THE NORTH contemporary ITALY

Korero (AEWS), Volume 3, Issue 1, 12 February 1945, Page 10

THE NORTH contemporary ITALY

This is the first of two articles by a correspondent of the New Statesman and Nation, Carlo Marini, who spent 1943 behind the German lines in Italy.

x’xtt’hen Mussolini’s Italy collapsed When Mussolini’s Italy collapsed in July, 1943, the German Army faced a difficult situation. Up till then its rear had been safeguarded by the discipline enforced by the Milizia Fascista and 0.V.R.A., the secret party police ; by the time of the Armistice the German Army found itself in a disorganized and rather hostile country. I saw a Nazi corporal forcibly requisitioning masses of Army supplies from an Italian Colonel, giving in exchange receipts which he knew would never be honoured, and this method was used on a large scale to secure everything from trains to typewriters. The farmers were at the mercy of foraging bands who left notes saying pagheva Badoglio—“ Badoglio will pay.” The Fascist machine having broken down, some kind of coercive force was essential to suppress opposition to this organized looting. So the Republican Fascist Party was created. At first the Fascist groups only policed the industrial north and undertook such other odd jobs as the Nazis would entrust to them. They guarded British prisoners of war, patrolled military dumps, and helped enforce the curfew. The bribe of two new uniforms, new boots, German weapons, and increased pay, together with the tacitly understood opportunity for looting and brigandage, induced sufficient young men to join their ranks. Quite early Marshal Graziani was somehow enticed into the movement. His exact position in the

Republican Fascist Party is still obscure. But at that moment it was essential to produce a Fascist counterpart to Badoglio, and Graziani was the only candidate who was not too discredited in the eyes of the public. From time to time I saw in the Carriers del Adriatico (which reappeared shortly after the Armistice) articles casting Graziani for the role of a nationalist leader who would do for Italy what Mustapha Kemal had achieved for Turkey. In such ways as this an attempt was made to re-establish the old order. The result was only a facade but it was a facade which served the Germans well. Without it they would have been obliged to police Italy themselves.

The activity of the Fascists sufficed to suppress the feeble beginnings of political initiative which had appeared after July, and millions of people sank back into the acceptance of Fascism which had characterized them for twenty years. This apathetic mentality continued throughout the period, dangerous to the

Germans, between the defection of Italy from the Axis and the creation of a more effective coercive machine under the Republican Fascist Party. This interim period ended when the Allied advance halted on the Pescara. The Republican Fascists had attempted to give a broad national basis to their movement, which so far had been little more than a minor task force of the Wehrmacht. Publication of a new pro-

gramme for Italy was coupled with considerable propaganda in the towns ; the Milizia was reorganized and expanded, and the grip of the Nazi-Fascist rulers was consolidated. Perhaps in order to test the security of their rule they called up the two youngest military classes in Italy, and all specialists from the Air Force and Navy. This was necessary because of the mass desertions which had occurred after the Armistice. The response to these orders was fairly good in the industrial north, but in the Marches and the Abbruzzi the decrees might never have been published for all the notice people took of them. I lived on a farm for some time ; not one of my acquaintances who was selected for the draft ever had any intention of presenting himself. No sooner did Fascists arrive than they disappeared in company with others “ outside the law ” —as, for instance, escaped prisoners of war, partisans, and deserters. All of us hid in woods and caves until the danger was past. Although in Northern Italy the inflation of the lira had not produced the economic chaos which was evident in the agricultural south, there was much hardship in the towns amongst the artisans and wage-earners. Before the Armistice the black market had flourished in Italy, the main source of supply being army stores. After it, however, the black market entirely supplanted normal economic channels. In fact, it was only (through the black market that sufficient food could be obtained to keep the population above subsistence level. My memories of the winter months are coloured by the frequent slaughtering and sale of live-stock and by the transport and disposal of such articles as soap, olive-oil, flour, and tobacco, all of which were strictly rationed. The Fascists had instituted the death sentence for anybody engaged in contraband trading, and in some cases had actually carried this out, notably in Marcerta last February, when many people were shot and enormous quantities of flour, maize, hides, oil, and soap confiscated. The corruption of Italian officialdom was still very evident. A friend of mine, the biggest black market trader in the district, was twice on the

