At the basis of this firm stance on the part of the leaders, there was not only political and moral intransigence but ‘Gobettian seriousness’, as Dante Livio Bianco put it47 – the conviction that agreements with the Germans ultimately put the partisans in an invariably inferior position. In fact, even with the good faith of the local Germans or Fascists, it only took an order from above for them to feel obliged to violate the agreements that had been reached, and they did just this. By contrast, a partisan could find himself plummeting into the crisis of conscience that beset comrade Ferrarini (Enzo Costa): Did you have to keep the word you had given to the Germans?48
At the local level, however, alongside firmly intransigent stances (‘our intentions, in keeping with the principles of our struggle, are contrary to any form of compromise’, declared one Garibaldi command with reference to some German advances),49 several cases of agreements both with the Germans and with the Fascists need recording. Weariness, disheartenment, irresponsibility, fear, difficulty in relations with the populations who feared reprisals, scant political awareness, rivalry between bands of different political persuasions – these and other similar motivations can be traced from one case to another, apart obviously from the cases of deliberate betrayal, in the agreements struck or even just attempted. The very possibility of this behaviour would have been absent outside the framework of civil war waged in the form of a partisan war. In fact it is the high degree of autonomy that the individual partisan formations possessed that allowed them to size up contingent situations with a freedom unknown to regular armies. Those who stipulated these agreements were generally convinced that what was involved was a purely local necessity that left the fundamental principles of the struggle intact.
Indeed, if civil and ideological war is tendentially war without quarter, it also contains a greater readiness for encounters and transactions. Simplistic tactical calculation and an inclination to ‘talk’ to the enemy could thus converge in encouraging contacts that were not mere invitations to desert. The fact that it was a game between three players, or rather that one of the two parties presented itself in dual form – Germans (Nazis) and Italians (Fascists) – heavily influenced the interweaving, which reappeared at this level, between national affinity (and hostility) and politico-ideological affinity (and hostility).
Documentary traces of these contacts have remained above all in the denials, condemnations and injunctions not to make them by the political and military leaders of the Resistance – and, with particular vigour, by the Communists and Actionists. Used at times as an argument in these appeals was the failure of the ‘deceptive armistices (like those in Rome and Milan last September)’.50 At other times a unitary organ like the military Command for Northern Italy, which denounced several cases that had occurred especially in Piedmont, was distrustful about taking part in the manoeuvres of the Badoglians, who, as the Fascists boasted, were collaborating with them and the Germans ‘to combat extremist bands and common criminals’.51 Here too the Communists tended to turn to account the formation in Salerno of the government of national unity, which ‘perhaps … may be able to have some sway over these gentlemen and persuade them to change course: the course piloted, in fact, by former army officers, of compromises with the enemy’.52 On 27 September, on the eve of the autumn crisis, the Lombard regional command issued a circular which again identified any compromise, such as agreements for the delimitation of neutral zones, as treason: the only contacts allowed were those for the exchange of prisoners.53 On 27 November 1944 the Veneto regional command denounced the fact that mountain units had consented to work for the Todt organisation in the hope of avoiding the roundups: ‘Whoever comes to an agreement betrays the cause and must and will be treated as a traitor.’54
There were also mutual denunciations between the formations, and generally it was the Garibaldi who most insistently accused the others, and not only the ‘autonomous’ or ‘Badoglian’ formations. For example, the scene at the mouth of the Val Pellice was bitterly denounced: ‘Guards beyond the Santa Margherita bridge; on the other side there are partisans under the influence of the Action Party. Both sentries can see each other and protect the entrance in their respective zones of influence in utter peace.’55 The Novara Socialists come in for the severest accusation for having, with the support of the Catholics, appeared to have negotiated with the Fascists, swallowing this line of reasoning: ‘Since we’re all against the foreigner … stop firing at the Fascists and Germans from 6 January, and wait for the foreigners to clear off when the war’s over.’56 Tendencies on the part of the GL and Matteotti formations to come to terms with the enemy were denounced by the Piedmontese Garibaldini in August 1944.57 Another compromise with the Germans, proposed by the 13th zone command and the GL but disdainfully rejected by the Garibaldini, is the subject of a document of the Oltrepò in the province of Pavia.58
The Garibaldini-Communists’ particular insistence in making these denunciations may be explained on the one hand by the feeling they had that they were bearing the greatest weight in the struggle, and on the other by the fear that the agreements were being made behind their backs, in order to isolate them politically and militarily. This can be gleaned in some of the documents quoted above, where real facts are mixed with suspicion and sectarianism. The aim behind the intransigence demanded of everyone, therefore, was also to guarantee oneself against unpleasant surprises that might be contemplated by the other partners in the coalition (allowing for the due proportions and differences, it was a guarantee analogous to that implicit in the formula ‘unconditional surrender’). Naturally, the Communist leaders felt committed to taking an equally vigilant line towards their formations, when it was reported that they were going astray.
