Italian war crimes in Africa

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During the Italo-Turkish War of 1911 and the rule of fascism (1922 to 1945) there were Italian war crimes in Africa and crimes against humanity . These included executions (including mass executions ), deportations , demolition of houses, poisoning of water points, the use of poison gas , terror and pogroms .

Libya

On September 29, 1911, Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire to gain possession of Libya. The Italo-Turkish War began. Italian troops invaded Libya. Contrary to what was expected, the local population, who lived relatively independently under Ottoman rule, greeted the Italians not as liberators but as hostile invaders. The influential Sanussiya Order, which had previously competed with the Ottoman administration, also took part in the fight against the invaders. The local tribes of Arabs and Berbers , along with the few Ottoman troops, withdrew inland. After a bloody battle near Sciara Sciat (near Tripoli) on October 23, 1911, the Italian occupation forces launched a pogrom against the Arab population, which they accused of treason. Thousands of Arabs were shot indiscriminately within five days, their huts burned and their cattle confiscated. In the weeks that followed, the occupying power also carried out mass executions in public places and deported around 4,000 Arabs to penal islands such as Tremiti and Ponza . Nevertheless, the Italian advances did not get beyond the coastal oases in the months that followed. Instead, the troop strength had to be increased to 100,000 men. On November 1, 1911, Lieutenant Giulio Cavotti dropped the first two-kilogram bombs on living targets over two oases near Tripoli. The attack served no military purpose, but took place as part of the "retaliatory actions" against the Arab population after the battle at Sciara Sciat.

The Italo-Turkish War ended on October 18, 1912 with the Peace of Ouchy, whereby the Ottoman Empire ceded direct political control over Tripolitania and Cyrenaica.

Initially, Italy kept the coastline between Zuara and Tobruk under control, while the rest of Libya was controlled by rebels. Tripolitania was conquered in mid-1913 and Fezzan in early 1914 . But already at the end of 1914 another revolt led to the withdrawal of the Italians to the coastal cities of Tripolitania. The planned campaign against the Senussi in Cyrenaica was not carried out due to the outbreak of the First World War. Again, control was limited to the coastal cities.

After the end of the First World War , Italy was able to send more troops to the North African colony and restore its rule there by military means until 1921. However, the Senussi continued to resist the colonial rulers, whereupon draconian measures were taken against the "rebels", especially under the dictator Mussolini .

From 1929 onwards there were increased attacks by the guerrilla groups led by Umar al-Muchtar against the troops of Governor Pietro Badoglio . Under his successor, Rodolfo Graziani , brutal repression measures (including deportations and shootings ) began, during which the Cyrenaica was brought back under Italian control. According to Grazianis, the Senussi lost a total of 1,641 fighters between March 1930 and December 1931. After that Graziani was on the border with Egypt a 270-kilometer fence built to supply the Senussi with weapons , ammunition and food from Egypt to stop. Umar al-Muchtar was arrested in September 1931.

In a show trial of Neunundsechzigjährige was sentenced to death and concentration camps Soluch executed . Despite this severe setback, the Senussi associations continued their loss-making guerrilla war until 1934, with varying degrees of success. This year Badoglio announced the successful "suppression of the rebellion in Cyrenaica".

oppression

In order to dispel any allegations of arbitrary shootings, the Italian colonial power set up special military courts. The accused (favoring or supporting rebel) was a mostly open-air show trial made that ended usually with death sentences that were carried out immediately. In a few thousand cases there were also deportations , especially in the relatively fertile mountainous country of the Cyrenaica, where the aim was to create space for Italian settlers in this way.

When the local population moved out, large numbers of the cattle they had taken with them died due to lack of water. Cattle were also attacked from the air by Italian fighter planes to keep them from falling into the hands of the Senussi. The watering holes of various tribes were poisoned for the same reason, sometimes with dramatic consequences for their families. Officials justified the deportations with the need to separate the local civilian population from the resistance fighters in order to prevent their supply and support.

