Istria (Landschutz)

[MAXIS]

On March 1944 german decided to form a Landschutz in Istria.
Some hundreds volunteered in and after a brief training in Trieste, they were scattered in many locations as Pinguente, around Monte Maggiore, till near Fiume.
As symbol they adopted the Istrian Goat.

Do you have more infos about?

Best
Max

[Enrico Cernuschi]

It c o u l d be the "Guardia Civica" of Trieste, Pola and Fiume, a small corps of some hundreds of people formed by Italians with only small arms (max light machine guns like the 6,5 mm Breda 30) which was, namely, autonomous, at the order of the local Prefetto and had the duty to grant internal security only, something so like a sort of police under German control; they dressed German uniforms like the "Corpo di sicurezza" of Trento, a similar corps of some thousand of men recruited among Italians only in that county.
I said c o u l d as the local situation was a very complex one, the Germans were always ready to recrut (and promise) everything at anyone in that region just to have new men for the straving Werhmacht of 1944 and 1945; the Guardia Civica remained at her place to grant the public order after the German surrender at Trieste and Fiume. Formally she joined that same day the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale Alta Italia (CLN) in name of the Italian government but they were slaughtered by Tito partisans just before the same RSI surviving soldiers to "clear" the political situation as soon as possible. Very little records survived at this ordeal.

Hoping in no new, unuseful debate EC

[MAXIS]

Hi Enrico

many thks fr yr reply.

I'm not sure that we are talking about the same..... but I'll check again my files.

Best
Max

[KlemenL]

I agree with Enrico that this could only be the German sponsored Guardia Civica, a kind of ad hoc City Guard which was stationed in the major cities in Istria - Rijeka, Pulj and Trieste - and responsible for the protection of vital installations in the cities and internal security. Can't speak for Rijeka or Pulj, but the Guardia Civica in Trieste disintegrated without much fight when the first Yugoslav and New Zealand troops hurled the city. Don't know for any mass executions of Guardia di Civica troops either. The majority of executed Italian soldiers, to my knowledge, belonged to regular RSI military formations. Also never heard of the symbol of Istrian Goat? What Goat?

Lp,

Klemen

[MAXIS]

Klemen

Goat is.... goat: Capra in italian.....

Guardia Civica:
NOT links with RSI, nor with Germans! Operated UNDER german rule but was opposed by germans, (german arrested some Guardie) as it was organized to protect italians people in Trieste and italian right on Trieste against Tito's partisans (and germans also - underground), and Jugoslavians other-than communists!
Guardia civica DON'T disintegrate completely: but tried to takes agreements with CLNAI (Comitato Liberazione Nazionale-Alta Italia) to protect Triest after german withdrawal, and to deliver the city to New Zealanders!
But Tito's communists arrived firstly and Guardia Civica had 80 casualities: at least 40 were captured and murdered after surrender into Foibe.

Best
Max

PS: FOIBE were natural holes into the ground, 100/200 meters deep or more, in which Tito's partisans hurled many thousand italian peoples, alive and fastened each other with barbed wire

[Kocjo]

Also never heard of the symbol of Istrian Goat? What Goat?

Goat is.... goat: Capra in italian.....

I think, that Klemen wants to see a photo of this emblem (and me too).

But Tito's communists arrived firstly and Guardia Civica had 80 casualities: at least 40 were captured and murdered after surrender into Foibe.

You can't say, that Partisans killed/murdered only Italians. They killed a lot more people then these 40 men, regardless their nationality.

Regards,
Kocjo

[Lupo Solitario]

Kocjo, we count around 10000 italians infoibati between Venezia Giulia and Istria (more recent estimate) from 1943 to 1945. Numbers for other nationalities?

[MAXIS]

GOAT

Me also I would to see this "emblem": I have found those info on official Rewiew of Istituto Friulano per la Storia del Movimento di Liberazione, based on witness (a veteran).

