41 The paper was directed by a young officer, Rino Lavini, who was relieved of his post after three issues, one of which was seized as soon as it hit the newsstands (see Gorrieri, La Repubblica di Montefiorino, p. 201).
42 Quoted in Flamigni and Marzocchi, Resistenza in Romagna, p. 278.
43 See M. Isnenghi, ‘Verso una stampa post-fascista. Episodi di giornalismo marchigiano (1943–44)’, in Rochat, Santarelli and Sorcinelli, eds, Linea gotica 1944, pp. 568–9.
44 ‘Relazione della sezione comunista di Castelfiorentino alla federazione comunista fiorentina’, 15 August 1944 (ISRT, Fondo Salvadori – PCI Castelfiorentino, insert 59).
45 See Gorrieri, La Repubblica di Montefiorino, pp. 212–13. The Modena newspaper, under the dubious leadership of Vittore Querel, would continue to harp on about this theme in subsequent months.
46 See ‘I due fascismi’, an article in the 5 January 1944 Rome edition of Risorgimento Liberale, which terms the left fascists’ manoeuvre as ‘very subtle Machiavellianism’.
47 See Flamigni e Marzocchi, Resistenza in Romagna, pp. 117–18.
48 See Bocca, La Repubblica di Mussolini, pp. 17, 75–7.
49 See Canfora, La sentenza, above all Chapter 4, ‘Lo Stato del lavoro nella parola del rettore’.
50 See the ‘Diffida’ carried in the 31 December 1943 Rome edition of Il Popolo.
51 See Amicucci, I seicento giorni, p. 122. On 31 May 1944 Mezzasoma re-established pre-emptive censorship: see De Luna, ‘Giornali e giornalisti nella RSI’, in Poggio, ed., La Repubblica sociale italiana, p. 116.
52 According to F. Anfuso, Da palazzo Venezia al lago di Garda, Bologna: Cappelli, 1957, p. 326.
53 Amicucci, I seicento giorni, p. 69.
54 Levi, I sommersi e i salvati, p. 30.
55 E. Curti, ‘Impressioni’, in Donne in grigioverde, 18 February 1945, cited in M. Fraddosio, ‘Donne nell’ esercito di Salò’, in Memoria 4 (June 1982), p. 60.
56 See Calamandrei, La vita indivisibile, p. 112
57 ‘Relazione sulla situazione politica e sullo spirito pubblico nella provincia di Bologna (quindicinale)’, 31 December 1943, which begins: ‘The political situation in this province remains delicate’ (ACS, Direzione Generale di PS Divisione Affari Generali e Riservati: I take the quote from the photocopy at the INSMLI. My thanks to Gabriella Solaro for having made me aware of this as well as the document mentioned on note 60, below page 286). On 20 March 1944 the same questore issued a report condemning the Bologna PFR federation led by Franz Pagliani, a ‘moderate’ Fascist at the centre of murky dealings with ‘millionaires’ (see Legnani, Potere, società ed economia, p. 14). On pp. 13–15 he cites other police reports of analogous situations, or else ‘an almost idyllic portrayal’ of reality. A letter ultimately falling into the censor’s hands spoke of ‘opportunists and sharks, thieves and vultures’ who had infiltrated the party (‘Esame della corrispondenza censurata al 30 giugno 1944’, in ACS, SPD, CR, RSI, envelope 9, folder 3). A convinced Fascist who joined the MSI after the war, he was unwilling to join the PFR on account of the ‘arrivistes’ and ‘profiteers’ who flooded into that party (testimony of Mario Sassi, in Portelli, Biografia di una città, p. 263).
58 Memoir of Dr Edmondo Leppo, n.d. but September 1944, in ACS, SPD, CR, RSI, envelope 24, folder 165.
59 At the Brescia conference, Mario Isnenghi spoke of the ‘refeudalisation’ of the state, while Luciano Violante illustrated the splintering of criminal law, in which state bodies tended to exert jurisdiction over their own constituent parts (M. Isnenghi, ‘Autora: presentazioni dell’ultimo fascismo nella riflessione e nella propaganda’; L. Violante, ‘L’administrazione della giustizia’, in Poggio, ed., La Repubblica sociale italiana, pp. 99–111, 289–94).
