83 Atti CLNAI, p. 116. Buffarini Guidi was denounced as a war criminal on 27 September 1944, again by the CLNAI (ibid., p. 178).
84 ‘Giustizia partigiana’, Il Partigiano alpino, August 1944.
85 ‘Giusta guerra di popolo’, Northern edition, 31 October 1943.
86 ‘Chiare parole agli esercenti’, 12 July 1944.
87 Atti CLNAI, pp. 209–10.
88 Instructions from the PCI leadership for occupied Italy to the insurrectionary triumvirates, 22 April 1945, in Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, p. 664. The document also features the addresses of the Genoa SIAC, Bruzzo, San Giorgio, Eridania and Piaggio plants.
89 ‘Direttive n. 16’, drawn up by Luigi Longo, published in La nostra lotta III: 7 (10 April 1945), pp. 31–8; later republished in Longo, Sulla via dell’insurrezione nazionale, pp. 344–50.
90 ‘Una canaglia’, in the Northern edition. Filippo Mirabelli, already a national councillor of the Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni, was head of Savona province from 25 October 1943 to 4 January 1945 (see M. Missori, Governi, alte cariche dello Stato e prefetti del Regno d’Italia, Rome: Bulzoni, 1978, p. 473).
91 Letter from the CLN to the public prosecutor, 19 January 1945 (INSMLI, old catalogue, CLNAI 8, folder 2, subfolder 10).
92 See Canfora, La sentenza, pp. 134–5.
93 For example ‘Les traîtres’, in Le Patriote Martiguais. Organe du Front national de lutte pour la liberation de la France (Organ of the French Resistance to Oppression), March 1944, and Valmy, June 1944: ‘Frenchman, with a view to “the settlement of accounts”, prepare the list of traitors and their friends’.
94 Command of the Stella Rossa brigade to the ‘Republican Fascists of Monzuno’, June 1944 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, p. 89).
95 Cited in C. Pavone, ‘Aspetti della crisi della democrazia risorgimentale: mazziniani, garibaldini e internazionalisti nei primi anni dell’Unità’, in Il Cristallo VI (1964), p. 78.
96 Atti CVL, p. 79.
97 See Bruzzone and Farina, La Resistenza taciuta, p. 133, and Gorrieri, La Repubblica di Montefiorino, pp. 569–70.
98 ‘Alcuni rilievi sulla organizzazione della 3a divisione’, signed ‘Luigi’, November or December 1944 (IG, BG, 010477).
99 See Lazagna, Ponte rotto, pp. 59–60
100 Atti CLNAI, pp. 308–9.
101 Revelli, La guerra dei poveri, p. 153 (29 November 1943).
102 Artom, Diari, pp. 131–2 (25 December 1943).
103 Padoan (Vanni), Abbiamo lottato insieme, pp. 67–8.
104 Testimony of Tersilla Fenoglio Oppedisano, in Bruzzone and Farina, La Resistenza taciuta, p. 158.
105 A. Clocchiatti, Cammina frut, Milan: Vangelista, 1972, p. 259.
106 Note, furthermore, the letter which a Garibaldian sent to the bishop of Belluno on 21 September 1945, speaking of the cracks in the ‘granite certainties of an earlier time’ (quoted in Tramontin, Contadini e movimento partigiano, p. 305).
107 Mario to the Lombard Delegation Command of the Garibaldi brigades, 26 July 1944 (IG, BG, 08688).
108 Such was Pesce’s response to Di Nanni, who had reproached him for not having killed the captured carabinieri, who then rushed to sound the alarm (Pesce, Senza tregua, p. 119).
109 Chiodi, Banditi, p. 139 (17 April 1945).
110 Revelli, La guerra dei poveri, p. 325 (25 August 1944).
111 Pesce, Senza tregua, p. 285.
112 Cicchetti, Il campo giusto, p. 145.
113 Note, here as in other cases, the invocation of mothers and sisters but not of fathers and brothers: ‘Profili’ in Il fuori legge (The Outlaw), organ of the 7th P. Stefanoni Brigade of the Valtoce division, Di Dio group, January 1945 (quoted in Falaschi, La Resistenza armata, p. 23).
114 Sentence issued by the extraordinary court martial of the Valle Stura Brigade of the 1st Alpine GL Division, 14 August 1944 (ISRP, envelope 35, folder c).
115 ‘Direttive operative’, 13 February 1945, in Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, p. 379, n. 4.
116 As referred to – though it was not the only case – by the Command of the 81st Volante Loss Brigade in its ‘Relazione sull’attacco al presidio di Fara’, 21 March 1945 (IG, BG, 08315).
117 ‘Disposizioni di carattere generale’ of the 1st Garibaldi Division (Ossola-Valsesia), 26 August 1944 (ibid., 06239).