FOIBE

Obviously, I referred only to Guardie Civiche infoibate.
Many thousand italians suffered the same horrorific death: not necessary because fascisti, but because italians at all: ethnic cleasing ante-litteram;
Besides, some hundred-thousand were forced to abandon house and hometown and motherland (my family enclosed! )

TITO'S PARTISANS
I know, they killed hundred-thousand peoples (Croatian, Slovenian, Serbians, Germans, Muslims and more) around Marburg, Drava, killing-fields all around, concentration camps and more: but Foibe were an italian "privilege".

Best
Max

[KlemenL]

Goat is.... goat: Capra in italian..... I think, that Klemen wants to see a photo of this emblem (and me too).

Yep. I was hoping to see that emblem of a goat as it is the first time I have heard of a such an emblem being used in Istrien. Nothing more, nothing less.

NOT links with RSI, nor with Germans! Operated UNDER german rule but was opposed by germans, (german arrested some Guardie) as it was organized to protect italians people in Trieste and italian right on Trieste against Tito's partisans (and germans also - underground), and Jugoslavians other-than communists!

Now if I understood right the Guardia Civica was subordinated to a local Italian Prefetto (in case of trieste this would be, if I am not mistaken, Bruno Coceani), but wasn't he placed there by the RSI government? Maybe the GC did not have any links with the regular RSI armed forces (in what I doubt a bit), but it certainly had links with the RSI political institutions in that area, the same that commanded or controlled the RSI military in the area. I repeat once again, from the documents and sources I have read so far the GC was employed for internal city security, for guarding the vital installations in a city like a port, refinery, railway station, radio station, city house and so one, and occasionally they were also reported to be stationed at the city's outer defence line for example at the guard posts at all major road entrances into the city. Basically as Enrico nicely has put it, they were some sort of a paramilitary police, which helped the Carabinieri Corps. They rarely, if ever, were sent outside the city to battle with the partisans and in accordance with that was also their poor weaponry.

Guardia civica DON'T disintegrate completely: but tried to takes agreements with CLNAI (Comitato Liberazione Nazionale-Alta Italia) to protect Triest after german withdrawal, and to deliver the city to New Zealanders!

As an auxiliary paramilitary police formation of the RSI the Guardia Civica certainly felt apart in May 1945 when some of her elements joined the Yugoslav or Italian partisans, while others either had joined the CLNAI or had simply fled home. I reckon this is what I wanted to explain it to you.

But Tito's communists arrived firstly and Guardia Civica had 80 casualities: at least 40 were captured and murdered after surrender into Foibe.

Unfortunately I don't have any documents to confirm the casualties of the GC in Trieste in May 1945, so I will take your numbers here for granted id est that you know what you're talking and are not just issueing or making up these numbers by heart.

PS: FOIBE were natural holes into the ground, 100/200 meters deep or more, in which Tito's partisans hurled many thousand italian peoples, alive and fastened each other with barbed wire

Yes, I know what a foiba is, Maxis. Maybe you will find it interested but the same type of execution was also used on some 8,000 Slovene Domobrans and some 12,000 Croats and Serbs who were literally sliced to pieces in May-June 1945 at the Kren caves in the Kocevje forest. To understand more you simply have to visit that place. Only then you can get a real feeling how those men had to felt when they were driving by trucks, their hands tighted back with a piece barbed wire and stripped naked, then usually executed with a bullet in a hand or in some cases even thrown alive into the cave. Out of some 20,000 people that were allegedly executed at Kren caves, only four escaped, one being arrested shortly afterwards, brought back to the scene and shot again, while other three managed to slipped via Italy or Austria to Western Europe and from there to Canada and USA. About ffour or five years ago they have published about a joint book with their testimonials about how a pure luck had saved them to stay alive on that fateful sunny day in May of 1945.

Kocjo, we count around 10000 italians infoibati between Venezia Giulia and Istria (more recent estimate) from 1943 to 1945. Numbers for other nationalities?

