Salvatore Giuliano

Salvatore Giuliano

Salvatore Giuliano alias Turiddu Giuliano (born November 16, 1922 in Montelepre , † July 5, 1950 in Castelvetrano ) was a Sicilian bandit and separatist who was known during his lifetime as the Robin Hood of Sicily and was revered as a folk hero . When his contacts with the Mafia were exposed after his death , the political myth of the folk hero faded .

biography

childhood

Giuliano was born on November 16, 1922 in Montelepre, a town 15 km west of Palermo , as the fourth child of Salvatore Giuliano senior. and Maria Lombardo Giuliano was born. He had an older brother and two older sisters. The family had returned from Brooklyn to Montelepre, his parents' home village , shortly before he was born . The father worked in agriculture and ran a small mill. Salvatore Giuliano jun. attended elementary school and started working as an errand boy for his father and various companies in Montelepre at the age of 13. From childhood he was enthusiastic about everything American.

Bandit and separatist

After the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943, the trade in grain and flour flourished on the black market . On September 2, 1943, Giuliano was on the road to transport two sacks of flour to Montelepre and sell them on the black market. During a police check there was an exchange of fire. Giuliano killed a policeman, was able to escape and go into hiding in the mountains of Montelepre.

His father and other members of the family were arrested on suspicion of sheltering him. At the beginning of 1944, Giuliano managed to free his relatives and other prisoners from Monreale prison . Some of these men joined him and he formed a tightly-knit gang that in the years that followed ran black market businesses, committed robberies or kidnapped people to extort money for food and weapons.

In contrast to other bandits, Giuliano also dealt with various political ideas. In the spring of 1945 he met leading members of the separatist movement who campaigned for the independence of Sicily. Mainly at the instigation of Concetto Gallo , a lawyer from Palermo, he and his men joined the EVIS ( Esercito Volontario per l'Indipendenza della Sicilia , German: Volunteer Army for the Independence of Sicily) and in return received the rank of colonel, one million Lire and weapons. He was also given amnesty if Sicily became independent. On behalf of the separatists, he attacked five Carabinieri barracks . At the same time, he and his gang continued their own raids.

Giuliano not only wanted independence from Italy, but affiliation with the United States . In 1946 he sent a letter to US President Harry S. Truman through an employee of the CIA , in which he proposed Sicily as another American state . Since both the mafia and the big landowners were interested in an independent Sicily, Giuliano's proposal was possibly one of the decisive factors behind his murder.

Contacts with the mafia

Without the cooperation with the Mafia and their protection, it would not have been possible for Giuliano to make his gang the strongest in Sicily. If he kidnapped someone, the relatives knew they had to turn to the local mafia boss. He ensured the safe return and shared the ransom with Giuliano.

In 1947 he submitted to the Mafia admission rites. Tommaso Buscetta reported in his comprehensive statements that Giuliano had been introduced to him “as his own kind”. This statement is now controversial. It has been proven that Giuliano et al. a. maintained contact with the mafia in Villalba through Calogero Vizzini . Vizzini was then the Capo dei Capi , the top mafia boss in Western Sicily.

In the same year there was an event that went down in recent history in Sicily as the Portella della Ginestra bloodbath . Portella della Ginestra is an open piece of land near Piana degli Albanesi . Here on May 1, 1947, members of the newly formed Left People's Party and the Communists gathered to celebrate their election success and Labor Day. The celebrations were interrupted by a ten minute machine gun fire from Giuliano's gang. Eleven people were killed, including four children, and over 30 people were seriously injured.

The investigations to clear up the attack were slow and led to various speculations. Some claimed that the Mafia had carried out the attack and are now trying to blame Giuliano. Others assumed that Giuliano had acted on behalf of the Mafia, possibly even the then Interior Minister Mario Scelba , against leftists and communists. In an open letter, however, Giuliano assumed sole responsibility and stated that there were no backers. He himself gave the order to shoot over the crowd, the dead were a regrettable oversight.

Persecution and death

After the attack on Portella della Ginestra, Giuliano officially had hundreds of police against him and the Mafia also dropped him. Although he managed to go into hiding for another three years and to continue his criminal activities, more and more members of his gang were arrested, with the mafia often helping with information. On the orders of Colonel Ugo Luca, the Carabinieri were to hold back unofficially in his pursuit.

