Anti-fascist resistance movement in Italy. Comments. Permanent address of this publication
Italian patriots played an important role in the struggle against the fascist enslavers in Italy. Their activities were especially intensified from the summer of 1944 under the influence of the major victories of the Soviet Armed Forces and the armies of the Western allies. This was also facilitated by the strengthening of the positions of progressive forces in Italy itself. During this period, the number of partisans increased sharply. So, if in February - March 1944 there were 20 - 30 thousand of them in Northern Italy, then by June 15 - already 82 thousand (768). A significant number of Soviet citizens who fled from the fascist camps fought in their ranks.
The organizational structure of the partisan formations also changed. Detachments were battalions, which were reduced to brigades, and brigades - to divisions. The underground groups of the patriotic movement in the cities (GAP) and the armed self-defense detachments in rural areas (SAP) created by the communists were also strengthened organizationally. The main partisan forces were concentrated in Piedmont, Liguria, Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy, Veneto. In June 1944, all formations were consolidated into a single partisan army - the Corps of Freedom Volunteers (KDS) with a single main command. Although the Italian Communist Party was the initiator of the unification, under pressure from the Western allies and the Bonomi government, a representative of the liberal party, General R. Cadorna, was appointed commander-in-chief of the CDU in August. The left-wing parties agreed to this appointment on the condition that L. Longo, one of the leaders of the PCI, and F. Parry, a prominent figure in the Action Party, be political commissars under the commander-in-chief. They became deputies of Cadorna, but in fact the leading role in the leadership of the partisan movement belonged to them, which corresponded to the real ratio of the fighters of the partisan army by party affiliation.
The High Command of the KDS in the very first documents adopted by it undertook to carry out the functions assigned to it under the leadership of the Committee for the National Liberation of Northern Italy (KNOSI), to coordinate its actions with the Italian government and the allied command (769) .
On June 2, 1944, KNOSI took over the functions of the "emergency government" of the occupied part of Italy and declared that its goal was to prepare a national uprising. The directives prepared by the General Secretary of the Italian Communist Party P. Togliatti and sent on June 6, 1944 to all party organizations and Garibaldian detachments contained instructions on the deployment of preparations for a general uprising in the occupied areas. The directives emphasized that it should not be the work of one party or part of the anti-fascist front, but of the whole people, the whole nation.
KNOSI obeyed all partisan formations created by various political parties. In each area where partisan operations were deployed, an appropriate command was appointed, subordinate to the center, as well as the command of the underground workers operating in the cities. 41 percent of the partisan formations were communist Garibaldi detachments, 29 percent were detachments of the Party of Action (770).
The communists sought to strengthen the party cells not only in their own, but also in other partisan detachments, advocated an agreed line of all patriots: communists, socialists and members of the Action Party. The leading role of the Communist Party in the armed struggle, its line of uniting the left political forces ensured its decisive influence in the partisan army. Most of the political commissars of the detachments supported the policy of the communists, aimed at expelling the German occupiers.
In the summer and autumn of 1944, the question of coordinating the actions of the partisan army and the allied forces became particularly acute. Usually the Anglo-American command relied extensively on the help of the patriots of Italy, but did not always coordinate its plans with the leadership of the partisan movement. It set before the forces of the Resistance only general tasks. Thus, the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces, in his address of June 6, 1944, called on all patriots in the occupied Italian territory to “unanimously rise up against the common enemy” (771) . The partisan command, on the other hand, did not receive the necessary information and therefore was forced to independently determine the goals and objectives of its actions, based on assumptions about the possible development of the allied operations. At the same time, it believed that “patriot detachments operating in the mountains should in no case strive to transfer their actions to the cities at all costs”, that they should go to “the enemy’s retreat path” and actively pursue him (772 ) .
In a number of cases, the Anglo-American command not only ignored the partisan movement, but also created difficulties in its deployment. The first British and American missions, which began to arrive in the partisan detachments in the spring of 1944, settled under what they considered to be “more right-wing” commands. When distributing weapons, ammunition and subversive means dropped by the allies from aircraft, the missions pursued a policy of discrimination against leftist forces. “This discrimination,” writes the former commander of the partisan division R. Battaglia, “was definitely directed precisely against the strongest formations, that is, against the Garibaldian detachments ...” (773) Thus, in Liguria, in the province of La Spezia, mission 5- th US Army demanded categorical assurances that weapons and food would not go to communist guerrilla groups.
These actions of the allies made it difficult, but could not stop the deployment of the partisan movement in Italy, in which the main force was detachments led by the communists (774). In 1944, the anti-fascist armed struggle entered a new phase and took on the character of a broad people's war against the German occupiers and their accomplices. During the summer-autumn offensive, the partisans liberated Florence, assisted the allied forces in expelling the enemy from the regions of Tuscany and the Marche, from many settlements and entire regions of Piedmont. Liguria, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto.
In a number of areas of Northern Italy occupied by the Nazis, there was actually dual power: the fascist regime, which more and more discredited itself, and the power of anti-fascist organs, which was exercised illegally, but was very popular among the population (775) . In addition, the patriots in northern Italy, on the instructions of the KNOSI, created 15 liberated zones behind enemy lines in June-July. The largest of them were called "partisan republics". In particular, 70 thousand inhabitants lived in the Republic of Carnia (the administrative center is the city of Ampezzo), and 30 thousand lived in the territory of the Republic of Montefiorino. Most of the “republics” created in June - July existed until August, and some of them - until October, when they were occupied by the Nazis. But as a result of the autumn offensive of the partisans, new liberated zones arose. In total, from September to December, there were ten of them. The largest of them were the Republic of Torrilla (between Genoa and Piacenza), the Republic of Monferrato (in Piedmont) and the Republic of Ossola (in Lombardy, between the Monte Rosa mountain range and Lake Maggiore), whose administrative center was the city of Domodossola. In the Republic of Ossola, more than 70 thousand inhabitants lived in 28 communes, it had a direct railway connection with Switzerland (776).
At first, in the liberated zones, the partisan command often assumed the functions of administrative control. But from the very first days of their emergence, the Italian communists did a great job of creating democratic administrative bodies. In this regard, the message of the federal committee of the Communist Party of Genoa, sent at the end of August 1944 to the command of the Garibaldi division, is characteristic. In particular, it emphasized: “We must help, encourage, advise, but at the same time, it is necessary to find people among the local population who will be responsible leaders of the new democratic administration” (777) . Gradually, power in the liberated zones passed into the hands of the central juntas, which included representatives of various anti-fascist political parties (communists, socialists, Christian democrats, and others). They vigorously carried out the democratization of social and political life in the localities. People's tribunals tried fascist criminals. By decision of the junt, a progressive property tax was introduced, price controls were established, surplus food was distributed among the needy, and material assistance was provided to partisans, and sometimes to workers in cities occupied by the Nazis.
The sabotage actions of partisan detachments intensified. The number of acts of sabotage on highways, railways, and telephone lines increased from 241 in May to 344 in June. The guerrillas destroyed bridges, ambushed roads, raided transport columns, derailed trains with military supplies and troops, and sowed panic in the enemy camp. To combat them, the German command often even had to withdraw units from the front. If at first the fascists used ordinary infantry units armed mainly with small arms against the partisans, then later specially trained troops were involved, tanks and artillery were used. Since the summer of 1944 the fighting of the participants in the Italian resistance movement fettered large enemy forces. “From that time on,” Field Marshal Kesselring later admitted, “partisan warfare became a real danger for the German command, the elimination of which was decisive for the outcome of the military campaign” (778).
In September, the Nazis and their accomplices decided to conduct an operation in order to liquidate the liberated areas and capture all the key positions of the partisans. It was prepared secretly, was started suddenly and was accompanied by cruel repressions. The troops participating in it went on the offensive on September 20 and continued it for three months. Moreover, the same forces were used in the operation, which were transferred from one zone to another.
For the partisan command, the enemy's plan of action was unexpected. It expected that the Nazis would strike from the Venetian lowland at the center of the front of the partisan forces. The punishers, however, decided to first defeat his flanks: in the west - near Mount Grappa and the adjacent zone, in the east - in the area of the Isonzo River. Only then did they strike at the center, but not from the south, as the partisans assumed, but from the north. Taking the partisan forces in a giant ring, the Nazis pushed them back from the foothills of the Carnic Alps to a narrower area. The punitive operation was accompanied by mass shootings and executions of local residents, the destruction of settlements. This was the most difficult period in the Italian resistance movement. And in this difficult time, the Anglo-American command not only did not provide assistance to the partisan detachments, but also stopped their supply (779). On November 10, General Alexander's appeal was published, in which the partisans were asked to stop conducting operations on a large scale for a while, to save weapons and ammunition and to be in readiness until new orders.
This appeal was transmitted over the radio in clear text, and the enemy, intercepting it, guessed that the Anglo-American command intended to postpone all offensive operations in Italy and that, thus, a respite was coming on the front. Alexander's proposal to weaken the struggle against the invaders and the Italian fascists greatly facilitated their counter-partisan operations. In the winter of 1944/45, the Nazi command involved up to 15 divisions, including 10 German divisions, in carrying out punitive expeditions.
