Trials of partisans in the Italian Republic: the consequences of the elections of 18 April 1948

Abstract

This article suggests some new interpretations of the significance of the general elections of 18 April 1948 by examining the prosecution of Italian ex-partisans in the Republican era. A reappraisal of those trials – which took place from the summer of 1945 to the early 1950s – is offered through examination of the documents of the National Committee of Democratic Solidarity, set up after the assassination attempt on Communist Party leader Palmiro Togliatti on 14 July 1948, and the sentences of the Corti d’Assise (High Courts) and Military Tribunals. The papers of both Umberto Terracini and Lelio Basso, promoters of the Pro-partisans Defence Committee, show how judicial repression had its roots not only in the failed purge of former Fascists from the judicial system, which was unsuccessful because of a desire for continuity within the bureaucratic apparatus of the State, but most of all thanks to the ideological position and anti-communist policies of the political elites of that period.

Keywords:

• partisans
• trials
• anti-communism
• Italian Resistance
• De Gasperi government

Notes

Notes

1. The Corti d’Assise Straordinarie were special tribunals instituted by decree no. 142 of April 22, 1945 to try RSI fascists accused of war crimes committed after the armistice of September 8, 1943. The Corte di Cassazione was – and still is – the apex of the judicial hierarchy in the Italian judiciary system. As demonstrated in this article, its judges systematically undermined attempts to punish the most ferocious and atrocious crimes committed by the fascists in a series of scandalous annulments of sentences handed down by the Corti d’Assise Straordinarie.

2. Declaration of Cardinal Martino Ferrari, September 14, 1945, Archivio di Stato di Bologna, Corte d’Appello di Bologna. Atti penali, serie Corte d’Assise straordinaria, fasc. 242/1945.

3. By passing Laws 31 of February 11, 1944 and 162 of July 20, 1944, the Italian government recognided the validity of sentences passed by the Allied military tribunals in liberated areas.

4. Article 1 of the 1907 Hague Convention considered members of ‘militia and volunteer corps commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates, [with] a fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance, [and] carrying arms openly’ to be lawful fighters. Regulation respecting the IV Hague Convention Laws and customs of war and land – Section I on Belligerents – Chapter I The qualifications of belligerents – Art. 1. These provisions were partly reworded by article 4, chapter II – Partisans, of the third Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949 which incorporated a new category of volunteer combatants in place of the franc-tireurs. In the Convention, partisans were described as members of organised resistance movements operating in occupied territory. Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, August 12th, 1949. International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva, 1958, p. 54.

5. ‘In una deposizione di oltre quattro ore Rosario Bentivegna dimostra di aver agito per legittima difesa’. L’Unità, 18 July 1944.

6. The Prime Minister's office issued three Decrees: Decree No. 319 of November 9, 1944, Amnistia e indulto per reati comuni, militari e annonari, establishing the Office of Patriots of Liberated Italy; Decree No. 158 of April 5, 1945, entrusting the award of honours to the Ministry for occupied Italy; and Decree No. 518 of August 21, 1945, instituting the 11 Regional Commissions for partisan status.

7. Telegram from Mauro Scoccimarro, Minister of Occupied Italy, to the Central National Liberation Committee, January 30, 1945, in ACS, Fondo CCLN, b. 1, f. 5.

8. ‘Per una giornata dei martiri e degli eroi’, April 13, 1945, in Documenti ufficiali del Comitato di liberazione nazionale per l’Alta Italia, Milan, 1945, p. 78.

9. Judgement of the Supreme Military Tribunal No. 1196 of October 6, 1950, in Ministero della Difesa. 1952. Massimario delle sentenze del Tribunale supremo militare anni 1942–1951, 48. Rome: Procura generale militare della Repubblica, Istituto poligrafico dello Stato..

10. Royal decrees 96 of April 5, 1944, Amnistia e indulto per reati comuni, militari e annonari; Lieutenancy Legislative Decree, 194 of April 12, 1945, Non punibilità delle azioni di guerra dei patrioti dell’Italia occupata; Legislative Decree 719 of November 17, 1945, Amnistia per i reati politici antifascisti. The law supplemented Legislative Decree 917 of December 27, 1945, Estensione ai partigiani delle norme per la riabilitazione dei condannati che abbiano partecipato ad attività belliche con fedeltà ed onore. This last disposition was conceded only to those who had a title as established by Legislative Decree 518 of August 21, 1945. Legislative Decree 132 of March 29, 1946, Amnistia e condono per i reati militari. Presidential Decree 4 of June 22, 1946, Amnistia e indulto per reati comuni, politici e annonari. Presidential Decree 922 of December 19, 1953 and Presidential Decree 460 of July 11, 1959, for the concession of amnesties and pardons. Presidential Decree 332 of June 4, 1966 would have conceded amnesties not only for partisans but also for crimes committed between July 25, 1943 and June 2, 1946 by ordinary citizens if they had committed those crimes for political objectives.

11. Judgment of the Corte d’Assise of Turin, October 5, 1951 no. 23/51, in ISTORETO, Fondo sentenze della magistratura piemontese (1945–1960), D CSA, f. D 67 A.

12. Judgment of the Corte d’Assise of Novara, December 18, 1948 no. 14/47, in ISTORETO, Fondo sentenze della magistratura piemontese (1945–1960), D CSA, f. D 61 B.

