Debre Libanos massacre
In the Debre Libanos massacre, officers of fascist Italy murdered around 1,800 to 2,200 clergy , theology students and pilgrims in the monastery town of Debre Libanos - one of the holiest sites of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church - with colonial troops under their command from May 19 to 26, 1937 . The massacre is considered to be one of the most serious war crimes committed by fascist Italy on the territory of the former empire of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia ), which was annexed as a result of the Italian invasion in 1936 and incorporated into the newly formed colony of Italian East Africa .
The mass murder was carried out on the personal orders of Marshal Rodolfo Graziani , the fascist viceroy of the colony. On the one hand, Graziani put the monastery town under direct support of assassins from the Abyssinian resistance movement, who had carried out a failed murder attempt on him in February 1937. On the other hand, Debre Libanos was considered to be the center of the old Christian culture of Abyssinia in the "rebel area", which stood in the way of the new Italian occupying power. Despite a lack of evidence, a military convoy led by General Pietro Maletti entered the monastery on May 18 at Graziani's instructions . The Italian officers and the Libyan Askari units they command rounded up all those present and locked them up in the church of Saint Tekle Haymanot. The next day, the wave of arrests also spread to the surrounding area of Debre Libanos. The massacre began on May 19 with the killings of around 30 sick and disabled people. These were shot in their homes or near the monastery. Then on May 21, the mass execution of 1,000 to 1,600 singled out members of the clergy took place. They were driven with up to 40 military trucks to the execution site on the surrounding plain of Laga Wolde, where they were killed by Askaris after an Italian officer gave them an order to shoot. On May 26, the remaining 400 to 500 theology students and pilgrims were murdered on the remote plain of Engecha near the city of Debre Berhan .
Before they left, the Italian soldiers plundered the monastery treasure, stealing hundreds of irreplaceable items, including gold crowns from former Abyssinian emperors, old chasubles and religious writings. Valuable parts of its cultural heritage were irretrievably lost as a result. After the Second World War, Ethiopia sought an extradition of Italian war criminals and tried to prosecute them, but ultimately failed due to resistance from Italy and the allied victorious power Great Britain . In recent research, the massacre is considered a unique case of brutality against a religious community in the entire global colonial history, as well as the bloodiest massacre of Christians on the African continent. Possible parallels between the policy of occupation of fascist Italy in Ethiopia and the first phase of the later German occupation in Poland will also be discussed .
literature
Monographs
- Paolo Borruso: Debre Libanos 1937: Il più grave crimine di guerra dell'Italia [= Debre Libanos 1937: The greatest war crime in Italy]. Laterza, Bari 2020, ISBN 978-88-581-3963-9 . ( Italian review )
- Ian Campbell: The Massacre of Debre Libanos. Ethiopia 1937. The Story of One of Fascism's Most Shocking Atrocities. Addis Ababa University Press, Addis Ababa 2014, ISBN 978-99944-52-51-4 .
further reading
- Aram Mattioli : A Forgotten Key Event of the World War II. In: Asfa-Wossen Asserate , Aram Mattioli (ed.): The first fascist war of annihilation. The Italian aggression against Ethiopia 1935–1941 (= Italy in modern times. Vol. 13). SH-Verlag, Cologne 2006, ISBN 3-89498-162-8 , pp. 9-26.
- Aram Mattioli: Experimental field of violence. The Abyssinian War and its international significance 1935–1941 (= culture - philosophy - history. Volume 3). With a foreword by Angelo Del Boca. Orell Füssli, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-280-06062-1 .
- Alberto Sbacchi: Ethiopian Opposition to Italian Rule, 1936–1940. In: ders .: Legacy of Bitterness: Ethiopia and Fascist Italy, 1935–1941. The Red Sea Press, Lawrenceville 1997 [1978], ISBN 978-0932415745 , pp. 165-204.