60 ‘The mood of the population is, undoubtedly, depressed, but it remains obedient to discipline’, the head of the Padua province assured the Interior Ministry in his 26 January 1944 monthly report: the workers and intellectuals were highlighted as the most hostile elements, while the proportion of young men called to arms who actually showed up for duty was judged to be one-quarter (ACS, Direzione Generale di PS, Divisione Affari Generali e Riservati; photocopy at the INSMLI).
61 See Deakin, Brutal Friendship, pp. 613–21.
62 For the central – if not always explicit – role of the civil war in GNR reports, see Corsini and Poggio, La guerra civile nei notiziari. See also P. Ambrosio, ed., All’ attenzione del duce. I notiziari della gnr della provincia di Vercelli, Borgosesia: Istituto per la Storia della Resistenza in Provincia di Vercelli, 1980, and M. Calandri, ed., Fascismo 1943–1945. I notiziari della GNR da Cuneo a Mussolini, Cuneo: L’ Arciere, 1979.
63 See J. Petersen, ‘Il problema della violenza nel fascismo italiano’, in Storia contemporanea XIII (1982), p. 990.
64 See the article ‘Dalle parole ai fatti’, in the 17 October 1943 issue (quoted in Bocca, La Repubblica di Mussolini, p. 99).
65 See Missori, Gerarchie e statuti del PNF, pp. 338, 352.
66 See Legnani, Potere, società ed economia, pp. 11–15.
67 Document held in ACS, SPD, CR, RSI, cited in Bocca, La Repubblica di Mussolini, p. 271.
68 Paraphrased in Deakin, Brutal Friendship, p. 700.
69 ‘Il partito in armi’, in the Corriere della Sera of 26 July 1944. The 30 June decree ‘Duce della Repubblica Sociale Italiana’ stated (article 1): ‘The political structure of the Party is transformed into a military-type body, including the creation of the Auxiliary Corps of the Blackshirt Action Squads.
70 Pisanò, Storia della guerra civile, pp. 739–40, and Francovich, La Resistenza a Firenze, pp. 283–5. The GAGs are discussed in a 15 June 1944 report from the Inspector Paolo (‘Cari compagni’, Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, p. 34).
71 Cited in Deakin, Brutal Friendship, p. 692.
72 ACS, SPD, CR, RSI (quoted in Bocca, La Repubblica di Mussolini, p. 268).
73 Bocca, La Repubblica di Mussolini, pp. 266–9, and Legnani, Potere, società ed economia, p. 24.
74 As Francesco reported in a 13 December 1944 meeting of the PCI leadership in Rome, laying great stress on the blow to the Blackshirts in their first sortie in the Canavese region (IG, Archivio PCI, ‘Direzione. Verbali 1944’). Francesco was probably referring to the clashes in August, during which Alessandro Pavolini himself was wounded at Cuorgnè (see Bocca, La Repubblica di Mussolini, pp. 268–70).
75 See the documents in Section V of Vaccarino, Gobetti and Gobbi, L’insurrezione di Torino, pp. 213ff; Gobetti, Diario partigiano, p. 370; the letter sent to Moscatelli by Moro, an Italian diplomat in Switzerland, on 10 February 1945 (IG, BG, 07887). Pisanò, Storia della guerra civile, p. 780, gives the blatantly exaggerated figure of 2,000 snipers in Turin.
76 Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, pp. 332–5
77 IG, BG, 05417.
78 Some post-Liberation Tuscan CLN reports make reference to Fascist operations, for example those of 27 September and 14 December 1944 (ISRT, Carte Francesco Berti, envelope 1, folder 1). For the Fascists’ activities to the south of the Gothic Line, see G. Conti, ‘La RSI e l’attività del fascismo clandestino nell’Italia liberata dal settembre 1943 all’aprile 1945’, in Storia contemporanea X (1979), pp. 941–1018.
