62 years ago today.......

[Nikademus]

one almost has to wonder what would have happened had Italy fought to the bitter end. Would the civil war still have occured? Or would the utter destruction and mayham made Italy as war weary as with the German population (and to a lesser extent the Japanese)

Which is not to say that Italy's change of government and armistice was the wrong thing to do it wasn't and saved Italian lives....its more of a human nature question. It can be argued that the totality of the 2nd world war combined with an unconditional fight to the finish (in part) combined to bring home the true horror of war to those involved on all sides.

O

[Gen.Hoepner]

Do not know guys....we always read history from the side we're on. You say that it was a good thing the armistice..that saved italian lifes...i can answer that the civil war, born with that armistice, was ABSOLUTELY worse than any war we'd have fought. There's anything worse than see brothers killing each others?
And, it's quite clear that the million of volounteers that fought with RSI if we had not surrended there would not have been any civil war...probably some partisans activity and counter-partisan actions...but nothing compared to what we had.
I repeat: the key point isn't the armistice or the loss of the war. The real point...what pushed millions of italians against their brothers was the way we sourrended.

I really do not understand how Badoglio can be defended ( and the little King with him ). Even the Allies thought we were selling our honour for nothing....just read what Churchill says in his memories.
One thing is to declare that we've lost and we're not able anymore to fight, stop fighting and accept the inevitable.
Another thing is to say, from one day to the other, that now the friends of yesterday are the enemies of today and viceversa......

Try to immagine for a second if, the British...let's say in 42...when the war was still problematic for you, had made an armistice with the axis and the day after they declared war against the US...... How would you call the brits?
Try to think what did think about us the normal german soldier......i really feel shame. Many of our soldiers thought the same and that's why they said: no, i do not like this way.I keep on fighting with my friends, with my allied. It's not that strange, isn't?
It's important to say that the biggest part of the RSI volounteers were already in the army, while the biggest part of the partisans weren't. The italian Army has been betrayed. Just read J.V.Borghese ( there are many translations in english ) and you'll understand what i mean.

[DuckofTindalos]

No offense Hoepner (I mean that sincerely), but Borghese WAS the commander of the Decima MAS Flotilla; he's not likely to say anything except what you quote him as saying.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner


I really do not understand how Badoglio can be defended ( and the little King with him ). Even the Allies thought we were selling our honour for nothing....just read what Churchill says in his memories.
One thing is to declare that we've lost and we're not able anymore to fight, stop fighting and accept the inevitable.
Another thing is to say, from one day to the other, that now the friends of yesterday are the enemies of today and viceversa......

Well, just to be clear, I'm not trying to defend anyone nor am I commenting on the "change of face" that the new Italian government presented to the Allies (and Germans)

On the question of what is worse.....well, whenever one tries to catagorize one kind of warfare or killing vs another, thats a thorny road to go down. For example, the History channel (i know...collective groans) aired a special on the Hitler Youth and the end of the war in Germany. The question was asked, "How terrible was it to send children into the fodder?" "It was criminal to continue the war" etc etc.

I wont claim to have an answer to your question. But my gut instinct was that some of the opinions expressed there were correct in that it was criminal for those in charge to have continued the war to the bitter end long after they knew that defeat was inevitable.

The only "good" that came out of it , as i postulated was that the defeat was so total, that the population had little energy to fight each other and settle scores.

That Italy ended up waging a civil war is indeed a tragedy but would the alternatives have been worse or better? Its hard to say. Sometimes nothing can be.

[captskillet]

All the european volounteers ( more than 500,000 ) that served in the waffen ss in the eastern front, did not give a dime about hitler or mussolini or whatever. They fought till the end for an Idea, a dream of glory and a dream of a different europe.

Thats what got me and the Allies worried Gen was the 'dream' your Gov. & the Nazi's had for a 'different' Europe as you call it.......and not even taking the Genocide angle into account (and you will never convince me that by 1943 the a large section of the people of Germany & Italy didn't know something was going on with the Jews & the camps) how can you justify Italy's attack on Ethiopia (they couldn't have invaded Kenya much less pose a threat to Italy) or Greece (unprovoked)...where's the honor in that!!!! You are barking up the wrong tree if you want sympathy from me for a 'civil war' (that frankly I can find no info on and I looked thru 10 pages of Google searches) or civilian casulties that is the result of your country's blind agression and following the freaking Germans around like a lap dog! Your contrymen died in Russia (another of those unprovoked attacks) and Greece and Libya because of Italian & German agression!

[DuckofTindalos]

While I agree that some of Hoepner's views (i.e. there were MANY committed Nazis in the European Waffen SS volunteers) are perhaps too simplistic, I don't think he's trying to excuse or explain away the agressive behaviour of Fascist Italy. At least that's not how I read it.

It seems his main point is that there's still an open wound in Italian society due to the split in the country during and after the war, and that it's infected the postwar Italian history. Personally, I find that a little scary; perhaps Italy could have used a thorough "de-Fascistification", like the Germans were de-Nazified after the war; many positions in post-war Germany's civil service were filled by de-Nazified Nazi Party members, because they were the people who knew how to get things done.

[Gen.Hoepner]

It's pretty clear that i'm not able to explain my thoughts here. My english isn't enough to express this complex concepts.
I can just say that Terminus in a certain way has understood me.

About Borghese....he wrote what was the main thoughs of those who decided to keep on fighting and WHY they did chose that way. If you read through his lines you'll see what i mean, and there are thousands of books, diaries and many other sources that can help the reader to understand why there still was somebody with the will to fight the allies here in italy after 43. If you just close the question, saying that they were nazists or fascists and their choice was wrong, you'll never get deep enough to understand what happened in Italy in the last 60 years.