‘The energetic action of our men prevented the negotiations from having a completely positive outcome’, said a Garibaldi document about the Canavese area, where it was again claimed that the Germans were being driven to seek compromise by the strength of the formations.59 From Valcamonica a command reported that it had rejected the German advances (‘give us weapons and we’ll accompany you to Switzerland’); while, again in the province of Bergamo, at the end of August 1944, there were reports of negotiations opened, out of ingenuousness, by the 13 Martiri di Lovere formation.60 A case in Valtellina was deprecated, and the opportunity was taken to repeat that anyone who set about doing this kind of thing was a traitor.61 The tragic results that bargaining of this kind could lead to were pointed out.62 Also denounced was ‘the naivety of thinking one is negotiating with the enemy to ‘screw’ him … Even if the accords have not been accepted, whoever has negotiated has made a mistake and the mistake must be highlighted, discussed with those concerned, brought home to them, and they must perform severe public self-criticism, if the encounter occurred in good faith.’63
A request for authorisation, in exceptional cases, to engage in ‘negotiations limited to the time necessary for overcoming extreme temporary difficulties’ was firmly and disdainfully rejected. One could negotiate, it was repeated, only for the exchange of prisoners.64 If this rule was breached the punishments were exemplary: on 15 September the group Command of the Lombard divisions communicated ‘to the dependent Commands’ that Carlo, intendente (quartermaster) of the 1st battalion of the 40th brigade, had been sentenced to death ‘for having negotiated and bargained with the German invader’.65
The Nazi-Fascists ‘vainly try to get in contact with the formations, arguing, promising etc. until someone swallows the bait’: this was what the Lombard regional Command reported to the general Command of the volontari della libertà in January 1945, citing the case of the GL Orobica division, which had emerged drastically reduced and whose commander had been committed for trial by a partisan court. With the same rigour as the Garibaldini, the GL authorities had immediately taken measures to proceed against the commander, Marcello, describing him as a traitor.66 The political commissar of the same division became rattled over the fact that he had had a conversation with an
SS captain and asked whether he should resign. (He was told he should not.)67
One could continue to cite cases of this kind – which also involved, often with particular intensity, the autonomous formations. For example, between August and September 1944 the ill-starred Fiamme Verdi (Green Flames) of the province of Brescia struck various pacts with the Germans, who left them a free hand to deal with the Fascists.68 The fact that formations inspired by essentially patriotic ideals bargained not only with the Fascists but also, and possibly even more, with the foreign invader, with the express purpose of being better able to fight their fellow countrymen on the other side, confirms the complex web of motivations which, for all their differences, sustained all the resistenti.
A Garibaldi Command of the Ossola province warned against contacts with the units of Graziani’s army, of the Decima Mas and the like, who were trying in this way to ‘differentiate themselves from the real Fascists’, in the name of a second-hand nationalism that would lead them to fight against the English and Americans today and the Germans tomorrow. One of our men, this warning goes on to say, is giving himself free rein in these colloquies to compromising remarks, like the commander who ‘for instance, let out this howler: that he too hated the English and Americans’.69
Obviously, when offers of this kind were made by the Fascists in spring 1945 they appeared particularly suspect – not any longer because they hid traps for the partisans, but by virtue of their obvious and tardy opportunism.70 Greater alarm, by contrast, was aroused by episodes of fraternisation – albeit sporadic – again with a nationalistic emphasis, like that reported at Venaria Reale, where Garibaldini and Fascists dined together in a restaurant ‘extolling the liberation of Italy from the Germans, the English and the Americans’.71
Of a different feather were the contacts made with the civilian authorities of the Social Republic with a view, as we saw earlier, to asserting somehow the authority of the ‘third government’ over them as well. Locally established power relations were in many cases more effective than the solemn appeals of the CLN bigwigs. This gave rise to curious and sometimes ambiguous coexisting powers. The partisans of the Pinan Cicero Garibaldi division ordered the various podestà to put up posters decreeing that Fascist spies be executed.72 In Postua, in the province of Biella, the prefectorial commissar placed himself under the partisan command that had been set up in the town.73 In the free zones of the province of Belluno, in the spring of 1944, ‘many prefectorial commissars and local authorities, who were to become collaborators of the movement, were invited by the partisans to stay in their posts for reasons of convenience’;74 and it was certainly convenient for both parties. Thus some podestà came to act more as shock absorbers between the population, on the one hand, and the Germans and the Fascist government, on the other, than as representatives and time-honoured right hands of the latter.75
A report on the province of Macerata says: ‘Often, spontaneously and at their own expense, the local Fascists indemnify individuals’ or comrades’ families who have been the victims of thieving or devastation committed by bullies from other zones brought into those zones to conduct funerals or reprisals after the killing of some Fascist or spy’.76
The partisan Rosanna Rolando has told the story of how, having to get a supply of bombs out of the Turin tobacco factory for the GAPs, she went to the director and said to him: ‘I am the CLN chief. If you think fit, have me arrested immediately. Now or never, because they’ll do you in’, and the director, though ‘dumbfounded’ and ‘all in a sweat’, obeyed.77 In the Cansiglio forest the Garibaldini approached the forestry militia (one of those corps which had for some time now been Fascist only in name and because of the black shirts its members wore), who ‘terrorised, accepted a pact of mutual respect. The militia were to do their job by supplying the partisans with all the armaments and information they might need.’78