118 Bernardo, Il momento buono, p. 152.
119 Letter from the Command of the 8th Asti Division to the brigades for which it was responsible, 1 December 1944 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, p. 7).
120 Report by Piero, of the 3rd Aliotta Division, to the General Command, 27 December 1944 (ibid., p. 146). ‘Piero’ was Orfeo Landini.
121 I. Calvino, ‘Attesa della morte in un albergo’, in his Ultimo viene il corvo, p. 93.
122 Revelli, La guerra dei poveri, p. 322 (22 August 1944).
123 Bernardo, Il momento buono, p. 153.
124 See Gorrieri, La Repubblica di Montefiorino, p. 384.
125 Ciro, commander of the divisions group for Valsesia, Ossola, Cusio and Verbano, to Fabio (Pietro Vergani), of the General Command, 23 April 1945 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, p. 469, n. 2).
126 This was the flavour of the reprimand sent on 18 November 1944 by the Lombardy Delegation to the Command of the 53rd 13 Martiri di Lovere Brigade (in Bergamasco). The latter had offhandedly failed to grab ‘the truncheon by the handle’: the Germans, indeed, having secured the release of their imprisoned men in exchange for the promise not to carry out reprisals, did not keep their word (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, pp. 356–7).
127 Testimony of Anna Cinanni (Bruzzone and Farina, La Resistenza taciuta, p. 102).
128 Barca’s report on the ‘inspection of 1 and 2 January’ in the Val di Susa, 4 January 1944 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. I, p. 216).
129 ‘Per il capo politico’, 9 December 1943 (IG, Archivio PCI).
130 Artom, Diari, p. 145 (31 December 1943). On 20 December, faced with a case of ill-treatment, Artom asked ‘What would Pisacane say?’ Pisacane was the name of the Garibaldian formation in which Artom was active at the time.
131 ‘Il responsabile di zona’ to the ‘Comando della brigata Carrara’ (Bergamasco), 23 March 1945 (IG, BG, 010642).
132 Padoan (Vanni), Abbiamo lottato insieme, p. 167.
133 Giustizia e Libertà. Notiziario dei patrioti delle Alpi Cozie, October 1944, article ‘Ritorsioni’ (quoted in Giovana, Storia di una formazione partigiana, p. 201).
134 Revelli, La guerra dei poveri, pp. 193, 196–7, 199 (12, 13, 14 and 16 April 1944).
135 Casali, Il movimento di liberazione a Ravenna, pp. 73–4.
136 Letter from Michele, political commissar of the 1st Gramsci Division (Ossola-Valsesia), to Picciolo, battalion vice-commander, 1 March 1945 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, p. 428).
137 Order of 18 September 1944, on the day of the Command of the 1st Piedmont Division (IG, BG, 04421).
138 Padoan (Vanni), Abbiamo lottato insieme, p. 240. On the Fascists, see Mazzantini, A cercar la bella morte, pp. 66, 99–100.
139 Report of 20 January 1945 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, pp. 288–9, n. 4).
140 On the first point, see the instructions from the PCI military official responsible for the Modena mountain area, from 10 to 25 May 1944, cited in Gorrieri, La Repubblica di Montefiorino, pp. 284–5 (‘putting to death two enemy officers is always a political act: officers and sub-officers, apart from very few exceptional cases, must be rubbed out’). On the second point, remember that the forest militia in the Cansiglio, after giving the partisans some reinforcements, had asked to be disarmed, so as not to be too compromised in the eyes of the Germans; but the partisans were later reproached for having let a colonel and a captain go free (report from the Veneto detachment-command to the general command, 11 April 1944: Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. I, pp. 349, 352, n. 8).
141 Letter from the Fregona CLN to the Command of the Vittorio Veneto brigades-group, 17 April 1945 (INSMLI, CLNAI, envelope 7, folder 2, subfol
der 7).
142 ‘Aux magistrats de répression – Aux policiers trop soumis’, in Le Père Duchesne, ‘Year 151’, September 1942.
143 Report from the Command of the 9th Liguria Brigade, 19 June 1944 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, p. 43).
144 For example, a Verona CLN tract had called for ‘a mass desertion, an armed desertion’ (undated – IVSR, Archivio, I. envelope 49, CLN, Stampa non periodica).
145 On the extent of desertion, see the figures supplied by Pansa, L’esercito di Salò, p. 71. Up to the end of April 1944, there were between 25,000 and 26,000 deserters from the army, ‘more than 10 percent of the total force and almost 17 percent of the levy from the classes called up before that date’. See also Deakin, Brutal Friendship, p. 664, on German and Fascist worries, and the section ‘Si disgrega la GNR’ in Bocca, La Repubblica di Mussolini.