In the summer of 1950 Giuliano's accomplices were brought to court in Viterbo and hoped that unanswered questions would be cleared up quickly. Shortly after the negotiations began, on July 5, 1950, Giuliano's body was found in a backyard in Castelvetrano , outside his territory. It was announced that Carabinieri had killed him in an exchange of fire in self-defense.

However, journalist Tommaso Besozzi found out that this official version was not true. Giuliano was shot in his hiding place and the body was then brought to Castelvetrano by the Carabinieri. The culprit was probably Gaspare Pisciotta (known as Aspanu ), a cousin and confidante of Giuliano and a lieutenant in his gang, but later also a spy for the Carabinieri.

myth

For years the police could not find him, from 1945 onwards Giuliano often received journalists from home and abroad, had himself photographed in heroic poses and gave interviews. He attached great importance to building up the image of Robin Hood of Sicily. The press supported him, as reports regularly appeared in the daily newspapers about his heroic deeds in favor of the exploited and oppressed population.

Facts

It has been proven that Giuliano worked with the Mafia and politicians and murdered over 400 people. It is still not clear who initiated the bloodbath of Portella della Ginestra and who murdered him. When the Viterbo trial continued after his death, the defendants reiterated that the attack had been ordered by the highest authorities. Nevertheless, the judge came to the conclusion that Giuliano and his people were solely responsible for the bloodbath.

Some evidence speaks against the judge's judgment. On the one hand, Giuliano received a letter just before May 1, 1947, which he read and immediately destroyed. Then he informed his people for the first time about the planned attack on the festival. The origin of the letter could not be determined. In addition, shortly after the attack, leading mafiosi brought a letter from Giuliano to the police chief of Sicily and the chief prosecutor in Palermo, which disappeared without a trace during the investigation. The same police chief named Varvaro corresponded regularly with Giuliano through the Mafia and met him at least once in person. On the night of his death from July 4th to 5th, 1950, he was a guest in the house of the Chief Public Prosecutor of Palermo. Gaspare Pisciotta also appeared at the meeting.

Gaspare Pisciotta was sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in the Portella della Ginestra bloodbath and charged with the murder of Giuliano.

Biographies about Giuliano

Scene from the opera Salvatore Giuliano by Lorenzo Ferrero , Staatstheater Kassel, 1996.

About 40 biographies have been written about Salvatore Giuliano, more than about any other person in post-war Italian history. Mario Puzo described parts of his life story in the novel The Sicilian . The Scottish writer Gavin Maxwell traveled to Sicily shortly after Giuliano's death, researched among his friends and enemies and processed his experiences in his book God Protect Me from My Friends .

In 1961, Francesco Rosi made the documentary film Who shot Salvatore G.? . The film was shot on location and with amateur actors who knew Giuliano and who had witnessed the Portella della Ginestra bloodbath. Newspaper reports, interviews and testimonies were included. Rosi's film biography made a significant contribution to relativizing the image of the folk hero that the press had built up.

Under the title The Sicilian turned Michael Cimino 1987 a movie based on the novel by Mario Puzo. In contrast to Rosi, he left many facts in the dark and showed Giuliano again as the Robin Hood of Sicily

1986 saw the world premiere of the opera Salvatore Giuliano by Lorenzo Ferrero .

In 2001 the Summer Festival in Taormina opened with the musical Salvatore Giuliano by Dino Scuderi .

literature

• John Dickie: Cosa Nostra. The history of the Mafia , Frankfurt a. M., S. Fischer 2006, 557 pp. ISBN 3-10-013906-2
• Daniela Saccà Reuter: Salvatore Giuliano and the Sicilianità - two Sicilian myths , Münster, Waxmann 2005, ISBN 3-8309-1525-X
• Salvatore Lupo: The history of the Mafia , Düsseldorf, Patmos 2002, ISBN 3-491-96152-1
• Werner Helwig : The Brigant Giuliano , Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt 1953
• Polkehn, Szeponik: Whoever does not remain silent must die , Military Publishing House of the German Democratic Republic (VEB), Berlin 1968 (5th amended and revised edition, 1981)
• Gavin Maxwell: God Protect Me from My Friends , London 1956 (paperback new edition 1972 ISBN 0-330-02787-5 )

Web links

• The real story of Salvatore Giuliano