# Italia Pained

- Link: https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/
- Published: 2024-05-30T02:12:56+00:00
- Author: Joseph Simonetti

**§ Curriculum Vitae: Forced Labourer**

 * Research attempts via _Arolsen Archives_ end inconclusively but confirm the effect
   of Russian occupation in East Germany resulted in records being destroyed.
 * Enrico Iozzelli’s essay ‘_Gli Internati militari italiani in Germania 1943 – 
   1945’, _provides definitive testimony of how the Germans ran the work camps.
 * German logic for harsh treatment involved their desire to have Italian soldiers
   enlist to support Mussolini’s continuance of war with Germany.
 * Mussolini lobbies Hitler to have Italians treated more humanely, but still with
   strings attached.

Province of Saxony Host Region for IMIs

 * A historical summary of the region.

Junkers Werke Dessau

 * A historical summary of the inventor who put his name to his works.
 * Hugo Junkers Russian connections for the supply of aircraft pre-war is the beginning
   of a debt he accumulates with the German State which the Nazis later use to defraud
   him of the business he had built up.
 * The effects of the sanctions imposed on Germany after WWI are explored.
 * Opinions about Plato’s book _The Republic _as to Hugo Junkers’ study of economics
   is at odds with Socrates’s ideal citizen. My own experience is explored.

Labour Theft

 * My own experiences from visits to Germany led to places such as Munich and Landsberg.
   Hitler had been imprisoned at Landsberg prison along with Emil Maurice and Rudolf
   Hess.
 * Firsthand experience gained of what the sardonic lie _‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ _(Work
   Will Make You Free) laced ironwork sign above the entrance meant.
 * **Factual narrative citations**: Book ‘_The__ Dachau Concentration Camp 1933 
   to 1945’._ The chapter _‘The deployment of prisoners in the armament industry
   1942 to 1945’_, provides clear accounts of what the IMIs faced as guest workers.
 * **Factual narrative citations**: Michela Cimbalo’s Research Paper[^([1])](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn1)
   details the labour shortages faced by Germany; the IMI’s fate was sealed along
   with 1.9 million POWs from twenty-six countries.
 * Mussolini’s RSI’s positioning alongside Germany’s war effort made the status 
   of Italians’ internment a contradiction; something had to give. The ruse to transition
   the men to civilian workers was part of the answer. RSI being allowed to recruit
   from amongst the ranks rounded off the deception.
 * Differences between the treatment of officers and soldiers are explored. Officers
   had it quite easy.
 * The absence of the International Red Cross ensures that there is no oversight
   of the harshness inflicted on Italians.

Stammlager XIA Sub Camps Dessau-Junkers

 * Establishing the geographical locales where the Italians in the environs of Dessau
   resided.
 * Understanding the German nomenclature for the camps and subcamps.
 * **Factual narrative citations**: British plans to liberate their POWs include
   setting up _‘The Special Allied Airborne Reconnaissance Force (SAARF)’._
 * Militarism conceptually explored using _‘prions’ _as a
 * Analysis made of Amedeo Usai’s internment papers to supplement understanding 
   of the work camps and geographic locations of these and Junkers factories. **
   Factual narrative citations**: Booklet celebrating the Bauhaus School of Architecture
   titled _“Dessau 1945 Modernity Destroyed”[^(**[2]**)](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn2)_;
   Research Paper by Bernd G. Ulbrich, _“On the history of the victims of National
   Socialism in Dessau-Roßlau (5): Slave labour._”[^([3])](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn3).
 * The research finally enabled me to determine that Michele was housed at the camp
   in Burgkühnauer Allee.
 * The sugar refinery in Dessau also produced _Zyklon B_, the poison used as part
   of the _‘Final Solution’._
 * Relating the past to my own experiences in Melbourne’s industrial sector and 
   its similarities to that in Dessau.
 * Amedeo Usai and Giuseppe Summito descriptors of how they scavenged for food.

