Repression from Two Sides
Author: Milan Spindler
The history of the Resistenza is inseparable from the repressive actions of the German occupying forces and the collaborating fascist institutions of the RSI. These measures were carried out under the pretext of ‘bandit-fighting’. Italian fascism had already gained experience in suppressing resistance during the colonial wars in North and East Africa and in the military campaigns in the Balkans. Likewise, the Nazi military leadership drew on its experiences in the occupied Soviet Union and in Greece. As in those contexts, partisans in Italy were not treated as lawful combatants but as ‘bandits’, a designation used to justify systematic repression and to lend a veneer of legality to the perpetration of war crimes.
A key element of this repression was the principle of ‘reprisal’, based on an unwritten yet widely practised so-called military custom: in response to attacks, it was standard practice to execute ten prisoners for every German soldier killed. Following a bomb attack on the Bozen police regiment on 23 March 1944 in Rome, Herbert Kappler, head of the German Security Police in the city, ordered the execution of 335 men in the Ardeatine Caves, among them political prisoners, Jewish hostages, and randomly arrested civilians. The same principle was applied at the Turchino Pass massacre on 19 May 1944, where 59 civilians were shot in reprisal for a partisan attack on German troops.
Those arrested were often tortured in custody, executed, or deported to German Concentration camps. Their bodies were displayed publicly as a warning, and the population was threatened with punishment if they attempted to bury them. One of the most infamous examples was the execution of fifteen partisans on 10 August 1944 at Piazzale Loreto in Milan. On orders from the Sicherheitspolizeikommando under Theo Saevecke, the Italian Legione Autonoma Mobile Ettore Muti carried out the executions; the corpses were left on public display for several days.
On the German side, the Wehrmacht, SS, and Security Police were all involved in the repression of the Resistenza. Their actions targeted both armed partisan groups in the mountains and known anti-fascists in the cities. On the RSI side, repression was carried out not only by the police but also by fascist militias such as the notorious Brigate nere and military units like the Decima Flottiglia MAS, all of which acted with extreme brutality against political opponents.
The massacres committed by German troops against the Italian civilian population were typically carried out in the context of anti-partisan operations. Resistance activity was often used as a pretext for indiscriminate and ruthless violence, resulting in the deaths of countless civilians, whether through arbitrary shootings or targeted executions under the accusation of aiding partisans. Units of the Wehrmacht, SS, and RSI generally acted with de facto impunity, even when innocent bystanders were killed. The violence reached its peak in the summer of 1944.
Yet these brutal ‘reprisals’ failed to achieve their aim. Neither in the cities nor in the countryside did they succeed in crushing the Resistenza or ‘pacifying’ the occupied territories. On the contrary, the violence drove ever more young people into the resistance. At the same time, many men refused to serve in the RSI’s security forces, which were directly responsible for carrying out the repression.