Servizio Informazioni Generali e Sicurezza Interna

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Servizio Informazioni Generali e Sicurezza Interna (Sigsi) (German: Service for general news and internal security ) was an Italian intelligence service . He was under the Ministry of the Interior in Rome . The Sigsi took over the duties of a political police force until it was dissolved in 1978 .

history

1867-1916

A few years after the unification of the country, Italy was already thinking of establishing a political police force . On April 4, 1867, then Prime Minister Bettino Ricasoli requested in a letter to the Interior Minister that police departments should be set up to investigate the political, social and economic needs of the people in order to prevent criminal offenses. He also specifically pointed out the connection between social problems and criminal activity.

On the other hand, the prefects in the provinces should send monthly reports to the government in Rome on the situation and the well-being of the people, as well as on the activities of political organizations and the local press. The information required for this was mainly collected by members of the Corpo delle Guardie di Pubblica Sicurezza , the predecessor organization of today's Polizia di Stato . These officials soon fell into disrepute as spies in southern Italy ; in northern Italy they came into the crosshairs of pre-socialist and anarchist groups , especially after the introduction of the so-called meal tax (de facto tax on bread ) .

In 1878, after an anarchist attacked the king , the government decided to reform the interior ministry's police department. Only now did Ricasoli establish the "political and confidential affairs department" required by Ricasoli in 1867. In consultation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, some police officers at Italian embassies in other European countries could also be accredited as administrative officials, who observed the activities of Italian anarchists, socialists and republicans resident there in the respective countries.

Domestically, the measures of the political police intensified, especially under the government of Francesco Crispis , who wanted to create an authoritarian state in Italy under the guise of the liberal and democratic basic order of the constitution of 1848 ( Statuto Albertino ). In 1894, the establishment of a central archive began to collect data from numerous people classified as politically dangerous. After Crispi's resignation, the tensions created by his policy intensified until they erupted in an uprising in Milan in May 1898 , which was bloodily suppressed by the local military commander Fiorenzo Bava Beccaris . In other cities too, the population resisted the government's authoritarian policies.

1916-1926

In September 1916, the new Ufficio Centrale di Investigazione was created in the police department of the Ministry of the Interior . In this "Central Investigation Office" created by Police Director Giovanni Gasti, all previous political police stations were combined according to modern criteria. During the First World War , this “office” a. a. also with defeatism and counter-espionage , shortly afterwards with sharp extremism from the left (establishment of the KPI ) and right. Gasti himself wrote another (later) much-noticed report on Mussolini's fascists in June 1919 .

After the fascist attack on MP Giacomo Matteotti , Mussolini initiated the elimination of the democratic state. In order to safeguard his dictatorial regime, he demanded the establishment of a party-owned secret police, which he called the “fascist Cheka ” . In contrast to the Ufficio Centrale di Investigazione , which worked professionally but was now classified as politically unreliable , Mussolini's first secret police consisted of former thugs who had put the Duce himself in danger, especially in the Matteotti case . The political party police, which was subordinate to the head of the militia Emilio De Bono , was dissolved as early as 1926.

1926-1948

The new General Director of the Police Department of the Ministry of the Interior was Prefect Arturo Bocchini, who until 1940 was primarily responsible for the political security of the fascist regime. Under his leadership, the political police subdivision was greatly expanded with reliable personnel. Not only were opponents of the regime and dissidents being spied on and persecuted, the ordinary population was also systematically harassed. Due to the enormous organizational effort, it was soon necessary to set up a separate authority. This happened in 1927 with the establishment of the Organizzazione di Vigilanza e Repressione dell'Antifascismo . Formally, the OVRA remained under the political police subdivision. In 1943 it was initially dissolved after Mussolini was deposed. Parts of the organization worked for the Repubblica Sociale Italiana in northern Italy until 1945 . The central archive created in 1894, which the fascists had expanded enormously in disregard for human rights , was initially taken over by democratic Italy.

The political police subdivision of the Dipartimento di Pubblica Sicurezza of the Italian Ministry of the Interior, which was dissolved by the Allies in 1943 , was re-established in February 1946. As part of this subdivision, the Socialist Interior Minister Giuseppe Romita also created the Servizio Informazioni Speciali (SIS) , in which mainly former OVRA employees found work. With the SIS, a new political police body was formally created, but for practical reasons it was dependent on the experience of former OVRA members. In the provinces, too, the prefectures worked in a tried and tested manner through their political offices for the political police subdivision of the Ministry of the Interior.

1948-1970

As part of a reform, the SIS and the political police subdivision were merged as early as 1948 in the new "subdivision for confidential affairs" ( divisione affari riservati ), which was directly subordinate to the head of the police department ( dipartimento di pubblica sicurezza ) of the interior ministry. Gesualdo Barletta, a former OVRA director who appointed numerous “alumni” to his staff, was head of the new sub-department until 1958. This caused u. a. that the spirit of the fascist spy system lived on for decades in democratic and republican Italy.

1970-1988

The Servizio Informazioni Generali e Sicurezza Interna was created by a decree of November 24, 1970 by renaming the Divisione Affari Riservati (parts of the subdivision continued to exist until 1974 ). The “political offices” of the prefectures in the provinces served SIGSI as branch offices. In terms of its working methods, SIGSI was primarily an intelligence service and less a political police body. In the latter area, the Italian police were used if necessary . In 1974 the remaining parts of the Divisione Affari Riservati became the Ispettorato Generale per l'Azione contro il Terrorismo and from this in 1975 the Servizio di Sicurezza (SDS), which, in contrast to SIGSI, also had its own special units and carried out police operations without Having to take into account the territorial structure of the prefectures. On the other hand, the SDS was dependent on the comprehensive information base of SIGSI, which often led to disputes and rivalries. These problems came to an abrupt end when the Italian parliament passed a law in the autumn of 1977 which fundamentally reformed the intelligence services.

With this reform, a separation between the police and intelligence services was enforced. With the exception of counter-espionage, the military services lost all domestic responsibilities. The SIGSI was essentially merged into the new SISDE constitutional protection service , the Servizio di Sicurezza in the police state protection ( Ufficio Centrale per le Investigazioni Generali e le Operazioni Speciali , today called Polizia di Prevenzione and DIGOS ). The reforms were implemented in 1978.

With the law on the reform of the Italian intelligence services of August 3, 2007, the tasks of the previous domestic intelligence service SISDE were taken over by the new Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Interna .

literature

Web links