Daily Routine for IMI Life

 * IMIs send postcards sent back home.
 * Some Italians commit suicide because of the harshness of conditions.
 * Pitches made to have soldiers switch to serve in the German army. Those who lived
   in the North did so only to abscond as soon as they were repatriated.
 * Michele with a farming background is assigned to Junkers to work with machinery
   the same as the mechanic Ivo Cardini. Amedeo is sent to work on a sugar beet 
   farm near Holland and later sent to Dessau for outdoor work. Michele told of 
   the cold inside the factory, and Amedeo wrote of the excruciating conditions 
   outside.
 * The conditions in German camps are correlated to those that Father Zio and I 
   experienced in Cobram in 1957.
 * Light humour at Messrs Mussolini’s and Hitler’s expense recorded in a _‘barzaletta’_(
   joke) which Father told of the pair.
 * The donkey of the joke is further explored in the context of Calabrian folklore.
 * The joke about the smokers like Gian Carlo who could not give up the habit were
   otherwise also prisoners of their own making.
 * Amedeo jumps in with his black humour of the ‘giant’ Northerners.
 * Southern Italians, unlike their Northerner counterparts, did not receive mail.
   Michele’s family did not know whether he was still alive.

** § The War Back Home **

Invasion Endurance & Liberation Pain

 * Italy’s support for Germany’s _Operation Barbarossa’ _has a high cost in lives
   lost. These losses were on top of those already suffered in other battlefronts.
 * Britain makes a pre-emptive strike on Taranto.
 * Italy was forced to join the rolling holocaust.
 * Italian cities were attacked after Mussolini declared war.
 * Francavilla and Simonetti farms in the firing line of Allied landings at Pizzo.
 * King regained constitutional powers and used them to dismiss Mussolini but was
   powerless to stop the bloodletting by Italy’s people.
 * The effect of war on the Simonetti family from oral history notes. Need to maintain
   farm productivity.
 * Attisani’s continue farming and collaborate with the Simonetti family. Descriptors
   made of the farms and agricultural procedures.
 * Mine own memories of family life mixed in with known anecdotes of day-to-day 
   living in Francavilla.
 * Allies target women with propaganda to have them agitate to hasten Italy’s pulling
   out of the war. Food shortages affected all.

Political Remix Gestates the Resistance 1943-45

 * A retrospective look at the Nationalism of 1910 which delivered Libya to Italy,
   followed by a scrabble to join WWI to share in the spoils of war.
 * Cracks in Italy’s economic model for waging war were evident from the onset based
   on an opportunity cost-benefit analysis. **Factual narrative citation**: Claudio
   Sommaruga memoirs.
 * Partisan resistance or was it a civil war that took hold in the North, is explored.
   The communists receive a _‘get out of jail free’_ card after Party Secretary 
   Palmiro Togliatti returns from Moscow. **Factual narrative citation**: Christopher
   Duggan.
 * Other resistance movements in Greece and Yugoslavia become prominent amidst Monarchs
   having to take refuge elsewhere. The allies need to sift through these to determine
   their real intentions.

** § The War Back East**

The Hopscotch War Goes On

 * Russian POWs virtually exterminated by neglect leading to petechial typhus in
   camps.
 * Claudio Sommaruga and others transferred to Poland to a camp where Russian POWs
   were seen living in dugouts and moving about on hands and knees in temperatures
   of minus 15^(o)
 * The cost of IMIs saying “NO” included possibly settling the debt with one’s life.
   Some do succumb to German promises for the restoration of worldly comforts. Claudio
   Sommaruga suffers misadventures at the hands of his jailers.
 * The status of _‘civilian worker’ _is explored. **Factual narrative citations**:
   Research Papers by Michela Cimbalo[^([4])](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn4)
   and Marco Paolini.[^([5])](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn5)
 * The effect that the _‘civilian worker’ _classification had on the IMIs was best
   summed up laconically by Giuseppe Summito.
 * Hope surfaces that the IMIs will not spend another winter in Germany but alas
   it was not to be. More of the same for Amedeo Usai and Michele Simonetti but 
   for the officers such as Gian Carlo Turchetto, they are now required to work;
   rosters are announced. The _‘cold’_ of that time becomes the classic by-line 
   used by Michele to joke about the cold experienced in Cobram.
 * Michele’s takeaway from the Germans is that his experience did not leave him 
   bitter. He even tells of a German having the surname ‘Simonetti’ which he encountered
   by chance at the Junkers factory.
 * German housing and standard of living in stark contrast with IMI’s still in the
   clothes they arrived in from Greece. Michele and Amedeo relate their experiences.