In this situation, the Italian Communist Party made great efforts to ensure the activity of the partisan movement. As one of the leaders of the partisan movement, L. Longo, wrote, she energetically opposed the demoralizing and demobilizing measures of the Anglo-American command and “appealed to all the people, organized the collection of food, clothing and all the materials necessary for the partisan struggle in the harsh winter . This campaign made it possible ... not only to preserve the combat effectiveness of the partisan organization, but also to create new bonds of solidarity between the resistance fighters and the people” (780) .
By the end of 1944, the partisans had suffered heavy losses in the fight against the invaders. According to G. Serbandini (Bini), one of the organizers of the Resistance movement in Italy, at that time they had ten times less forces than the enemy acting against them (781). However, this time the Italian-German fascists failed to suppress the resistance movement. The partisan detachments, led by the Italian Communist Party, inspired by the decisive victories of the Soviet Armed Forces and the lofty goals of the liberation struggle, withstood the new onslaught of the enemy. Despite significant losses, the Resistance army became an even more cohesive and organized fighting force.
Thus, the Anglo-American troops on the Italian front, operating in the highlands, within seven months advanced northward up to 320 km and captured the central part of the country, found themselves 280 km from the southern border of Austria occupied by the Nazis. By capturing air bases in the areas of Rome and Florence and relocating large aviation forces here, the Allies received great opportunities for delivering powerful air strikes against Germany from the south. With the capture of a number of seaports in Italy (Livorno, Ancona, etc.), the basing of the allied naval forces improved, providing support to coastal groups, and the supply of troops was facilitated.
During the operations of the allied forces, in whose ranks the British, Americans, Algerians, Brazilians, Greeks, Indians, Italians, Canadians, Poles, French and representatives of other peoples fought, 15 German divisions were defeated, including 1 tank and 3 motorized. In total, the Wehrmacht troops in June - December lost 19 thousand people killed, 65 thousand wounded and 65 thousand missing (782). At the same time, they suffered significant losses from the attacks of the Anglo-American aviation. Allied losses amounted to about 32 thousand people killed, over 134 thousand wounded and about 23 thousand missing (783).
The success of the Allies in Italy was achieved by the joint efforts of all branches of the armed forces. The actions of the ground forces, which played the main role in the battles on the Apennine Peninsula, were supported by massive air strikes. The ships of the navy provided fire assistance to the troops advancing along the coast, covered their coastal flanks, disrupted the enemy's and protected their sea lanes.
In mountainous areas, the allied command sought to strike along the valleys in order to use all types of troops. Breakthrough of the enemy defenses was carried out in narrow sections of the front. 45-60 percent of all infantry formations, about 70 percent of tanks, up to 70 percent of artillery and the bulk of aviation were concentrated here.
To break through the defensive lines, the troops of the army group were built in one echelon. The penetration of the defense by infantry divisions was usually carried out after a long aviation and powerful artillery preparation, with the support of tanks, aircraft and artillery, by successively mastering individual strongholds. The average rate of advance when overcoming the tactical defense zone in mountainous terrain did not exceed 1 - 2 km per day. The troops pursued the enemy indecisively, they failed to use favorable opportunities to cut off his retreat. As a rule, the Nazis withdrew almost unhindered to previously prepared lines, and the Anglo-American troops had to break through again.
The offensive of the allied forces was actively promoted by the Italian partisans. Between June 1944 Until March 1945, they carried out 6449 armed actions, 5570 acts of sabotage, destroyed at least 16 thousand Nazis and captured a large number of enemy weapons (784). These successes of the Italian partisans and all patriots were achieved in an exceptionally difficult situation created by the mass terror of the Nazi troops and the Italian fascists who collaborated with them, as well as by the policy of reactionary circles in the USA and Great Britain directed against the communists and other progressive forces of Italy.
The allied forces in Italy could have achieved greater success and carried the operations to completion if there had always been consistency in their actions. The offensive of the British and American armies, as a rule, was planned and carried out at different times: if one of them went on the offensive, the other only prepared for it, and vice versa. This allowed the German command not only to maneuver on its own and quite quickly localize the breakthroughs of the allied forces, but also to transfer formations from the Italian front to southern France, Greece and to the eastern front.
One of the main reasons for the incompleteness of the Allied operations in Italy lies in the indecisiveness of the actions of the Anglo-American command. Former Hitler General 3. Westphal writes in this regard: “... if the Western allies had shown more courage in resolving operational issues, they could have victoriously ended the campaign on the Apennine Peninsula much earlier and with much less losses for themselves and others” ( 785) . Meanwhile, in a number of British and American military-historical works this circumstance is ignored. The combat operations of the allied troops against the enemy, who was significantly inferior to them in forces and means, are presented as an “assault on a European fortress”, while the “power” of the defense and the fierce resistance of the Nazis are exaggerated. The authors of such books argue that the allied command always showed courage and determination when planning operations in Italy, but all their efforts were minimized by the supposedly constant superiority of the enemy in the number of troops (with the exception of a short period of time in the summer of 1944).
Churchill's statements that the main task of the Anglo-American armies in Italy, which consisted in pinning down as many German forces as possible, "was excellently carried out" (786) do not correspond to historical facts, and this allegedly greatly facilitated the landing of the allies. in Normandy and the offensive of the Soviet Army. Of course, the actions of the Anglo-American troops in Italy fettered a certain grouping of fascist German troops, but the Nazi command kept an insignificant part of its forces here. In addition, it, taking advantage of the indecisiveness of the Americans and the British that manifested itself during the battles, withdrew 6 of the most combat-ready divisions from Italy, sending 3 of them (including the Hermann Goering tank division) to the eastern front and 3 (including 2 motorized) - To France. The 4 divisions that arrived in return from France, 2 from the Balkans and from Norway, and 11 newly formed formations in Italy (9 divisions and two brigades) had a low combat capability and could be used mainly for occupation service and coastal defense.
The fascist German command pursued a purely defensive strategy in Italy. Skillfully using mountainous conditions to create defenses and repel the attacks of the allied forces, it avoided the defeat of its Italian grouping and stopped their advance at a prearranged line.
On June 29, the Russian Federation celebrates the Day of Partisans and Underground Workers. This memorable date was established in honor of the heroic Soviet partisans and members of the anti-fascist underground, who during the Great Patriotic War opposed the Nazi invaders in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union. But not only the Soviet land was defended from the Nazis by partisan heroes. Many Soviet soldiers during the Second World War fought against fascism outside the Soviet Union, primarily in the countries of Eastern and Western Europe. First of all, these were Soviet prisoners of war who managed to escape from Nazi concentration camps and join the ranks of the anti-fascist underground in those countries in whose territory they were held captive.
Creation of the resistance movement in Italy
One of the most numerous and active partisan movements against fascism unfolded during the Second World War in Italy. In fact, anti-fascist resistance in Italy began as early as the 1920s, as soon as Benito Mussolini came to power and established a fascist dictatorship. Communists, socialists, anarchists, and later representatives of the left movements in fascism took part in the resistance (there were also those who were dissatisfied with Mussolini's alliance with Hitler). However, before the outbreak of World War II, anti-fascist resistance in Italy was fragmented and relatively successfully suppressed by the fascist militia and army. The situation changed with the start of the war. The Resistance Movement was created as a result of the combined efforts of individual groups formed by representatives of the Italian political opposition, including military personnel.
It should be noted that the Italian partisan movement, after the overthrow of Mussolini and the occupation of Italy by the Nazis, received tremendous support from the Italian army. Italian troops, who had gone over to the side of the anti-fascist government of Italy, were sent to the front against the Nazi army. Rome was defended by the divisions of the Italian army "Granatieri" and "Ariete", but later they were forced to withdraw. But it was from the warehouses of the Italian army that the partisan movement received most of its weapons. Representatives of the Communist Party, led by Luigi Longo, held talks with General Giacomo Carboni, who led the military intelligence of Italy and at the same time commanded the mechanized corps of the Italian army, which defended Rome from the advancing Nazi troops. General Carboni ordered to transfer to Luigi Longo two trucks of weapons and ammunition intended for the deployment of a partisan movement against the Nazi invaders. After the September 9, 1943, the Italian troops defending Rome ceased resistance and units of the Wehrmacht and the SS entered the Italian capital, the only hope remained for the partisan movement.
On September 9, 1943, the Italian National Liberation Committee was created, which began to play the role of formal leadership of the Italian anti-fascist partisan movement. The Committee of National Liberation included representatives of the Communist, Liberal, Socialist, Christian Democratic, Labor Democratic parties and the Party of Action. The leadership of the committee maintained contact with the command of the armed forces of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. In Northern Italy, occupied by Nazi troops, the Committee for the Liberation of Northern Italy was created, to which the partisan formations operating in the region were subordinate. The partisan movement included three key armed forces. The first - the Garibaldi brigades - was controlled by the Italian communists, the second - the organization "Justice and Freedom" - was under the control of the Action Party, and the third - the Matteotti brigades - was subordinate to the leadership of the Socialist Party. In addition, a few partisan groups operated in Italy, staffed by monarchists, anarchists and anti-fascists without pronounced political sympathies.
