Tito Zaniboni

Tito Zaniboni (born February 1, 1883 in Monzambano , † December 9, 1960 in Rome ) was an Italian politician . He was best known for the fact that he carried out the first assassination attempt on Benito Mussolini on November 4, 1925 .

Zaniboni lived in Boston from 1906 to 1908 , but decided to do his military service with the 8º Reggimento alpini and become sottotenente di complemento , a kind of sub-lieutenant .

He was a supporter of the Partito Socialista Italiano , or of its reformist wing and was elected consigliere provinciale of Volta Mantovana in 1914. He became secretary of the Federazione delle Cooperative in Mantovan between 1913 and 1915 and worked on the Nuova Terra newspaper , where he initially wrote against Italy's participation in the war , but then switched to the war course. During the war he served again in his old regiment based in Udine , rose to major and received various awards, finally tenente colonnello .

After the war he initially sympathized with the plans of Gabriele D'Annunzio in connection with the territorial claims around Fiume and Rijeka and for a short time supported Il Popolo d'Italia , a paper published by Mussolini in 1914.

In 1920 he was again consigliere provinciale of Volta Mantovana and in the same year mayor of Monzambano . From 1920 he was a Freemason and in 1921, as a deputy of the socialists, he advocated a balance between socialists and fascists . In 1922 he moved to the Partito Socialista Unitario under the leadership of Giacomo Matteotti after the reformists had to leave the Partito Socialista.

The assassination of Giacomo Matteotti on June 10, 1924, which is considered to be the beginning of Mussolini's actual dictatorship, and the recovery of his body on August 16, made Zaniboni an anti-fascist. He planned an assassination attempt on Mussolini on November 4, 1925 with an Austrian rifle. He wanted to shoot Mussolini from a window in the Hotel Dragoni, opposite the Palazzo Chigi , as soon as he stepped onto the balcony of the palace. But he had told his lover Marisa Romano of his plans, which in turn revealed them to the infiltrated spy Carlo Quaglia. This in turn reported to the Questore Giuseppe Dosi. When Zaniboni entered the hotel to get to his room, he was arrested. His rifle was found in the room and his Lancia Dilambda , which he had designated as an escape vehicle, was found in the Piazza San Claudio . The arrest took place two, according to other sources, three hours before the planned assassination attempt, but according to his own confession four hours. The arrest took place together with General Luigi Capello , who had no precise knowledge of the plans for the assassination.

The fascist regime benefited from the failed assassination attempt. The Partito Socialista Unitario was dissolved and the newspaper La Giustizia , the party organ, was discontinued. The law against the associations, which was directed primarily against the Freemasons, could be passed through parliament without significant resistance.

On April 11, 1927 the trial for high treason began, but Zaniboni denied having planned an assassination attempt on Mussolini, but at best on Roberto Farinacci , the now disempowered, former "right hand" Mussolini. But then his sudden admission came.

General Luigi Capello was sentenced to 30 years in prison for complicity. Zaniboni was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for high treason, which he spent in Viterbo , Volterra and Ponza until 1943 . Zaniboni claimed to have received financial support from Czech President Tomáš Masaryk , but recent research has shown that the funds were intended to finance socialist propaganda, not preparations for the attack.

In 1935, Zaniboni thanked his daughter in several letters for helping his daughter to finance her degree. He also supported the financing campaign for the Abyssinian War from prison . His daughter Bruna also thanked Mussolini and dedicated her thesis in pharmacy at the University of Pavia to him.

He was released on September 8, 1943 and asked by Pietro Badoglio to take part in the government. Zaniboni, who according to contemporary assessments had been too consumed by his imprisonment, declined. In January 1944, the fascists had Zaniboni’s two letters publicly quoted on a radio broadcast in order to discredit him. In February 1944 Badoglio made him Commissioner per l'epurazione nazionale dal fascismo , the High Commissioner for the national cleansing of fascism . Badoglio hoped that the assassin on Mussolini would be able to attract the anti-fascists of Italy to his side, even if a law was passed that gave Zaniboni the necessary powers only six weeks after he took office. But the Partito Socialista Italiano rejected the collaboration on February 12, 1944. On February 23, Zaniboni was officially appointed, but he remained without influence. He resigned in mid-May, especially since he still did not have a defined legal area that would have allowed him to prosecute fascists; Four weeks earlier, Benedetto Croce , who was interested in actual prosecution, and Badoglio had agreed on another use of Zaniboni. In the second Badoglio government, Zaniboni was appointed commissioner for refugees and those who were returned (1945). Benedetto Croce saw in him a man who was not up to the office of reckoning with fascism, while Zaniboni described himself as a "purger".