146 For example, after the assault on a barracks in San Vincenzo (Livorno), the prisoners – fifty-two Italian soldiers and twenty Mongols – were sworn in, and thus ‘considered part of the formation’ (report by Major Mario Chirici on the activity of the 3rd Brigade, 18 July 1944, in Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, p. 148).
147 See Gorrieri, La Repubblica di Montefiorino, p. 350.
148 Mautino writes that the necessary purge among the prisoners brought into the Garibaldi-Osoppo division was pre-empted, in September 1944, by the fact that ‘after three days of fighting, neither among partisan ranks nor among the mountains in that area was it possible to find a single one of these individuals’ (Mautino, Guerra di popolo, p. 101). We can find more positive appraisals of at least some of the recruited prisoners – those who had not joined at the last minute – in Giovana, Storia di una formazione partigiana, pp. 139, 322–3.
149 Instructions sent to the Command of the 118th Servadei Brigade, 9 January 1945 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, p. 222).
150 Note the ‘serious incident’ that took place in Saga (Cividale del Friuli), where on the night of 16 June 1944 a stronghold of around ninety well-armed men, almost all conscripts, disappeared without trace (Pansa, L’esercito di Salò, pp. 112–13).
151 Letter from the inspector Giorgio to Remo, the political commissar of the 51st Capettini Brigade (Oltrepò Pavese), September 1944 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, p. 361).
152 Report from the commissar Remo on the history of the 3rd Aliotta Brigade, 31 December 1944 (IG, BG, 01728).
153 The deserters wrote a bombastic letter to the Command, held at IG, BG, 05065.
154 See Lazagna, Ponte rotto, p. 222.
155 ‘Bergamo Zone Operations Command’ to the Lombard Regional Command, 10 April 1945 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, p. 599, n. 1).
156 ‘Relazione politica’, from the Ancona PCI federation to the Party leadership, undated but early December 1943 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. I, p. 148).
157 Eleven people are listed: one is said to be ‘with son’, and two ‘with family’. The – undated – poster is headed ‘Popolo della zona di Sassuolo’ (ISRM, Fondo Borsari, s.II.10, Miscellanea).
158 ‘Informazioni’, undated, IZDG, envelope 272a, folder II/A.
159 Instructions from the Command of the Modena detachment to the Stanzioni detachment, March 1944 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. I, p. 341).
160 Letter from the Command of the Carlo Pisacane brigades-group to the Command of the Belluno division, 3 December 1944 (IG, BG, 09451).
161 See Tramontin, Contadini e movimento partigiano, pp. 301ff.
162 Report by Ilio, commissar of the 47th Brigade, to the Delegation for North Emilia, 3 August 1944 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, p. 195).
163 ‘Esame della corrispondenza censurata al 30 giugno 1944’ (ACS, SPD, CR, RSI, envelope 9, folder 3).
164 Testimony of Mario Filipponi, in Portelli, Biografia di una città, p. 284.
165 Artom, Diari, p. 138 (28 December 1943).
166 See decree no. 5 of the CLN in the free zone, on the establishment and functioning of the people’s tribunal, attachment no. 3 to the minutes of its 6–8 October 1944 session; F. Vuga, La zona libera di Carnia e l’occupazione cosacca (luglio-ottobre 1944), Udine: Del Bianco, 1961, pp. 145–7).
1 The undated and unsigned poster is held in IVSR, Stampa antifascista.
2 Preface to Bianchi, Giancarlo Puecher, p. IX. Parri adds that ‘the coils of this drama enveloped the last days of Giancarlo Puecher’.
3 I take both quotes from M. Arduino, ‘Rappresaglia (Diritto internazionale)’, in Digesto italiano XX: 1 (1911–15), pp. 90–5.
4 G. S. Pene Vidari, ‘Rappresaglia (Storia)’, in Enciclopedia del Diritto.
5 ‘Rappresaglia’, in Nuova Enciclopedia Italiana, directed by Gerolamo Boccardo, Turin: UTET, 1885.
6 Rousseau, The Social Contract, Book I, §4.
7 The expression is used by Arduino, ‘Rappresaglia (Diritto internazionale)’, p. 93.
8 On this last episode, see ibid., p. 94.
9 LRE, p. 700.
10 See M. Di Giovanni, laureate thesis.
11 Weber, Economy and Society, vol. I, pp. 46–7.
12 This being Weber’s definition of community, naturally making reference to Tönnies (ibid., p. 41).
13 As Otto Brunner’s thought is paraphrased in Fioravanti, ‘Stato (Diritto intermedio)’, p. 24.
14 See, on this point, the observations made in A. Preti, ‘Quale storia tra Marzabotto e Monte Sole?’, Rivista di storia contemporanea XVII (1988), pp. 134–47, with regard to Gherardi, Le querce di Monte Sole. An analogous consideration could be made on the – debatable – use of the word ‘holocaust’ to designate the Nazi massacre of the Jews.
