Italian resistance movement - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

resistance
Resistance movement
A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...

(in It.

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

Resistenza italiana) is the umbrella term for the various partisan

Partisan (military)

A partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity...

forces formed by pro-Allied Italians during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. They were also known as the Partisan Resistance, in Italian: Resistenza partigiana, and the Second Risorgimento.

The 1947 democratic Constitution

Constitution of Italy

The Constitution of the Italian Republic was enacted by the Constituent Assembly on 22 December 1947, with 453 votes in favour and 62 against. The text, which has since been amended 13 times, was promulgated in the extraordinary edition of Gazzetta Ufficiale No. 298 on 27 December 1947...

of the Italian Republic declared itself to be "built on the Resistance".

Origins of the movement

The movement was initially composed of independent troops, spontaneously formed by members of political parties

Political party

A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

previously outlawed by the Fascist regime, or by former officers of the disbanded Royal Army loyal to the monarchy

Monarchy

A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...

. Later, the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale (CNL; Committee of National Liberation) created by the Italian Communist Party

Italian Communist Party

The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...

, the Italian Socialist Party

Italian Socialist Party

The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...

, the Partito d'Azione

Partito d'Azione

-History:It was an anti-fascist political party in the tradition of Giuseppe Mazzini and the Risorgimento. Founded in July 1942 by former militants of Giustizia e Libertà , liberal socialists, democrats...

(a republican

Republicanism

Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context...

liberal

Social liberalism

Social liberalism is the belief that liberalism should include social justice. It differs from classical liberalism in that it believes the legitimate role of the state includes addressing economic and social issues such as unemployment, health care, and education while simultaneously expanding...

party), Democrazia Cristiana

Christian Democracy (Italy)

Christian Democracy was a Christian democratic party in Italy. It was founded in 1943 as the ideological successor of the historical Italian People's Party, which had the same symbol, a crossed shield ....

and other minor parties took control of the movement, in accordance with King

House of Savoy

The House of Savoy was formed in the early 11th century in the historical Savoy region. Through gradual expansion, it grew from ruling a small county in that region to eventually rule the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 until the end of World War II, king of Croatia and King of Armenia...

Victor Emmanuel III

Victor Emmanuel III of Italy

Victor Emmanuel III was a member of the House of Savoy and King of Italy . In addition, he claimed the crowns of Ethiopia and Albania and claimed the titles Emperor of Ethiopia and King of Albania , which were unrecognised by the Great Powers...

's ministers and the Allies

Allies of World War II

The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...

.

The formations were eventually divided between three main groups, the communist Garibaldi Brigades, Giustizia e Libertà
Giustizia e Libertà
Giustizia e Libertà was an Italian anti-fascist organization, active from 1929 to 1945.- Italian anti-fascist organization :The anti-fascist organization Giustizia e Libertà was founded in Paris in 1929 by the Italian refugees Carlo Rosselli, Emilio Lussu, Alberto Tarchiani, and Ernesto Rossi...

Brigades (related to Partito d'Azione), and socialist Matteotti

Giacomo Matteotti

Giacomo Matteotti was an Italian socialist politician. On 30 May 1924, he openly spoke in the Italian Parliament alleging the Fascists committed fraud in the recently held elections, and denounced the violence they used to gain votes...

Brigades.
Smaller groups included Catholic

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

sympathizers and monarchists

Monarchism

Monarchism is the advocacy of the establishment, preservation, or restoration of a monarchy as a form of government in a nation. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government out of principle, independent from the person, the Monarch.In this system, the Monarch may be the...

(like the Green Flames, Di Dio and Mauri), and some anarchist

Anarchism

Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...

formations.
Relations between the different groups were not always good. For example, in 1945 in Porzûs (in the province of Udine

Province of Udine

The Province of Udine is a province in the autonomous Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy, bordering Austria and Slovenia. Its capital is the city of Udine....