On November 25, 1943, under the control of the communists, the formation of the Garibaldi brigades began. By April 1945, 575 Garibaldian brigades were operating in Italy, each of which numbered approximately 40-50 partisans, united in 4-5 groups of two links of five people. The direct command of the brigades was carried out by the leaders of the Italian Communist Party, Luigi Longo and Pietro Secchia. The size of the Garibaldi brigades was about half of the total strength of the Italian partisan movement. In the period from mid-1944 to March 1945 alone, the Garibaldi brigades created by the communists accounted for at least 6.5 thousand military operations and 5.5 thousand sabotage against the objects of the occupation infrastructure. The total number of fighters and commanders of the Garibaldi brigades by the end of April 1945 was at least 51 thousand people, united in 23 partisan divisions. Most of the divisions of the Garibaldi Brigades were stationed in Piedmont, but partisans also operated in Liguria, Veneto, Emilia and Lombardy.
Russian "Garibaldians"
Many Soviet citizens joined the ranks of the Italian Resistance, who escaped from prisoner-of-war camps or found themselves in Italy in some other way. When the German prisoner of war camps were overcrowded, a significant part of the soldiers and officers of the Allied troops and the Red Army who were in captivity were transferred to camps in Italy. The total number of prisoners of war in Italy reached 80 thousand people, of which 20 thousand people were military personnel and civilian prisoners of war from the Soviet Union. Soviet prisoners of war were placed in northern Italy - in the industrial region of Milan, Turin and Genoa. Many of them were used as labor force in the construction of fortifications on the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian coasts. Those of the prisoners of war who were lucky enough to escape joined partisan detachments and underground organizations operating in cities and rural areas. Many Soviet servicemen, breaking into the territory of active Italian partisans, joined the Garibaldi brigades. Thus, Azerbaijani Ali Baba ogly Babaev (born 1910), who was in a prisoner of war camp in Udine, escaped from captivity with the help of Italian communists and joined the Garibaldi brigades. As an officer of the Red Army, he was appointed to the position of the Chapaev battalion created as part of the brigades. Vladimir Yakovlevich Pereladov (born 1918) in the Red Army served as the commander of an anti-tank battery, was taken prisoner. Tried to escape three times, but failed. Finally, already in Italy, luck smiled at the Soviet officer. Pereladov fled with the help of the Italian communists and was transferred to the province of Modena, where he joined the local partisans. As part of the Garibaldi brigades, Pereladov was appointed commander of the Russian shock battalion. Three hundred thousand lire was promised by the occupation authorities of Italy for the capture of "Captain Russo", as the locals called Vladimir Yakovlevich. Pereladov's detachment managed to inflict colossal damage on the Nazis - destroy 350 vehicles with soldiers and cargo, blow up 121 bridges, capture at least 4,500 soldiers and officers of the Nazi army and Italian fascist formations. It was the Russian shock battalion that was one of the first to break into the city of Montefiorino, where the famous partisan republic was created. The national hero of Italy was Fedor Andrianovich Poletaev (1909-1945) - private guard, artilleryman. Like his other comrades, Soviet soldiers who ended up on Italian soil, Poletaev was captured. Only in the summer of 1944, with the help of the Italian communists, did he manage to escape from the camp located in the vicinity of Genoa. Having escaped from captivity, Poletaev joined the battalion of Nino Franchi, which was part of the Orest brigade. Colleagues in the partisan detachment called Fedor "Poetan". On February 2, 1945, during the battle in the valley of Lightning Valle - Scrivia, Poletaev went on the attack and forced most of the Nazis to drop their weapons. But one of the German soldiers fired at the brave partisan. Wounded in the throat Poletaev died. After the war, he was buried in Genoa, and only in 1962 the feat of Fedor Andrianovich was appreciated at its true worth in his homeland - Poletaev was posthumously awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
The number of Soviet partisans who fought in Italy is estimated by modern historians at many thousands of people. In Tuscany alone, 1,600 Soviet citizens fought against the Nazis and local fascists, about 800 Soviet soldiers and officers fought partisans in the province of Emilia Romagna, 700 people in Piedmont, 400 people in Liguria, 400 people in Lombardy, 700 people in Veneto. It was the large number of Soviet partisans that prompted the leadership of the Italian Resistance to begin the formation of "Russian" companies and battalions as part of the Garibaldi brigades, although, of course, among the Soviet partisans were not only Russians, but also people of various nationalities of the Soviet Union. In the province of Novara, Fore Mosulishvili (1916-1944), a Soviet soldier, Georgian by nationality, accomplished his feat. Like many of his peers, with the outbreak of war, he was drafted into the army, received a senior rank, and was captured in the Baltic states. In Italy, he was lucky enough to escape from a POW camp. On December 3, 1944, the detachment, in which Mosulishvili was also, was surrounded. The Nazis blocked the partisans in the premises of the cheese factory and repeatedly offered the anti-fascists to surrender. In the end, the Germans, seeing that the resistance of the partisans did not stop, promised to save the lives of the partisans if the platoon commander came out to them first. However, the platoon commander did not dare to go out first and then at the entrance to the cheese factory with the words “I am the commander!” Fore Mosulishvili appeared. He shouted “Long live the Soviet Union! Long live Free Italy! and shot himself in the head (Bautdinov G. “We beat the Nazis in Italy” // http://www.konkurs.senat.org/).
It is noteworthy that among the partisans who took up arms against the fascist dictatorship of Mussolini, and then against the Nazi troops that occupied Italy, there were also Russians who lived on Italian soil before the war. First of all, we are talking about white emigrants who, despite completely different political positions, found the courage to take the side of the communist Soviet Union against fascism.
- Hero of the Soviet Union foreman Christopher Nikolaevich Mosulishvili.
Comrade Chervonny
When the Civil War began in Russia, young Aleksey Nikolaevich Fleisher (1902-1968) was a cadet - as befits a nobleman, a hereditary military man, whose father served in the Russian army with the rank of lieutenant colonel. The Fleischers, Danes by origin, settled in the Russian Empire and received the nobility, after which many of them served the Russian Empire in the military field for two centuries. The young cadet Alexei Fleischer, along with his other classmates, was evacuated by the Wrangelites from the Crimea. So he ended up in Europe - a seventeen-year-old boy who, just yesterday, was going to devote himself to military service for the glory of the Russian state. Like many other emigrants, Alexei Fleisher had to try himself in various professions in a foreign land. Initially settling in Bulgaria, he got a job as a molder at a brick factory, worked as a miner, then moved to Luxembourg, where he worked at a leather factory. The son of a lieutenant colonel, who also had to wear officer's shoulder straps, became an ordinary European proletarian. After moving from Luxembourg to France, Fleischer got a job as an excavator driver, then as a cable car driver, and was a driver for an Italian diplomat in Nice. Before the war, Alexey Fleischer lived in Belgrade, where he worked as a driver for the Greek diplomatic mission. In 1941, when Italian troops invaded Yugoslavia, Aleksey Fleischer, as a person of Russian origin, was detained and sent in early 1942 into exile in Italy. There, under the supervision of the police, he was settled in one of the small villages, but soon managed to obtain permission to live in Rome - albeit also under the supervision of the Italian secret services. In October 1942, Alexey Fleisher got a job as a head waiter at the embassy of Siam (Thailand). Thailand acted in the Second World War on the side of Japan, therefore it had a diplomatic mission in Italy, and the employees of the Siamese embassy did not arouse any special suspicions from the special services.
After the Anglo-American troops landed on the Italian coast, the Siam embassy was evacuated to the north of Italy - to the zone of Nazi occupation. Alexei Fleischer remained to guard the empty building of the embassy in Rome. He turned it into the headquarters of the Italian anti-fascists, where many prominent figures of the local underground visited. Through the Italian underground, Fleischer got in touch with Soviet prisoners of war who were in Italy. The backbone of the partisan movement was precisely the fugitives from the prisoner of war camps, who acted with the active support of immigrants from Russia living in Rome and other Italian cities. Aleksey Fleisher, a nobleman and white émigré, received the combat nickname "Chervonny" from the Soviet partisans. Lieutenant Alexei Kolyaskin, who took part in the Italian partisan movement, recalled that Fleischer, “an honest and courageous man helped his compatriots escape to freedom and supplied them with everything they needed, including weapons” (Quoted from: Prokhorov Yu. I. Cossacks for Russia // Siberian Cossack Journal (Novosibirsk), 1996, No. 3). Fleischer was directly assisted by other Russian emigrants, who formed a whole underground group. An important role in the Russian underground was played by Prince Sergei Obolensky, who acted under the guise of the "Committee for the Protection of Russian Prisoners of War." Prince Alexander Sumbatov got Alexei Fleischer a maître d' at the Thai embassy. In addition to princes Obolensky and Sumbatov, the Russian emigrant underground organization included Ilya Tolstoy, artist Alexei Isupov, bricklayer Kuzma Zaitsev, Vera Dolgina, priests Dorofey Beschastny and Ilya Markov.
