Resistance a

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With the term Resistance ( Italian for resistance ) is defined as the set of parties and political movements that between September 8, 1943 and May 2, 1945 resistance against Italian fascism and the Nazi contributed forces parts of Italy after the announcement of the ceasefire occupied by Cassibile on September 8, 1943.

Organized and spontaneously formed groups from various political directions took part in the resistance, united with the common intention of opposing the Repubblica Sociale Italiana (RSI, " Italian Social Republic ") and the Wehrmacht of National Socialist Germany militarily and politically . From this arose the liberation struggle, which ended on April 25, 1945, when the armed partisan uprising , which had been proclaimed by the “Committee for the National Liberation of Upper Italy” ( Comitato di liberazione nazionale per l'Alta Italia, CLNAI ), for the liberation of almost all cities led in the north of the country.

It was the last part of the territory, which was still occupied by troops of the Wehrmacht, which were retreating to Germany , and which was the target of the suppressive measures of the republican associations of the RSI, which the partisan movement opposed the actual resistance. The unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht in Italy took place on May 2nd.

In a broader sense, some also refer to the period from the 1930s (when the first movements were brought into being) to the end of the war as Resistancea , whereby the concept of resistance incorporates any form of opposition to the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini .

Background: anti-fascism and opposition

After the murder of the socialist MP Giacomo Matteotti and the determined assumption of responsibility on the part of Mussolini, Italy embarked on a dictatorial regime. The increasing control and persecution of the opposition members when there was a risk of imprisonment and exile urged a small part of the opposition to organize themselves underground in Italy and abroad by building a loose network of connections and creating the basis of a structure capable of acting, which might have to be armed.

Still, the underground activities yielded no results of any importance; they remained fragmented in small, uncoordinated groups, unable to attack or even threaten the regime. Their activity was limited to the ideological side: the production of pamphlets and booklets was considerable, but they did not reach the masses who did not deviate from their approval of the regime.

Only the war, and in particular the disintegration of the state triggered by the circumstances of the summer of 1943, gave the underground activists the opportunity to establish contact with one another (perhaps mediated), supported by the British-American armed forces, which recognized their importance for the outcome of the conflict and made sure that they were armed and also helped them with supply issues. The representatives of the Resistancea included social democrats and communists as well as the anarchists , the militants of the left parties as well as the liberals and Catholics who had been sidelined by fascism in 1922.

The CLN

Flag of the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale (CLN)

The partisan movement, initially organized in independent groups, was gradually organized into brigades and divisions by the Committee for National Liberation (“ Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale ”, CLN) , including the Garibaldi Brigade, set up on the initiative of the Communist Party , the Brigade Matteotti, which was linked to the Socialist Party, the Brigades "Justice and Freedom" ("Giustizia e Libertà") linked to the Party of Action , as well as the so-called Badogliani (primarily former soldiers ) with a monarchist tendency.

In particular, in the period from September 8, 1943, on which the Cassibile armistice with the Allies, signed five days earlier, was proclaimed, to April 25, 1945, Italy experienced a war of liberation. The actions of the Italian partisans were primarily a patriotic war; the attitude of the Italian fascists was comparable to that of the collaborators in France under Philippe Pétain .

A closer look

The meanings that are assigned to the phenomenon of resistance are diverse, because the personal experiences were diverse, the paths that were covered by those men and women who had experienced a twenty-year dictatorship: not infrequently were born and raised under this regime, they decided to fight the National Socialists and the Republic of Salò . The recognition of the possibility of putting an end to the dictatorship and creating a democracy , the refusal to fulfill the obligation of the army service of the rest of the republic, the hope to see the end of the war and the suffering of a people, the desire for social Liberation, the defense of Italy against German aggression after the fall of the fascist regime, are just some of the reasons that led thousands of Italians to become resistance fighters.

It is estimated that around 310,000 armed people were involved in the so-called partisan war, especially in the mountainous regions of central and northern Italy, guerrilla activity and control over areas developed that were gradually liberated from fascist rule.

In the southern part of Italy, the partisan movement was not of great military importance, although in the areas that had been returned to the control of the king by the Allies , the leading political representatives who had long coordinated the military actions of the partisans gathered had, also together with the armed allies. Because the British-American armed forces had stopped the German Wehrmacht , which was retreating north, on October 12, 1943 at the Gustav Line .

With the half-liberated peninsula and the remaining part still to be liberated, with enormous social tensions and significant workers' strikes, which paralyzed the large industrial cities of Milan , Turin and Genoa as early as the spring of 1944 , the population of northern Italy was preparing for it, the longest and most to survive the hardest winter in a long time, that of 1945. The partisans now planned their fight on the mountains of the Valsesia , on the hills of the Langhe and the ridges of the Ligurian Apennines .