Franz Vogel’s Crossfire War

 * Known campaigns of the Waffen SS _‘Prince Eugene Division’_ form the background
   to Franz Vogel’s participation in the war.
 * Greece is out of the war; a tenuous peace is administered by resistance groups.
 * In Croatia there is a reorganisation of German-backed military divisions. An 
   attempt is made to capture Tito.
 * Tito Partisans were taking control of townships and began rounding up Swabians,
   inflicting genocidal murder and rape. **Factual narrative citation**: Dr Valentin
   Oberkersch.[^([6])](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn6)
 * Swabian’s Sepp Janko[^([7])](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn7)
   and his deputy Josif Beer had duplicitously convinced many ethnic Germans to 
   stay put in Croatia.
 * The end of the ‘_Prince‘Eugene Division_’ occurs at Celje, in Slovenia.
 * The Vogel family amongst those refugees fleeing Croatia, their lands being confiscated
   by the Tito Regime. Josef Vogel Jr dies in war.
 * Criminal activities by the ‘_Prince‘Eugene Division_’ are made reference to at
   the Nuremberg trials. Who is to blame is explored with references made to Queen
   Victoria ordering Charles Edward to assume the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Bombardment Rages On Dessau

 * The Allies targeted Dessau because of its importance to Germany’s armament production.
   Some brief stats are quoted.
 * Happenings to Italians in Dessau detailed by _‘our eyewitness reporter’_, Amadeo
   Usai. are compared to actual historical documentation of events.
 * Survival for IMIs meant running for open fields when air sirens were sounded.
   A short piece extract from Amedeo’s memoirs is translated to provide a firsthand
   account of the air raids.
 * Another account is given by Dr Petr Jaroslav the Czech prisoner held in the Dessau
   II. He has still adequate pathos to help save children from a burning house.
 * Michele’s oral history is supplementary to the written accounts by Amedeo and
   Petr.
 * Refugees seen streaming in from the East, fear of the Russians spreads. Even 
   Russian POWs did not want to be liberated by their kind.
 * If that were possible, food becomes even scarcer,
 * SS squads set up defence positions around Dessau. Italians were arbitrarily rounded
   up to become human shields.

IMIs Share Temporal Space with Hitler’s “Final Solution”

 * Silvia Pascale’s book based on Gian Carlo Turchetto’s diary makes mention of 
   the Wannsee Conference. The Jews in Greece had been left alone by the Italians;
   that changed after the armistice. **Factual narrative citation**:_ Institute 
   for the Study of Rescue and Altruism in the Holocaust (ISRAH)_.
 * Amedeo is befriended by a Jewish girl whilst on-site at a camp he worked at. 
   Her disappearance leads to the discourse of evidence of the Nazi’s _‘Final Solution’
   _in the environs of Dessau. **Factual narrative citation**:_ ‘Inside the Concentration
   Camps, Eyewitness Accounts of Life in Hitler’s Death Camps’_
 * Italians with a hot temper ill advised to display their feelings otherwise even
   more brutal camps would dampen their spirits.
 * Understanding of the _‘Konzentrationslagers (KLs also known as KZs) _’is given
   by a declassified report[^([8])](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn8)
   prepared for the Allied Expeditionary Forces.
 * Buchenwald Concentration Camp; a brief case study.
 * Michele’s oral history and Amedeo’s memoirs about the V1 and V2 Rockets put into
   historical context.
 * Wars, the Treaty of Westphalia and later the Geneva Convention are explored.
 * Palpable hatred in German military ranks led to the massacre of Italians at Treuenbrietzen.