In October 1943, members of the Roman underground learned that in the vicinity of Rome, at the location of the Nazi troops, there was a significant number of Soviet prisoners of war. It was decided to launch active work to help fugitive prisoners of war, which consisted in sheltering the fugitives and transferring them to active partisan detachments, as well as providing food, clothing and weapons for the fleeing Soviet prisoners of war. In July 1943, the Germans delivered 120 Soviet prisoners of war to the outskirts of Rome, where they were first used in the construction of facilities, and then distributed among industrial enterprises and construction sites in cities adjacent to Rome. Seventy prisoners of war worked at the dismantling of the aircraft factory in Monterotondo, fifty people worked at the car repair factory in Bracciano. Then, in October 1943, the command of the Italian partisan forces operating in the Lazio region decided to organize the escape of Soviet prisoners of war held in the vicinity of Rome. The direct organization of the escape was entrusted to the Roman group of Russian emigrants under the leadership of Alexei Fleisher. On October 24, 1943, Alexei Fleischer, accompanied by two anti-fascist Italians, went to Monterotondo, from where 14 prisoners of war escaped on the same day. Among the first to escape from the camp was Lieutenant Aleksey Kolyaskin, who later joined the partisans and took an active part in the armed anti-fascist struggle in Italy. In total, the Fleischer group rescued 186 Soviet soldiers and officers who were held captive in Italy. Many of them were transferred to partisan detachments.
Partisan detachments on the outskirts of Rome
In the area of Genzano and Palestrina, a Russian partisan detachment was created, staffed by fugitive prisoners of war. They were commanded by Lieutenant Alexei Kolyaskin. Two Russian partisan detachments operated in the Monterotondo area. The command of both detachments was carried out by Anatoly Mikhailovich Tarasenko - an amazing person, a Siberian. Before the war, Tarasenko lived in the Irkutsk region, in the Tanguy district, where he was engaged in a completely peaceful business - trade. It is unlikely that the Irkutsk salesman Anatoly could imagine his future as a commander of a partisan detachment on distant Italian soil even in a dream. In the summer of 1941, Anatoly's brother Vladimir Tarasenko died in the battles near Leningrad. Anatoly went to the front, served in the artillery, was wounded. In June 1942, Corporal Tarasenko, having received a shell shock, was taken prisoner. At first he was in a prisoner of war camp on the territory of Estonia, and in September 1943 he was transferred, along with other comrades in misfortune, to Italy. There he fled from the camp, joining the partisans. Another Russian partisan detachment was formed in the area of Ottavia and Monte Mario. A separate underground "Youth Detachment" operated in Rome. It was headed by Petr Stepanovich Konopelko.
Like Tarasenko, Pyotr Stepanovich Konopelko was a Siberian. He was in a POW camp guarded by Italian soldiers. Together with Soviet soldiers, captured French, Belgian and Czech soldiers were kept here. Together with comrade Anatoly Kurnosov, Konopelko tried to escape from the camp, but was caught. Kurnosov and Konopelko were placed in the Roman prison, and then transferred back to the POW camp. There, a certain D "Amiko, a local resident who was a member of an underground anti-fascist group, got in touch with them. His wife was Russian by nationality, and D" Amiko himself lived for some time in Leningrad. Soon Konopelko and Kurnosov fled from the POW camp. They hid at Fleischer's - on the territory of the former Thai embassy. Petr Konopelko was appointed commander of the Youth Detachment. Konopelko moved around Rome, posing as the deaf-and-dumb Italian Giovanni Beneditto. He led the transfer of escaped Soviet prisoners of war to the mountainous regions - to the partisan detachments operating there, or hid the fugitives in the abandoned Thai embassy. Soon, new underground workers appeared on the territory of the embassy - sisters Tamara and Lyudmila Georgievsky, Pyotr Mezheritsky, Nikolai Khvatov. The Germans took the Georgievsky sisters to work from their native Gorlovka, but the girls managed to escape and join the partisan detachment as messengers. Fleischer himself sometimes dressed in the uniform of a German officer and moved around Rome for reconnaissance purposes. He did not arouse suspicion among the Nazi patrols, since he spoke excellent German. Shoulder to shoulder with the Soviet underground, operating in Rome, stood Italian patriots - Professor, Doctor of Medicine Oscaro di Fonzo, Captain Adreano Tanny, doctor Loris Gasperi, cabinet maker Luigi de Zorzi and many other wonderful people of various ages and professions. Luigi de Zorzi was Fleischer's direct assistant and carried out the most important assignments of the underground organization.
Professor Oscaro di Fonzo organized an underground hospital for the treatment of partisans, housed in a small Catholic church of San Giuseppe. Another point of deployment of the underground was the basement of a bar owned by Aldo Farabullini and his wife Idrana Montagna. In Ottavia, one of the closest suburbs of Rome, a safe house also appeared, used by the Fleischerites. She was supported by the Sabatino Leoni family. The landlord's wife, Maddalena Rufo, was nicknamed "Mother Angelina". This woman was distinguished by an enviable composure. She managed to hide the underground workers even when several Nazi officers were housed on the second floor of the house by decision of the German commandant's office. The underground lived on the first floor, and the Nazis lived on the second. And it is precisely the merit of the owners of the house that the paths of the inhabitants of the dwelling did not cross and the stay of the underground was kept secret until the departure of the German officers to the next place of deployment. Great assistance to the Soviet underground was provided by the peasant population of the surrounding villages, who provided the needs of the partisans for food and shelter. Eight Italians who hosted escaped Soviet prisoners of war and later hosted underground fighters were awarded the highest state award of the USSR, the Order of the Patriotic War, after the end of World War II.
Didn't give up and didn't give up
Soviet partisans and underground workers operating in the vicinity of Rome were engaged in the usual business for partisans of all countries and times - they destroyed the enemy’s manpower, attacking patrols and individual soldiers and officers, blew up communications, spoiled the property and transport of the Nazis. Naturally, the Gestapo was knocked off its feet in search of unknown saboteurs who inflicted serious damage on the Nazi formations stationed in the district of Rome. On suspicion of assisting the partisans, the Nazi punishers arrested many local residents. Among them was 19-year-old Maria Pizzi, a resident of Monterotondo. Partisans always found shelter and help in her house. Of course, this could not go on for long - in the end, a traitor from among the local collaborators "surrendered" Maria Pizzi to the Nazis. The girl was arrested. However, even under severe torture, Maria did not report anything about the activities of the Soviet partisans. In the summer of 1944, two months after her release, Maria Pizzi died - she contracted tuberculosis in the dungeons of the Gestapo. The scammers also handed over Mario Pinci, a resident of Palestrina who helped the Soviet partisans. At the end of March 1944, the brave anti-fascist was arrested. Together with Mario, the Germans captured his sisters and brothers. Five members of the Pinchi family were taken to a cheese factory, where they were brutally murdered along with six other arrested Palestinians. The bodies of the murdered anti-fascists were put on display and hung for 24 hours in the central square of Palestrina. The lawyer Aldo Finzi, who had previously acted as part of the Roman underground, but then moved to his mansion in Palestrina, was also extradited to the Germans. In February 1944, the Germans set up their headquarters in the mansion of the lawyer Finzi. For the underground worker, this was a wonderful gift, since the lawyer got the opportunity to find out almost all the action plans of the German unit, information about which he passed on to the command of the local partisan detachment. However, the scammers soon betrayed Finzi's lawyer to the Nazi Gestapo. Aldo Finzi was arrested and brutally murdered on March 24, 1944 in the Ardeatino caves.
Often the partisans walked, literally, to a hair's breadth from death. So, one evening, Anatoly Tarasenko himself arrived in Monterotondo - the commander of partisan detachments, a prominent figure in the anti-fascist movement. He was to meet with Francesco de Zuccori, secretary of the local organization of the Italian Communist Party. Tarasenko spent the night in the house of a local resident Domenico de Battisti, but when he was about to leave in the morning, he found that a German army unit had camped near the house. Amelia de Battisti, the wife of the owner of the house, quickly helped Tarasenko change into her husband's clothes, after which she gave her three-year-old son into her arms. Under the guise of an Italian - the owner of the house, Tarasenko went out into the yard. The child kept repeating “dad” in Italian, which convinced the Nazis that they were the owner of the house and the father of the family. So the partisan commander managed to avoid death and escape from the territory occupied by the Nazi soldiers.
However, fate was not always so favorable to the Soviet partisans. So, on the night of January 28-29, 1944, Soviet partisans arrived in Palestrina, among whom were Vasily Skorokhodov (pictured), Nikolai Demyashchenko and Anatoly Kurepin. They were met by local Italian anti-fascists - communists Enrico Gianneti, Francesco Zbardella, Lucio and Ignazio Lena. Soviet partisans were placed in one of the houses, equipped with machine guns and hand grenades. The partisans were tasked with controlling the Galicano-Poli highway. In Palestrina, the Soviet partisans managed to live for more than a month before they clashed with the Nazis. On the morning of March 9, 1944, Vasily Skorokhodov, Anatoly Kurepin and Nikolai Demyashchenko were walking along the road to Galicano. Their movement was covered from behind by Peter Ilinykh and Alexander Skorokhodov. Near the village of Fontanaone, to check documents, the partisans tried to stop the fascist patrol. Vasily Skorokhodov opened fire with a pistol, killing a fascist officer and two more patrolmen. However, other fascists who returned fire managed to mortally wound Vasily Skorokhodov and Nikolai Demyashchenko. Anatoly Kurepin was killed, and Pyotr Ilyinykh and Alexander Skorokhodov, firing back, were able to escape. However, comrades were already in a hurry to help the partisans. In a shootout, they managed to recapture the bodies of three dead heroes from the Nazis and carry them off the road. 41-year-old Vasily Skorokhodov, 37-year-old Nikolai Demyashchenko and 24-year-old Anatoly Kurepin found peace forever on Italian soil - their graves are still located in a small cemetery in the city of Palestrina, which is 38 kilometers from the Italian capital.