), Garibaldi Brigade partisans under Yugoslav

Partisans (Yugoslavia)

The Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans were a Communist-led World War II anti-fascist resistance movement in Yugoslavia...

command attacked and killed

Porzûs massacre

The Porzûs massacre was an episode of the Italian resistance during late World War II, occurring on 7 February 1945. It saw the process and the execution of several partisans belonging to the Brigata Osoppo, a formation of Catholic inspiration, by Communist partisans of the Gruppi di Azione...

partisans of the Catholic and azionista Osoppo

Osoppo

Osoppo is a comune in the Province of Udine in the Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, located about 90 km northwest of Trieste and about 25 km northwest of Udine...

band. The Garibaldi Brigade partisans claimed that the Catholic and azionista Osoppo

Osoppo

Osoppo is a comune in the Province of Udine in the Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, located about 90 km northwest of Trieste and about 25 km northwest of Udine...

band partisans had refused to accept the authority of Josip Broz Tito

Josip Broz Tito

Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...

, the Yugoslavian partisan leader. They were also accused of sharing intelligence with the fascist enemy. This famous fratricide was preceded by several instances where the reverse was true. For example, in the Maritime Alps

Maritime Alps

The Maritime Alps are a mountain range in the southwestern part of the Alps. They form the border between the French département Alpes-Maritimes and the Italian province of Cuneo. The Col de Tende separates them from the Ligurian Alps; the Maddalena Pass separates them from the Cottian Alps...

near Mondovì

Mondovì

Mondovì is a town and comune of Piedmont, northern Italy, located c. 80 km from Turin....

in autumn 1943 some Communists partisans, fugitive after killing German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) officers in an ambush

Ambush

An ambush is a long-established military tactic, in which the aggressors take advantage of concealment and the element of surprise to attack an unsuspecting enemy from concealed positions, such as among dense underbrush or behind hilltops...

, were traded to the Nazi-Fascists by monarchist military officers from the so called azzurri or badogliani
Pietro Badoglio
Pietro Badoglio, 1st Duke of Addis Abeba, 1st Marquess of Sabotino was an Italian soldier and politician...

who exerted command there in an uneasy truce with the enemy.

While the largest contingents operated in mountainous districts of the Alps

Alps

The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

and the Apennine Mountains

Apennine mountains

The Apennines or Apennine Mountains or Greek oros but just as often used alone as a noun. The ancient Greeks and Romans typically but not always used "mountain" in the singular to mean one or a range; thus, "the Apennine mountain" refers to the entire chain and is translated "the Apennine...

, there were also large formations in the Po plain

Po River

The Po |Ligurian]]: Bodincus or Bodencus) is a river that flows either or – considering the length of the Maira, a right bank tributary – eastward across northern Italy, from a spring seeping from a stony hillside at Pian del Re, a flat place at the head of the Val Po under the northwest face...

; in the main towns of Northern Italy, the Gruppi di azione patriottica (G.A.P., Patriotic Action Groups) regularly carried out acts of sabotage

Sabotage

Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...

and guerrilla warfare

Guerrilla warfare

Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...

, and the Squadre di azione patriottica (S.A.P., Patriotic Action Squads) arranged massive strike action

Strike action

Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...

s and campaigns of propaganda

Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

. Not unlike the French Resistance

French Resistance

The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...

, women were important leaders and couriers both in the armed groups, as well as in the industrial areas

New territorial structures

In 1944, with the Allied forces nearby, the partisan

Partisan (military)

A partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity...

resistance in Italy staged an uprising behind German lines, led by the Committee of National Liberation of Upper Italy (CLNAI). This rebellion led to the establishment of a number of provisional partisan governments throughout the mountainous regions of northern Italy, of which Ossola

Ossola

The Ossola is an area of Italy situated to the north of Lago Maggiore. It lies within the Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola. Its principal river is the Toce, and its most important town Domodossola....

was the most important and received recognition from Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

and from Allied consulates in Switzerland. By the end of 1944, German reinforcements and Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....

