In Italy, public and professional gatherings on topics from contemporary history are held relatively often, starting from the position that a stable and democratic future is not possible without overcoming the past.
Questions from rather traumatic periods of national history such as the Second World War are also not bypassed.
Actually, there were two Italian periods in that war: the first - the infamous period of war adventures of the fascist regime of Mussolini in alliance with Hitler, and the second - the resistance movement in the country itself, but also in a number of other countries where the Italians happened after the capitulation on September 8, 1943.
In Pistoia, a city in Tuscany, at the beginning of November, an international meeting will be held on the subject of the fate of Italian soldiers in the Balkans after 1943.
At the time of the country's capitulation, several tens of thousands of Italian soldiers found themselves in Greece, Albania and Montenegro, Croatia and Slovenia. From the capitulation of September 1943 until the end of World War II, Italy itself was divided into two parts. On the liberated, southern part of the country under the de facto administration of Anglo-American forces with the provisional government of the Italian general Badoglio and on the central-northern part, including Rome, under German administration, with the Quisling Italian government in Salo.
The drama of the Italian soldiers in the Balkans in the conditions of the collapse of the command, that is, the capitulation of the country exactly halfway through the war, is described in many personal testimonies and historical research.
General Badolj's sentence from the public address after the capitulation, "The war continues" was still unclear. Yes, the war continues, but on which side?
General Badolj's sentence from the public address after the capitulation, "The war continues" was still unclear. Yes, the war continues, but on which side?
The majority chose war against the Germans, yesterday's allies. The change of alliance was not at all simple and without consequences on the ground.
The Germans severely punished "treason". About 600.000 Italian soldiers and elders from all fronts were taken to German camps during the last two years of the war. German formations would often liquidate disloyal Italian soldiers in the field. An entire Italian division was shot on the Greek island of Kefalonia.
The fate of Italian soldiers in Montenegro after September 1943 is also a topic that has been studied, and will be included in the program of the meeting in Pistoia.
In several books, especially in the testimonies of contemporaries of that period, the situation is carefully and traumatically described, many complications on the ground, and even dilemmas about what to decide in the absence of higher command.
Among other things, who to join in the parallel civil wars in certain countries, wars that are also fought with cruel means.
After the first doubts of this type in Albania, Montenegro, Sandžak, Italian soldiers joined the partisan formations. Thus, on September 21, 1943, the "Garibaldi" division was formed in Pljevlje, which would later operate as part of the Second Corps of the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia. In fact, the partisan division "Garibaldi" was composed of soldiers from two divisions - "Taurinese" and "Venice", which were in Montenegro since the entry of Italian military formations in April 1941.
The November meeting in Tuscany will be an opportunity to re-illuminate a complex and beautiful page of Italian and Montenegrin history with new historical research and direct written and oral memories of the participants of that dramatic time.
Pertini in Montenegro
The "Garibaldi" division, whose soldiers fought alone or together with Yugoslav partisans against the Germans, has an important place in Italian historiography. The President of Italy Sandro Pertini and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Giulio Andreotti visited Montenegro on September 21, 1983, attending the jubilee in Pljevlja - 40 years of the formation of the "Garibaldi" division. Then a monument to fallen Italian soldiers from that division was discovered.
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