Murder in the Ardeatian Caves
The spring of 1944 was accompanied by very stubborn attempts by the Nazi invaders to crack down on the partisan movement in the vicinity of the Italian capital. On March 23, 1944, in the afternoon, a unit of the 11th company of the 3rd battalion of the SS police regiment "Bozen", stationed in Rome, moved along Rasella Street. Suddenly there was an explosion of terrible force. As a result of the partisan action, the anti-fascists managed to destroy thirty-three Nazis, 67 policemen were injured. The attack was the work of partisans from the Combat Patriotic Group led by Rosario Bentivegna. About the daring partisan attack on the German unit was reported to Berlin - to Adolf Hitler himself. The enraged Fuhrer ordered the most cruel methods to take revenge on the partisans, to carry out actions of intimidation of the local population. The German command received a terrible order - to blow up all the residential areas in the area of Rasella Street, and for every killed German to shoot twenty Italians. Even the experienced Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, who commanded the Nazi troops in Italy, Adolf Hitler's order seemed excessively cruel. Kesselring did not blow up residential areas, and for each dead SS man he decided to shoot only ten Italians. The direct executor of the order to execute the Italians was SS Obersturmbannführer Herbert Kappler, head of the Roman Gestapo, who was assisted by the police chief of Rome, Pietro Caruso. In the shortest possible time, a list of 280 people was formed. It included prisoners of the Roman prison who were serving long sentences, as well as those arrested for subversive activities.
Nevertheless, it was necessary to recruit another 50 people - so that for each of the 33 killed German policemen, ten Italians were obtained. Therefore, Kappler also arrested ordinary residents of the Italian capital. As modern historians note, the inhabitants of Rome, captured by the Gestapo and doomed to death, represented a real social cross-section of the entire Italian society of that time. Among them were representatives of aristocratic families, and proletarians, and intellectuals - philosophers, doctors, lawyers, and inhabitants of the Jewish quarters of Rome. The age of those arrested was also very different - from 14 to 74 years. All those arrested were placed in a prison on Tasso Street, which was run by the Nazis. Meanwhile, the command of the Italian Resistance learned about the plans for the upcoming terrible massacre. It was decided to prepare an attack on the prison and release all those arrested by force. However, when the British and American staff officers, who were in contact with the leadership of the National Liberation Committee, learned about the plan, they opposed it as excessively harsh. According to the Americans and the British, the attack on the prison could have provoked even more brutal reprisals from the Nazis. As a result, the release of prisoners from the prison on Tasso Street was thwarted. The Nazis took 335 people to the Ardeatian caves. The arrested were divided into groups of five people each, after which they were put on their knees, their hands tied behind their backs, and shot. Then the corpses of the patriots were dumped in the Ardeatinsky caves, after which the Nazis blew up the caves with heavy sabers.
Only in May 1944 did the relatives of the victims, secretly making their way to the caves, bring fresh flowers there. But only after the liberation of the Italian capital on June 4, 1944, the caves were cleared. The corpses of the heroes of the Italian Resistance were identified, after which they were buried with honors. Among the anti-fascists who died in the Ardeatinsky caves was a Soviet man buried under the name "Alessio Kulishkin" - that's how the Italian partisans called Alexei Kubyshkin, a young twenty-three-year-old guy - a native of the small Ural city of Berezovsky. However, in fact, it was not Kubyshkin who died in the Ardeatinsky caves, but an unknown Soviet partisan. Aleksey Kubyshkin and his comrade Nikolai Ostapenko, with the help of the Italian prison guard Angelo Sperry, who sympathized with the anti-fascists, were transferred to a construction squad and soon escaped from prison. After the war, Alexei Kubyshkin returned to his native Ural.
The head of the Roman police, Pietro Caruso, who directly organized the murder of arrested anti-fascists in the Ardeatino caves, was sentenced to death after the war. At the same time, the guards barely managed to recapture the policeman from the crowd of indignant Romans who were eager to lynch the punisher and drown him in the Tiber. Herbert Kappler, who led the Roman Gestapo, was arrested after the war and sentenced by an Italian tribunal to life imprisonment. In 1975, 68-year-old Kappler, who was held in an Italian prison, was diagnosed with cancer. From that time on, the regime of detention was greatly facilitated for him, in particular, they provided his wife with unhindered access to prison. In August 1977, Kappler's wife took Kappler out of prison in a suitcase (the ex-Gestapo man, dying of cancer, then weighed 47 kilograms). A few months later, in February 1978, Kappler died. Field Marshal Albert Kesselring was more fortunate. In 1947, he was sentenced to death by an English tribunal, but later the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and in 1952 the field marshal was released for health reasons. He died only in 1960, at the age of 74, until his death remaining a staunch opponent of the Soviet Union and adhering to the idea of the need for a new "crusade" of the West against the Soviet state. The last participant in the execution in the Ardeatian caves, Erich Priebke, was extradited to Italy in our time and died at the age of 100 in 2013, while under house arrest. Up until the mid-1990s. Erich Priebke, like many other Nazi war criminals, was hiding in Latin America - in Argentina.
The long-awaited liberation of Italy
At the beginning of the summer of 1944, the activities of Soviet partisans in the vicinity of Rome intensified. The leadership of the Italian Resistance instructed Alexei Fleisher to create a united force of Soviet partisans, which were formed - on the basis of the detachments of Kolyaskin and Tarasenko. The main part of the Soviet partisans concentrated in the Monterotondo area, where on June 6, 1944, they entered into battle with the Nazi units retreating from Monterotondo. The partisans attacked a column of German vehicles and tanks with machine-gun fire. Two tanks were put out of action, more than a hundred German troops were killed and 250 were taken prisoner. The city of Monterotondo was liberated by a detachment of Soviet partisans who hoisted a tricolor Italian flag over the building of the city government. After the liberation of Monterotondo, the partisans returned to Rome. At a meeting of detachments, it was decided to make a red combat banner, which would demonstrate the national and ideological affiliation of the brave warriors. However, in the warring Rome, there was no matter for the red banner.
Therefore, resourceful partisans used the national flag of Thailand to make the banner. From the red cloth of the Siamese flag, a white elephant was repulsed, and instead of it, a hammer and sickle and a star were sewn. It was this red banner of “Thai origin” that was one of the first to fly over the liberated Italian capital. Many Soviet partisans, after the liberation of Rome, continued to fight in other regions of Italy.
When representatives of the Soviet government arrived in Rome, Aleksey Nikolaevich Fleisher handed over to them 180 Soviet citizens released from captivity. Most of the former prisoners of war, having returned to the Soviet Union, asked to join the active army and continued to smash the Nazis for another year already in Eastern Europe. Alexey Nikolaevich Fleischer himself returned to the Soviet Union after the war and settled in Tashkent. He worked as a cartographer, then retired - in general, he led the life of the most ordinary Soviet person, in which nothing reminded of a glorious military past and an interesting but complex biography.
The radical change in the war, which was the result of the victories of the Soviet Army at Stalingrad and Kursk, also marked the beginning of the third period of the anti-fascist liberation struggle (1943 - early 1944). According to one of the organizers of the resistance movement in Touraine (Western France). P. Delano, the response to the Stalingrad victory of the Soviet Army “was huge. The German army is no longer invincible. Increasingly broad sections of the masses in the enslaved countries are imbued with confidence" in the imminent liberation. Characteristic features of this stage were the further expansion and intensification of the struggle, especially the armed struggle, the formation of liberation armies, the final formation of national fronts and the development of their political and economic platforms.
A great stimulus for the development of the Resistance in France was the landing of Anglo-American troops in North Africa, carried out at the beginning of November 1942. The liberation of Algeria and Morocco by the allied armies made it possible “to create a center of leadership and organization of all French forces in order to wage a national liberation war and contribute to the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Terrible events for fascism took place in Italy, where the anti-fascist resistance was steadily gaining strength. In March 1943, under the direct influence of the defeat of the fascist troops near Stalingrad, the first mass action of the Italian proletariat in two decades of fascism took place: a general strike of the workers of Northern Italy, organized by the communists. The strike turned into an important test of strength, clearly showing, on the one hand, the political maturity of the proletariat, its readiness to fight, and on the other hand, the growing confusion of the ruling circles, the inability of the fascist regime to restrain the growing indignation of the masses.
The revolutionary situation brewing in the country prompted the right wing of the anti-fascist Resistance to change tactics out of fear that otherwise the leadership of the anti-fascist uprising would be entirely in the hands of left-wing organizations. In June, the first committees of national liberation (CLN) were formed in Milan and Rome, which, on the initiative of the communists and socialists, decided to prepare an uprising. Its goal was proclaimed by the Milanese KNO a break with Nazi Germany, the punishment of the perpetrators of the war, the restoration of democratic rights and freedoms.
The consolidation of the Resistance was largely facilitated by the organizational strengthening of the Communist Party and the formation in August 1943 of the Committee for the Restoration of the Socialist Party. Formed in the summer of 1942 on the basis of the Justice and Freedom movement, the petty-bourgeois Action Party, which advocated revolutionary methods of fighting fascism, also began to play a prominent role in the Resistance.