** § Liberation from Servitude to the Third Reich**

 * The Elbe and Mulde Rivers in the environs of Dessau were to the demarcation lines
   between Western Allied Forces and the Russians. Mine own thoughts of _‘destiny’_.**
   Factual narrative citation**: Forrest C. Pogue.[^([9])](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn9)
 * The _‘Battle of the Bulge’ _is Germany’s last hurrah! This was followed by Hitler
   issuing the _‘Nero Decree’_.
 * Giuseppe Summito sums up with laconic sharpness of the confronting desperation.
 * The Western Allies, _Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF)_
   planned to avoid starvation of their POWs in Germany and set up SAARF.[^([10])](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn10)
 * Things go _‘pear shape’_ for the collaborative spirit between Russians and British
   on-site at the POW camp at Altengrabow.
 * Catch up on Montgomery’s belated arrival in Germany. The difference of opinion
   between Churchill-Montgomery and Eisenhower ultimately delivers Berlin to the
   Soviets. Eisenhower’s telegram to Stalin, a noted misstep.
 * President Roosevelt’s death was announced amidst a _‘cat and mouse’_ battle of
   wits between the Western Allies and Stalin.
 * The Nazi stash of treasure discovered new the village of Merkers.
 * Concentration camps are found by the advancing Western armies.
 * Brief overview of battles taking place en route to Dessau. **Factual narrative
   citations**: Book ‘_The Last Offensive’_ by Charles B MacDonald_, _Professor 
   Victor Davis Hansen provides opinions of Churchill being accepting of his General’s
   advice, compared to Hitler’s _‘never retreat’. _Stalin is forced to begrudgingly
   accept advice from the only Generals left after he had executed his best ones.
 * German Commanders attempt army regroupings to slow down the Allied advance. Last
   gasp counter offensive battles by Germany in the environs of Dessau.
 * Oral history of Michele being liberated by the Russians is put into historical
   perspective of documented events of the liberation of Dessau.
 * The spoils of war were made up of the Junker’s technical advances in aircraft
   design. The scientists and engineers, including, Professor Wernher von Braun 
   were living assets that needed to be taken out of the Russian zone of occupation.
   Russians left with enough booty of what remained of Junkers.
 * American field units offer material assistance to liberated Italians. Michele’s
   oral history is merged with Amedeo Usai’s memoirs of Italians showing their relief
   in song.
 * Amedeo becomes aware of the social changes occurring by his seeing American women
   in uniform.
 * The German people were left to struggle without men making do with women working
   alongside fathers and children to repair dwellings. Dessau was doomed to be part
   of the _German Democratic Republic’_, a puppet state of the Soviets.

[Repatriation Out of Dessau](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_Toc127869818)

 * The Italian sanctuary at Kochstedt just out of Dessau is the holding area where
   the IMIs waited for transport across Germany to make their way home.
 * Notes from Amedeo Usai and Gian Carlo Turchetto’s testimonial memoirs are used
   to map the paths for the Italians from Dessau and others from further east to
   the Brenner Pass, across the Alps back into Italy.
 * The frenzied post-war Allied activity must contend with transport shortages. 
   German POW camps are repurposed into hostels for short-term accommodation whilst
   transport assets are juggled.
 * Adding further misery to their humdrum existence, Italians are subject to fumigation
   with DDT at various points of their transit.
 * The French can’t wait to vent their spleens on the Italians, conveniently forgetting
   their history of invasions and occupations.

