Muddling through Lawlessness

Burgwyn, H. James

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-76189-3_15

Muddling through Lawlessness

H. James Burgwyn⁴

Chapter
First Online: 01 June 2018

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Part of the book series: Italian and Italian American Studies ((IIAS))

Abstract

The Fascist “police forces of order” engaged in nefarious conduct by striking out blindly against all and sundry. Roving vigilante gangs chased down and tortured partisans, Jews, wobbly Fascists, draft dodgers, and innocent victims. Interior Minister Guido Buffarini made haphazard efforts to re-establish order, but encountered stout defiance on the part of regional authorities and rogue militia leaders. To make matters worse in this splintered RSI world, the Germans aided and protected their favorite desperados and militias. At the penultimate hour, Paolo Zerbino, who had replaced Buffarini, undertook police reform to drain the swamp of corruption and wanton violence, but with highly mixed results.

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Notes

1.
Ganapini , La repubblica delle camicie nere, p. 287.
2.
Ibid., p. 288.
3.
Griner, La “pupilla” del Duce, p. 186.
4.
Ibid., p. 129.
5.
Bocca , La repubblica di Mussolini, p. 197.
6.
Battistelli and Molinari, Le forze armate della RSI, p. 205.
7.
Massimiliano Griner, La “Banda Koch.” Il Reparto speciale di polizia (1943–1944) (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2000), p. 267.
8.
Caporale, La “Banda Carità,” p. 201.
9.
Griner, La “Banda Koch,” p. 269.
10.
Griner, La “Pupilla” del Duce, p 185; Fabei, I neri e i rossi, p. 136.
11.
Griner, La “Banda Koch,” p. 273.
12.
Fabei, I neri e i rossi, p. 136.
13.
Griner, La Banda Koch, pp. 272–73; Klinkhammer, l’occupazione tedesca in Italia, p. 315.
14.
ACS, RSI, Prefettura di Milano, b. 1, “Appunto per il Capo della Polizia” di Herbert Kappler, 29 September 1944.
15.
Fabei, I neri e i rossi, p. 138
16.
Klinkhammer , L’occupazione tedesca in Italia, p. 315.
17.
Cited in Dianella Gagliani’s preface to Caporale, La “Banda Carità,” p. 15.
18.
Lepre, La storia della repubblica di Mussolini, p. 108.
19.
Cited in Caporale, La “Banda Carità,” p. 172.
20.
Ibid., p. 46.
21.
Ibid., p. 183.
22.
Cited in Ibid.
23.
Dianella Gagliani, “Prefazione,” in Ibid., pp. 13–17.
24.
Cited in Bertoldi , Salò, p. 239.
25.
Ganapini , La repubblica delle camicie nere, p. 289.
26.
Cited in Gasparini and Razeto, 1944, p. 316.
27.
Cited in Ibid., p. 365.
28.
Cited in Ibid., p. 337.
29.
Cited in Ganapini , La repubblica delle camicie nere, p. 290.
30.
Bertoldi , Salò, p. 201.
31.
Cited in Bertoldi , Salò, p. 215.
32.
Cited in Ibid., p. 215.
33.
Gagliani , Brigate nere, p. 154.
34.
Cited in Ibid., p. 153, n. 43.
35.
Cited in Ganapini , La repubblica delle camicie nere, pp. 292–93.
36.
Cited in Gasparini and Razeto, 1944, p. 440.
37.
OO, XXXII: 128–31.
38.
Zachariae , Mussolini si confessa, Kindle edition, locations 2542–2551.
39.
ACS, Prefettura di Milano, b. 1, “Appunto per il Ministero di Grazia e Giustizia” di Mario Bassi, 17 gennaio 1945.
40.
Between 1942 and 1943 Montagna commanded the Blackshirts in Ljubljana, returning to Italy shortly before 25 July. Arrested by the Badoglio government, he was liberated by the Germans after 8 September. Adhering to the RSI, he served as one of the judges during the Verona trials against Ciano and his fellow “traitors.” He was nominated police commandant, a position he maintained until the end of the war. He died peacefully in 1978.
41.
Ganapini , La repubblica delle camincie nere, pp. 294–95.
42.
Richard Bosworth, in citing Buffarini’s book La vera verità published in 1970, , writes: “His [Buffarini] fall may have been precipitated by his open complaint to Mussolini in January 1945 that everything that Salò did, or sought to do, was methodically denigrated and blocked by the PFR and that too many envious informers and more or less secret agents interfered with ordinary administration.” Bosworth, Mussolini’s Italy, p. 508.
43.
Luigi Ganapini , “Le polizie nella Repubblica sociale italiana,” in Costantino Di Sante, ed., I campi di concentramento in Italia. Dall’internamento alla deportazione (1940–1945) (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2001), p. 291.
44.
Ganapini , La repubblica delle camicie nere, p. 295.
45.
Klinkhammer , L’occupazione tedesca in Italia, p. 91.
46.
Griner, La “pupilla” del duce, p. 171.
47.
Cited in Klinkhammer, L’occupazione tedesca in Italia, p. 332.
48.
Caporale, La “Banda Carità,” pp. 303–08.
49.
Pavolini boasted that the Black Brigades consisted of 20,000–30,000 men. In reality, only 3000–4000 showed up “ready to fight.” Roberto Chiarini, L’ultimo fascismo: Storia e memoria della Repubblica di Salò (Venice: Marsilio, 2009), p. 60.
50.
Cited in Bertoldi , Salò, p. 201.

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Department of History, West Chester University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
H. James Burgwyn

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Burgwyn, H.J. (2018). Muddling through Lawlessness. In: Mussolini and the Salò Republic, 1943–1945. Italian and Italian American Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76189-3_15

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76189-3_15
Published: 01 June 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-76188-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-76189-3
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