As i said before, i can stop here, cause i simply do not have the proper english to get deep as i'd like to.

Just a thought in reponse of Captskillet.
Our societies now have the "tabu" of war. But, as i said before it all depends on the....mmm..."stair of values" ( hope this is undertsandable ) you're using. Democracy has been brought to the scene by wars...by thousands of innocent lives. And we all love democracy. Roma was built of the blood of the losers, and we all magnify the great Rome. Every single state, every single political subject is born with war. The Europe they were dreaming about ( and i'm talking about the normal citizens, not the leaders ) was an uthopia...exactly like the uthopia of Robespierre and the others revolutionary actors...exactly like the Cromwell ( sp? ) british uthopia of a brand new england...exactly like all the other great dreams of Humanity.

Ok, now i stop here.
Forgive me if i moved your sensitivity about these subjects, that i understand are always difficult to discuss here in a forum.

Never wanted to offend anybody.

[mc3744]

I'm coming in a bit late, but I'd like to add another point of view.

I usually happen to agree with GH, not this time [;)], at least not entirely.
In specific not on the notion that you should fight till the end with the side you started with.
I cannot agree with this on several levels: theoretical, historical and personal.

1) This implies that you cannot learn. Once you start the wrong path you are supposed to keep marching it, just because you started wrong. Forgive me GH, but I really don’t think it makes much sense.
2) Italy, still today, is at least two different countries. I traveled a lot and lived in Germany too. Life style in Milan is so much closer to Munich or London than it will ever be, for example, to Palermo or Naples. If it is like this today, one can only imagine what it was 50 years ago. Different people, very different people, but only one man to talk for everybody.
3) My grandfather, now deceased, fought in North Africa and in Italy until the armistice.
He fought because to him ‘king and country’ came first, even before his own ideas. He didn’t share the fascist values, but the country called him and he answered, no matter what. I feel the same, but I understand it’s not a rational thing.
However, once given the chance - with the armistice - to choose and follow his own ideals he did so. I don’t defend this position because he was my grandpa, but because I share it.

My grandpa ended up hating the Germans (all of them, quite irrationally), because after the armistice they executed all his war long comrades who refused to surrender to the new enemy (that would be the Nazis, from their point of view). My old man had been wounded by bombers just three days before and was in the hospital, therefore - paradoxically - he managed to see the end of the war thanks to the Allied bombings.

To end the story: I have a wife who is half German, you can imagine how happy my grandpa was! [:D]

[Gen.Hoepner]

Hey MC! There's no problem if you have different ideas from mines! We're just talking, you do not have to apologyse!

Well, i think a lot depends on the family you've lived with and the experienced you had.

Both my Granfathers fought the war till the bitter end. One was jailed for 4 years in a British POW camp in Africa...and he had been hating the british with all his forces for all his lifes cause he saw his comrades dying in those Camps.
While the other one fought from 41 to 45. In 43 he decided to follow his honour and remain loyal to what he believed it was his country ( well, there were two italies ya know). He was at Anzio for few days, then after a long hospitalization he went on the Yugoslavia borders to fight against the comunist partisans in the "black brigades"
I've grown up listening to their stories and reading the diary of the latter.

You see...everyone has his own history[;)]

[DuckofTindalos]

As another example of a country where the war still casts a long shadow, British author Antony Beevor mentions in the preface of his book Stalingrad, how he discussed the phenomenon of Hiwi's (i.e. Soviet citizens in German uniform) with a serving Russian army colonel.

At first the Russian refused to accept the Hiwi's were historical fact, but when Beevor showed him strength returns for the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, the Russian became very quiet and then said "they were no longer Russians".

[Sharkosaurus rex]

I'm sorry to hear your country is still suffering from WWII. When one's country is at war all our emotions are on red alert and it is still hard to turn them off many years later. But turn them off we must- so that the wounds can heal and people can move on again.

But I don't think just because your country was at war you have to stay with one's allies until the end. Once Mussolini took over the foreign office, War, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Interior plus be Comando Supremo at the same time as the leader of the Fascist Party all logic starts to leave the government very fast. How can proper decisions be made under circumstances like these? Also Mussolini wanted to keep his personal honour (and that of the FP) by respecting the Pact of Steel- even though Hitler brazenly violated it twice- once with the invasion of Poland and the second by invading the USSR. Nobody is obliged to sacrifice themselves on the altar of an alliance in such a scenario.

Obviously you know the story better than anyone else here, but when the king sacked Mussolini and the FP I think he was doing the right thing for his country. Also he didn't make the decision just as the bombs were falling on Rome, but much earlier in 1943. But every fresh defeat suffered by the Italian arms put more pressure on the anti-war factions to act. Sicily was occupied by the Allies before the anti-war faction could get its way.

Other countries changed sides well before they were invaded. Rumania and Bulgaria. Finland and Hungary helped empty their countries of Germans but I don't think that crossed their orders. It is always lots of fun until somebody loses an eye.

Italy and Japan were on the Allies side in WWI. Axis in WWII. So maybe they will be Allied again in the Great China War that's coming soon. See it's OK to change sides.


PS. What would have happened if Hitler had died in 20th July Plot? The war would probably ended a couple of months later. Where would the German surrender left their Italian allies? Hilter survived this bombing, but Mussolini was sacked by his king. Similar forces were at work in the background- only one succeeded.


PPS. The Duc de Saint-Simon once said of the Duke of Savoy:"He could never be found on the same side at the end of a war as when it had neen declared, unless he had changed camps twice."