Repatriation Blues for the Officer Class

 * Gian Carlo Turchetto had been initially sent to Oflag 73, Benianminow near Warsaw
   and later sent to Stalag XB also known as Sandbostel Camp.
 * His final residency is another hell hole called Wietzendorf Stalag XD.
 * Some of the camp histories are explored based on Gian Carlo’s testimonials.
 * Closure to Gian Carlo’s story comes about through circumstances reflecting the
   mayhem occurring at the end of the war.
 * Closure for Claudio Sommaruga is truly telling of his being a victim of the principles
   he had set himself to defy the Germans. His incarceration eventually has him 
   at the same camp as Gain Carlo.
 * The hunger experienced during captivity is explored. **Factual narrative citations**:
   Tonino Guerra[^([11])](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn11), Odysseus_(
   Ulysses in Roman mythology)_ following his raft wreck on Skheria Island._^( [**[12]**](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn12)
   [](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn12)[](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn12)
   [](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn12))_
 * A politico update of the goings on in Italy; Pietro Badoglio is replaced as PM
   by Ivanoe Bonomi.
 * Camp hierarchy for Italian officers is explored including their resourcefulness
   to gathering intelligence.
 * Rogue SS units are still a threat to camp residents waiting for transport out.
   These were able to disrupt food deliveries.
 * The call to move out came eventually; Claudio Sommaruga near death is propped
   up to make it to the rail head.
 * The German residents of a town were expelled to make way for incoming POWs. The
   homes were not bombed and it is noted that such Germans maintained a high standard
   of living during the war.
 * The priority of ordinary soldiers compared to the officer class is noted, however
   still well below the Allies giving much higher priority to their own.
 * The British show signs of being crass arbiters in their adjudication of Italian_‘
   civilian workers’._
 * Italians rally to the idea of repurposing their IMI label to _‘Iternati Martiri
   Innocente’ _and in so doing, conveniently relegating their being _‘Fascists’_
   credentials to the dustbin. Only history cannot be so easily discarded. Gian 
   Carlo exhibits signs of elitism, and Claudio Sommaruga eventually does come to
   grips with his Fascist past.
 * News received that politics in Italy continue to be unstable, hunger and vendettas
   go hand in hand. The Vatican and the International Red Cross are the only bright
   spots to assist with incoming expatriates.
 * Gian Carlo’s diary notes enable mapping his transit out of Germany.

Patria Welcomes All With Arms Crossed

 * Germans returning from Italy cross paths with Italians at Innsbruck, Austria.
   They exchange currencies.
 * Entry points into Italy at Bolzano and Pescantina are set up with aid stations
   to provide food and clothing. Testimonials are taken in attempts to determine
   the deaths of comrades.
 * Evidence of the Allied bombings makes for a constant reminder of how Italy suffered
   during the war. Infrastructure destroyed, limits transport to take people to 
   their home destinations.
 * Amedeo Usai’s memoirs fill in the gaps in Michele’s repatriation. Amedeo is making
   the same way south to take a ferry to Sardinia.
 * Even through the destruction of Michele and Amedeo see the wonderful standard
   of living in the Northern cities.

** § The Reds Collect on Debts Owed**

Franz Vogel’s Gulag Misery

 * The Vogel family becomes fragmented by the edict for ethnic Germans in Croatia-
   Yugoslavia to be relocated to Austria and Germany.
 * The Desanka Çarević family is ethnic Serbian and their fate was controlled by
   other political factors, including the transformation of Tito’s Communist Partisans
   into the Yugoslav Army.
 * The Communists target retribution on the Swabian population, Croats, Serb monarchists
   and Hungarians; pogroms responsible for 100,000 being executed.
 * The Red Army arrives on the scene to take its revenge on what is left.
 * The anecdote retold by Michael Kovacs of an event passed down by his parents 
   shows the brutality that the Russians were capable of.
 * Franz Vogel caught up in the dragnet to have POWs work in Russia. **Factual narrative
   citation**: Fletcher School, Tufts University.
 * How Franz Vogel survived is based on the slimmest of opportunities in a nation
   that had very few commodities for maintaining life, to share.
 * Codifying suffering if it were possible!
 * Coming out of the Gulags alive had a chronic cost, Franz’s daughter will in the
   future ask _“Why does dad drink so much that he has to go to bed?”_
 * Vogel family lands and properties became part of assets to set up the Communist
   utopia which was never realised.

