Mario Roatta

Mario Roatta (around 1941/42)

Mario Roatta (born January 2, 1887 in Modena , † January 7, 1968 in Rome ) was a leading general of fascist Italy . As commander in chief of the Italian occupation forces in Slovenia and Croatia in World War II , Roatta played a central role in the war crimes committed there by the fascist regime in 1942/43 .

Life

Roatta became an infantry officer in 1906 . As a general staff officer , he took part in the First World War. After the war he was u. a. Military attaché in Warsaw and Helsinki . From 1934 to 1936 he headed the military intelligence service Servizio Informazioni Militare (SIM) , after which he commanded the Corpo Truppe Volontarie in the Spanish Civil War . Meanwhile, the SIM was headed by Colonel Paolo Angioi, but Roatta de facto retained the leadership of the secret service, which was also involved in the persecution of opponents of the fascist regime.

The Rosselli case

To this day, it is believed that Roatta and Angioi were partly responsible for the murder of the brothers Nello and Carlo Rosselli . The bodies of the brothers and anti-fascists were found on June 11, 1937 near the northern French town of Bagnoles-de-l'Orne ( Normandy ). The fascist secret service OVRA is said to have carried out her murder on behalf of the SIM. Ultimately, however, the political responsibility lay with Mussolini and Badoglio .

Second World War

Roatta was Italian military attaché in Berlin for a few months in 1939 (see Luigi Efisio Marras ) and then deputy chief of the Army General Staff. In this position, on December 27, 1939, in collaboration with Armaments Commissioner Carlo Favagrossa, he wrote a report to his superiors on the insufficient level of equipment in the Italian army, which was also presented to the Chief of Staff of the armed forces Pietro Badoglio and the dictator Benito Mussolini . In March 1941, Roatta followed Marshal Rodolfo Graziani to the post of Chief of Staff of the Army (until January 1942, then Vittorio Ambrosio ). From 1942 he led the 2nd Italian army in Slovenia and Croatia , the 1941 Istria from the attack on Yugoslavia had participated.

On March 1, 1942, he issued Circular C3, a circular to his senior officers to suppress the resistance movement. To repression against the Yugoslav underground movement, the second Italian army then used the same strategy of scorched earth , ethnic cleansing , mass internment in Italian concentration camps , hostage-taking , hostage shooting and Italian colonization as previously practiced by the Italian military in Africa was. The High Command of the Second Army had no objections to the evacuation of entire regions. Roatta, however, refused to extradite “Jews” to the Ustaše and the German Wehrmacht. Instead, he had them interned for protection, which saved thousands of Jews from deportation.

In 1943 he took command of the 6th Italian Army in Sicily . In the second half of the year he again headed the Army General Staff. In this capacity, on July 26, 1943, he gave an order that killed almost 100 anti-fascists. When he was tried for the murder of the Roselli brothers at the beginning of 1945, thanks to the support of his former colleague, the Carabinieri- General Taddeo Orlando and several other accomplices of the SIM, he was able to flee first to the Vatican and then to Spain , from where he was initially able to flee Returned in 1966.

literature

Amedeo Osti Guerrazzi: The Italian Army in Slovenia . Palgrave 2013, ISBN 978-1-349-44807-4

Web links

Newspaper article about Mario Roatta in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

↑ Life data from: Klaus Schmider: Partisan War in Yugoslavia 1941-1944. Mittler Verlag, Hamburg 2002. ISBN 3-8132-0794-3 , p. 605.
↑ Rodogno, Davide: Fascism's European Empire: Italian Occupation During the Second World War . Cambridge. Cambridge University Press 2006, ISBN 978-0-521-84515-1 , pp. 333 ff.
^ Marija Vulesica: Croatia . In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 9: Labor education camps, ghettos, youth protection camps, police detention camps, special camps, gypsy camps, forced labor camps. CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-57238-8 , p. 330.
^ Daniel Carpi: The Rescue of Jews in the Italian Zone of Occupied Croatia . Yad Vashem, Shoah Resource Center

personal data
SURNAME	Roatta, Mario
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Italian general during World War II
DATE OF BIRTH	January 2, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH	Modena
DATE OF DEATH	7th January 1968
Place of death	Rome

[1] Life data from: Klaus Schmider: Partisan War in Yugoslavia 1941-1944. Mittler Verlag, Hamburg 2002. ISBN 3-8132-0794-3 , p. 605.

[2] Rodogno, Davide: Fascism's European Empire: Italian Occupation During the Second World War . Cambridge. Cambridge University Press 2006, ISBN 978-0-521-84515-1 , pp. 333 ff.

[3] Marija Vulesica: Croatia . In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 9: Labor education camps, ghettos, youth protection camps, police detention camps, special camps, gypsy camps, forced labor camps. CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-57238-8 , p. 330.

[4] Daniel Carpi: The Rescue of Jews in the Italian Zone of Occupied Croatia . Yad Vashem, Shoah Resource Center