Poison gas attacks

The Geneva Protocol of June 17, 1925 prohibited the use of poison gas . Italy ratified this treaty on April 3, 1928. In Libya, the Italian air force repeatedly bombed the civilian population with poison gas bombs:

  • 1924/26: Tripolitania , attacks on tent camps, cattle and field workers
  • January 6, 1928: Nufilia , attack on civilians, 10 phosgene bombs
  • February 4, 1928: Tripolitania, 3 tons of mustard gas bombs, 36 civilians and 960 animals killed
  • February 12, 1928: Hon Uaddan , phosgene bombs
  • February 19, 1928: Kyrenaika, Wadi Engar, mustard gas attack, 42 ​​civilians and several hundred animals killed
  • March 1929: Zeefran Heleighima, gas attack, 300 camels and several civilians killed
  • July 31, 1930: Taizerbo, 24 mustard gas bombs, civilians and cattle killed

After the mustard gas attack on the Taizerbo oasis , the Kufra oases, sacred to the Senussi, were the target of an air raid on August 26, 1930. When the Kufra oases were occupied on January 20, 1931, Italian soldiers looted there for three days. 142 Senussi were murdered and 50 women raped. The resistance fighters fleeing the city and their families were attacked from the air with machine guns. Many died of thirst in the desert, and only small groups of survivors reached Egypt and Sudan after a death march lasting several weeks . These crimes sparked an outcry in the international press.

concentration camp

Map of 15 of the Italian concentration camps of the Second Italo-Libyan War

In the Italian concentration camps in Libya , which existed from 1930 to 1933, the subjugated and deported parts of the population from Marmarica and the Djebel al-Akhdar were interned in the Second Italo-Libyan War . In this way, fascist Italy wanted to deprive the rebellious Sanusiya of Cyrenaica under their leader Umar al-Muchtar with a genocidal warfare. About a quarter of the total population of Cyrenaica died from deportation and imprisonment.

Ethiopia

Abyssinian War

Italy used poison gas in the Abyssinian War and its subsequent occupation from 1935 to 1941. The Italian invasion of Ethiopia began in October 1935. Italian units attacked from Eritrea and Somalia , and they also received air support. Italian air force units bombed several Ethiopian cities, including Aksum . On October 10, 1935, Rodolfo Graziani ordered the first air raid with poison gas bombs on the positions near Gorrahei. On December 6, 1935, Italian planes destroyed the city of Dese and the Red Cross camp set up there .

After Ethiopian associations were able to achieve some success in a counter-offensive in mid-December 1935, Pietro Badoglio ordered the increased use of poison gas. From December 22, 1935 to January 18, 1936, a total of 200 tons of poison gas were dropped in the area of ​​the northern front. In the area of ​​the southern front during this period there were a. poison gas attacks on Neghelli and Gogoru, where u. a. a Swedish field hospital was hit. In the south, Graziani's offensive led to a major battle on January 12, 1936, in which 1.7 tons of poison gas were used. Badoglio also continued his offensive in the north a. a. In the Tembienschlacht (23 to 24 January 1936) mustard gas. During the attack on the Amba Aradan, the Italian artillery fired numerous arsenic shells . Two international observers, the Polish doctor Belau and his assistant, were then tortured by Italian soldiers because they wanted to report the Italian poison gas attack to the League of Nations.

When the Ethiopian armed forces withdrew after the second Tembi battle in early March 1936, Badoglio ordered the Italian air force to pursue the returning Ethiopian units from the air. Here came in Tacazze also -Tal next firebombs mustard gas used. Even after the last decisive battle of Mai Ceu (today: Maychew) (March 31, 1936), surviving Ethiopian soldiers were attacked from the air on Lake Ashangi , also with mustard gas bombs (April 4). The Negus accused the Italian pilots of shooting for pleasure at soldiers who were temporarily blind due to the effects of the poison gas.

In the south, Graziani launched mustard gas attacks on Bullaleh, Sassabaneh, Degehabur , Daagamedo, Segag and Birkot on April 8, 1936 . Launched on April 15 offensive on Harar was u. a. also prepared with poison gas bombardment, which the French Catholic bishop of the city complained about in a letter to his superiors.

crew

At the beginning of May, the Italian troops deliberately delayed their entry into Addis Ababa in order not to have to stop the looting and attacks on foreigners after Haile Selassie had fled the capital. In this way they wanted to prove to the world public that the Ethiopians were a barbaric people who could not be left to their own devices.

