A Civil War (20 page)

107
See Del Noce,
La tragedia del'8 settembre
. It is a fine example of how political factiousness can blunt the sharpest of minds. However, the author who inspires Del Noce on that page is Curzio Malaparte.

108
Conversation with Vittorio Foa (1985). ‘Obedience to destiny' is from G. W. F. Hegel's
Philosophische Propädeutik
. ‘It becomes what you are' is a maxim of Goethe's. In 1976 Foa was to write: ‘In Fascism, Rossi and Bauer taught us that one needed to be capable of choosing without counting the years ahead; in the Resistance, Leo Valiani and Ferruccio Parri taught us that one needed to fight even if the destiny of the war and of Fascism were in any case marked by the military events, one needed to fight if one wanted the future not to be a continuity with the past, but a break with it.' V. Foa, ‘Ernesto Rossi', in
Per una storia del movimento operaio
, pp. 231–2.

109
This is what Claudio Magris wrote of General Vlasov in
Illazione su una sciabola
, Bari: Cariplo-Laterza, n.d.

110
Battaglia,
Un uomo
, p. 47.

111
Ardigò,
L'insorgenza partigiana
, p. 23.

112
Artom,
Diari
, p. 122 (13 December 1943).

113
Inverni (V. Foa),
I partiti
, pp. 11–12 (cf. p. 59).

114
L'Italia Libera
, Roman edition, 11 September 1943 (note the early date), article entitled ‘L'Europa libera'.

115
Mautino,
Guerra di popolo
, p. 20. Enzo Collotti, in the Preface, underlines the ‘naturezza' (‘naturalness') of Mautino's choice, its ‘elementary' and ‘just' but not ‘easy' ‘simplicity': a form, that is, ‘of moral indemnity towards oneself and towards others' (p. 6).

116
See Bianco,
Guerra partigiana
, p. 12.

117
‘But tell me, sir, how then is it that Italy does not rebel?' Turati himself recounts the episode, connected with the request by the Fascist government for him to be extradited for the Savona trial, in a letter to Bianca Pittoni of 28 August 1928. See F. Turati,
Lettere dall'esilio
, ed. B. Pittoni, Milan: Pan, 1968, p. 182.

118
‘We are defeated men. Don't expect anything from us. You have to start everything again from scratch (G. Amendola's conversation with the author).

119
This is the title of an editorial in
Libérer et Fédérer
, February–March 1943, from which also the quotations that follow are taken.

1
H. M. Enzenberger, ‘Sulla teoria del tradimento', in
Menabò di letteratura
, 1964, vol. 7, p. 15 (original title ‘Uber die Theorie des Hochverrats').

2
Brissot's words used in the text are quoted by J.-P. Sartre,
Search for a Method
, New York: Vintage, 1968, p. 41.

3
See, for example, the entries ‘Tradimento' in
Il Digesto italiano
(1916) and in
Il Nuovo Digesto italiano
(1940), which converge in this evaluation.

4
G. Simmel, ‘Fashion',
International Quarterly
10: 130–55 (1904), p. 148. Besides the example of fashion, Simmel also gives that of law.

5
For the references to Polybius and Flavius Josephus, see Vidal-Naquet,
Flavius Josèphe
.

6
See Portelli,
Biografia di una città
, p. 8.

7
Major Rizzati, memorial letter of 18 October 1943.

8
Rahn's report to the German foreign minister, quoted in Pisanò,
Storia della guerra civile
, vol. I, p. 86.

9
Report by Jodl, chief of the General Staff of the Wehrmacht, of 7 November 1943, to the Reich-Gauleiters, and included among the Nuremburg documents, quoted in E. Collotti,
L'amministrazione tedesca nell'Italia occupata, 1943–1945
, Milan: Lerici, 1963, p. 80.

10
Quoted in Ragionieri,
Italia giudicata
, pp. 796–7.

11
Quoted in Collotti,
L'amministrazione
, p. 103. The Japanese view was similar: ‘Italy belongs to the Italians. From the Japanese point of view, a nation constitutes an inseparable bloc; we therefore think that the entire Italian people is responsible for the betrayal of Italy'. Report to the Mikado, n.d., in
Ragionieri, Italia giudicata
, p. 805.

12
J. Förster, ‘Il ruolo dell'8
^a
armata italiana dal punto di vista tedesco', in Istituto Storico della Resistenza in Cuneo e provincia,
Gli italiani sul fronte russo
, p. 258.