Lupo, the problem with numbers is just a bit more complexed. After the war there appeared in Italy some pro-RSI historians who claimed that after the war no less than 100,000 Italians lost their lives in the great purges in Istria. Later along with the years the number drastically decreased, but the press and TV grabed the story and blowed it up, what usually happens if you leave the history in the hands of amateurs who have no or little knowledge about the events that took there shortly after the war. No independent history research about this subject was not made up as well. Nor the victims of the purges haven't been identified yet nor fully exhumated. All what we have for the time being is are various numbers which vary from one historian to another. Therefore to reply to your question about how many people (or the percentages of nationality) were executed in Istria after the war is difficult to answer. Generally there is a thesis (and with which I would agree) that there were from 5,000 to 10,000 people executed in the area of Trieste and Carso in the weeks that followed the end of the war. Majority of them were Italians, and that is something what I (nor anyone else that I know of) have never disputed.
However we're facing a new problem as it is clearly that in the caves, which are called in Italy the Foibe were not just Italians, but also some other ethnical groups or military groups that were quickly disposed by the Yugoslav partisans, what in some cases even happened with a willing assistance of the Italian communist partisans (!!). Another important category are those bodies that were thrown inside the foibas during the course of the war, when a number of Slovene, Italian and Croatian civilians that collaborated with the RSI or the German authorities were executed and disposed in these caves. Also not rarely the bodies of fallen German, RSI, Cossack and Serbian Chetnik soldiers (bear in mind that two months before the Germany's surrender the Chetnik Dinara Division had carried out a full scale offensive in the Carso region) were simply tossed over inside those caves afterthe battle was overl, what I rekcon also explains how come that some German ID dogtags managed to be found there during exhumation. Occasionally the German, Chetnik and RSI troops were doing the same with the bodies of fallen Yugoslav partisans they have found after the battle.

After the war these already present piles of bodies were joined first by groups of Slovene SNVZ soldiers, then some small groups of German POWs that were executed in a cold-blooded revenge (majority of German POWs died in Yugoslavia during 1946-1948 what can be attested on the various German military cemeteries on the territories of former Yugoslavia) and and the last and the most significant a large group of Italian RSI POWs (only last war some 30 executed RSI bersaglieri were exhumed from a mass grave near Vipava or Vipacco as you call it -> theybelonged to a group of RSI soldiers that was captured thee in May 1945 and promptly executed) who had that misfortune to fell into the partisans hands at the end of the war due to their garrison posts or retreat routes simply being cut off, thus leaving them no other alternatives than to surrender.

We should not forget at a relatively large group of people from Trieste, who mysteriously disappered following the days of the capture of Triest without a trace, after being taken by Yugoslav secret police. These people were mostly prominent Italian, Slovene and Croatian politicians (like for example a promiment Croatian politician Dr. Protulipac who was shot in February 1946), journalists, doctors and teachers from the Catholic, Liberal, or Social-Democrat camps whom the communists treated as an enemy of their social revolution that they have started to begin in May 1945 and to which all these parties opposed actively and politically (--> the same type of processes and mass executions was also taken elsewhere across Slovenia, especially in Styria, where almost entire high-class families were ripped off their property and executed, despite the fact that almost 90% of them actively supported the partisan movement during the war --> their grave has been discovered only recently in a small abandoned mine shaft at Slovenska Bistrica). Irony is that several if not majority of them were actively involved in the OF movement or its Italian counter-part, the CLNAI and that during the war fought against the fascists alongside the partisans. This were clearly politically motivated murders. Bear in mind that in treiste after the war there were many small violent skirmishes between the CPI & CPY and the CLN, which clearly showed differences between the opinions of both parties.

The last but not at least we also should not forget at that small group of people, former RSI or fascists party officials, that was executed by Yugoslav or Italian partisans in the heat of revenge.

However I should emphasize that any crimes of execution of RSI troops that took place west of Isonzo (Soca) River, that is southwest of Udine and southeast of Udine, were a responsibility of Italian partisan movement as the Yugoslav partisan units did not operate in that area.