Shortly thereafter, Mussolini ordered the immediate shooting of all Ethiopians found with guns in hand or involved in any form of looting. 85 people were shot dead after show trials shortly after the occupation of Addis Ababa, at least 1,500 others without trial.

On May 26, 1936 Pietro Badoglio returned to Italy and handed over the command in Italian East Africa to Rodolfo Graziani. At that time, Ethiopia was largely unoccupied, especially in the west and south.

From the unoccupied areas, rebels continued to oppose Graziani's colonial rule, which led to Mussolini's draconian orders to shoot all captured rebels and to use poison gas to fight the remaining rebels. Mussolini empowered Graziani to "carry out a systematic terror policy and wipe out the rebels and their accomplices from the civilian population" (Telegram 8103). When rebel groups attacked Addis Ababa on July 28, 1936, brutal mass arrests by the Carabinieri took place in the city . After the failed attack, numerous rebel leaders or so-called accomplices were shot. In the course of the occupation of the rest of Ethiopian national territory, there were numerous similar cases. I.a. Several villages were set on fire by Italian troops and "suspects" were shot. In one case (Giogetti) the entire male population over the age of 18 was murdered.

Ethiopia should be pacified by a strategy of mass terror. Unlike in other theaters of violence in the early twentieth century, concentration camps were not the central institution of persecution. Members of the resistance were executed after capture, and only a few hundred members of the aristocracy were given a chance to survive in prisons. In Eritrea and Somalia a penal camp was set up for political prisoners.

When there was an attack on Rodolfo Graziani in Addis Ababa on February 19, 1937, harsh reprisals were immediately ordered . All Ethiopians who were in Graziani's vicinity at the time of the attack were shot. Indiscriminate attacks on Ethiopian civilians in the city, often brutally killing them. 700 people who fled to the British embassy were killed when they tried to return to their homes shortly afterwards. Houses (tukuls) and also Ethiopian churches went up in flames. In the rest of the country, too, there were cruel reprisals on the basis of orders from Graziani and Mussolini. A total of around 30,000 men, women and children died. In Debre Libanos , Italian soldiers a. a. all the monks of the local monastery because they were suspected of supporting the Abyssinian resistance. In total, around 1,600 people died in the Debre Libanos massacre.

The attacks and massacres of the Ethiopian civilian population only subsided at the end of 1937, when Graziani was replaced by the Duke of Aosta.

The Ethiopian government assumed that more than 730,000 were murdered after the end of the war; Italian historians estimate that more than 300,000 people fell victim to Italian colonialism between 1887 and 1941. Years ago the journalist Fiamma Nirenstein criticized the suppression of fascist war crimes in Africa in favor of so-called national reconciliation. The historian Angelo Del Boca accused post-war Italy of trying to get along with the dictators in Libya, Somalia and Ethiopia. So far, however, the recognition of the war crimes and the corresponding reparations have been omitted.

Gas attacks

  • December 22, 1935: Dembenguinà, Tacazzè, 6 mustard gas bombs (8º and 9º Stormo)
  • December 23-27, 1935: a total of 60 mustard gas bombs
  • 2nd to 4th January 1936: u. a. Sokotà, 58 mustard gas bombs (8º and 9º Stormo)
  • 5th to 6th January 1936: Abbi Addi, 45 gas bombs
  • January 12-19, 1936: 76 gas bombs in total
  • December 23, 1935 to March 23, 1936: Gevà, Tacazzè, Quoram, a total of 991 gas bombs
  • December 24, 1935: Areri, 17 mustard gas bombs, 1 phosgene bomb
  • December 30, 1935: Degehabur , Sassabanech, Bullaleh, 71 gas bombs
  • January 12, 1936: Ganale, 6 mustard gas bombs, 18 phosgene bombs
  • January 25, 1936: 10 mustard gas bombs
  • February 16-25, 1936: 10 mustard gas bombs, 92 phosgene bombs
  • March 1936: a total of 158 poison gas bombs
  • April 8, 1936: Sassabanech, Degehabur, 13 poison gas bombs
  • April 20, 1936: 12 poison gas bombs
  • April 27, 1936: Sassabaneh, Bullaleh, 90 phosgene bombs
  • Further poison gas attacks by the end of 1937