The "palace coup" prepared and carried out at the top on July 25, 1943, which resulted in the overthrow of Mussolini's government, did not completely resolve the deep political crisis in which Italy found itself in the grip. The next day, mass anti-fascist unrest broke out in the country. Anti-fascist organizations formed in Milan the Committee of the Anti-Fascist Opposition, which, along with the left parties, also brought together representatives of the Christian Democratic Party and some other conservative organizations. The committee demanded from the government an immediate exit from the war, the adoption of severe measures against the fascist elite, and the implementation of the most important democratic reforms. Under the pressure of the masses, whose aspirations and hopes were expressed by the anti-fascist opposition, the government was forced to ban the fascist party. At the same time, it delayed the fulfillment of other demands of the people, pursued a policy of maneuvering and waiting.
The situation in the country changed in the autumn of 1943 in connection with the landing of British and American troops in southern Italy. On September 3, an armistice agreement was concluded between the command of the allied forces and the government of Badoglio, an act that entailed the occupation by the Nazi troops of all of Northern and Central Italy, including Rome.
The initiator of organizing a rebuff to the invaders was the Communist Party, whose leadership already on August 31 submitted to the Committee of the Anti-Fascist Opposition "Aide-memoire on the urgent need to organize national defense against occupation and the threat of attack from the Germans" . The note was an important policy document, which formed the basis for the subsequent activities of the PCI to launch a national anti-fascist war of the Italian people.
On September 9, the anti-fascist parties formed in Rome the Committee of National Liberation (CLN) "- a body of political leadership in the struggle to expel the invaders, in order to" return to Italy the place that rightfully belongs to it in the commonwealth of free nations ".
The formation of the KNO did not eliminate the contradictions between the currents opposed to fascism. This concerned primarily the political prospects of the movement. If the left wing of the anti-fascist opposition proclaimed its goal the establishment of a system of people's democracy and, in the long term, the transition to socialism, then the right wing did not go further in its plans to restore the bourgeois-democratic order.
At this stage of the struggle, the unifying points - the interest in the expulsion of the invaders and the elimination of fascism - outweighed the differences. However, in order to preserve the alliance, the left parties, especially the Communist Party, were required to show maximum political flexibility, not to abandon the search for political formulas and tactics acceptable to the entire anti-fascist opposition.
In the autumn of 1943, the Communist Party began to organize Garibaldian partisan detachments to conduct an armed struggle against the fascists and to prepare a national anti-fascist uprising. Such a task was clearly overdue, as evidenced by the spontaneous uprisings of the masses against the Nazi invasion army, in particular the four-day September uprising in Naples. These speeches demonstrated the readiness of broad sections of the population, primarily the working people, to defend independence and freedom with weapons in their hands.
With the creation of partisan detachments, the anti-fascist struggle began to develop into a nationwide war against Nazism and fascism. The actions of the detachments formed by various parties were coordinated by the committees of national liberation, headed by the KNO of Northern Italy, which served as the headquarters of the armed forces of the Resistance movement:
The defeat of the Nazi troops in the battle on the Volga caused a deepening of the internal political crisis in Germany as well. Under these conditions, the clarification of the political prospects of the anti-fascist movement acquired great importance. Back in December 1942, the Central Committee of the KKE adopted an appeal to the German people - the Peace Manifesto, containing an assessment of the military-political situation in Germany. The leadership of the Communist Party stated that the continuation of the war would lead the country to disaster. The only way out, still left to the German people, was to put an end to the Hitler regime on their own.
The Peace Manifesto proposed a nine-point program that provided for the overthrow of the fascist regime and the formation of a national democratic government, which should carry out fundamental democratic changes. "The goals and requirements of the Manifesto were ... a broad political platform on the basis of which Hitler's opponents from the most diverse segments of the population, belonging to different political movements and religions, could rally and agree on a joint struggle."
In 1943, the communist underground largely managed to overcome territorial disunity. A central operational leadership of the KKE was created, which included representatives of the largest anti-fascist organizations. In its work, the central leadership followed the political line determined by the Central Committee of the KKE. Underground cooperation between communists and social democrats also became stronger. Communist and social democratic groups acted jointly in enterprises, including military factories. The ties of German anti-fascists with foreign workers were strengthened. All this spoke of the development of the process of uniting truly national patriotic forces.
In the same year, a bourgeois opposition took shape in Germany, which was also an obvious manifestation of the growing internal political crisis. It strove to take the country out of the war "at the lowest possible cost" while preserving intact the foundations of the domination of monopoly capital. At the same time, the question of guarantees against the revival of fascism was actually passed over in silence.
Recognizing the limitations of the bourgeois anti-Hitler movement, the Communist Party, however, sought ties with it in order to make the base of the struggle against the Nazi regime as broad as possible, reflecting the interests of the most diverse sections of the population, including parts of the bourgeoisie. The steps taken by the communist underground in this direction met with no response from the right wing of the bourgeois opposition. However, on its left wing there was a group (Colonel Stauffenberg and others) that stood for cooperation with the communists.
Thus, by the end of the third period of the war in Germany, the conditions were ripe for a transition to a more coordinated and active struggle against fascism.
A great contribution to the anti-Hitler Resistance was made by the Free Germany movement, which originated among German prisoners of war on the territory of the USSR. Arose on the initiative of the KKE, the movement absorbed elements opposed to the Nazi regime, belonging to various classes and strata of the population. The Free Germany movement, which pursued anti-fascist and anti-war goals, began to acquire a mass character under the influence of the heavy defeats suffered by Nazi Germany at Stalingrad and Kursk. In the summer of 1943, at a conference of representatives of prisoners of war and German anti-fascist public figures, the leading body of the movement was elected - the National Committee "Free Germany" (NKSG). His first political act was the issuance of a manifesto to the German army and the German people. The Free Germany movement, the document emphasized, aims to rally all German anti-fascists, regardless of their party affiliation, to fight for an end to the war, the liberation of the German people and Europe from the Nazi yoke, and the creation of a truly democratic Germany. The NKSG launched a large agitation and propaganda work to involve German prisoners of war in the movement against the war and fascism. He also made a significant contribution to anti-fascist propaganda addressed to the German army. In a number of sectors of the front, combat groups of German anti-fascists - authorized by the Free Germany Committee - were actively operating.
The Free Germany movement played a prominent role not only in rallying anti-fascist and patriotic forces outside of Germany, but also in intensifying the struggle against the Nazi regime inside the country.
The anti-fascist resistance movement in the occupied countries of Western Europe has made significant progress along the path of rallying forces and coordinating their actions.
In France, in May 1943, the National Council of the Resistance (NSS) began its activities, uniting both left-wing organizations (the National Front, the General Confederation of Labor, restored in the same year, the communist and socialist parties), and the main bourgeois organizations associated with the committee " Fighting France".
The National Council of the Resistance, whose powers extended to the whole country, did a great job of ensuring the unity of the armed formations of various anti-fascist organizations. This task was basically solved with the creation in February 1944 of the Internal Resistance Forces (FFI). They included, as an independent unit, the French francoirs and partisans. At the head of the FFI, whose number reached 500 thousand people, was the Combat Action Commission (COMAC), subordinate to the NSS, chaired by the communist Pierre Villon.
The formation of an internal army made it possible to significantly expand the area of operations against the invaders and the Vichy gendarmerie, to clear individual points and even districts of them.
On March 15, 1944, the National Council of the Resistance adopted a comprehensive program based on the draft developed by the National Front. Considering the liberation of France as the first task, a necessary condition for subsequent democratic reforms, the program at the same time put forward far-reaching socio-political demands: the nationalization of banks, the main industries and transport; deep democratization of the entire life of the country; implementation of major social reforms in favor of the working people. Among the most important of them were the right to work and rest, a fixed minimum wage guaranteeing a worthy existence for a person, and an extensive system of social security. A special item of the program was proposed to provide assistance to the working peasantry (setting fair prices for agricultural products), to extend benefits to agricultural workers under the social security system (paid holidays, pensions). Much attention was paid in the program to the punishment of war criminals and accomplices of the Nazi occupiers (confiscation of their property, profits, etc.).
“Thus,” the document summed up, “a new republic will be founded, which will sweep away the vile reactionary regime established by Vichy and give efficiency to democratic and popular institutions ... The unity of action of the representatives of the Resistance in the interests of the Motherland should, in the present and future, serve as an incentive for all French..."
In other words, with its program, the NSS sought to consolidate and develop the gains of the anti-fascist resistance movement, to make its implementation a guarantee against the relapse of fascism, a starting point not only for the restoration, but also for deepening democracy, its actual development into people's democracy.
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Subtitles
Origins of the movement
At the initial stage, the resistance movement was formed on the basis of disparate groups, spontaneously formed by representatives of political parties banned by the fascist regime in Italy, including monarchist-minded former officers of the royal army. Later, the movement was taken under control by the Committee of National Liberation, (ital. Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale, CLN), created on September 9, 1943 by representatives of six parties: communist, Christian Democratic, parties actions[remove template] , liberal, socialist and labor democratic parties. The National Liberation Committee coordinated its activities with the ministers of King Victor Emmanuel III and representatives of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. Committee Liberation Northern Italy (English) Russian was created in the rear of the German troops and enjoyed the loyalty of most of the partisan detachments in the region. .