15 See Dossetti, ‘Introduzione’, in Gherardi, Le querce di Monte Sole, esp. pp. xvi– xvii. The fact that a narrow legal formalism can lead to the grotesque, in dealing with these questions, is demonstrated by the sentence Dossetti cites in support of the thesis that it was not a reprisal in the true sense: ‘Even if one wanted, as an absurd hypothetical, to accept that only in the presence of the civilian population can one recognise a grave and immediate danger in the outcome of the operations being carried out, the possibility of keeping them alive would always have remained, and in no sense is it possible to identify a tie of necessity between this immense number of killings of women, the elderly, and children, and the success of the military action.’ Dossetti, drafting a document by the Christian Democrat leaderships of Modena, Reggio Emilia and Parma, dated 25 February 1945, claimed ‘In no way is it admissible, not even for reasons of defence, to kill in reprisal people who were surely not subjectively responsible.’ This position was taken in opposition to the actions carried out by the SAP, many of which were adjudged ‘neither legitimate, nor necessary, nor opportune’ (quoted in Gorrieri, La Repubblica di Montefiorino, p. 538).
16 Dossetti, ‘Introduzione’, p. viii.
17 See LRE, p. 700.
18 Quoted in Tramontin, Contadini e movimento partigiano, p. 297.
19 See Pansa, L’esercito di Salò, pp. 207–8.
20 ‘Direttive per la lotta armata’, in Atti CVL, p. 547. Rochat, who published the document, deems that it was ‘probably [drafted by] Parri, certainly by an Action Party member’ (ibid., p. 11).
21 June 1944 (cited in Michel, La guerra dell’ombra, p. 266). See the article ‘Le Maquis et la population’, which holds that all French people had to accept the risks of war (44. Organe des Forces françaises de l’intérieur et du Comité départemental de la libération nationale pour les Basses-Pyrénées, 12 August 1944).
22 ‘Norme per gli ispettori’, 25 December 1944, probably elaborated by GL Division C. (Formazioni GL, p. 258).
23 Pesce, Senza tregua, p. 206.
24 Ibid., pp. 211, 260.
25 Report by the Command of the 1st Piedmont Division to the Piedmont Delegation, 16 July 1944 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, pp. 132–3).
26 Mautino, Guerra di popolo, p. 187.
27 The former words appeared as the title of an article in the Northern edition of 24 August 1944
; the latter were the lesson drawn from the news that ‘the women of Parma snatched thirty-seven young partisans away from the firing squad’ (Northern edition, 25 May 1944).
28 Northern edition, 29 December 1943. See the Rome edition, 23 March 1944, and the article ‘Per salvare Roma cacciare i tedeschi’, where it is possible to find an implicit polemic against the growing myth of the Pope qua defender of the city. On 26 October 1943, the paper developed the idea that, seeing as the German reaction was going to happen in any case, it was worth forewarning of it (‘Agire subito’).
29 Tramontin, Contadini e movimento partigiano, p. 284.
30 Appeal of 26 October 1944 (ISRR, Archivio del triumvirato insurrezionale dell’Emilia-Romagna).
31 ‘Direttive di lavoro’, by the PCI leadership, 27 September 1943 (?) (IG, Archivio PCI).
32 ‘Relazione sulla insurrezione armata e conseguente liberazione delle città di Massa e Carrara’, sent from the federation committee to the PCI leadership in Rome, 24 April 1945 (Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. III, p. 688).
33 See Gorrieri, La Repubblica di Montefiorino, p. 115
34 See, for example, the article ‘Attesismo’ in the 7 December 1943 Il Combattente, and the long lecture by Ilio Barontini to Giovanni Pesce when, after the first attack was brought to a successful conclusion, he was posed with the question of possible reprisals (Pesce, Senza tregua, p. 45). See also a circular from the Padua Communist federation (undated, but after the Salerno turn), on what would have become of the peoples of Europe had they all accepted enslavement on account of the threat of reprisals (IG, Archivio PCI).
35 Testimony of Mario Sabadini, on the shooting of a carabiniere who had fought together with the partisans, as a reprisal (Portelli, Biografia di una città, p. 283).
36 See Giovana, Storia di una formazione partigiana, p. 242.
37 Quoted in Tramontin, Contadini e movimento partigiano, p. 290.
38 See, on episodes of this type, the testimony of G. Nicoletta, commander of the autonomous De Vitis Division, concerning July 1944 (in ANED, Gli scioperi del marzo 1944, pp. 60–1); Quazza, Un diario partigiano, p. 176 (4 April 1944); and the stone on the Piazza di Boves, marking the killing of the priest Giuseppe Bernardi on 19 September 1943.
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