run from the police, and each time bought his freedom with “ gifts ” of some twenty thousand lire to the right people. The Fascists made a survey of national resources and set up a system of rationing hopefully intended to last until next March. The only outcome of the issue of ration cards was the complete disappearance of rationed commodities from the market. Cigarettes, for instance, which were selling for sixty live a packet on the black market, had previously been sold in small quantities on the open market at five lire a carton. When rationing began, the first month saw an

issue of one cigarette and one cigar per card in some districts. In the second month there was no issue at all. Oliveoil, the controlled price of which was between ten and twenty live a litre, was sold in Rome for nearly nine hundred live in April. There was no commodity which was not subjected to this enormous price inflation. The situation was aggravated by the German printing works at Aquila. This press ran full time, printing notes of large denominations. When German soldiers chose to pay for any commodity they produced a large roll of uncut notes rather resembling a toilet roll and cut off the desired amount. They openly scoffed at the paltry value of the great quantity of money which they carried. Payment in any case was merely a token, because lack of funds never prevented a German from taking what he desired from any shop or household. The life I led at this time gave me first-hand experience of the reign of terror. I knew a farmer who was

sheltering a British prisoner of war. His son was subject to. conscription. The prisoner was betrayed, and the Fascists surrounded the house one night and broke in. The prisoner tried to escape, but was recaptured and dragged into the kitchen, only ceasing his resistance when he was forced to his knees and a rifle pointed at his chest. The son of the house was then beaten in order to force him to divulge the whereabouts of another prisoner living nearby. When this failed the Fascists looted the house and took away with them all stores of food, clothing, and any money they could find, telling the farmer to report to their barracks on the following morning. He did this, and for two hours was beaten up by the local Political Secretary. . This incident is typical of the reign of terror which existed from February onwards. It was a policy of the resistance movement to open the silos and to distribute the grain to the farmers, evacuees, and the poor. At a small village near my home partisans opened the silos, and the district was soon alive with every kind of vehicle. Suddenly a squad of Germans and Milizia arrived in lorries, debussed, set up machine guns, and opened fire on the crowd, causing numerous casualties. Such incidents only confirmed the Italians in their hatred of the Germans, whom they blamed for continuing a senseless war which was ravaging their country. The arrogance of the Germans, which had increased enormously after the Italian defection, the reports, of atrocities and the first-hand knowledge of their own

suffering under the Nazis, made the Italians detest the Germans. The Nazis appeared unconcerned by this, although they produced some very clever propaganda against the Allies. But most Italians longed for the arrival of the Allies, believing that the wealthy United Nations would in some magic way banish their poverty and bring with them large quantities of chocolate and cigarettes for the relief of a gallant people. I found little political sympathy with the Allies, but I can understand this. The Italians are now among the least politically educated nations in Europe, and their naivety and ignorance are supplemented by strong emotions. There must be hundreds of Communists in the district in which I lived, yet those I met seemed more stimulated by admiration of Stalin than by conscious belief in Marxism. Although there was a definite unity of purpose amongst them, there was certainly no unity of theory. Even those who had previously enjoyed a certain amount of intellectual freedom, such as writers and artists, held opinions which would surprise any orthodox Communist in Britain. A friend of mine, a prominent Italian poet, called secretly one day at my home, bearing an enormous brief case. He informed me that he had been engaged in an underground lecture tour, as a first instalment of Communist educational activity. I inquired what subjects he had chosen. He replied that he had been attacking Christianity and the Church. Nothing could be done, h£ asserted, until the peasants had been levered from the grasp of the priests. This occurred at a time when the battles of Cassino were in progress and the Fascists were feverishly endeavouring to mobilize every fit Italian for war work and service at the front, and in spite of the fact that the most determined and steadily anti-Fascist force in Italy were the local priests. Not all resistance groups dissipated their energy like this man. I never had any real contact with the workers in the great cities of the North. Things may well be different there. And in the mountains throughout Italy were numerous groups composed of Italian deserters,

Yugoslavs, and escaped prisoners of war from every Allied nation, together with a fair sprinkling of German deserters. In order to understand Italy’s present and future problems it is necessary fully to grasp the 'fact that, politically, Italy

is chaotic, that at the moment there are few, even amongst Italians, who understand • the tasks which face them in their new Risorgimento. The truth is that at least twenty years have demoralized Italy.