The political police and denunciation during Fascism: a review of recent historical literature 1

1 I am grateful to Adrian Lyttelton and Paul Corner for their insights on a draft of this review.

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Notes

1 I am grateful to Adrian Lyttelton and Paul Corner for their insights on a draft of this review.

2 The research revealing Ignazio Silone's relationship with the Fascist political police is collected in Biocca and Canali (2000). See also the new biography in Biocca (2005). For a refutation of Biocca and Canali's conclusions, see Tamburrano et al. (2001).

3 The exception is the work of historian Paola Carucci, who has written several articles on the police (see Carucci 1976; 1980; 1996: 21 – 73). For a popular account of political policing, see Fucci (1985).

4 On the Matteotti murder, see Canali (1997).

5 Two self-exculpatory memoirs are Leto (1951) and Senise (1946).

6 Additional zones were subsequently established in Puglia (1932), Umbria – Abruzzo – Molise – Rieti (1932), Sicily (1933), Sardinia (1937), Campania (1938) – including the provinces of Catanzaro, Reggio Calabria, and, in 1939, Potenza – and Littoria – Frosinone – Viterbo – Castelli Romani (1939). New Ovra zones were carved out of existing ones and individual provinces shifted from one jurisdiction to another. In 1941, for example, the Ovra established a zone for Tuscany, which was then reintegrated into the second zone in July 1941. Similarly, a tenth zone was established for eastern Sicily (June 1940 – October 1941). Finally, a branch of the Ovra was established in ‘Eastern Italy’, or Dalmatia under Italian military occupation. See Franzinelli, Tentacoli: 245 – 51.

7 For an overview of this historiography, see Rapone (1999).

8 For an overview, see the excellent essays essays in Di Sante (2001).

9 On the coercive function of these institutions and policies, see Corner (2002).

10 On evangelicals and other religious minorities under Fascism, see Rochat (1990).

11 For one interesting attempt at a synthesis, see Bosworth (2005).