's remaining forces had crushed the uprising, and the area's liberation had to wait until the final offensives of 1945.

List of partisan governments

Alto Monferrato (Sep-2 Dec)
Alto Tortonese (Sep-Dec)
Bobbio
Bobbio
Bobbio is a small town and commune in the province of Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy. It is located in the Trebbia River valley southwest of the town Piacenza. There is also an abbey and a diocese of the same name...

(7 Jul - 27 Aug)
Cansiglio (Jul-Sep)
Carnia
Carnia
Carnia is a historical-geographic region of Friuli, whose municipalities all belong to the province of Udine, which is part of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia Region.It covers the western and central part of the mountainous region of the Province of Udine...

(Jul-Oct)
Friuli Orientale (30 Jun - Sep)
Imperia
Imperia
Imperia may be:* Imperia , an Italian city* Province of Imperia, the Italian province of the above city of Imperia* IMPERIA, a vodka produced by Russian Standard* Imperia , a statue in Constance, Germany...

(Aug-Oct)
Langhe
Langhe
The Langhe is a hilly area to the south and east of the river Tanaro in the province of Cuneo in Piedmont, northern Italy....

(Sep-Nov)
Montefiorino
Montefiorino
Montefiorino is a comune in the Province of Modena in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about 60 km southwest of Bologna and about 40 km southwest of Modena....

(17 Jun - 1 Aug)
Ossola
Ossola
The Ossola is an area of Italy situated to the north of Lago Maggiore. It lies within the Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola. Its principal river is the Toce, and its most important town Domodossola....

(10 Sep - 23 Oct)
Val Ceno (10 Jun - 11 Jul)
Val d'Enza e Val Parma (Jun-Jul)
Val Maira e Val Varaita (Jun - 21 Aug)
Val Taro (15 Jun - 24 Jul)
Valli di Lanzo (25 Jun - Sep)
Valsesia
Valsesia
Valsesia is a group of valleys in north-east of Piedmont in the Province of Vercelli, Italy; the principal valley is that of the river Sesia.The major cities are Varallo Sesia, Borgosesia, Serravalle Sesia; important touristic villages include Alagna Valsesia, Rima, Carcoforo, Scopello.-External...

(11 Jun - 10 Jul)
Varzi
Varzi
Varzi is a comune in the Province of Pavia in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 70 km south of Milan and about 40 km south of Pavia...

(19/24 Sep - 29 Nov)

April 25

On April 19, 1945, concurrent with the renewal of the Allied offensive, the CLN called out a general insurrection. Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

was liberated on April 21 by The Free Polish Forces under allied command. Parma

Parma

Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....

and Reggio Emilia

Reggio Emilia

Reggio Emilia is an affluent city in northern Italy, in the Emilia-Romagna region. It has about 170,000 inhabitants and is the main comune of the Province of Reggio Emilia....

were liberated on April 24. Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

and Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

were liberated on April 25 when Fascists retreated. Over 14,000 German and Fascist troops were captured in Genoa

Genoa

Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

on April 26 and 27, when General Meinhold surrendered to the CLN.

The toll of Nazi and Fascist retaliation

The April uprising showed to the world that not all Italians agreed with the Fascist rule. It proved that Italians were prepared to fight against Fascist rule at great cost. Casualties from the uprising amounted to:

Approximately 44,700 Italian partisans killed
Approximately 21,200 Italian partisans wounded or disabled
Approximately 15,000 Italian civilians killed in retaliations
Approximately 40,000 former Italian soldiers died in concentration camps

During the war, German and Italian Fascist soldiers committed a number of other war crimes including:

Summary execution
Summary execution
A summary execution is a variety of execution in which a person is killed on the spot without trial or after a show trial. Summary executions have been practiced by the police, military, and paramilitary organizations and are associated with guerrilla warfare, counter-insurgency, terrorism, and...

s;
Ransacking; and
Retaliations against civilians.