79 Directives to federation commissars 11 June 1944, held in the ACS and quoted by Conti, ‘La RSI e l’attività del fascismo clandestino’, p. 976
80 See, for example, in the Fondo RSI: No. 1141, ‘Rifrapa racconta’ (10 November 1944); No. 1145, ‘Lettere censurate’ (9 December 1944) and No. 1197, ‘Il fascismo nell’Italia invasa ha impugnato le armi’ (1945).
81 However, Professor Seton-Watson (whom I thank for his testimony) recalls how, as a liaison officer placed with a CIL division, he saw a confrontation with a GNR unit. Similarly, Richard Lamb (whom I also thank) told me that there are documents in the Public Record Office reporting on clashes between the Friuli Gruppo di Combattimento and RSI forces.
82 Fondo RSI, Nos. 292, 293, 309
83 Chiod
i, Banditi, p. 32 (8 August 1944).
84 See E. Ronconi, ‘Note sui rapporti fra il clero toscano, la Repubblica sociale italiana e le autorità d’occupazione tedesche’, in Comitato regionale toscano per le celebrazioni del trentennale della resistenza e della liberazione, Il clero toscano nella Resistenza, Atti del convegno di Lucca, 4–6 aprile 1975, Florence: La Nuova Europa, 1975, p. 138. Ronconi based his work above all on parish priests’ reports.
85 See F. Parri, ‘La mancata Resistenza nel Sud’, in L’Astrolabio XI: 1 (January 1973), p. 55. In Il movimento di liberazione e gli alleati, Parri had written: ‘The dire influence of Graziani’s army helped aggravate the horrors of the civil war’ (Parri, Scritti 1915–1975, p. 523).
86 See the ‘Relazione di ufficiale (ex partigiano) rientrato dall’internamento in Germania con la divisione Monterosa’, sent to the Piedmont delegation by the Command of the 6th Langhe Division on 27 August 1944 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, p. 276). On desertions, see the – far from precise – figures collected by Pansa for all four divisions: between 10 and 15 percent according to Graziani, 25 percent according to the Germans (thus around 16,000 out of 65,000). Pansa, L’esercito di Salò, pp. 207–8.
87 Mazzantini, A cercar la bella morte, p. 124.
88 A testimony that Ugo Tucci (who I thank) gave me regarding Umbria devoted some attention to this point.
89 See the example given by Bocca (‘La Resistenza incomprensibile’, in La Repubblica di Mussolini), where on p. 103 he cites a report from the Turin questore speaking of the CLN as led by ‘Jewish communist types and elements in the pay of the enemy’.
90 See, on this observation, A. Lyttelton, ‘Fascismo e violenza: conflitto sociale e azione politica in Italia nel primo dopoguerra’, in Storia contemporanea XIII (1982), p. 979.
91 See W. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. I: The Gathering Storm, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1948, p. 495.
92 See Bocca, La Repubblica di Mussolini, p. 256 and Pansa, L’esercito di Salò, p. 155. Already in a letter to Hitler of 1 November 1943, Mussolini had spoken of the Apennine armed bands, albeit adding that there was no need to worry about this (quoted in Deakin, Brutal Friendship, p. 594).
93 Cited in Deakin, Brutal Friendship, p. 704.
94 Testimony of the partisan Lara, in ‘Anonimo romagnolo’, 1943–45, p. 375.
95 See G. R. Zitarosa, ‘Parentesi ventennale’, in Aspetti letterari. Lucania d’oggi XIII: 4–6 (December 1953), p. 100.
96 See the article ‘Squadra di polizia federale’ in La Gazzetta dell’Emilia, 22 November 1943. According to Tarabini every Fascist had to join the militias (cited in Gorrieri, La Repubblica di Montefiorino, p. 49).