Me also I would to see this "emblem": I have found those info on official Rewiew of Istituto Friulano per la Storia del Movimento di Liberazione, based on witness (a veteran).

Are you by any chance a Friuli (Furlan)?

Once again I am really Sorry, but I have checked all my sources I have on this subject and there simply isn't anything about the types of clothing the GC used during the war nor about their emblem and to be franklly I don't even have a single taken photo of GC during the war, which could answer at many questions here.

Obviously, I referred only to Guardie Civiche infoibate.
Many thousand italians suffered the same horrorific death: not necessary because fascisti, but because italians at all: ethnic cleasing ante-litteram;

We ought to separate here two things: There was no "holocaust" from the yugoslav side, that is any plans of physically getting rid of Italian community in Istria or Dalmazia, but there was some sort of ethnical cleansing that awfully resembled to the similar processes of expulsion of German minorities from Czechoslovakia, Poland and in some other parts of Europe. Neither to my knowledge the partisan movement ever accepted any such decisions during the course of the war like this was the case with Benes decrets.

However even this process is still foggy. From what I have read and understood the situation at that time, in May 1945 that is, many Italians stayed at their homes in Istria and Dalmatia. Those who have been compormiting themselves by performing some sort of services in the RSI apparatus have already fled to Italy before the arrival of the partisans, knowing that their life would be dangerously jeopardized. However, the majority of Italians stayed and to be completely franklly I have never heard or read of any mass excesses against them in May-August 1945. But after November 1946, when Tito and Togliatti have met themselves in Belgrade, this process was somehow fastened. Was there any rotten politicial kitchen present is something what many people ask themselves, but we won't know this until all Yugoslav and Italian documents won't be revealed to the historians and the public. There is one thing I should emphasize regarding this exodus of Italians from Istria. An agreement was agreed and signed by both Italian and Yugoslav governments about Yugoslavia paying a money compensation to these people on a special bank account in Luxembourg. Just last summer of 2002 Slovenia deposited its last sum of money on it, however the "ezuli" refused to lift that money, demanding back their property in nature. This of course opens new questions - what about those Slovenes and Croats who had lost their homes and land during the fascist regime and were forced to exile to Yugoslavia, Argentina, USA or Canada? Shouldn't they get some sort of satisfaction as well? And what about those people who had been locked in Italian concentration camps? As you can see there's lot of questions.

Besides, some hundred-thousand were forced to abandon house and hometown and motherland (my family enclosed! icon_evil.gif )

A brother of my late grandmother died in an Italian concentration camp of Rab in 1943 because of malnutrition. An uncle of my father was executed as a partisan by Italians and MVAC in 1942. Another uncle of his served in the Germany Army 1942-1945, returnign home as a cripple. And an uncle of my mother (who she has had never the opportunity to see) was executed as a Domobran Private, mostly likely in the Kocevje forest or Teharje. My grandmother is still looking for his grave. almost every family here has a similar story, Maxis.

TITO'S PARTISANS
I know, they killed hundred-thousand peoples (Croatian, Slovenian, Serbians, Germans, Muslims and more) around Marburg, Drava, killing-fields all around, concentration camps and more: but Foibe were an italian "privilege".

I have nothing against of those Slovene people, the partisans, who had committed these crimes to be trialed, because, and no matter how grotesquely this may sound to you, this same persons are also held responsible for much bigger crimes against their own nation than the ones in Trieste. They were just a peak of a bigger ice-berg.

HOWEVER what I am constantly annoyed here when sometimes reading Enrico, Lupo, yours but also some other messages from Italian contributors, is that you give a relevant impression that all crimes in that area were committed only and exclusively against Italian people.