Vogel’s Austrian Hiatus

 * Vogel archive photos tell a story of the family becoming refugees in Austria.
 * Vogel – Çarević family politics revisited to explain the stratification that 
   occurred once Desanka left for Austria. Her father Pavao was killed by the Ustaša.
 * Desanka’s talents in dressmaking give her an advantage in the booming economic
   conditions prevalent in Croatia before the war. Her skills will differentiate
   her post the family’s arrival in Australia.
 * A causal comparison of the economics of Croatia and those prevailing in Calabria
   at about the same time indicate differences in living standards.
 * Michele and Franz become POWs for different reasons; the effect on the Vogels
   family having been active participants in the war is compared in brief to the
   Simonetti -Attisani family’s lot in Francavilla.
 * The International Red Cross (IRC) assists with Russian POWs released; Franz returns
   to his family in Austria to begin the rebuilding of finances.
 * Family politics surface with Steve Vogel marrying Magdalena Bonigut.
 * Strife among, sisters-in-law leads to Magdalena becoming involved in a bicycle–
   automobile accident, her unborn child suffers lifelong injuries.
 * Vogel oral history of their life in Salzberg and later in Wels. Sisters Anna,
   Erica and Rosalia and their cousins Monika and Maree were born in Pernau. Narratives
   made of the dates in documents in the family archives fit in with oral history.
 * Cousins Franz Jr and Josef Jr, attend school and play around the farms in Pernau.
 * Applications made to immigrate to the US and Australia; Australia came through
   first.
 * Franz and John Vogel families immigrate to Australia. Steve and his family stay
   behind with Veronica and Josef. Steve and Magdelena build a DIY modest house.
   Magdelena, partly of her own making, must contend with the lingering bad blood
   with her in-laws. Ill will continue to plague family unity even once grandparents
   reunite in Australia.

** § Pull up a Chair, We need to Talk**

Theory of Relativities

 * Italy looking, for a ‘free lunch’, is led into the abyss by adventurous politicians
   and a gullible populace. Italy’s arrival at the ‘trough’ was well after other
   European States had taken their fill through colonisation.
 * Attention is focused on the period when Germany took over the reins in Italy 
   after the armistice was signed. Germany remains committed for the long haul. 
   Italy did not have the capabilities to prevent the short-term outcome.
 * Claudio Sommaruga’s testimonial is scathing of the attitude displayed by the 
   military leaders tasked with the safety of their soldiers.
 * Who controlled what became a mad scramble for political influence, the church
   included? There is no apparent interest in analysing why Italy had erred so badly.
 * References made to similarities to an earlier time when the Sanfedistas backed
   by the church dismantled the makings of a Republic. Garibaldi had fought in South
   America against the very colonisations that some decades later the united Italy
   tried to implement in North Africa.
 * Giuseppe Mazzini was the messenger, to have Italy heed the calls for social change.
   The Monarchs in the North and South, aided by the Papacy weren’t having any of
   that.
 * The appeal of Fascism to a populace left wanting by revolving foreign rule has
   some merit for Italians to hope for sympathy from the rest of Europe; Churchill
   said as much. Italians, however, going into denial about their indiscretions,
   committed to fulfilling their greed, at the expense of others, is also reprehensible.
   Michele knew something was not quite right.
 * The North-South divide gets a makeover by the lyrics _‘O Italiella, o Italià 
   _in which the South still grieves that the Unification of Italy was the cause
   of the _‘today’_ ills faced by the South. The relativities of European expansion
   are explored.
 * Britain’s slave trade sets the tone for such relativities. **Factual narrative
   citations**: John Locke, English doctor and philosopher, and historian Robert
   Lacey_._
 * Gian Carlo Turchetto indulges in nostalgia for his Patria; Enrico Iozzelli writes
   about the pathetic response to the IMI’s return. Michele’s discharge papers analysed
   and Amedeo reflects on the destruction which had occurred in Naples and his native
   Sardinia.
 * The allure of joining in the _‘feel-good’_ times is explored using crass decisions
   to join the ‘_get rich’_ stock market phenomenon of 1987. There was a price to
   pay. Character building from the ashes is compared to Prime Minister Robert Menzies.
 * Soul search of what was the Italian state of mind post WWII. **Factual narrative
   citations**: Francesco Lamendola.[](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn13)
   [](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn13)[](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn13)
   [^([13])](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn13) dispels any idea 
   that the resistance movement was the ‘_secondo Risorgimento’._
 * Italy is not out of the woods; the return of the IMIs is overshadowed by the 
   anguish at the Border States between Italy and Yugoslavia. **Factual narrative
   citation**: historian Roberto Spazzali uses the irredentism movement to prove
   his point about saying ‘yes’ to _The Second Risorgimento _coming into effect;
   acrimony continues to this day.
 * The Italian Partisan Resistance operating in the North of Italy is put under 
   the microscope. **Factual narrative citation**: historian Christopher Duggan