13
On this subject, see E. Collotti,
L'alleanza italo-tedesca 1941–1943
, p. 60.

14
E. Kuby,
Verrat auf deutsch
, Hamburg: Konkret Verlag, 1982. In an interview with Vannuccini, Karl Dietrich Bracher declared that ‘the whole thesis of the [Italian] betrayal makes no sense' (
La Repubblica
, 7 September 1983).

15
The text of the appeal can be read in a leaflet dropped by German aircraft on the isle of Elba on 10 September 1943. A photographic copy of it exists in ISRT,
Documenti dei CLN di Livorno e Piombino
.

16
Article entitled ‘Chi tradisce?' in the 23 October 1943 issue of
L'Adunata dei refrattari
, the newspaper of the Italian anarchists in America (quoted in Laura Valentini's degree thesis on Italian political emigration and the anti-Fascist press in the United States between 1940 and 1945, discussed at the University of Pisa with Professor Elena Aga-Rossi, academic year 1980–81).

17
Article entitled ‘Il Re', in
La Voce Repubblicana
, 6 October 1943. In the same number another article, ‘Quattro necessità', spoke in any case of the Germans as the ‘ally, traitor'.

18
Salvemini and Calamandrei, 7 December 1944, published in G. Salvemini,
Lettere dall'America 1944–1946
, ed. A. Merola, Bari: Laterza, 1967, pp. 53–4.

19
S. Trentin, ‘Appello ai veneti, guardia avanzata della nazione italiana', September 1943, published in
Giustizia e Libertà
, organ of the Veneto Action Party, 1 November 1943, also in S. Trentin,
Antifascismo e rivoluzione. Scritti e discorsi 1927–1944
, Venice: Marsilio, 1985, pp. 527–8.

20
IVSR,
Stampa antifascista
.

21
The episode is recounted by Calamandrei,
La vita indivisibile
, p. 110.

22
Testimonies by Giuseppe Bandini, from Cecina, told to Tenda, and of OR, from Gorizia; the second recalls how the Germans, after capturing him and his fellow soldiers, abandoned by their officers, near Frascati, ‘left us to our destinies' (
CU
).

23
On 17 February 1943, to be exact. Cited in Deakin,
The Brutal Friendship
, p. 166. In another note that follows soon after (3 March), Ambrosio repeated the same concepts, accusing the Germans of not understanding the importance of the Mediterranean front (p. 202).

24
‘Appunti' (‘Notes') for the Foreign Ministry. See Deakin, p. 376.

25
See General Rintelen's report of late March 1943, quoted in Deakin, pp. 358–9. The formula ‘guerra parallela' (‘parallel war') is contained in a memorandum by Mussolini to the king of 31 March 1940 (Deakin, p. 11).

26
See Degli Espinosa,
Il Regno del Sud
, p. 81.

27
Analogous arguments were to be put forward on 15 January 1944 in the article entitled ‘Un'alleanza sbagliata'.

28
‘La storia del preteso tradimento', 20 October 1943.

29
‘In documento d'infamia', 29 October 1943 (Roman edition); ‘Il caso dell'Ungheria', April 1944 (Piedmontese edition).

30
The next issue, of November 1943, took a similar line.

31
L' Azione
, 20 November 1943. On 20 October the Christian Social newspaper had advanced a similar thesis – we are the betrayed, not the betrayers – in the already-cited article bearing the challenging title
Pacta sunt servanda
.

32
‘Tutto il potere al CLN', 28 January 1944.

33
L'Italia Libera
, Roman edition, September 1943, articles entitled ‘Tradimenti' and ‘Per la storia'.

34
Mautino,
Guerra di popolo
, pp. 31–2.

35
See Sartre,
Critique of Dialectical Reason
I, pp. 419–20.

36
These were the formulas: ‘I swear to be faithful to the king and his royal successors, to loyally observe the Statute and the other laws of the state, to fulfil all the duties of my state, for the sole purpose of the inseparable good of the king and the
patria
'; ‘In the name of God and of Italy, I swear to execute the orders of the Duce and to serve with all my strength and, if necessary, with my blood, the cause of the Fascist Revolution' (Statute of the PNF of 1938, Art. 9). Until the Statute of 1926 betrayal had been closely connected to expulsion from the party. See M. Missori,
Gerarchia e statuti del PNF
, Rome: Bonacci, 1986.

