Trial of Verona

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The Verona Trial took place in the Second World War from January 8-10, 1944 in Verona , which at that time belonged to the fascist Italian Social Republic (RSI, or “Republic of Salò”), in the great hall of the Scaliger castle Castelvecchio .

Accused in this show trial were former members of the Grand Fascist Council . July 1943 in Rome in the Palazzo Venezia had voted for the deposition of Benito Mussolini and thus temporarily interrupted his regime. With the help of the German Wehrmacht and the secret services , they fell into the hands of the fascists after the temporary armistice of September 8, 1943 .

From the minutes of the last meeting of the Great Fascist Council on 24./25. July 1943, in which Benito Mussolini was deposed. The respective voting behavior results from the marginal notes (si = yes, no = no).

The defendants

Six “renegade” participants at the meeting of the Great Fascist Council on 24/25 were charged. July 1943 in Rome:

  • Galeazzo Ciano , Benito Mussolini's son-in-law, sentenced to death for “ high treason ” ;
  • Emilio De Bono , "Marshal of Italy", very old and respected, nevertheless sentenced to death;
  • Giovanni Marinelli , also a “renegade” participant in the last meeting of the Grand Council, was sentenced to death
  • Carlo Pareschi , Minister for Agriculture and Forests, death sentence;
  • Luciano Gottardi (right-wing trade unionist and also “renegade” participant in the last meeting of the Grand Council), death sentence;
  • Tullio Cianetti (also a fascist trade unionist and “renegade” of the Grand Council), sentenced to 30 years imprisonment for high treason under “extenuating circumstances”.

Three other "renegade" members of the Grand Council could not be picked up. Nevertheless, they were charged in absentia and also sentenced to death. These were

tribunal

The fascist party appointed eight military officers as “jurors” , all of them fanatical supporters of Mussolini, who, as Alessandro Pavolini put it, “offered a guarantee that the death sentence would be passed, especially in the case of Count Ciano, the Duce's son-in-law”.

Official judges:

As "jurors" or "elected judges":

Also present: five people named Giunta, Pagliani, Coppola, Resega and Savinio.

"Legality" of the process

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RSI Justice Minister Piero Pisenti , who had worked through the trial files, believed the trial was not legal. There was no evidence of the secret agreement between the accused and the royal family , the voting behavior was irregular and the charge of high treason did not take into account that the Duce had been deposed during the day.

Mussolini knew the trial was a legal absurdity; but he still considered it necessary. He even thought of other people who voted for him on July 25, 1943 , e. E.g. to Roberto Farinacci , whom he nevertheless suspected of preparing a coup against him, or to Ugo Cavallero .

The Ciano affair

Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law, fled to Munich with his wife Edda and their children . He was convinced that there he would be safe from Mussolini's revenge. Immediately afterwards, the Nazis brought the family into a villa in Allmannshausen , where they also quartered Hildegard Beetz (alias "Felizitas"), a fluent Italian-speaking German agent, as an interpreter. She was supposed to persuade him to hand over his historically sensitive diaries to the security service of the Reichsführer SS . Heinrich Himmler had promised him a flight to Spain where he would deliver internal reports from the Germans to Spanish offices. Ciano should also inform the Germans about the changing whereabouts of Mussolini, who at that time was hidden from his Italian opponents in changing prisons or hotels.

He also knew from the radio that Vittorio Mussolini , Roberto Farinacci and Alessandro Pavolini accused each other of “traitors to fascism”, but that he, Ciano, had become their common target. Mussolini himself met with Ciano in Munich and made him believe that he had forgiven him. Hitler decided not to interfere. In this way, Ciano was completely isolated, and “Felizitas” was the only person allowed to speak to him while he had to wait for his trial. She smuggled his wife's cash register into Ciano's solitary cell, as Edda was not allowed to visit her husband himself. The later escape of the family to Switzerland (taking the diaries with them) could thus be secretly prepared.

The condemnation

Voting within the judges' committee took place using voting slips that were not identified by name. There was an initial vote to decide the question "guilty or not guilty"; this was followed by a second vote to decide whether the "guilty" person should be accorded any "mitigating circumstances". In the first vote, all defendants were found guilty. Only Tullio Cianetti received extenuating circumstances because he was only 30 and had only been involved in the matter for a few months.

The death sentences were carried out immediately on the next day of the trial, January 11, 1944, at the shooting range of Forte San Procolo in the north of the city, by a firing squad of 30 old fascists led by Alessandro Pavolini, unless pronounced “in absentia”. Requests for clemency to Mussolini were only made after the execution had already been carried out.

Contemporary commentary

Victor Klemperer (1881–1960), a Dresden literature professor, known for his detailed diary notes a. a. from 1933 to 1945 (although he was a Jew in the sense of the Nuremberg Laws , he survived the Hitler period and described it in detail) commented on the event in an entry from January 15, 1944 as follows:

" ... I consider it certain that the trial was a farce, that the shooting was a German work, that Mussolini had hardly anything to do with all of this - he is now completely invisible, is the shadow of a doll - above all that With this whole affair one wants to act primarily as a deterrent to German internal opponents ( Paulus , Seydlitz ). "

literature

  • "La Repubblica di Mussolini", Giorgio Bocca . Ed. Mondadori (Italian)

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erich Kuby : Treason in German. How the Third Reich ruined Italy. Hamburg, Hoffmann and Campe 1982, ISBN 3-455-08754-X , p. 280 ff.
  2. ↑ Victor Klemperer: I want to give testimony to the last , Diaries 1933–1941 and 1942–1945, Aufbau-Verlag, 11th edition, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-351-02340-5 .