Abstract
On June 8, Roatta wrote a rather worried letter to Robotti in which he insisted that the general “reestablish order in the province.” Roatta’s intentions were specific. They were to destroy “the central directing organization” of the “subversive movement,” a fairly important phrase because with it Roatta recognized that the Resistance had a single and acknowledged command structure, one of the criteria used to identify the enemy as a “legitimate belligerent.” To obtain this result, among the methods to be used were the preventive internment in concentration camps of anyone who might be recruited by the “rebels”; the protective internment of collaborators in danger; the killing of hostages; reprisals, including the destruction of houses or villages, but only in the cases set out in the circular 3 C; the work of “dividing” the rebels, arming anticommunist Slovenians (“setting one against the other”); the “massive” movement of residents out of specific areas. From a strictly military viewpoint, Roatta gave highly detailed directives on the organization and garrisons and raid operations, but above all gave the clear order “always to move forward with the greatest energy and decision, and to kill our adversaries inexorably and immediately along with those who help them. During the raids, whoever makes any hostile act, or gives any help to the rebels, shall immediately be shot.”1
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Notes
Tone Ferenc indicates at Ljubljana, on June 11, 7 persons shot. On June 13, he mentions a further 15 persons shot, once again at Ljubljana. T. Ferenc (1999), “Si ammazza troppo poco”. Condannati a morte—ostaggi —passati per le armi nella provincia di Lubiana 1941–1943. Documenti (Ljubljiana: Istituto per la Storia Moderna), p. 238. On via Rasella and the Fosse Ardeatine, much has been written.
Among the most recent are L. Klinkhammer (2006), Stragi naziste in Italia, 1943–44 (Rome: Donzelli)
and J. Staron (2007), Fosse Ardeatine e Marzabotto. Storia e memoria di due stragi tedesche (Bologna: il Mulino).
U. Cavallero (1948), Comando supremo. Diario 1940–43 del Capo di S.M.G. (Bologna: Cappelli), pp. 297 and following.
P. Brignoli (1973), Santa Messa per i miei fucilati. Le spietate rappresaglie italiane contro i partigiani in Croazia dal diario di un cappellano (Milan: Longanesi), p. 25.
Both these quotations in J. H. Burgwyn (2005), Empire on Adriatic. Mussolini’s Conquest of Yugoslavia 1941–1943 (New York: Enigma Books), p. 149.
Here I may refer readers to A. Osti Guerrazzi (2010), Noi non sappiamo odiare. L’esercito italiano tra fascismo e democrazia (Turin: Utet).
A. Rossi (2004), Le guerre delle camicie nere. La milizia fascista dalla guerra mondiale alla guerra civile (Pisa: Bfs), p. 54.
M. Mazower (2009), Hitler’s Empire. Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe (London: Penguin), p. 353.
R. Montagna (1946), Mussolini e il processo di Verona (Milan: Mondadori), pp. 33 and following.
E. Gobetti (2007), L’occupazione allegra. Gli italiani in Jugoslavia (1941–1943) (Rome: Carocci), p. 190.
Statement of the Granatiere Antonio Finco, in G. Bedeschi (ed.) (1985), Fronte jugoslavo-balcanico: c’ero anch’io (Milano: Mursia), p. 207.
M. Gigli (1993), Classe 1921. Ricordi della guerra 1941–43 in Jugoslavia (Rome: SEAM), p. 27.
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© 2013 Amedeo Osti Guerrazzi
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Guerrazzi, A.O. (2013). Summer 1942. In: The Italian Army in Slovenia. Italian and Italian American Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137281203_5
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