In Albano, at the request of the pontifical villa of Castel Gandolfo, the CLN created a commission that included the podestà and dean.79 There was also the borderline case of the negotiations for coexistence of a sort in the Monte Cetona zone, conducted by the military-style SIMAR autonomous formation with Giuseppe Chiurco, provincial head of Siena and historian of the Fascist revolution. The ambiguity of such behaviour, however, also cost the RSI dearly, since, by getting mixed up in this double-dealing, its local authorities, from the podestà to the fascio secretaries and the carabinieri, disintegrated and went into hiding.80
There is also documentary evidence of agreements for the formation of local government organisms, which were very limited in number, even on the part of formations a good deal more important and better informed than the SIMAR, led by the modest and muddleheaded Colonel Silvio Marenco. This occurred in the Lanzo valleys, where the Garibaldini established contact with the prefectorial commissars to set up new municipal administrations.81 It occurred in the Biella area too.82 In Dronero it was the prefectorial commissar who attempted to create a civil guard enlisting partisans into it as well; and the CLN seems somehow to have got in on the negotiations: the Socialists and Actionists above all, but also the Garibaldini, to judge by the warning addressed to them too.83 This civic guard ploy was a recurrent attempt to bridle the most intransigent Resistance demands, and was a terrain for privileged encounters between the moderates of both sides. The Communists and Actionists were frequently compelled to take up baldly contrary positions.
In evaluating episodes of this kind it is always a good idea to bear in mind dates and circumstances. What Mario Lizzero, one of the ablest and most influential Communist leaders, wrote on 27 September 1943 was clearly a bitter pill to swallow from the point of view of the Resistance. Concerned as he was about relations with the population, Lizzero saw a possible interlocutor in the ‘non-reactionary authorities’, with whom he urged the ‘maintenance and increase of good relations’, listing the following examples: ‘parish priests, carabinieri, village worthies’.84 In the Montefiorino zone, after the roundup of July–August 1944, the democratic administrations that had been created in the period of the partisan republic stayed in their posts, accepting a modus vivendi with the RSI. Certain town councils (comuni) thus had ‘sindaci popolari’ (‘people’s mayors’) and ‘commissari prefettizi di comodo’ (‘compromise prefectorial commissars’) at one and the same time, so that the municipal archives still contain traces of correspondence with both the mountain CLN and the authorities of the RSI. Ermanno Gorrieri remarks: ‘On both sides, a sense of responsibility had prevailed with regard to the excessively rigid political organisation of things, thereby preventing the consequences of the civil war from weighing yet more heavily on the populations.’85 It should be added that this process occurred at the time that control of guerrilla warfare in the Modenese mountains passed temporarily from the Communist to the Christian partisans, commanded by none other than Gorrieri.
In a town like Carrara, located at one of the confines of the Gothic Line, agreements with both the Fascist and the German authorities created a situation that was on the one hand grotesque, and on the other highly dangerous for those partisan formations that refused to accept this kind of compromise:
Further to incidents and consequent contacts with republican and German authorities, the activity of the CLN of Carrara is by now public knowledge; the president is known; various commissions, including the food commission, function in collaboration with the state bodies; but German negotiations with the Julia partisan formation to obtain free passage across the Cisa, have been ‘conducted irresponsibly, and several spies who were sent among the formations [which had not accepted the agreements], have facilitated and possibly caused a massive roundup’.86
On several occasions, agreeing to dialogue with the Fascist authorities could offer an opportunity to make provocatively unacceptable requests to them. The Communist delegate sent by the CLN (along with a Christian Democrat) to the provincial head and the podestà of Modena, who undertook to save the installations if the partisans refrained from attac
king the retreating Germans, declared that on the contrary the struggle needed stepping up, and demanded both the immediate resignation of the two functionaries and that they make a public anti-German declaration.87
The final transitional phase would obviously be that in which contacts with the enemy intensified, taking on a different, increasingly differentiated meaning according to whether they were with the Germans or the Fascists. In the case of the former, once they had surrendered, all that remained to be done was to hand them over to the Allies as prisoners of war. With the latter, the question was a good deal more complex because it predetermined, at least in part, the future of the Italians who had chosen to fight for the wrong side. The watchword ‘surrender or perish’ did not rule out discussing the terms of surrender; but there was always the risk of slipping towards a negotiated and rather too tranquil handover of powers. Witness this motion presented on 27 June 1944 to the Tuscan CLN by the Action and the Communist parties:
The CTLN, having come to its knowledge that in many municipalities of the province the CLN have accepted the passage of public powers on the part the Fascist authorities and are acting in tacit accord with the occupying troops, wishes to remind them that the task of the CLNs is to lead the people in the struggle against Nazism for the liberation of Italy, and disavows such actions, inviting the CLNs of the province to return to their duties, resuming at once and immediately the direction of the struggle against Nazi-Fascism.
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