97 LRSI, p. 110; and see Padoan (Vanni), Abbiamo lottato insieme, pp. 52–3.
98 LRSI, p. 168, letter to mother of Umberto Scaramelli, 28 October 1944.
99 Letter of 29 April to the mother of Paolo Comelli of Udine, born 1907, shot in Valsassina on 30 April 1945 (LRSI, p. 231).
100 Letters of 30 November 1944 and another undated from Sergio Mannucci, of Florence, fallen fighting the partisans on 21 November 1944 (LRSI, p. 172).
101 Revelli, La guerra dei poveri, p. 200 (17 April 1944).
102 ‘Relazione sull’attacco al presidio di Fara’, by the Command of the 81st Brigade Volante Loss, 21 March 1945 (IG, BG, 08315).
103 Letter of 3 September 1944 from Myrio Montanari, born 1917, shot in early May 1945 (LRSI, pp. 160–61).
104 Letter from Mario Amprimo, born in Trieste in 1926, shot by the partisans in March 1945.
105 Calamandrei, La vita indivisibile, p. 137 (2 March 1944).
106 ‘Il tempo del bastone e della carota’ (‘The time for the stick and for the carrot’) was the subtitle Mussolini gave to the anonymously published series of articles appearing in the Corriere della Sera in nineteen non-consecutive instalments from 24 June to 18 July 1944, under the title ‘Storia di un anno’. In the last piece, the author revealed his true identity. See B. Mussolini, Opera omnia, edited by E. and D. Susmel, Florence: La Fenice, 1951–64, XXXIV (1961), pp. 301–444.
107 See Battaglia, Storia della Resistenza, p. 138, and Gallerano. ed., L’altro dopoguerra.
108 Gobetti, Diario partigiano, p. 25. This sense of becoming estranged from normal life, continuing in its ordinary rhythms, was described with particular intensity by those who were deported to extermination camps. ‘The tracks that honeymooning couples’ trains glided along were no less smooth under our weight, and by day, in the countryside, people would stand to watch as our train passed’. R. Antelme, La specie umana, Turin: Einaudi, 1954, p. 31 (original edition: L’espèce humaine, Paris: Gallimard, 1947), cited in A. Rossi-Doria, ‘Memoria e storia dei Lager nazisti. A proposito di “La vita offesa” ’, in Movimento operaio e socialista X (1987), p. 94. We could also cite the final scene of the Losey film Monsieur Klein, where the Jews are taken away while all around them the everyday activity of a market continues.
109 ‘Organizzare la guerra partigiana’, L’Unità Rome edition, 30 December 1943.
110 See, for example, how it is recorded in Artom, Diari, p. 72. See also the audiovisual collection on the deportations from the Rome Ghetto of 16 October 1943, produced by the Istituto Romano per la Storia d’Italia dal Fascismo alla Resistenza, the Comunità Israelitica di Roma and the Comune’s Prima Circoscrizione, which can be consulted at the Archivio Storico Audiovisivo del Movimento Operaio in Rome. An echo of the absurd trust in the Fascists can be found in M. Michaelis, La persecuzione degli ebrei, in Poggio, ed., La Repubblica sociale italiana, pp. 367–85. In Paralup, the area where the first GL bands were being formed in the Cuneese region, the partisans, particularly those who were themselves Jewish, called in vain on the Jewish families there seeking refuge before the predictable fascist raid, which, indeed, led to their capture (testimony to the author from Mario Giovana, whom I thank).
111 ‘The population is a little hostile to us, because it is said that we are all volunteers’, wrote one airman (‘Esame della corrispondenza censurata al 30 giugno 1944’, in ACS, SPD, CR, RSI, envelope 9, folder 3).
112 The 26 July letter is published as an appendix in Francovich, La Resistenza a Firenze, pp. 296–7.
113 ‘Lettera inviata dal Comando del raggruppamento alla Società subalpina di imprese ferroviarie di navigazione del lago Maggiore, 12 ottobre 1944’ (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, pp. 437–8). See also the 11 June 1944 warning given by the Piacenza province divisions’ command to the director of the local prisons (ibid., p. 31). In the summer of 1944 this author personally warned the director of the Castelfranco Emilia prison that if he was handed over to the Germans to be deported to Germany or to the Fascist firing-squad – which had recently decimated the political prisoners – then his friends would really make him pay for it.