Most of these were common practices.

Some of the most notorious events were the Ardeatine massacre

Ardeatine massacre

The Fosse Ardeatine massacre was a mass execution carried out in Rome on 24 March 1944 by German occupation troops during the Second World War as a reprisal for a partisan attack conducted on the previous day in central Rome....

, the Marzabotto massacre

Marzabotto massacre

The Marzabotto massacre was a World War II mass murder of at least 770 civilians by Germans, which took place in the territory around the small village of Marzabotto, in the mountainous area south of Bologna...

, and the Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre

Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre

The Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre was a Nazi German atrocity in the village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema, Italy, in the course of an operation against the Italian resistance movement in 1944, during the Italian Campaign of World War II.-Facts:...

. Captured partisans or civilians were often torture

Torture

Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...

d. The Decima Flottiglia MAS, an Italian unit under German command, is now remembered as one of the most ruthless military corps of the war.

The Germans profited greatly from the weakness of the Fascist puppet state

Puppet state

A puppet state is a nominal sovereign of a state who is de facto controlled by a foreign power. The term refers to a government controlled by the government of another country like a puppeteer controls the strings of a marionette...

in Northern Italy

Northern Italy

Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...

. The Germans determined that they would annex Italian territories into the Third Reich. Two new German regions were to be established. One was the Alpenvorland, to comprise the region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and the Province of Belluno

Province of Belluno

TheThe Province of Belluno is a province in the Veneto region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Belluno.It has an area of 3,678 km², and a total population of 214,026 .-Geography:...

. The other was Adriatisches Küstenland, to comprise Istria

Istria

Istria , formerly Histria , is the largest peninsula in the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Bay of Kvarner...

, Quarnero

Kvarner Gulf

The Kvarner Gulf ); sometimes also Kvarner Bay, in Italian Quarnaro or Carnaro) is a bay in the northern Adriatic Sea, located between the Istrian peninsula and the northern Croatian seacoast....

, and most of today's region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia

Friuli-Venezia Giulia

Friuli–Venezia Giulia is one of the twenty regions of Italy, and one of five autonomous regions with special statute. The capital is Trieste. It has an area of 7,858 km² and about 1.2 million inhabitants. A natural opening to the sea for many Central European countries, the region is...

. In the valley of Carnia

Carnia

Carnia is a historical-geographic region of Friuli, whose municipalities all belong to the province of Udine, which is part of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia Region.It covers the western and central part of the mountainous region of the Province of Udine...

, the Germans used anti-communist forces from the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

under the command of ataman
Ataman
Ataman was a commander title of the Ukrainian People's Army, Cossack, and haidamak leaders, who were in essence the Cossacks...

Timofey Ivanovich Domanov; they were promised a Cossack

Cossack

Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...

republic to be established in Northeastern Italy, to be called Kosakenland.

Capture and execution of Mussolini

On the morning of 27th April 1945 Umberto (nom de guerre "Partisan Bill") a Partisan of the 52nd Garibaldi Brigade (Communists) was checking lorries at Dongo on Lake Como carrying retreating German Troops to the Swiss border. He became suspicious of a man in the fifth truck. His unit had been warned that Italy's Fascist Dictator was attempting to flee the country. There was an agreement with the Partisans the convoy would be given safe passage providing no Italians were being concealed among the retreating German soldiers. A German soldier explained the man was a drunken colleague, but Lazzaro remained unconvinced.

Lazzaro called out to the man who twice ignored his shouts. Climbing into the truck he went up to the man and said "Cavaliere Benito Mussolini" - the man's reaction was a physical jolt. The man was Benito Mussolini (Il Duce). The political commissar of the unit was called in - The official partisan version of events thereafter is the decision to have Mussolini executed was taken by a small group including the leaders of the three main 'branches' of the Resistance. One of the representatives of the Communist Garibaldi Brigade was its Commander, Luigi Longo,(born Fubine 1900, died Rome 1980) who would later become a Member of the Italian Parliament and Leader (Secretary) of the Italian Communist Party from 1964 to 1972. Earlier in the Spanish Civil War, Longo as Inspector General of the International Brigade had fought against Franco.

