For many years, the story of SS Italians has been deleted from the pages of history, it writes and speaks little even today, so it is time to shed light on the facts in question.
The first day of an Italian SS began with the oath:
Before God, soon this sacred oath, which in the struggle for my Italian homeland against His enemies will be absolutely obedient to Adolf Hitler, supreme commander of the army German and a valiant soldier will be ready to give my life for this oath at all times.
From then on, the militias were at the orders of the Nazi authorities, Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, or General Peter Hansen Tschimpke, operational commander of the Italian SS; these units operated between Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto, Marche, Umbria, Tuscany and were no less fierce than their German counterparts, as evidenced by the numerous direct testimonies.
Significant presence on Friuli territory, Italian legionary Alessandro Meneghin openly declared that the order was unequivocal: annihilation; in the Friuli resort of Slaue-Oseacco of Resia were captured and passed by numerous partisan weapons, the same frustrations occurred with other contingents of Italian SS in Friuli: Pradamano, Udine, Tolmezzo and Pordenone.
In October 1946 was tried by Captain Ernesto Ruggiero, the proceedings of the trial evince the torture systems in use between the Italian SSs who made "killing, brutal torture, permanent mutilation with sticks, large pieces of wood, iron scissors, straps, leashes, oxen nerves, barbed wire, nail shoes, iron gloves, cigarette lighter, burning bells, piric powder, iron needles , pliers". He was sentenced to capital punishment, then sentenced to imprisonment and subsequently released along with other militants prosecuted for the same offenses; influencing the release of such acts of ferocia carried out by partisan bands.
It was worse for Lieutenant Colonel Odorico Borsatti responsible for the anti-partisan center of Palmanova, shot in the back after the military disgraceful trial.
Many women also served the Countess Piera Fondelli Gatteschi, the auxiliaries of the Women's Service; to remember the avant-gardists of the RSI, the Volunteer Corps of Death, the Autonomous Legion Hector Mutti, the CARS Special Corps Training Corps, the Corps against Guerrilla Co.Gu., the Moschettiers of the Alps, the IV Conventional Military Legion, the volunteer battalion battalion Bruno Mussolini, the Civic Guard of Trieste, the Friulian alpine Voluntary Regiment Tagliamento, the Special Inspectorate, the Partisan Police, the Fascist Armed Forces, the Battalion Bir el Gobi, the Parachutist Special Corps of Brigade Folgore, the Battalion Guard of the Duce, the Guardia di Finanza and the Police remained in service in those areas, the Forestry Militia, the Militia of the Road and others ...
The songs give a special contribution to grasp the frustration. Here are some texts:
To Armies, Arms, Armies! we are Fascist republican terrorists of the Partisans, who are ruffians, and also outlaw, that we will do in so many shards, and also bandits, that will be over us.
Brutal faces weighing up, soon to be eliminated, against a wall fired, on a hanged tree, with the dagger gagged, with broken bombs.
On Campagnola's air: The rebels will imitate, the hierarchs will hang, the inconspicuous pretes ... ... the roaring of the cannon!
Hymn of the German SS (Das Treuelier des SS) translated into Italian:
"When all become infirm, when all will lack fidelity, so that always on earth, there is a flag for you. Companions of our youth, your image of better times, which consecrates us to virtue virile and to death for love will ever stay away from us, will remain close to us as faithful as the German oak, like the moon and the light of the sun! Once again the conscience of all brothers and sisters becomes clear, they return to the source in love and fidelity. Well, the heroes of this era have been fought, but now that victory is attained, Satan uses new tricks, but in any case the time in life arises, you do not have to age, or dream of beauty. look at us from the top: when all the brothers are silent and believe in false idols, we will not miss the word, we will not become chubby, we will preach and talk about the Holy German Empire. "
The texts also refer to the concept of race superiority and the idea of the founding of a new "European Order"; the Italian SS married this idea that he died on the day of Hitler's defeat even though everywhere the German Italian divisions resisted resistance; the Primo Employee Group's employees at Rodengo Saiano opposed the partisans who wanted to capture them and seized several of them, passing them for weapons not shot by firearms but with unexpected ferocity. The perpetrators of this incident made her run away, but their boss, Thaler, was arrested and passed for arms after the trial.
Next to the Republic of Salò there was another Republic cleared of history books, that made up of some twenty thousand Italians who decided to fight with non-allied Germans but with their orders against the partisans, who wanted to prove that not all Italians were traitors and believed in an Europe under the domination of Germany; certainly not all militias were aware of the wide political and ideological project of the Waffen SS but there is no doubt that the heads of the Italian divisions were aware of the techniques and methods used by the Germans, to the point that sometimes the Italian SSs surpassed her fellow colleagues from all over the world are frustrated.
It all began after the armistice and liberation of Mussolini, following talks between Duce and Hitler in Rastenburg on 13 September 1943; the Italian idea of forming SS divisions under the leadership of the Germans on the pattern of other divisions across Europe liked the "Kaiser", Himmler started the operation that began with the help of thousands of soldiers of the newly-armed Royal Army from Wehrmacth to the afternoons of September, and spontaneously presented to constitute the first battalions; followed other operational groups in the Balkans or Eastern Europe who preferred to continue the war alongside the Germans.
The first units were sent to Italy in raid operations against the partisans, considered traitors to the country and for this slaughter without mercy and barbaric methods copied by the Teutonic colleagues who in some cases wanted to treat the prisoners with humanity against the wishes of the SS Italian; it is the case of the civilians of Balangero who were shot because of an Italian SS officer who opposed the peaceful mediation of an officer named Kreuser and of the village of Cumiana whose inhabitants were killed and the country set on fire.
The ideological motivations of such anxiety are soon known, the Germans considered the Italians a people of dull and traitors, the Italian SSs to prove the disadvantage of these thoughts proved themselves on the most fierce field of the Germanic aggression.
The main centers of recruitment came to Savona, Cuneo, Turin, Alessandria, Aosta, Novara, Como, Milan, Bergamo, Brescia, Verona, Mantua, Treviso, Padua, Bologna, Modena, Florence, Forlì, Ancona, Macerata, Perugia, Viterbo, Grosseto, Siena, Pisa, Genoa, Parma, Bolzano, Cremona, Pavia, Pesaro, Rome, Varese and Venice and although much of the documentation was lost after the war, several copies of the "Avant-garde" weekly to rebuild the history of Italian SS.
Sifting through the pages we grasp some meaningful phrases about the values and ideals that pushed these men: "All united, young and old, veterans and 'chapels' in a single dream, the Homeland".
Moving the criticisms to the Italians who followed the SSs by emulating the gestures is a must, we hope that ever more terrible days can re-emerge in Italy, Europe and everywhere in the world, but contextualizing the period and general abbrutment that the war inevitably brought with it it is imperative to point out that the horrible crimes were also spotted by the partisan bands who wanted to free Italy from years of terror to bring a future of freedom and democracy.
Read also:
"SS: The First European Army?"
"SS: The First European Army? Western SS"
(photo: web)