37
Title of an article in the Roman edition, 20 January 1944.

38
See the motion to public functionaries of 7 January, the decree of 14 September on the sanctions to apply to the officers and public functionaries who swear, the motions to officers on leave of 24 October 1944, and the decree of 29 March 1945, again on the sanctions (demotion) to apply to officers who swear the oath (
Atti
, CLNAI [Acts of the Committee for National Liberation of Northern Italy], pp. 111–12, 172, 197, 294).

39
The passage from Gramsci reads as follows: ‘In the East the state was everything, civil society was primordial and gelatinous; in the West between state and civil society there was a just relationship and in the trembling of the state a robust structure of civil society could be discerned immediately'. A. Gramsci,
Quaderni del carcere
, ed. V. Gerratana, II, Turin: Einaudi, 1975, p. 866.

40
Testimony by Giampiero Carocci to the author.

41
See V. E. Giuntella and G. Rochat's works, cited above.

42
See Rochat,
Memorialistica e storiografia sull'internamento
, p. 37.

43
Letter to his mother by Giuseppe Di Stefano, reserve lieutenant, philosophy professor, Sicilian, 6 December 1943 (
LRE
, p. 462).

44
See Rochat,
Memorialistica e storiografia sull'internamento
, p. 37.

45
Testimony by Cinzio Violante to the author (1982).

46
See Rochat,
Memorialistica e storiografia sull'internamento
, p. 37.

47
G. Vangelista,
Oltre il filo spinato. Storia e considerazioni di un ex internato militare italiano
, Rome: Stampa d'oggi, n.d., quoted in Rochat,
Memorialistica e storiografia sull'internamento
, p. 48.

48
See the articles ‘Il supremo dovere' and ‘Gli artefici della guerra civile', both of 23 October 1943 (Roman edition).

49
Article entitled ‘Fede a un giuramento', 14 November 1943 (Roman edition), signed ‘un ufficiale di Marina' (‘a Naval officer').

50
See P. Scoppola,
Chiesa e Stato nella storia d'Italia
, Bari: Laterza, 1967, p. 673. In the agreement with the regime reached on 2 September 1931 the pope was to renounce the modification of the oath. Giovanni Gentile had replied to the pope's stance in his article ‘Dopo due anni', published in
Educazione fascista
, 20 July 1931, and later included in
Origini e dottrina del fascismo
, Rome: Istituto nazionale fascista di cultura, 1934, pp. 98–103.

51
‘Il giuramento', article in
Il Messaggero
, 28 September 1943. The same article reads: ‘The ally could be betrayed, not played with', almost a revealing lapse in the strenuous pursuit of the
Realpolitik
model that the Fascists always engaged in.
Il Messaggero
would become the fully fledged organ of the RSI with the appointment to the editorship of Bruno Spampanato on 14 December 1943. See G. Talamo,
Il Messaggero, un giornale durante il fascismo
, Florence: Le Monnier, 1988, pp. 336 ff.

52
Fondo RSI
, n. 755 (September 1943).

53
In the commemoration of June 1942, Alfredo De Marsico repeated this argument in less clear-cut terms, defending the Neapolitan admiral, however, against the accusation of oath-breaking brought against him in the entry entitled ‘Caracciolo, Francesco, duca' in
Enciclopedia italiana
(VIII, 1930, p. 928) by Francesco Lemmi. On this whole affair see L. Canfora,
La sentenza. Concetto Marchesi e Giovanni Gentile
, Palermo: Sellerio, 1985, pp. 41–5.

54
Quoted in G. Rovero, ‘Il clero piemontese nella Resistenza', in Giorgio Agosti, ed.,
Aspetti della Resistenza in Piemonte
, Turin: ISRP, 1950, p. 44.

55
S. Cotta, replies to the remarks on his report ‘Lineamenti di storia della Resistenza italiana nel periodo dell'occupazione', in
Rassegna del Lazio
, XII, 1965, special number with the proceedings of the national conference on the Resistance held in Rome on 23 and 24 October 1964, pp. 124–5.

56
Here is the passage devoted to ‘diritto alla resistenza' (‘the right to resist'), which ‘tends precisely to confer efficacy to natural right, affirming the pre-eminence of this respect to that emanated by the state. If one starts from the opinion that the observation of state law by citizens, independently of its content, is in itself a moral duty, the affirmation of the right to resist in order to make respect for an ethical imperative prevail gives rise to one of those ‘conflicts of loyalty' which has already been mentioned; conflicts that are resolved as circumstances present themselves, according the gravity of the conflict, the intensity of the sentiment that feeds the faith in ethical values, the coercive capacity of legal power' (Mortati,
Istituzioni di diritto pubblico
, vol. I, p. 51).