114 See, for example, in the Rome edition of L’Unità: ‘Dopo l’ultimo movimento dei questori. Avvertimento!’ (17 November 1943); ‘Gesto nazionale di alcuni attori’ (7 December 1943); ‘Il coprifuoco a Roma. Avvertimento alla polizia’ (30 December 1943); ‘Stiano in guardia i poliziotti (“la Giustizia popolare sarà senza pietà”)’ (6 January 1944); ‘I portieri debbono aiutare i patrioti’ (6 January 1944); ‘Ultimo avvertimento alla polizia’ (12 February 1944). Togliatti gave a stark warning on Radio Milano Libertà (Radio Mosca) on 30 December 1943 (Togliatti, Opere, vol. IV: 2, p. 514). ‘Lettere ai funzionari di polizia’ and paragraph 6 of the PCI leadership circular to all federations of 1 January 1944 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. I, p. 212).
115 Bolis, Il mio granello di sabbia, p. 75
116 The RSI interior minister Paolo Zerbino himself spoke of the CLNAI’s functioning in its latter phase as a ‘shadow government’, in a statement made to Giorgio Bocca (see Bocca, La Repubblica di Mussolini, p. 319). For the ‘third government’ formulation, see Pavone, Tre governi.
117 See G. Grassi, ‘Introduzione’ to the Atti clnai, p. 21, which refers to some efforts made in this manner.
118 Atti clnai, pp.
172–7.
119 Proceedings of 1 December 1944 (Resistenza e ricostruzione in Liguria, p. 160).
120 See Bernardo, Il momento buono, pp. 268, 158.
121 For the position taken by the CLN, see CLNAI, pp. 121–2. On the loan affair as a whole, see L. Ganapini, ‘Lotte operaie: Milano’, in Operai e contadini, pp. 175–80, 189–92, and then the section ‘Un miliardo per la Repubblica ambrosiana’, in Ganapini, Una città, la guerra, Milan: Franco Angeli, 1988, pp. 116–20.
122 See P. Baffi, Studi sulla moneta, Milan: Giuffrè, 1965, p. 232.
123 Legnani, Potere, società ed economia, p. 20.
124 INSMLI, CLNAI, envelope 6, folder 3, subfolder 3.
125 See his letter ‘Ai compagni del CLNAI’, 8 August 1944 (Atti CLNAI, p. 155).
126 I am referring to the luogotenenziale (king’s lieutenant’s) legislative decree of 5 October 1944, No. 249. In the report presented to the commission charged with preparing its text, no reference is made to the CLNAI’s position. The report is in ACS, Presidenza del Consiglio dei ministri 1948–1950, envelope 37, folder 1.1.26/13504, subfolder o. Its author, Arturo Carlo Jemolo, communicated its main substance in a ‘note’ in Le fonti di diritto vigenti in Italia. Profili giuridici della tragedia italiana, which can be found in the Atti della Reale Accademia Peloritana V (1944), pp. 127–50; see also, F. Margiotta Broglio, ed., in Nuova Antologia CXX: 2153 (January–March 1985), pp. 12–30.
127 The report of the commission, comprising Jemolo, the lawyer Antonio Galamini and a civil servant, dated 26 July 1945, is in ACS, Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri: 1948–1950, envelope 37, folder 1.1.26/13504, subfolder 9. For the affair as a whole, see Pavone, Tre governi, pp. 450–2. The Versailles National Assembly of 1871 took more drastic measures to confront the decrees emanating from the Paris Commune. It went so far as to deny the validity of registrations of marital status, but to avoid the inevitable bother arising from this, it was forced to accept marriages and the registration of one’s natural children being written up ex novo on the initiative of the parties concerned, or, failing this, upon the request of the state attorney (see Jemolo, Le fonti di diritto vigenti in Italia, p. 26).
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