Theorem Test

 * No possibility of heroes; some altruism exhibited by individuals towards their
   kind comes to the fore.
 * Political affiliations are being crafted in the officer camps.
 * Claudio Sommaruga accepts that his fate was to _‘be a good Fascist’_; he agonises
   over ending his allegiance to the cause. Gian Carlo Turchetto can quickly reconcile
   to the new paradigm, and Emanuele Caffiero is very reflective of his commitment
   to the Fascist cause.
 * Fascism is compared to other events which enriched Britain, Spain, France and
   other states.
 * From a soldier’s perspective, Amedeo Usai volunteered, as did Australian Charlie
   Gilbert to get off the treadmill of poverty. Charlie’s story continues in which
   he barely survived during the defence of New Guinea.
 * The treatment of Allied POWs by the Japanese is as bad as that meted out by the
   Germans. Japan’s forced labourers are a result of a dragnet cast over occupied
   S-E Asian territories.
 * The non-volunteer Italian draftees had no choice. All the Simonetti men were 
   called up for active duty. Had they been casualties of war the Simonetti family
   would have been devastated.
 * Claudio Sommaruga draws attention to the poor treatment of the returning IMIs.
   The reason was the need to keep Germany out of the communist clutches through
   the formation of NATO. NATO acted in the interests of the member states. Italy
   wanted to avoid being implicated in the Holocaust.
 * The feeble attempts to reconcile IMI’s needs for recognition become the collective
   aftermath blotch, many years later.
 * Closure for Claudio Sommaruga and Gian Carlo Turchetto is representative of their
   officer class. Giuseppe Summito sums up that the common Italian soldiers were
   handled as a _‘job lot’_, they had little choice. Historian Christopher Duggan
   concludes that the Italian Resistance was a ruse by the Communists to gain influence
   out of the turmoil of the invading Allies.
 * Those who did join the _Repubblica Sociale Italiana_ – RSI under Field Marshal,
   Rodolfo Graziani. Some were classmates of Claudio Sommaruga; these had no qualms
   about taunting him for his stance; it added up to nothing. He writes that he 
   is even persecuted by his government, _‘stab in the back’_, as payback for the
   loyalty he had shown.

Reds Under the Bed

 * The death toll of WWII is overshadowed by Communist expansionism.
 * Allies take stock of the duplicity being posed by resistance movements which 
   had to be supported. Democracy must be bastioned against the tides eroding its
   foundations.
 * Italian politics prove to be particularly difficult to gauge and to harness. 
   The disparate wartime coalition entities vie for influence. Churchill regrets
   having put effort into improving Sforza’s political capital.

