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Muted violence: Italian war crimes in occupied Greece

2004; Routledge; Volume: 9; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1354571042000254728

1469-9583

Lidia Santarelli,

Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics

Abstract This article considers the myth of Italians as ‘good people’ that has dominated post-war historiography as well as the public and institutional discourse, and analyses the connection between the judiciary paradigm and the historical narrative of the Second World War. It presents an account of Italian war crimes in occupied Greece and suggests a possible interpretation regarding the military violence towards the civilian population. War crimes are considered within the context of the general orientation of the fascist policy of occupation and the structures of conflict that emerged in the occupied territories. In particular, it discusses the turning point in Italian repressive action, from the logic of reprisal to a policy of massacre. Keywords: Fascismhumanitarian lawSecond World Warmilitary violence Notes Greece was occupied by the Axis powers in April of 1941, thanks to decisive military intervention by Germany. The country was therefore subdivided into three different occupied zones: the northern regions of Thrace and Macedonia went to Bulgaria; the German garrisons occupied Athens, the district of Salonika, a few strategic outposts on the Aegean and the island of Crete; the Italians occupied an area that included the metropolitan basin of Athens – Piraeus and part of Attica, most of the Aeolian islands, the Ionian islands and western Macedonia, Rpiros, Thessaly, Aetolia-Acarnania and Phocea. On 8 September 1942, the moment of Italy's wartime surrender, German forces extended into the zone formerly controlled by the Royal army. On the German occupation of Greece, see Fleisher (Citation1993) and Mazower (Citation1993). See Bidussa (Citation1994), in which the author observes among other things that, on the one hand, Fascist Italy produced racial legislation, racist political and cultural practices, political and cultural anti-Semitism, and, on the other, that Italians themselves deny such a past, or ‘it depends, one might affirm that, if racist legislation did occur, no Italian was ever a racist’ (p. 9). On the myth of the good Italian soldier, see Focardi (Citation2001). Another reference to the themes of Allied propaganda in the construction of the myth of the good Italian soldier is in Focardi (Citation1996). The reconstruction is centred on the lack of a trial of the Germany military command for war crimes committed in occupied Italy. The significance of trials of war criminals in the political reconstruction of Europe after 1945 is analysed in Maier (Citation1993: 324 – 5). On the aspects of symbolic politics linked to the punishment of war criminals and ethnic cleansing, see Maier (Citation1997). See Collotti and Klinkhammer (Citation1996), in which, among other things, it is observed that the reversal of roles endured by the Italians after 8 September 1943 also influenced the sedimentation of a memory of the Fascist occupation in the occupied populations, ‘not only because what had been a mixed occupation, with Italian and German areas, later became united as an area of German occupation, and therefore unified the concept of a single German occupying force, but also because after 8 September many Italian soldiers joined the partisans. Thus the Italians are largely remembered as participants in the resistance movement and it is forgotten that those same soldiers, beyond the fact that whether or not they committed atrocities equal to those committed by the Germans, had in the past been the occupying forces in that territory. In memory, processes of extreme simplification took place, completely obliterating the behaviour of the Italians [as an army of occupation]’ (p. 13). See the fundamental essay by Pavone (Citation1995b); see additionally, in the same volume, Pavone (Citation1995c). For an interpretation of famine in terms of a manmade calamity, see Mazower (Citation1993). A reconstruction of the impact of the economic policies enforced by the Axis occupation authorities on the Greek economy and society is found in Margaritis. The most convincing analysis of the demographic deficit provoked by famine is in Fleischer (Citation1993), according to which the deaths caused by malnutrition in Axis-occupied Greece are at least 100,000 (not counting deaths provoked by pathological conditions related to hunger). The theory of the Italian occupation authority's lack of interest in the deportation of Jews from occupied territories in the Balkans has generally been supported by historians. See in particular Steinberg (Citation1990). On this subject, Collotti has suggested that the Italian occupation regime's position was also a subtext of a struggle for authority between Italian and German authorities: the protection accorded to Jewish refugees in the territories under Italian control reaffirmed the principle of autonomy in dealing with the ally (see Collotti and Klinhammer Citation1996; Michaelis Citation1978; Rodogno Citation2003: 432 ff.). On the process of material invasion of the territory by Italian troops, may I refer to my essay ‘Fra coabitazione e conflitto: invasione italiana e popolazione civile nella Grecia occupata, primavera – estate 1941’ (Santarelli Citation2002). For the ideological of the fascist war, see in particular Gentile (Citation1997: 149 – 225). On racism, see ‘I razzismi del fascismo’ (Citation1994). The lists of those detained were compiled very carelessly by the camp authorities. Summary lists were often compiled by the prisoners themselves or by the Greek authorities, based on indications by hostages deported from the rural villages. The data cited are therefore purely indicative (see Magkriotis Citation1996: 201 – 2; Goutzi n.d.; Flountzi (Citation1987). The trial of Lieutenant Ravalli was the only trial of an Italian war criminal conducted by the Greek judicial system after the Liberation (see ONHCG Citation1946). Archivio dell'Ufficio Storico dello Stato Maggiore dell'Esercito (AUSSME), L-13 (96), file ‘Ordini operativi febbraio 1943’, Comando Forze Armate Grecia (C.do FF. AA. Grecia), Uff. Op., ai C. di C.A. III, XXVI e p.c. VIII, n. protocol 23093, subject: ‘lotta contro i banditti’ [fight against the bandits], 3 February 1943. AUSSME, L-13 (96), ‘lotta contro i banditi’. AUSSME, DS, posizione 1194, Pinerolo Division. AUSSME, L-13 (96), ‘lotta contro i banditi’. AUSSME, L-13 (96), ‘lotta contro i banditi’. AUSSME, L-13, busta 96, file ‘Ordini operativi febbraoio 1943 [operating orders February 1943], SUPERGRECIA to III CORPAMILES, radio cipher no. 26437. On the mechanisms of removing individual responsibility from the soldiers involved in the massacre of civilians, see Browning (Citation1992). AUSSME, DS, posizione 1194, historic diary of the Pinerolo Division. See AUSSME, L-13, busta 96, file ‘Ordini operativi febbraio 1943’, SUPERGRECIA a III CORPAMILES, radio cipher no. 24995. AUSSME, L-13, b. 96, file ‘Ordini operativi febbraio 1943’, SUPERGRECIA a III-VIII-XXVI CORPAMILES radio cipher no.25208. AUSSME, L-13, b. 96, file ‘Ordini operativi febbraio 1943’, telecipher no. 1696 from Gen. Rossi III C.A. to Gen. Del Giudice and p.c. to C.do Sup. FF. AA. Grecia. AUSSME, DS, pos. 1194, historic diary of the Pinerolo Division. AUSSME, L-13, b. 96, file ‘Ordini operativi febbraio 1943’, SUPERGRECIA to CORPAMILES, radio cipher no. 26484. AUSSME, DS, pos. 1194, historic diary of the Pinerolo Division. AUSSME, DS, pos. 1194, historic diary of the Pinerolo Division, attachment 138, General C. Benelli to III Corpo d'Armata, protocol no. 1303/Op., subject: ‘fatti d'arme di Domenikon’ [military events at Domenikon], 23 February 1943. In general, given the present state of studies, it is still very complicated to quantify with reasonable accuracy the number of victims and the amount of material damage. The archival material from occupied Greece becomes more and more fragmentary as it approaches the period of Spring – Summer 1943, while basic material relative to war crimes remains in military archives, excluded from public consultation. A precious exception to the absence of studies on the memories of former soldiers is represented by the search for oral history by Bendotti et al. (Citation1992).