But what about Italian crimes? Out of some 2,500 Italian militarymen and officials who were labeled after the war as war criminals NOT A SINGLE PERSON was ever prosecuted for war crimes that he had committed on the territory of Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, Italy, Albania and Greece during the war. This includes the same commander of the Rab concentration camp that I held responsible for the death of my relative in 1943. Even more, when an uneducated person goes through your news articles or some of your books, he gets an impression that the war started for Italy in September 1943 or May 1945 and not in June 1940. What happened before that does not seem to be much relevant to you. This same issue was brought on surface by DER SPIEGEL in one of his issue during the trial of Erich Priebke some years ago, where the author has written a detailed article (supported by photo material) about the war crimes the Italian army committed during the Primavera Operation in Slovenia in mid-1942 and on a dozen concentration camps in Gonars, Visco, Rab and Mamula Island. Are you or better to say is Italy willing to face today the darkest chapters of its invovelement in World War II?

Well, this is what I know about this subject. I hope this contribution of mine will helped to better understadment of this terribly complicated chapter of history and the last but not at least that this discussion will not flame into a pointless discussion like it usually does, when switching to this subject. I just think that both Italians and Slovenes should all pour some clean wine into their glasses or else we won't come anywhere with our accusations and will be spinning in a magic circle like Israelis and Palestinians do.

Lp,

Klemen

[Lupo Solitario]

Klemen, I will not try to answer you point by point, hope you'll pardon me. I'll try to make a single speech.

Speaking about foibe is an unpleasant argument whichever viewpoint is yours. For having an "indipendent" description we should have a good historian scholar who would be neither italian neither slavic but well learned in either speeches and in our complicated politics...A dream! Waiting for him/her, we must work with what we have.

Told this, the trouble is the existence of an hard ethnic question between italian and slavic (slovenian/croatian) communities in the border area in northern adriatic (what we call Venezia Giulia and Istria) complicated by political arguments (fascist/communist). We got a long and hard story made of persecutions and violence by either side.
The question of foibe relates to the period from 1943 to 1945, it includes either killings happened in late spring 1945 when yugoslav forces occupied Trieste and surrounding zone but either killings happened in septmeber 1943 in Istria when croatian partisans took the power for about a month when italian forces surrended. Summing all we have about 10000 "missing" cause, as you tell, a lot of people simply "disappeared".
How much people of every nationality ended in an hole in the ground in those days? Sincerly I'm not so interested in counting them, they are always too many, blood gives me no pleasure.

For what concerns GC, you have to remember that the first move of germans in september 1943 was to cut away Udine, Trieste, Gorizia, Pola and Fiume provinces from Italy and adsorbing them in Germany. So all the "italian" structure and authorities in area we actually under german autority. The real master of Trieste was Odilo Globocknik (I don't remember correct spelling sorry). It's known the X MAS units operated in area under the italian flag irritated german commands.
On the other side, the overlapping of Italian and slovenian resistances caused other troubles overall for what concerns italian communist party formations which had to keep a foot in two shoes. At last, it seems that it was really hard to know who was the enemy there at time. An analysis would require more than a book.

You complain I don't speak about italian war crimes. It is only that we're talking about foibe now. If you want to launch a thread about italian war crimes in 1941-43, launch it and I'll tell mine. But I'd like to avoid passing time in a ping pong of reciprocate accusation. I assure you that when I read of italian troops burning houses and firing on people trying to exit or about OVRA systems in dalmatia I'm not proud of being italian...and I speaking about italian sources.
The trouble is that those arguments have still a role in political debates. Italian war criminals had not been prosecuted after WWII as a political move. A story you perhaps don't know: some year ago it had been casually found in a ministery at Rome a wardrobe forgotten in cellar with
the doors against the wall. When it had been open, they found hundreds of documents accusing germans for slaughters in italy in 1943-45. Documents had been forgotten in the '50s to not "disturb" the rebuilding of german army in NATO...Back to our trouble, first of all there had been in italy a process of "removal" by memory. We had to forget Mussolini, fascism and everything connected with. We have to forget having been on the "wrong" side between 1940 and 1943. We had cut "fascism" from "italy" (it's indicative that one of most spread books about WWII is called "History of italy in fascist war" just to mark the separation of concepts). When I first started to spare time on international forum I wondered often that outside Italy this difference was totally ignored...The costant image is that of italians as victims not persecutors.
On the other side, there was internal politics. The trouble with foibe is in understanding if they had been a case of "slavics killing italians" or "communists killing every one else" or a mix of two. Anyway, in italy this had been mainly used as an anti-communist argument and not anti-slavic (at least, where I live, 300 kms from Trieste) and effectively the role of PCI in the business is at least debatable. So "foibe" is a typical italian right arguement and one to be skipped for left. I think to be the most left-oriented italian hereabout, I let you imagine position of others.

