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Legacy of the RSI

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Book cover Mussolini and the Salò Republic, 1943–1945

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

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Abstract

After Mussolini’s death and the end of hostilities, Fascism, thanks to the Cold War, was able to take on renewed life. Although top figures and the worst criminals and torturers were brought to trial, Communist leader Palmiro Togliatti engineered a general amnesty of former Fascists, which brought further efforts to purge them from postwar Italian politics and government to an inglorious end. In an atmosphere dominated by anti-Communism, the door swung open for ex-RSI Fascists and their apologists to re-write history. The current crop of postwar Fascist apologists has vied with outspoken anti-Fascists for the attention of the general Italian reader, which has given rise to an evolving political marriage de convenance between the two ancient rivals that has left the RSI’s ultimate legacy open to doubt.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Cited in Avagliano and Palmieri , L’Italia di Salò, p. 403.

  2. 2.

    Algardi, Processi ai fascisti, pp. 213–14.

  3. 3.

    Cooke, The Legacy of the Italian Resistance, p. 22.

  4. 4.

    Hans Woller , I conti con il fascismo: L’epurazione in Italia 1943–1948 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1997), p 103. On the armistice, see Elena Aga Rossi, A Nation Collapses. The Italian Surrender of September 1943.

  5. 5.

    Roy Palmer Domenico , Italian Fascists on Trial, 1943–1948 (Chapel Hill, NC and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991), p. 75.

  6. 6.

    In May 1946 Vittorio Emanuele officially abdicated and went into exile in Egypt.

  7. 7.

    Woller , I conti con il Fascismo, p. 196.

  8. 8.

    Domenico , Italian Fascists on Trial, pp. 73–77; Mirco Dondi, La lunga liberazione: Giustizia e violenza nel dopoguerra italiano (Rome: Riuniti, 2004), p. 34.

  9. 9.

    Dondi, La lunga liberazione, pp. 31–33; Woller, I conti con il Fascismo, pp. 196–97.

  10. 10.

    Domenico , Italian Fascists on Trial, p. 90.

  11. 11.

    Woller , I conti con il Fascismo, p. 193.

  12. 12.

    Domenico , Italian Fascists on Trial, pp. 92–97.

  13. 13.

    “Caruso fucilato,” La Stampa, 23 September 1944.

  14. 14.

    Katz, The Battle for Rome, p. 331.

  15. 15.

    Domenico , Italian Fascists on Trial, p. 122.

  16. 16.

    Ibid., p. 124.

  17. 17.

    Roatta’s flight raised a storm of anger among Romans. The press on the left unleashed a violent campaign. For example: “Chi sono i complici del fuggiasco Roatta?” L’Unità, 6 March 1945; “I carabinieri avevano l’ordine di salutare l’Eccellenza Roatta,” Avanti!, 9 October 1945.

  18. 18.

    This story can be found in Burgwyn, Empire on the Adriatic, in the section “Italy Saves the Jews,” pp. 185–94.

  19. 19.

    Woller , I conti con il fascismo, pp. 312–13.

  20. 20.

    Domenico , Italian Fascists on Trial, p. 173; Michele Battini, The Missing Italian Nuremberg: Cultural Amnesia and Postwar Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 18.

  21. 21.

    Woller , I conti con il fascismo, pp. 260–72.

  22. 22.

    Ibid., pp. 246–47.

  23. 23.

    Domenico , Italian Fascists on Trial, p. 146.

  24. 24.

    Ibid., pp. 146–47.

  25. 25.

    Dondi, La lunga liberazione, p. 108.

  26. 26.

    Cited in Pansa , I vinti non dimenticano, Kindle edition, location 3891.

  27. 27.

    Cooke, The Legacy of the Italian Resistance, p. 16.

  28. 28.

    Filippo Focardi, La guerra della memoria: La Resistenza nel dibattito politico italiano dal 1945 a oggi (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2005), p. 309.

  29. 29.

    Denis Mack Smith, Mussolini (London: Paladin Grafton, 1983), p. 357; Bocca , Storia dell’Italia partigiana, p. 566; Bertoldi , Salò, pp. 207–08.

  30. 30.

    Aldo Lualdi, La banda Koch. Un aguzzino al servizio del regime (Milan: Bompiani, 1972).

  31. 31.

    Bertoldi , Salò, p. 222.

  32. 32.

    Griner, La “Pupilla” del Duce, p. 203.

  33. 33.

    Moseley, Mussolini, p. 139. See his footnote 22, in Chap. 1.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., p. 138.

  35. 35.

    Bosworth, Mussolini’s Italy, p. 544; Domenico , Italian Fascists on Trial, pp. 154, 175.

  36. 36.

    ACS, Ministero Grazia e Giustizia, Grazie, Collaborazionisti, b. 22, f. “Vigna Alberto.”

  37. 37.

    ACS, Ministero di Grazia e Giustizia, Grazie, Collaborazionisti, f. 171.

  38. 38.

    ACS, Ministero dell’Interno, Carte SIS, b. 30.

  39. 39.

    Michele Battini, “Sins of Memory: Reflections on the Back of an Italian Nuremberg and the Administration of International Justice after 1945,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 9:3 (Fall 2004), p. 354.

  40. 40.

    Cited in Domenico , Italian Fascists on Trial, p. 154.

  41. 41.

    Mimmo Franzinelli, L’amnistia Togliatti, 22 giugno 1946: Colpo di spugna sui criminali fascisti (Milan: Mondadori, 2006), p. 170.

  42. 42.

    Lamb , War in Italy, p. 74.

  43. 43.

    Dondi, La lunga liberazione, p. 59.

  44. 44.

    Lowe, Savage Continent, p. 151.

  45. 45.

    Ibid., pp. 150–51.

  46. 46.

    Parlato, Fascisti senza Mussolini, p. 141.

  47. 47.

    Domenico , Italian Fascists on Trial, pp. 190–230.

  48. 48.

    Franzinelli, L’amnistia Togliatti, pp. 180–84.

  49. 49.

    Di Scala, “Resistance Mythology,” p. 72.

  50. 50.

    Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (London: Penguin Books, 2005), p. 51.

  51. 51.

    Cited in Domenico , Italian Fascists on Trial, p. 210.

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  1. Department of History, West Chester University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    H. James Burgwyn

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Burgwyn, H.J. (2018). Legacy of the RSI. 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_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76189-3_19

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-76188-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-76189-3

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