Failure to prosecute

In 1943, the civilized world established the International Commission to Investigate Axis War Crimes ( UNWCC ). Against the background of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials , the Ethiopian Empire initiated an international tribunal to try the Italian war criminals. Among other things, the war of aggression in violation of the Briand-Kellogg Pact , the arbitrary execution of uninvolved civilians, the systematic gas warfare, the treatment of prisoners of war, the pogrom in Addis Ababa of February 1937, the massacre in the monastery town of Debra Libanòs and the Civilians will be charged with destroying natural livelihoods. As a first step, Ethiopia created the documentation La Civilization de l'Italie fasciste en Ethiopie . At British instigation, the commission refrained from investigating violent crimes before 1939, unlike in the Tokyo trial.

In the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947, Italy undertook to bring war criminals to justice under the terms of the Nuremberg Trials and to make reparations payments of 25 million US dollars. In 1948, Ethiopia submitted evidence against leading exponents to the UNWCC, which agreed to put the following eight accused on the war criminals list:

  • Marshal Pietro Badoglio , former Commander in Chief in East Africa
  • Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, Commander of the Southern Front and Viceroy of Italian East Africa
  • Guido Cortese, leader of the fascist party in Addis Ababa
  • General Guglielmo Nasi , Governor of Harrar
  • General Alessandro Pirzio Biroli , Governor of Amhara
  • General Carlo Geloso, Governor of Galla and Sidama
  • General Sebastiano Gellina
  • General Ruggero Tracchia

Since Italy did not extradite the accused to the UNWCC and also refused to make bilateral proposals for trials, none of the large and many small Italian perpetrators had to answer to any court for the crimes committed in Ethiopia. The sabotage of an “African Nuremberg” contributed to the fact that the fascist dictatorship never went down in the minds of Europeans as the brutal mass killing regime that it was.

Movies

  • Fascist Legacy , UK (BBC) 1989, 2x50 minutes, director: Ken Kirby; Historical Advisor: Michael Palumbo ( Fascist Legacy )
  • The South Tyroleans in Mussolini's Abyssinian War 1935–1941 , Italy (RAI - Sender Bozen) 2009, 27 minutes, director: Franz J. Haller & Gerald Steinacher ( online on Youtube )

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans Woller: History of Italy in the 20th century. CH Beck, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-60174-3 , p. 54 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  2. ^ Aram Mattioli: The forgotten colonial crimes of Fascist Italy in Libya 1923-1933 . P. 216 ff.
  3. ↑ De Boca: Fascism and Colonialism - The Myth of the Decent Italians . P. 195.
  4. ↑ Aram Mattioli: A Forgotten Key Event of the World War II . In: The first fascist war of extermination . Ed .: Asserate and Mattioli, SH-Verlag, ISBN 3-89498-162-8 , p. 17 f.
  5. ^ Filippo Focardi: Italy's Amnesia over War Guilt: The "Evil Germans" Alibi . Mediterrarean Quarterly 2014, p. 18 ff.
  6. ↑ Aram Mattioli: The Sabotaged War Crimes Tribunal . In: The first fascist war of extermination . Ed .: Aram Mattioli, ISBN 978-3-89498-162-4 , p. 156.
  7. ↑ Aram Mattioli: The Sabotaged War Crimes Tribunal . In: The first fascist war of extermination . Ed .: Aram Mattioli, ISBN 978-3-89498-162-4 , p. 156 ff.
  8. ↑ Aram Mattioli: The Sabotaged War Crimes Tribunal . In: The first fascist war of extermination . Ed .: Aram Mattioli, ISBN 978-3-89498-162-4 , pp. 160 f.
  9. ^ Filippo Focardi: Italy's Amnesia over War Guilt: The "Evil Germans" Alibi . Mediterrarean Quarterly 2014, p. 18 ff.