UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Fascist Italy and the Barbarization of the Eastern Front, 1941-43 by Nicolas Gladstone Virtue A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY CALGARY, ALBERTA AUGUST, 2007 © Nicolas Gladstone Virtue 2007 Abstract Italian relations with the occupied populations of the Soviet Union between 1941 and 1943 were considerably better than those of their German ally. In explaining this discrepancy, this thesis discards stereotypical notions of a humanitarian Italian national character, arguing that a more complex interplay of tangible factors informed the behaviour of Italian troops in the east. While Italian forces occupied large territories, the Germans dictated policy and did not request Italian participation in harsh policies such as the Holocaust or forced labour deportations. Alongside presenting the war as an ideological crusade to eradicate Bolshevism, Fascist propaganda idealized the role of Italian soldiers as liberators of the Soviet peoples from Communism. Because Italian forces were deployed in regions unsuited to guerrilla warfare, they faced little partisan threat to dissuade them from their sympathy for civilians. Italians were capable of brutality, but circumstances kept it in check. ii Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr. Alexander Hill and Dr. John Ferris, for their guidance and patience throughout the production of this thesis. Their expertise in the history of the eastern front and broader military issues helped me apply Italian sources to an existing historiography focused mainly on the German and Soviet points of view. Also, I must thank Brenda Oslawsky for facilitating my communication with them while I resided 200 km away in Lethbridge. The idea for the thesis came out of a paper written during my undergraduate study at the University of Lethbridge. Professor Christopher Burton, a specialist in Soviet history, encouraged my interest in Fascist Italy. Together, we created readings courses on modern Italian history and worked on building up a background of knowledge. I am grateful also to members of the Associazione Nazionale Alpini – Dario Sodero and Giovanna Naylor in Calgary and Mariolina Cattaneo in Milan – for their encouragement and assistance with sources. Before my research trip, I had never been to Italy, so I am especially indebted to Rita Fiorino in Lethbridge and Giacomo Cesario in Rome for arranging accomodation for me. For six weeks I was the guest of Simone Colonna, who was kind enough to show me around Rome. He and his family made me feel most welcome. The people I met during my research allayed any concerns I might have had with Italian archives. The staff of the Archivio Centrale dello Stato, the Ufficio Storico dello Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito (USSME), and the Biblioteca di Storia Moderna e Contemporanea were always helpful and efficient. I must thank in particular Alessandro iii Gionfrida at the USSME for the special attention he gave me and Piero Crociani for his helpful conversations. Overseas travel and research was aided by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada as well as a University of Calgary travel grant. Also by way of funding, and much more besides, I would like to thank my parents, to whom this work is dedicated. iv Table of Contents Abstract............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements............................................................................................................ iii Table of Contents.................................................................................................................v List of Abbreviations and Nomenclature........................................................................... vi INTRODUCTION – FASCIST ITALY AND THE BARBARIZATION OF THE EASTERN FRONT ....................................................................................................1 CHAPTER ONE – THE ITALIAN EXPERIENCE ON THE EASTERN FRONT.........11 CHAPTER TWO – ITALIAN OCCUPATION POLICY IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE AXIS COALITION..........................................................................................28 CHAPTER THREE – THE CRUSADE AGAINST BOLSHEVIK RUSSIA: IDEOLOGY AND PROPAGANDA ON THE EASTERN FRONT .......................68 CHAPTER FOUR – POPULAR RESISTANCE TO ITALIAN OCCUPATION..........117 EPILOGUE – GOMEL, SPRING 1943...........................................................................156 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................168 v List of Abbreviations and Nomenclature ACS: Archivio Centrale dello Stato (Italian Central State Archives, Rome) Alpini: the Italian Army’s alpine