The CAP and the SAP

In the cities, core groups of partisans called GAP ( Gruppi di azione patriottica ["groups for patriotic actions"]) began to form, consisting of a few fighters who were willing to undertake acts of sabotage and guerrilla actions, as well as to spread political propaganda . In addition to these, the SAP ( Squadre di azione patriottica , "Combat Groups for Patriotic Actions"), large groups in support of the warring partisan units, with the particular aim of facilitating the participation of the population in the insurrectionary movement, emerged inside the factories in the most important urban centers . At this point, however, tensions arose over who should be the preferred negotiating partner for the partisan movement in political or military terms: the Italians or the Allies.

From this point of view, the “official” militarization of the partisans, which took place in June 1944 with the establishment of the Volunteer Corps for Freedom (or “Italian Corps for Liberation” [ Corpo italiano di liberazione, CIL ]) and which both of recognized by the allied military command as well as by the national government. General Raffaele Cadorna was placed at the head of the approximately two hundred thousand fighters who formed the new Italian army , with Vice-Commanders Luigi Longo representing the PCI and Ferruccio Parri representing the Party of Action.

Gradually one began to concentrate on the future. The focus now was on what would happen after the war. If, on the one hand, the war of liberation united different political forces, be it only in illegality and ideological diversity, then the immediate goal - the new Italy - was a source of disagreement: the parties of the left - otherwise divided among themselves - feared one in particular Restoration of the liberal pre-fascist state; For its part, the Party of Action stressed the need for partisan organizations to play an important role in building a new democracy capable of overturning the old monarchist order. The monarchy, however, was also supported by some partisan groups who freely and independently assigned themselves to the Christian-democratic wing. Among them were, for example, soldiers of the army who had not joined the forces of the RSI.

The unconditional surrender

The Italian resistance formally ended on May 2, 1945 when the unconditional surrender of the German and Social Republican troops came into effect , which had preceded the capture and execution of Benito Mussolini. On April 27, 1945, the duce (leader) of fascism, wrapped in the overcoat of a German soldier, was captured in Dongo , close to the Swiss border , when he was trying to leave with his lover Clara Petacci . Recognized by the partisans, he and Clara Petacci were captured and executed on the following day, April 28, by order of the CLNAI in Giulino di Mezzegra on Lake Como . Their corpses - alongside those of other high party officials - were hung upside down on the emblematic Piazzale Loreto in Milan and left to be desecrated by the crowd. At the same spot on August 10, 1944, fifteen resistance fighters were shot dead by an execution squad made up of soldiers from the RSI on the orders of the SS-Hauptsturmführer and commander of the Security Police and SD in Milan, Theo Saevecke .

On April 30, 1945, the Committee for the National Liberation of Northern Italy announced that “the shooting of Mussolini and his accomplices was the necessary conclusion to a historical chapter that still leaves our country covered with material and moral ruins”.

Some figures about resistance

It is calculated that the dead of the Italian resistance (shot in fighting or in captivity) together make up about 44,700; another 21,200 were left mutilated and disabled . At least 40,000 of the Italian partisans and soldiers died fighting (10,260 from the Acqui division alone , which was deployed in Kefalonia and Corfu ). 40,000 soldiers died in the camps of the German occupying power or the fascist social republic.

There were 35,000 women fighting among the partisans, while 70,000 participated in the women's defense groups. 4,653 of them were arrested and tortured. 2,750 were deported to Germany, 2,812 shot or hanged. 1,070 fell in fighting. 15 were awarded the gold medal for bravery.

Civilian victims of fascist repression during the Resistancea were another ten thousand, the Jews deported to camps more than 10,000. Of the more than 1,000 deported from the Rome ghetto on October 16, 1943, only fifteen returned alive.

Literary and artistic reception

The literature on resistance is extensive and varied: novels and essays that examine a period of intense participation by writers. Some basic texts:

Feature films:

Documentaries:

  • The documentary film Gives us nothing , shot in 2014 , portrays the resistance fighter Annita Malavasi .
  • For the anniversary of April 25, 2017, the documentary film Libere about the role of women in the Resistancea was shown in Italian cinemas.

places

The following lists provide an overview of places where historical events took place as well as places of remembrance and remembrance.

Places of historical events

The German occupation forces, whether members of the SS or the Wehrmacht, committed massacres of the civilian population and the like. a. in the following locations:

Gold medals of bravery

The gold medal of bravery was awarded to the following cities, provinces and institutions:

See also

literature

Primary literature

  • Enrico Loewenthal: Hands up, please! Memories of the partisan Ico . Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-95565-060-5 .
  • Ada Gobetti : Partisan Diary. A Woman's Life in the Italian Resistance (Italian first edition entitled Diario partigiano , 1956; with a foreword by Italo Calvino), Oxford University Press 2014, ISBN 978-0199380541 .
  • Luigi Pintor : Servabo. Memoria di fine secolo (1991).

Secondary literature

Web links

Commons : Resistenza  - collection of images, videos and audio files

References and comments

  1. ^ Nei cinema il documentario "Libere" sulle donne nella Resistenza. At RadioVaticana , April 29, 2017. Retrieved May 7, 2017 at 10:44 am.
  2. ↑ See also Italy on gedenkorte-europa.eu, the homepage of Gedenkorte Europa 1939–1945
  3. ↑ See also the list of recipients of the medals on quirinale.it .