The main forces of the Resistance were represented by three main groups: the Garibaldi Brigades (Communists), "Justice" and "Freedom" (English) Russian» (associated with the Action Party), and the Matteotti Brigades (socialists). In addition to them, there were small detachments focused on Catholics and monarchists, such as the Green Flame, Di Dio, Mauri (English) Russian, Franks (founded by E.Sogno (English) Russian), as well as anarchist and apolitical groups. Relations between the various Resistance groups were not always friendly. For example, in 1945 in the province of Udine, there was a skirmish between a detachment from the Garibaldi Brigades and an Action Party detachment from Ozoppo, which resulted in casualties.
Large contingents of the Resistance movement operated in the mountainous regions of the Alps and the Apennines, there were also partisan units on the plains, as well as underground in the major cities of Northern Italy. For example, in the castle Montekino (English) Russian in the province of Piacenza, the headquarters of the guerrilla groups "Patriotic Action Groups" (GAP) and "Patriotic Action Units" (SAP) were located, which regularly organized acts of sabotage and guerrilla warfare, mass strikes and propaganda actions. Unlike the French Resistance, women played an important role in the Italian Resistance - both in combat units and in the underground.
An important activity of the Italian Resistance was to facilitate the escape and harboring of fugitive prisoners of war of the anti-Hitler coalition troops (according to some estimates, the number of internees in Italy until September 8, 1943 was about 80 thousand): Resistance figures helped fugitive prisoners of war reach the borders of neutral Switzerland or the location of the Allied forces, in including routes previously used by smugglers.
The Jewish community of Italy has created its own underground organization - DELASEM (English) Russian(acronym from Italian. Delegazione per l "Assistenza degli Emigranti Ebrei - Delegation to help Jewish emigrants) led by Lelio Valobra (English) Russian which operated throughout the occupied Italian territory. It included not only Jews, but also some Roman Catholic bishops, clergy, laymen, policemen and even Wehrmacht soldiers. After the Mussolini government recognized the Jews as a "hostile nation" under pressure from Nazi Germany, DELASEM provided support to local Jews, providing them with food, shelter and material assistance. Many Italians who have collaborated with DELASEM (563 as of January 1, 2013) have been awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations.
Resistance in the Italian armed forces
The first acts of armed resistance to the German occupation followed the signing of an armistice between Italy and the Allied forces on September 3, 1943. The most famous event was the performance on September 3 in Rome by units of the Italian army and carabinieri. Units of the Royal Army, in particular, mechanized brigade Sassari en en , mechanized brigade Granatieri en en , division Piave en en , tank division Ariete en en , 131st Panzer Division , 103rd motorized rifle division en en and division Wolves of Tuscany en en in addition to the carabinieri, infantry and coastal artillery were deployed throughout the city and along the roads leading to it. The units of the airborne forces of the Wehrmacht and motorized infantry were initially thrown back from Rome, but after a while, relying on superiority in armored vehicles, they regained their lost positions.
Partisan movement
Participation of foreigners in the resistance movement
Not only Italians fought in the ranks of the Italian Resistance. Deserters from Wehrmacht units, fugitive prisoners of war from the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, as well as special units of the Anglo-American troops abandoned in the Italian rear, including parts of the Directorate of Special Operations, the Special Air Service and the Directorate of Strategic Services, joined the Resistance detachments. The names of some Anglo-American intelligence officers who fought in the Italian Resistance subsequently became known to the public - among them the climber and traveler Bill Tilman, the journalist and historian Peter Tompkins, the pilot of the Royal Air Force Manfred Zernin and Major Oliver Churchill.
The exact number of former Wehrmacht soldiers who fought in the Italian Resistance is difficult to estimate, because for reasons of safety of their relatives who remained in Nazi Germany, they preferred to hide their true names and origins. Known, for example, the former captain of the Kriegsmarine Rudolf Jacobs (Italian) Russian, who fought in the Garibaldi brigade "Hugo Muccini" and died in 1944.
Spanish anti-fascists, Yugoslavs, Dutch, Greeks, Poles, representatives of the peoples of the USSR also fought in the detachments of Italian partisans. Fame was gained by the Slovene by nationality Anton Ukmar (partisan nickname - "Miro"), who was born in the municipality of Trieste and commanded the Garibaldi division "Cichero", the Serb Grga Čupich (nickname - "Boro"), the commander of the division "Mingo" in Liguria.
In some regions of Italy, resistance detachments played an important role, in which fugitive Soviet prisoners of war fought, the total number of which is estimated at about 5 thousand, of which one in ten died (see, for example, Gevork Kolozyan, Mekhti Husein-zade).
As part of the Garibaldi brigade named after Vittorio Sinigaglia of the Italian partisans, the Stella Rosa company was formed, in which over 60 Soviet prisoners of war fought. The first company commander was "Lieutenant Giovanni"(Soviet pilot, lieutenant of the Air Force named Ivan, who died in battle, the identity has not been established), and after his death - Ivan Egorov
In the north-east of Italy, in Liguria, an Italian-Russian sabotage detachment (BIRS) operated. His fighters staged sabotage: explosions of bridges, highways and railways, attacked columns of German troops. In July 1944, Soviet prisoners of war escaped from the working team of the prisoner of war camp, among them was Fedor Poletaev (Italian nickname Poetan), later National Hero of Italy.
Of the Soviet prisoners of war who fought in the ranks of the Italian partisans, four - Fedor Poletaev, Nikolai Buyanov, Daniil Avdeev, Fore Mosulishvili - were awarded Italy's highest award for feat on the battlefield - the gold medal "For military valor".
April 1945 Uprising and Mussolini's execution
In the second half of April 1945, the battles on the German front entered the final phase: on April 16, the Soviet Army launched the Berlin operation, and the Anglo-American troops in Italy, breaking through the front at Ferrara on April 17, were preparing to enter the Po Valley. Under these conditions, on April 18, a strike began at the enterprises of Turin, which rapidly spread to all the cities of Northern Italy and soon developed into armed uprisings. Bologna revolted on April 19, Modena on April 22, Reggio nel Emilia on April 24.
On the morning of April 27, near the village of Musso, the partisan patrol of the 52nd Garibaldi Brigade stopped the convoy and began an inspection. According to an agreement with the allied forces, the partisans allowed the retreating units of the Wehrmacht to freely enter Switzerland, detaining only the Italians. When inspecting the partisan truck, Umberto Lazzaro identified the Duce, after which Mussolini was escorted to the village of Dongo, where he spent the night in a peasant house. The circumstances of Mussolini's execution have not been fully clarified. It is believed that the leadership of the Resistance (in particular, one of the leaders of the Communists Luigi Longo) decides to execute Mussolini, and the corresponding order was given to Walter Audisio (partisan nickname - "Colonel Valerio"). According to the official version, Mussolini and Clara Petacci were shot on the 28th, at 16:10 at the gates of the villa in Giulino di Mezzegra, according to other sources - at 12:30. The corpses of Mussolini and Petacci were later taken to Milan and hung upside down near Milan's central railway station. After that, the ropes were cut, and the bodies lay for some time in the gutter. On May 1, Mussolini and Petacci were buried in Milan's Muzocco Cemetery (Cimitero Maggiore), in an unmarked grave in the poor's plot.
see also
Notes
- The Italian Army 1940-45 (3) Osprey Men-at-Arms 353 ISBN 978-1-85532-866-2
- H-Net Review: Andrea Peto
On Women and the Italian Resistance, 1943-45 - British prisoners of the Second World War and the Korean War | The National Archives (indefinite) Archived from the original on April 30, 2013.
- Statistics - Yad Vashem (indefinite) . Retrieved June 30, 2016. Archived from the original on April 30, 2013.
- Incerti, Matteo. Il Bracciale di Sterline - Cento bastardi senza gloria. Una storia di guerra e passioni. - Aliberti Editore, 2011. - ISBN 978-88-7424-766-0 .
- G.Bocca, Storia dell'Italia partigiana, p. 332.
- http://www.lavita-odessita.narod.ru/partigiani.html#1.11 Soviet soldiers in the Italian Resistance
- J. Sinigaglia. On the land of Italy // "Red Star", No. 76 (18663) of April 2, 1985. p. 3
- Fedor Andrianovich Poletaev. Biographical sketch. Index literature (indefinite) . Committee for Culture and Tourism of the Ryazan Region. Ryazan Regional Universal Scientific Library. Gorky (January 1, 2009). Retrieved 11 May 2016.
- Basil Davidson, Special Operations Europe: Scenes from the Anti-Nazi War(1980), pp. 340/360
- Day liberation from fascism in Italy - 25 April. History and features holiday in project Calendar Holidays 2013 (indefinite) Archived from the original on April 30, 2013.
- BBC NEWS | Europe | Mussolini heir calls for inquest (indefinite) . Retrieved April 23, 2013. Archived from the original on April 30, 2013.
Literature
In Russian
- Battaglia R. History of the Italian Resistance Movement (September 8, 1943 – April 25, 1945). Per. from Italian. - M.: Publishing house of foreign literature, 1954. - 660 p.
- Secchia P. , Moscatelli C. Monte Rosa descended to Milan. From the history of the Resistance Movement in Italy. Per. from Italian. - M.: Politizdat, 1961. - 404 p.