forces, sent to the eastern front in summer 1942. ARMIR: Armata Italiana in Russia (Italian Army in Russia – i.e. Eighth Army) Bersaglieri: Italian light infantry, distinguished by the cockerel plumes in their helmets. Carabinieri/CC.RR.: Italian military police CC.NN.: military designation of the Fascist camicie nere (“Blackshirt” militia) Comando Retrovie CSIR: CSIR’s rear-area command Comando Retrovie dell’Est: Eighth Army’s rear-area command Comando Supremo: Italian armed forces high command CSIR: Corpo di Spedizione Italiano in Russia (Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia) Einsatzgruppen: SS formations chiefly used for the killing of Jews on the eastern front Feldkommandantur: German Army rear-area command GIL: Gioventù Italiana del Littorio (a Fascist youth organization) Intendenza: Italian formation of service units operating in the rear area (including hospital, commissariat, and administrative personnel, as well as engineering, transportation, and postal services) Kolkhoz: a Soviet collective farm Minculpop: Ministero della Cultura Popolare (Italian Ministry of Popular Culture) MVSN: Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (Fascist “Blackshirt” militia organization) vi NARA: National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD (cited as microfilm publication number/roll/frame) OKH: Oberkommando des Heeres (German Army high command) OKW: Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (the German armed forces high command) Ortskommandantur: German Army rear-area urban command Ostheer: German Eastern Army OUN: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists Regio Esercito: Royal Italian Army Reichskommissariat: German civil administration in conquered Soviet territory set up rearward of zones controlled by the German Army (included Reichskommissariat Ukraine in the south and Reichskommissariat Ostland in the north) SD: Sicherheitsdienst (SS security service) USSME: Ufficio Storico dello Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito (Italian Army Historical Office, Rome) Wehrmacht: the German armed forces vii 1 INTRODUCTION FASCIST ITALY AND THE BARBARIZATION OF THE EASTERN FRONT On 19 December 1942, after more than a week of heavy fighting against concentrated Soviet infantry and armour, the centre and right flank of the Italian Eighth Army commenced its retreat from the Don River, northwest of Stalingrad. The left flank followed suit a month later. For Italians, the Eighth Army’s retreat was one of the most tragic events of their Second World War. Surrounded by enemy forces and lacking motorized transport, provisions, and proper clothing in the harsh winter of the Russian and Ukrainian steppes, the Italians suffered over 110,000 casualties, of whom 85,000 were dead or missing.1 While Italians remember the campaign in the east as a disaster, their memory of the occupation of Soviet territory between 1941 and 1942 sits in marked contrast. Relations between the populations of the east and their German, Hungarian, and Rumanian occupiers were notoriously poor, but the picture of the Italian zone of occupation has been more positive. Giovanni Messe, commander of an Italian expeditionary corps on the eastern front between July 1941 and November 1942, claimed he “truly had the impression of operating in a friendly country.”2 Italian memoirs explained how local populations rejoiced when they learned that Italians, not Germans, 1 For a complete table of Italian losses on the eastern front, see the Italian Army’s official history, C. De Franceschi, G. De Vecchi, and M. Mantovani, Le operazioni delle unità italiane al fronte russo (1941-1943) (Rome: Ministero della Difesa, Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito, Ufficio Storico, 1977), 487. 2 Giovanni Messe, La Guerra al fronte russo: Il corpo di spedizione italiano in Russia (CSIR) (Milan: Rizzoli, 1964; Milan: Mursia, 2005), 91. Citations are to the Mursia edition. 2 would occupy their villages.3 Indeed, the legacy of friendship between the Italians and the populations of the territories they occupied on the eastern front continues to be reinforced today by the cooperation of Italian and Russian veterans associations. In 1993, the Associazione Nazionale Alpini funded the construction of a school in Rossosh, the site of the Alpino Corps’ headquarters in 1942, followed up ten years later with the erection of a joint monument to the Russian and Italian dead.4 This Italian memory of occupation in the east has caused some confusion among historians, but there has been little attempt to explain it.5 Any such attempt must take into consideration the machinations of the Italian military and government after 1943 to present themselves as innocent. In the process, they