nemici della Repubblica: Storia degli anni di piombo. Rizzoli, Milan 2016, about p. 431 (e-book) : “né Piazza Fontana né altri attentati letali provenivano da… Stay Behind”. For Casson see ibid., P. 967 (e-book), endnote 115 . See also James Callanan: Eisenhower, the CIA, and Covert Action. In: Chester J. Pach (Ed.): A Companion to Dwight D. Eisenhower. Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken, NJ 2017, ISBN 9780470655214 , pp. 350–369, here p. 352 (“These claims [by Ganser] have been… refuted by recent research”), with reference to Olav Riste : “Stay Behind” : A Clandestine Cold War Phenomenon. In: Journal of Cold War Studies. Volume 16, 2014, Issue 4, pp. 35–59.
  18. ↑ Thomas Riegler: Gladio - Myth and Reality: Origin & Function of Stay Behind in Post-War Austria. In: Thomas-Riegler.net , April 9, 2018 (blog entry, private website).
  19. ^ Daniele Ganser: NATO secret armies in Europe . Zurich 2008, p. 56-74 .
  20. ↑ Olav Riste: "Stay Behind": A Clandestine Cold War Phenomenon . In: Journal of Cold War Studies . tape 16 , no. 4 , 2014, p. 35-59 .
  21. ↑ Pierre Cornu: Final report in the administrative investigation to clarify the nature of any relationships between the organization P-26 and analogous organizations abroad. Bern 1991, p. 2 .
  22. ^ Attributed to General William C. Westmoreland : US Field Manual 30-31B 18 (March 1970, PDF published in the Parallel History Project , in German translation from Regine Igel : Andreotti , Munich 1997, Appendix pp. 345-358).
  23. ↑ US State Department: Misinformation about "Gladio / Stay Behind" Networks Resurfaces ( Memento April 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). In: USEmbassy.gov , January 20, 2006 (English).
  24. ↑ United States House of Representatives, 97th Congress, 2nd session (Ed.): Hearings Before the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Soviet Active Measures . US Government Printing Office, 1982, pp. 37 (July 13-14).
  25. ↑ Raul Zelik : The SPD spoke of the Ku Klux Klan. In: Friday , May 2, 2008.
  26. ^ Gladio - Secret Armies in Europe. In: ARD.de , February 16, 2011; Gladio - secret armies in Europe. In: 3sat .de ; Horst Peter Koll: Lexicon of the international film . Film year 2011. Schueren, Marburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-89472-750-5 , p. 509 (e-book) .