- Gallini M. Soviet partisans in the Italian resistance movement. 2nd ed., rev. and additional .. - M .: Progress, 1988. - 229 p.
- Pereladov V. Ya. Notes of a Russian Garibaldian. - Novosibirsk: Novosibirsk book publishing house, 1988. - 222 p.
in Italian
- Roberto Battaglia, Storia della Resistenza italiana, Torino, Einaudi, 1964.
- Enzo Biagi, La seconda guerra mondiale, vol. 5, Milano, Fabbri editori, 1989.
- Gianfranco Bianchi, La Resistenza in: Storia d'Italia, vol. 8, Novara, De Agostini, 1979.
- Giorgio Bocca, Storia dell'Italia partigiana, Milano, Mondadori, 1995. ISBN 88-04-40129-X
- Arturo Colombo, Partiti e ideologie del movimento antifascista in: Storia d'Italia, vol. 8, Novara, De Agostini, 1979.
- Frederick William Deakin, La brutale amicizia. Mussolini, Hitler e la caduta del fascismo italiano, Torino, Einaudi, 1990. ISBN 88-06-11821-8
- Renzo De Felice, Mussolini l'alleato. La guerra civile, Torino, Einaudi, 1997. ISBN 88-06-14996-2
- Paul Ginsborg, Storia d'Italia dal dopoguerra a oggi. Società e politica 1943-1988, Torino, Einaudi, 1989. ISBN 88-06-11879-X
- Lutz Klinkhammer, L'occupazione tedesca in Italia. 1943-1945, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2007. ISBN 978-88-339-1782-5
- Gianni Oliva, I vinti e i liberati: 8 settembre 1943-25 April 1945: storia di due anni, Mondadori, 1994.
- Claudio Pavone, Una guerra civile. Saggio storico sulla moralità nella Resistenza, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2006. ISBN 978-88-339-1676-7
- Santo Peli, La Resistenza in Italy. Storia e critica, Torino, Einaudi, 2004. ISBN 978-88-06-16433-1
- Nuto Revelli, La guerra dei poveri, Torino, Einaudi, 1993.
In the autumn of 1943, the territory of Italy was divided in two. Its southern part was occupied by American-British troops, while the German occupation of the northern and part of the central regions dragged on for almost two years.
In the southern part of Italy, the government formed by Badoglio from "specialists" had no support among the people and did not enjoy authority with the Anglo-American authorities. The anti-fascist parties were not unanimous on the issue of their attitude towards the monarchy, since the Action Party and the socialists demanded the immediate abdication of the king.
This made it possible for the occupying powers to sabotage the decision of the Moscow Conference of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, the United States and England on the need to include in the government "representatives of those sections of the Italian people who have always opposed fascism."
In the spring of 1944, the Soviet Union took a new step, indicating its desire to promote the granting of sovereign rights to the Italian people. In March, direct diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Italy were restored.
On March 29, the leader of the Italian Communists, P. Togliatti, made a proposal to create a government of national unity, postponing the solution of the question of the monarchy for the period after the end of the war. The proposal of the Communist Party was the only possible way out of the deadlock, and all the anti-fascist parties agreed with it.
On April 24, 1944, a new government was formed under the chairmanship of Badoglio, which, along with other anti-fascist parties, included the communists for the first time in the history of Italy.
After the liberation of Rome, the government was reorganized: the leader of the Labor Democracy party I. Bonomi became the chairman of the council of ministers, and the anti-fascist parties gained predominant influence in the government.
The most important events took place during this period on the other side of the front. The Nazis became the true masters of Northern Italy, establishing tight control over all the activities of the Italian administration.
They carried out a systematic export of industrial raw materials and equipment, food, and various valuables from Northern Italy. Skilled workers and captured Italian soldiers were forcibly sent to Germany.
Without even notifying Mussolini, Hitler seized the region of Venice from Italy along with Trieste and included it in the Reich.
After his return to power in northern Italy, Mussolini publicly declared the "anti-capitalism" of the neo-fascist party he created.
In November 1943, the "Verona Manifesto" of the neo-fascist party was published, which contained a number of demagogic promises, including the convening of a Constituent Assembly, the "socialization" of enterprises through the participation of workers in their management, freedom of criticism, etc.
However, such promises could not deceive, especially since soon after the fascists proclaimed the “Social Republic”, they set about organizing a wide network of repressive organs. In all provinces, "special tribunals" were established, and special police units were created everywhere to help the Gestapo, which cracked down on anti-fascists without trial or investigation.
Disbanding the royal army, Mussolini tried to create armed forces to continue the war on the side of Germany. However, numerous enlistments in this army did not give results, since the majority of those mobilized preferred to go to the mountains.
The four Italian fascist divisions, as well as various paramilitary organizations such as the "black brigades", "Mussolini battalions", etc., were completely occupied with operations against the partisans.
On the day the German occupation began, September 9, 1943, the anti-fascist parties in Rome formed the National Liberation Committee. It included representatives of six parties: the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, the Action Party, the Labor Democracy Party, the Christian Democratic Party and the Liberal Party.
Although representatives of all parties advocated the development of an armed struggle, in fact, the parties of the right hindered the development of mass resistance in every possible way and sought to turn the Committee into an inter-party advisory body.
As a result of the paralyzing influence of the bourgeois parties, which found support among the leaders of the Vatican, the Rome Committee of National Liberation failed to become a fighting center for the leadership of the partisan movement. Despite the heroic efforts of the communists and representatives of some other parties that created partisan detachments around the city, Rome turned out to be one of the few Italian cities where the struggle of the patriots was not crowned with a victorious uprising.
The situation was different in northern Italy: the Milan Committee of National Liberation, which took the name of the Committee of National Liberation of Northern Italy, from the first days of its existence became the real political leader of the resistance movement.
Numerous national liberation committees were associated with him, created in regions, cities, villages, and sometimes in neighborhoods and at individual enterprises. These bodies in northern Italy consisted of representatives of five parties (there was no Labor Democracy party here).
The leading role of the left parties, and especially the communists, manifested itself in full force in the North. The Communists were the first to start the struggle in the cities, creating battle groups of patriotic action, which, by bold raids on enemy headquarters, holding rallies and other actions, immediately created a militant atmosphere that mobilized the masses for struggle.
In October 1943, the Communist Party began to form the "exemplary Garibaldi Brigades" in the mountains, which not only served as the core of the guerrilla army, but also set an example for other political parties. The Action Party and the Socialists also began to create their own combat detachments, largely borrowing the organizational principles of the Garibaldian brigades. Later than others, the Christian Democrats and Liberals went to the creation of armed formations.
The Communist Party relied on the powerful support of the working class. Already in the autumn months of 1943, the strike movement in cities such as Turin involved several enterprises at the same time. In the early spring of 1944, the communists put forward the task of holding a general strike, which they saw as a dress rehearsal for a national uprising.
The strike began on March 1 at the signal of a specially created committee to lead the movement. It was the largest action of the Italian working class; about 1 million workers participated in the movement, supported by more than 20 thousand partisans and numerous groups of patriotic action.
Just as the spring strike of 1943 served as a prelude to the fall of fascism, the 1944 movement opened the way for a national uprising.
At the initiative of the Communist Party in the spring of 1944, detachments of patriotic action began to be created in the villages, which, starting with the tasks of local self-defense, gradually turned into combat formations. The partisan army was widely replenished during this period by young peasants who evaded conscription into the fascist army.
If until March 1944 there were 30 thousand partisans in the mountains, then in the summer the partisan army increased to 80 thousand fighters. The partisans waged continuous offensive battles, liberating vast territories from the Nazis and creating partisan areas. In total, by the autumn of 1944, there were 15 liberated zones in northern Italy, where the power belonged to the committees of national liberation.
The summer of 1944 was marked by the political and organizational rallying of the Resistance forces. In June, partisan detachments of various parties were united under a common command, which took the name Command of the Corps of Freedom Volunteers.
The leading position in the command was occupied by the communist L. Longo and the head of the Action Party F. Parry. During this period, the National Liberation Committee of Northern Italy put forward the task of preparing a national uprising and adopted a number of policy documents in which it stated that the goal of the uprising was to establish a new democracy, in which "all working classes will have a decisive influence."
It seemed that the liberation of Italy from the Nazi occupation was a matter of several weeks. However, the reality turned out to be different.
In the autumn of 1944, in addition to all the armed formations of the "Social Republic", at least a third of the German forces in Italy acted against the partisans.
The difficult situation in Italy attracted the close attention of the British Special Operations Directorate and the American Strategic Intelligence Directorate. Despite some differences between the British and Americans on the attitude towards the forces of the Italian Resistance, both of these organizations were of the same opinion about the need to limit the scope of the guerrilla movement.
The supply of weapons to the partisans was used by the Allies as one of the means to make the Resistance dependent on the American-British policy, in particular, to support the anti-communist forces.
Even the minister of war in the government of Badoglio and the military leader of the Italian Resistance, General Cadorna, were forced to declare that the "anti-revolutionary detachments" of the Resistance enjoyed the special disposition of the Western allies and received the largest amount of weapons and ammunition.
When it was not possible to contain and limit the scope of the people's liberation movement, the American-British command officially prohibited the increase in the number of partisan formations and sent orders to their liaison officers to stop the "random" distribution of weapons among the partisans.