The task of carrying out the execution of Mussolini was given to 'Colonel Valerio', conventionally identified as a
Garibaldi Communist, Walter Audisio. However, Lazzaro in his 1962 book about the incident clearly states that the 'Colonel Valerio' the one he saw in Dongo was not Walter Audisio, but Luigi Longo. The identification of such a senior figure personally organising a summary execution was politically explosive. This didn't later stop Lazzaro from further contradicting the official partisan version that Mussolini and his mistress (Clara Petacci) had been killed the following day the 28th at 4.10pm at the gates of a villa at Giulino di Mezzegra overlooking the lake. He stated they were killed the same day the 27th at 12.30pm when Petacci tried to grab a gun from one of the resistance fighters who were escorting them to Milan for a public execution. Shots were fired and Mussolini was hit "they finished him off on the spot and then shot Clara Petacci for causing the accident".

Many of the corpses, including those of Mussolini and Petacci, were later taken to Milan and hung up-side down in [Piazzale Loreto], a square near Milan's Central Station; the square was chosen because it had been the site of a massacre of anti-Fascists by Fascist militia under German orders the previous year. Fifteen Fascists were exhibited in the square; this number had significance seeing as 15 anti-Fascists had been displayed in the square in 1944.

The Fascists executed in Dongo included: Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....

(Il Duce), Francesco Barracu (Undersecretary in cabinet office), Fernando Mezzasoma

Fernando Mezzasoma

Fernando Mezzasoma was an Italian fascist journalist and political figure.-Biography:Mezzasoma was born in Rome, the son of middle-class Perugians; from his late teens he showed himself to be a passionate supporter of Benito Mussolini.Mezzasoma had to contribute to his impovershed family's income...

(Ministry of Popular Culture - Propaganda), Nicola Bombacci (A personal friend of Mussolini), Luigi Gatti

Luigi Gatti

Luigi Gatti was a classical composer. He was born in Lazise in 1740, the son of an organist, Francesco della Gatta. He was ordained a priest in Mantua...

(Mussolini's private secretary), Augusto Liverani (Minister of Communications), Alessandro Pavolini

Alessandro Pavolini

Alessandro Pavolini was an Italian politician, journalist, and essayist, notable for his involvement in the Fascist government during World War II and also for his cruelty against the opponents of fascism....

(ex-Ministry of Popular Culture), Paolo Zerbino (Minister of Interior), Ruggero Romano (Minister Public Works), Paolo Porta (Head of Fascist Party in Lombardy), Goffredo Coppola (Rector of the Bologna University), Ernesto Daquanno (Director of Stefani agency), Mario Nudi (President of Fascist Agriculture Association), Colonel Vito Casalinuovo (Mussolini's adjutant), Pietro Calistri (Air Force pilot), Idreno Utimperghe (possibly a journalist or Black Shirt leader), and Clara Petacci

Clara Petacci

Clara Petacci was an upper class Roman whose father had been the personal physician to the Pope. She became the mistress of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who was twenty-eight years her senior...

(Mussolini's mistress).

Achille Starace (Secretary of Fascist Party 1931-1939) was arrested and executed earlier in Milan. He was one of the fifteen Fascists exhibited in the square.

Marcello Petacci (Clara Petacci's brother) was captured with the others. But, rather than being executed in Dongo, he was shot trying to escape.

Shortly after World War II it was said the modern Republic of Italy was founded on the collective achievements of the Partisans. It shouldn't therefore be surprising that credible differing versions of these events were widely promoted then for politically expedient reasons.

External links

ANPI - Associazione Nazionale Partigiani d'Italia

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