Academic literature on the topic 'German occupation, 1943-1945 – Italy – Florence'

Abstract This piece of research aims to present a historiographical and methodological review of the history of the Jesuits, the civilian population and the military troops during the German military occupation in Italy between 1943 and 1945. The analysis of hitherto unexplored sources, accessible since 2 March 2020, allows historians to explore the archival heritage that was produced by the different religious communities of the Society of Jesus present in rural and urban territories, which carried out functions of education, pastoral care and assistance in the communities of reference. The analysis of the role and function of the religious orders as observers of ‚Great History‘ to tell the story of the life of the civilian population in the years of the Second World War and under military occupation represents a privileged point of view that still awaits investigation.

Abstract This paper develops out of a specific event. In 2020, the town of Münsingen in the Swabian Alps commissioned its authors to write a historical report on the Italian Fascist Monterosa Division, focusing on its function and role in the German occupation of Italy from 1944 to 1945. The issue to be clarified was the extent to which the division was involved in war crimes during this period. The background to the request was a monument erected in 1986 in the Ehrenhain, Münsingen’s „grove of honour“, by the division’s veterans’ association (Associazione degli appartenenti alla divisione Monterosa). This monument has since led to repeated controversy and heated debate over its Fascist symbolism and the division’s involvement in anti-partisan warfare in Italy. Our paper focuses on the experience of officers in the Fascist regime, the division’s operations against partisans and at the front, its crimes, and the attempts of the veterans’ association in the post-war period to gain official recognition in both Germany and Italy. The Monterosa Mountain Division was created in 1943/1944 by Benito Mussolini’s Repubblica sociale italiana (RSI) as one of four military divisions to join front-line combat with the German Army in Italy. Largely composed of young conscripts from Northern Italy, its older non-commissioned officers had extensive war experience from the Italian occupation of Greece and the Balkans, and from the Eastern Front. Its commander, General Mario Carloni, was a hardliner, an energetic, ruthless, and politicised Fascist officer who after the collapse of the Italian state in 1943 chose to continue fighting for Mussolini’s side and to support the German occupation of Italy. German instructors trained the Monterosa Division in Münsingen. In late August 1944, it was sent to Italy and assigned to coastal defense duties on the east coast of Liguria, an area almost completely controlled by partisans. The division thus became involved in anti-partisan actions and began to take hostages, shoot civilians and prisoners of war, and destroy village houses. In 1951, a division association was founded, with former General Carloni as its honorary president. Until 2001, it tried in vain to gain recognition from the Associazione Nazionale Alpini (ANA), the most important veterans’ and reservists’ association of Italian mountain troops. In Germany, on the other hand, the former Monterosa soldiers found faster access to veterans’ associations. The first visit by former division members to Münsingen took place as early as 1952. In the 1970s, these visits became increasingly regular and were given official sanction. During the 1980s, the division association’s connections further expanded and ultimately resulted in the erection of a memorial to the fallen. In Germany, of all places, the RSI veterans received the recognition that was so difficult for them to obtain in their home country.

This article compares Italian and German memory cultures of Fascism and Nazism using an analysis of Italian and West- and East-German satirical magazines published from 1943 to 1963. In the early post-war period, as a consequence of the anti-Fascist and anti-Nazi policies in Italy and in Germany that had been put into effect by the Allied occupation authorities, a significant part of the Italian and German public felt anxiety regarding the Fascist and the Nazi past and feared these past regimes as potential sources of contamination. But many, both in Italy and Germany, also reacted by denying that their country needed any sort of ‘purification’. This article’s main argument is that the interaction between these two conflicting positions exercised different effects in the three contexts considered. In Italy, especially during the years after 1948, the satirical press produced images that either rendered Fascism banal or praised it, representing it as a phenomenon which was an ‘internal’ and at least partly positive product of Italian society. I define this process as a sweetening ‘internalization’ of Fascism. In East Germany, by contrast, Nazism was represented through images linking the crimes committed in the Nazi concentration camps, depicted as a sort of ‘absolute evil’, with the leadership of the FRG, considered ‘external’ to ‘true’ German society. I define this process as a ‘demonizing’ externalization of Nazism, by which I mean a tendency to represent Nazism as a ‘monstrous’ phenomenon. In the West German satirical press, on the other hand, Nazism was not only ‘externalized’ by comparing it to the East German Communist dictatorship, but also ‘internalized’ by implying that it was a negative product of German society in general and by calling for public reflection on responsibility for the Nazi crimes, including West Germany as the Nazi regime’s successor. The demonization of the regime also played a crucial role in this self-critical ‘internalization’ of Nazism.