13. Circular of Justice Minister Togliatti to the first Presidents and Public Prosecutors of Appeal Courts, August 30, 1945, no. 3089, in ACS, Ministero di Grazia e Giustizia, Gabinetto (1935–1947), b. 37, fasc. 39.

14. Art. 3 of Presidential Decree No. 4 of June 22, 1946, granting an amnesty for political crimes except for those committed by individuals holding senior executive functions in civil and political life and in military commands, or for mass murderers, particularly vicious forms of torture, murder and looting.

15. Letter from the partisan Bossoli Benigno to the ANPI Bologna Provincial Committee, dated December 16, 1946, in ISREBO, Fondo Anpi Bologna b. 84, f. 1111.

16. Article 2 of legislative Decree 1543 of October 26, 1940, Risarcimento dei danni di Guerra. Gazzetta Ufficiale, November 19, 1940, no. 270.

17. Memo from the ANPI's legal office of Turin to the National Committee, May 7, 1947, in ISTORETO, Fondo Grosa, FG b. 18.

18. Judgment of the Corte d’Assise of Turin of 18 February 1947, np. 214/47, in ISTORETO, Fondo sentenze della magistratura piemontese (1945–1960), D CSA, f. D 65 B.

19. DLCPS No. 226 of September 6,1946, ‘Definizione dei fatti di guerra ed equiparazione delle formazioni partigiane alle Forze armate dello Stato ai fini del risarcimento dei danni di guerra’, in Gazzetta ufficiale, October 22, 1946, no. 240.

20. Anon. 1953. La nuova legge sul risarcimento dei danni di guerra. Testo ufficiale della legge 27 dicembre 1963, n. 968, 12. Padua: Tipografia Penada.

21. Presidential Decree 460 of July 11, 1959, Concessione di amnistia e indulto.

22. The documents of the Democratic Solidarity Committees (SD) are currently kept in the Archives of the Library of Follonica (Grosseto) and in many other archives of the Institutes for the History of the Resistance in Italy: see Romeo (2009).

23. Speech by Mario Scelba, Ministry of the Interior, at the Cabinet's session on July 29, 1948, in ACS, Verbali del Consiglio dei Ministri, 1948, b. 23. Scelba said that the special measures of public policy were necessary to avoid what had happened in Italy after the First World War: ‘If in 1919 the judges had ordered punitive expeditions against the fascists, maybe Mussolini would not have come to power’.

24. See the letter of the Department Security Chief of Milan to the Ministry of the Interior, October 6, 1948, in ACS, MI, Ps (1947–1948), b. 131, fasc. C1, cat. AG 3039. 32.

25. Speech by Mauro Scoccimarro against the De Gasperi Government, in Atti Parlamentari, Senato della Repubblica, seduta del 20 luglio 1948, Discussioni, vol. XL, p. 1091.

26. Dati inerenti alle persecuzioni contro partigiani, dal 18 aprile 1948 al 1 ottobre 1953, in ISREBO, Fondo CSDBO, f. 481.

27. Speech by Umberto Terracini at the annual meeting of the National Committee of Democratic Solidarity, August 19, 1949, in Archivio della Biblioteca Comunale di Follonica, Fondo CSDN, b. 1.

28. According to the Solidarity Committee of Bologna, between April 18, 1948 and January 31, 1954, 282 partisans were arrested, 243 were put on trial and 67 were sentenced for acts committed during the Resistance, Persecuzioni contro partigiani della nostra provincia dal 19 aprile 1948 al 31 gennaio 1954. In ISREBO, fondo CSD, b. 272, f. 481.

29. ‘Un comunicato Stefani sui fatti di Via Rasella’, in L’Osservatore Romano, March 26, 1944.

30. Kappler's testimony cited in Judgment of Rome Military Tribunal No. 631 of July 20, 1948.

31. ‘Relazione approvata dal Consiglio della magistratura militare’. Storia e memoria 7, no. 2 (1998): 7.

32. Judgment no. 17172 of the 3rd Civil Division of the Supreme Court of Cassation, Rome, Judgement of May 23, 2007. http://www.cortedicassazione.it/Notizie/GiurisprudenzaCivile/SezioniSemplici/SchedaNews.asp?ID=1709 (last accessed June 30, 2010).

33. This news was given by Emilio Lussu in a speech before the Senate on October 29, 1949 regarding the bill on The forecast expenditure of the Ministry of Home Affairs for the financial year July 1st, 1949 to June 30th, 1950.

34. Compare the letter from the Chief of Police of Turin to the Public Security Directorate General at the Ministry of Home Affairs, in relation to the activities of the local ANPI, January 7, 1953, in ACS, MI, DG PS, Segreteria del Dipartimento, Ufficio ordine pubblico, Categoria G (1944–1986), b. 18, G 7, f. 81.

35. Lettera aperta ai partigiani e agli amici della Resistenza by Nicola Grosa, May 8, 1953, in ISTORETO, Fondo Grosa, b. 18.

36. Letter by a prisoner, and former partisan, Giovanni Polacco to Umberto Terracini, December 6, 1958, in Archivio della Biblioteca Comunale di Follonica, Fondo CSDN, b. 9.