Strategy of tension (Italy)

The strategy of tension ( Italian strategia della tensione ) is a hypothesis that has been advocated since 1990, according to which numerous terrorist attacks in Italy under the “false flag” by Italian secret services , right-wing extremists and the secret lodge Propaganda Due (P2) were staged in the Anni di piombo . These are said to have aimed to manipulate public opinion to the detriment of the political left, particularly the Italian Communist Party .

Terror as a Political Instrument

Building of the Agricultural Bank in Piazza Fontana in Milan . For a long time, the extreme left was blamed for the bombing of the bank in 1969, which left 17 dead. It later emerged that the real perpetrators were right-wing extremists.

Destroyed central station of Bologna after the bomb attack in 1980 , in which 85 people died.

In 1984 the Venetian examining magistrate Felice Casson investigated a hitherto unexplained bomb attack in 1972. Five Carabinieri investigated a Fiat 500 parked on a country road near the village of Peteano . When they opened the trunk, three of the officers were killed by a bomb explosion. The extreme left-wing terrorist organization Red Brigades was held responsible for the attack, but the perpetrators were never identified. Casson found numerous noticeable inconsistencies in the previous police investigation, which pointed to deliberate manipulation and falsification of evidence. Ultimately, his investigation led him on the trail of the real perpetrator, the right-wing extremist Vincenzo Vinciguerra , who made an extensive and momentous confession.

Vinciguerra testified that he was covered by members of the state apparatus and that the assassination was part of a comprehensive strategy that Casson later referred to as the strategy of tension . Casson then investigated further and, after researching the archives of the military intelligence service SISMI , uncovered the existence of a highly secret complex structure within the Italian state. He proved that neo-fascists had committed numerous politically motivated terrorist attacks and murders in Italy from the 1960s to the 1980s. By spreading false information and falsifying evidence , a network of intelligence agencies ensured that the crimes were assigned to left-wing extremist terrorists, especially the Red Brigades . This approach aimed to discredit the Communist Party , traditionally strong in Italy , in order to prevent its participation in the government. Propaganda Due (P2) under Licio Gelli also played a central role .

procedure

The terrorist attacks were mainly committed by members of the right-wing extremist organization Ordine Nuovo and the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari , which had split off from it .

• On December 12, 1969, the Ordine Nuovo carried out a bomb attack in Piazza Fontana in Milan , in which 17 people were killed and 88 wounded.
• On July 22, 1970, Gioia Tauro was assassinated on the train from Rome to Messina, with 6 fatalities and 100 wounded.
• On May 31, 1972, three Carabinieri died in a car bomb explosion near the village of Peteano , which was dumped by Vincenzo Vinciguerra.
• In May 1974 eight participants in an anti-fascist demonstration in Brescia were killed in an attack with hand grenades .
• On August 2, 1980, Francesca Mambro and Valerio Fioravanti carried out the Bologna attack, leaving 85 dead and over 200 injured.
• On December 23, 1984, a bomb exploded in the Italian Rapido 904 while driving through a tunnel. They killed 27 people and injured 180.

The attacks and their consequences

On the basis of Casson's revelations, numerous terrorist attacks were re-examined through judicial investigations and a state commission of inquiry. More than 200 people were killed and around 600 injured in the attacks; the best known was the terrorist attack on Bologna Central Station in 1980, with 85 dead and over 200 injured. As a result, some right-wing extremists were sentenced to long terms in prison for a series of terrorist attacks that had hitherto been mostly attributed to the Red Brigades.

literature

• Dario Azzellini : Bombs for the System - The "Strategy of Tension" . In: Italy. Genoa. History, perspectives . Association A, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-935936-06-0 .
• Paola Bernasconi: Between Activism and Violence: The Roots of Italian Neofascism. In: Massimiliano Livi, Daniel Schmidt, Michael Sturm (eds.): The 1970s as a black decade. Politicization and mobilization between Christian democracy and the extreme right . Campus, Frankfurt a. M./New York 2010, ISBN 978-3-593-39296-7 , pp. 171-189.
• Luciano Lanza: Bombs and Secrets. History of the massacre in Piazza Fontana . Edition Nautilus, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-89401-332-X .

Web links

• "I don't believe in a single control center" . Interview with Giovanni De Luna, Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Turin, about the compatibility of democracy and secrecy and the shift to the right in Italy. October 30, 2009.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Gunther Latsch: The dark side of the west . In: Der Spiegel . No. 15 , April 11, 2005, pp. 48–50 ( PDF [accessed July 15, 2016]).
2. ^ Karl Hoffmann: 25 years ago: Bomb attack in the train station in Bologna. In: Deutschlandfunk. August 2, 2005, accessed July 20, 2008 .  
3. ^ Daniele Ganser : NATO secret armies and their terror . In: The Bund . Bern December 20, 2004, p.  2 ff . ( online [PDF; accessed July 20, 2008]).