Albania was considered "a wild province" by the British missions that served in the "land of the eagles"during the Second World War. First, the Italian occupation and then the German occupation created the ground forthe anti-fascist national liberation war, carried out by various political forces operating in the country at that time.This paper aims to analyze the approaches and controversies of the civil war in Albania through the lens of Britishmilitary missions’ (SOE) official documents, Albanian archival documentation as well as from the literature ofvarious authors. Referring to this documentation, the beginning of the civil war in Albania is related to thecapitulation of Italy in September 1943 and the arrival of the German army, which occupied Albania, Yugoslaviaand Greece in three weeks. Domestic political situation in Albania was strained because off encountered difficultiesin creating a common front by the nationalist forces. The main rivalry was between a part of National Front calledBalli Kombetar (BK) and Albanian Communist Party (ACP). BK was a republican, liberal and nationalist wingorganization with an anti-communist program. Meanwhile, ACP identified itself with the National Liberation Front.In the vortex of these events, in August 1943 it was organized a meeting called “Mukje Meeting” due to the name ofthe village where it was held. The two rival political forces concluded an agreement, which lasted only one month;the communists cancelled it under the directives of the Yugoslavs because it meant equal power for both politicalforces and territorial unification with Kosovo after the war. These and other decisions were officially announced atthe next conference organized by APC, called Labinot Conference II (September 1943). At the Central Archives ofAlbania it is found a circular - letter of October 1, year 1943 addressed to the APC Committees. Through it EnverHoxha, as the secretary of APC opposed the union of BK forces with National Front, describing them as enemies.From this moment and on began the civil war. The confrontations are confirmed by the reports of SOE addressed tothe British Foreign Ministry; it was reported that only 10% of the British weapons given to the communists wereused in the war against the Germans, while the rest, 90% of them were used to fight the opponents (BK). Communisthistoriography denied the existence of civil war by censoring the history learned by Albanians for 45 years. After thefall of the communist regime, it was a necessary reviewing and rewriting the history of Albania. Even today,historians share different opinions regarding the period of World War II and especially the (in)existence of the civilwar. The fact that Albania has had a civil war reflected in the struggle for power, just like the countries of the region,does not at all diminish the organization of a liberation war and its commitment to the Allies. To reflect about thisperiod of Albania's history, we will refer to historical facts, arguments and various sources, which prove theexistence of the civil war even after the liberation of the country. In January 1945, when the Germans had leftAlbania, it happen another confrontation, known as the Battle of Tamara. In the time when the victory of thecommunists was a fact and they were full of glory, this event is interpreted as the last step towards the power. Withthe coming of the communists in power, the civil war was replaced by the class war, which marked countlessvictims during the entire communist dictatorship.

Defence date: 15 October 2003
Examining Board: Victoria De Grazia (EUI, Firenze); Gérard Delille (EUI, Firenze, supervisor); Gabriella Gribaudi (Università Federico II, Napoli); Marco Palla (Università di Firenze)
First made available online on 23 October 2014.
Questa ricerca nasce dal recente ritrovamento, presso gli eredi del pittore fiorentino Giovanni Colacicchi, di lettere e documenti appartenuti a Carlo Levi, risalenti al periodo in cui il pittore e scrittore torinese tenne aperto uno studio a Firenze: dalla fine del 1941 alla fine del 1945. Durante questi anni, accadono molte cose che un biografo definirebbe “fondamentali”. Dalla Questura di Firenze parte l’ordine di arresto che costa a Levi la terza carcerazione della sua vita: dalla fine del giugno 1943 sarà detenuto al carcere delle Murate, da cui uscirà il 26 luglio. Tra il 1943 e il 1944, nascosto in piazza Pitti, scrive Cristo si è fermato ad Eboli, che resterà il suo libro più celebre. A Firenze Levi aderisce al Partito d’Azione, e quindi lo rappresenta, dall’agosto 1944, nella direzione interpartitica della “Nazione del Popolo”, il quotidiano pubblicato a cura del Comitato Toscano di Liberazione Nazionale. Tra i cinque condirettori, Levi si ritaglia un ruolo di assoluto primo piano: ha un peso molto rilevante nella scelta dei collaboratori, a lui si devono la presenza di certi temi e prese di posizione sulle pagine della “Nazione del Popolo”. Levi interviene direttamente – sono almeno trenta i suoi articoli di fondo, concentrati soprattutto nei primi mesi di vita del giornale –, oppure commissiona alcuni pezzi ad hoc ai suoi collaboratori più stretti.

Defence date: 3 March 2000
Examining Board: Prof. Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, Universität Bielefeld (supervisor) ; Prof. Luisa Passerini, Istituto Universitario Europeo (co-supervisor) ; Prof. Claudio Pavone, emeritus, Università di Pisa ; Prof. Jakob Tanner,Universität Zürich
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017
L'oggetto di questa tesi sulla Seconda Guerra Mondiale e sulla Resistenza armata in Italia è il racconto che viene «inventato» per narrare gli eventi passati o la memoria selettiva. Si tratta di uno studio su storia e memoria e sul modo in cui funzionano e sono trasmesse. Basandosi sull'analisi di fonti disparate come le riviste storiche divulgative, le immagini fotografiche e documenti alleati e tedeschi, esso osserva le discrepanze tra i fatti (storia) e la loro narrazione (memoria). Inoltre studia come sono narrati i fatti, come si ricorda e si dimentica, chi è il narratore (testimoni, seconda generazione, collettività) e come ciò influisce sul racconto tramandato. Il testo tenta di capire se c'è una ragione per la forma narrativa scelta e quale potrebbe essere. Prendendo spunto dal funzionamento psicologico della memoria individuale, esso osserva la memoria collettiva e come, nel dopoguerra, l'Italia narrandosi «sceglie» o «inventa» una memoria che le dia una nuova identità.