From 1949 to 1960 Zaniboni was supplied as President of UNUCI , the Unione Nazionale degli Ufficiali in Congedo d'Italia .

In Monzambano, where he had been mayor, a square was named after Zaniboni, in Viadana and in Parma a street. An inscription was placed on the house where he was born: In questa casa il 1º febbraio 1883 / Tito Zaniboni / valoroso combattente della guerra / 1915-1918 / più volte decorato deputato / al parlamento / assertore indomito dei supremi ideali di libertà / i suoi cittadini a imperitura memoria and then a quote from Zaniboni: L'uomo macchina è antieconomico./Non lo affratella l'utile, ma la pietà. / La libertà è un libero moto dello spirito./La pietà è cristianesimo e non schiavismo pagano./Tito Zaniboni .

Works

• Testamento spirituale - Ricominciamo a vivere (se vi pare) , Baldini & Castoldi Editori, 1949.
• Guido A. Grimaldi (Ed.): Zaniboni racconta perchè non partì la pallottola fatale e liberatrice , Periodici Epoca, Rome 1945.

literature

• Zanibóni, Tito. Treccani.it
• Roberto Festorazzi: "Caro Duce ti scrivo". Il lato servile degli antifascisti durante il Ventennio. edizioni Ares, Milan 2012.
• Hans Woller: I conti col fascismo. Il Mulino, 1997.

Remarks

1. ^ La Parola del popolo, 1961.
2. ↑ Marco Cesarini Sforza: Gli attentati a Mussolini, Per pochi centimetri fu semper salvo. In: La storia illustrata 8 (1965), p. 240.
3. ↑ Stefano Vitali (Ed.): Archivio Gaetano Salvemini , Volume 1: Manoscritti e materiali di lavoro. Rome 1998, 1/4 (II / 24) Il complotto Zaniboni: carteggio, cc. 22 ( online , PDF).
4. ^ Giorgio Candeloro: Storia dell'Italia moderna. Il Fascismo e le sue guerre. Volume 9, Feltrinelli Editore, 1981, p. 131.
5. ↑ Dichiaro senz'altro che il giorno 4 November 1925 era mia intenzione sopprimere il Capo del Governo, Benito Mussolini. Se la PS invece di giungere all'Albergo Dragoni every 8.30 a.m. fosse giunta every 12.30 p.m. io avrei senza alcun dubbio compiuto il mio gesto. Il delitto aveva lo scopo di rimettere il potere nelle mani di Sua Maestà il Re. (Quoted from Enzo Biagi: Storia del Fascismo , Saeda Della Volpe Editore, 1964, p. 405).
6. ^ Attilio Tamaro: Venti anni di storia. 3 volumes, Editrice Tiber, Rome, p. 122.
7. ↑ Giuseppe Picheca: Mussolini e Masaryk, storia di un presunto complotto / Mussolini and Masaryk, the story of an alleged plot ( Memento of the original from September 30, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (refers to the work of Pavel Helan and Ondrej Houska).
8. ^ Roberto Festorazzi: " Caro Duce ti scrivo". Il lato servile degli antifascisti durante il Ventennio , edizioni Ares, Milan 2012, p. 94 and Giovanni Artieri: Mussolini e l'avventura repubblicana , Mondadori, 1981, p. 656.
9. ^ Roberto Festorazzi: " Caro Duce ti scrivo". Il lato servile degli antifascisti durante il Ventennio. , edizioni Ares, Milan 2012, p. 105.
10. ↑ Hans Woller, p. 140 f.
11. ↑ Hans Woller: The accounting for fascism in Italy 1943 to 1948. Walter de Gruyter, 1996, p. 105.
12. ↑ UNUCI website .
13. ↑ Cabinet leader Barracus in the Fascist Republic of Salò (negotiations Carlo Quaglia in the parliamentary meeting on July 15, 1950 online , PDF).