Let’s Wrap This Up

 * Attempts for all to bathe in _‘Liberation Glory’_ need to be tempered by the 
   factual realities of the previous two decades. Why the IMI phenomenon even existed
   is just cause, to be sceptical of anyone’s need, to claim glory.
 * Value adding to Italy’s declaration of war onto a base of sand adds up to naught.
   The IMI “NO” stance must contend with the other “NO” or “ochi – Όχι”, the Greek
   response to Italian demands to relinquish territory.
 * Germany was the beneficiary of the Italian “NO”, manpower was badly needed for
   armament production.
 * The _Volksdeutche’ _of Eastern Europe was to provide the cannon fodder for Germany
   desperately remaining in the war. Germany sucked manpower like an insatiable 
   vortex. The Italian “NO” was inconsequential to the existential ‘big picture’
   that Germany faced.
 * Italy lost talented scientists such as Enrico Fermi because Italy became aligned
   with Germany’s racial laws.
 * Amedeo Usai makes note of Germany possessing a _‘secret weapon’_.
 * Germany lacking a long-range bomber limited its effectiveness in the Russian 
   campaign. The development of the jet engine is explored.
 * IMI incarceration was not unique, it had parallels throughout Europe, China and
   the Pacific theatre of war. The killing fields continued to be propagated by 
   the Ustaša, the Chetniks, Tito’s Partisans and the Russians.
 * Michele’s oral history of the war and written memoirs by Amedeo Usai and Claudio
   Sommaruga point to the neglect by Italian politicians to acknowledge the failures
   of the military to safeguard its soldiers. It would be therapeutic to have some
   form of public acknowledgment of IMI suffering; men, through no fault of their
   own, were cut off from the International Red Cross and family.
 * The _‘Marshall Plan’ _and how money was allocated is explored. **Factual narrative
   citation**: Professor Michela Giorelli (UCLA) and Nicola Bianchi (Kellogg School
   of Management) present a paper _‘The Role of the Marshall Plan in the Italian
   Post-WWII Recovery’_.
 * Quick revisit of the occupations of the peninsular by foreign powers seeking 
   to replace their versions of the Roman Empire, often the Church of Rome being
   complicit.
 * Summing up Italy’s misadventures, one bright spot is Giuseppe Attisani retaining
   some wealth from his expeditions to North Africa. Italy’s cash burn resulted 
   in the impoverishment of the Italian people.
 * The Bolshevik Revolution affected Italy’s politico; Communism could find a niche
   alongside the Pope and the Mafia.
 * Italy should have been amongst the loser states and been occupied just like Germany.**
   Factual narrative citation**: Edward C Banfield.[^([14])](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftn14)

---

[[[[[[[[1]](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftnref1) Gli internati militari 
italiani nei Lager del Terzo Reich

[[[[[[[[2]](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftnref2) Editor: Philipp Oswalt 
et al for the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

[[[[[[[[3]](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftnref3) Zur Geschichte der Opfer
des Nationalsozialismus in Dessau-Roßlau (5):Zwangsarbeiter

[[[[[[[[4]](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftnref4) Gli internati militari 
italiani nei Lager del Terzo Reich

[[[[[[[[5]](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftnref5) I.M.I. Internati Militari
Italiani nati nel Comune di Pistoia. Deportati Nei Lager Nazisti 1943 – 1945

[[[[[[[[6]](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftnref6) Book: Die Deutschen in 
Syrmien, Slavonien, Kroatien und Bosnien” Translated by Henry A. Fischer

[[[[[[[[7]](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftnref7) Dr. Sepp Janko, the leader
of the Kulturbund and the ‘Führer’ of the Danube Swabians as recognised by Heinrich
Himmler, attained an asylum visa out of Yugoslavia from the Red Cross and, under
the pseudonym Jose Petri, fled to Nazi-sympathetic Argentina.

[[[[[[[[8]](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftnref8) Document Reference K-86936,
Supreme Headquarters Allied Evaluation and Dissemination Section, German Concentration
Camps

[[[[[[[[9]](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftnref9) Book: COMMAND DECISIONS,
Chapter 22, The Decision To Halt at the Elbe

[[[[[[[[10]](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftnref10) Acronym for: ‘Special
Allied Airborne Reconnaissance Force’

[[[[[[[[11]](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftnref11) Antonio “Tonino” Guerra(
16 March 1920 – 21 March 2012) was an Italian poet, writer and screenwriter who 
collaborated with some of the most prominent film directors in the world.

[[[[[[[[12]](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftnref12) Homer: The Odyssey, translated
by Robert Fitzgerald, Everyman’s Library Page117

[[[[[[[[13]](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftnref13) _‘_The Courier of the
Regions’ (23/11/2015).

[[[[[[[[14]](https://italiajoe.com/when-italia-pained/#_ftnref14) The Moral Basis of a Backward
Society Page 23