Late, a consideration. Before meeting you and other slavics hereabout, I had no idea of charge of hate against italians east of adriatic. Current opinion about slavics in Italy is not a pleasant one but until we continue to show teeth each other we will never go anywhere. We should acccept our reciprocate existance and stop to use past for present aims

sincerly
Lupo

[Kocjo]

We should acccept our reciprocate existance and stop to use past for present aims

I agree.

I think, that one of the purposes of this forum is to unit all of the ex-enemies from WWII into one, united group of fans of WWII and historians. As you said, we should forget. But we shouldn't forget every-thing, because from our past we can learn; we can learn on our mistakes and try to prevent them to happen again.

Regards,
Kocjo

[MAXIS]

I would to begin to the end:

I just think that both Italians and Slovenes should all pour some clean wine into their glasses

I agreed with you. we're talking about facts occourred 60 years ago and this is time to write history, not to suffer for it.
Neverthless, I have some facts to underline.

Are you by any chance a Friuli (Furlan)?

No I'm not a "Furlan" nor I live in Friuli. I live in Genova and I have a croatian grandmother, also. I'm military-history oriented rather than politics and I prefer to discuss about Divisions & regiments....

Maybe the GC did not have any links with the regular RSI armed forces (in what I doubt a bit), but it certainly had links with the RSI political institutions in that area, the same that commanded or controlled the RSI

Lupo is right: germans annexed Adriatische-Kustenland to Reich, not formally, but practically: italians institutions like prefects, majors etc were completely subordened to Globocknik and italians military units to BdO.
This is the text of a message send by Generale Esposito - Military Command Venezia Giulia to Generale Mischi CSM RSI on April 27/1945:
"Sta di fatto che a Fiume, come in tutte le altre provincie del Litorale Adriatico, non esiste alcun reparto italiano alle nostre dipendenze. ". Transl: "in Fiume and in all OZAK provinces not exist any italian formation under our control".
Independent italian formations like X Mas operated in OZAK for a brief period only then, were obliged to leave, on german orders. Italians bataillons like Battaglione "Mussolini", Reggimento "Tagliamento" etc, firmly italians in heart & mind, were managed by germans at all and reorganized in Kustenschutz-Bataillone.

Basically as Enrico nicely has put it, they were some sort of a paramilitary police, which helped the Carabinieri Corps.

Substantially: but fm 1944 Carabinieri in OZAK begin to disintegrate: some were absorbed into MDT, some fled to italian partisan. Guardia Civica was organized to maintain order in Trieste and Trieste-province authorized obtorto collo by germans: germans suspected that Cesare Pagnini Podestà (Major) in Trieste could play a double game: taking agreements with italian partisans against german interest. Effectively this was not far fm the truth: Pagnini was obliged to obey to german orders (guarding jewish arrested by SD, and partisans), but Guardia civica also furnished military equipments to italians partisan and hide weapons for himself: weapons to use agains Tito's partisans and every slavians advancing claims on Trieste.
To resume, Guardia Civica operated into a "gray zone", against germans interests but under german rule and agains slavians at all; for Italy but non necessary for RSI.

As an auxiliary paramilitary police formation of the RSI the Guardia Civica certainly felt apart in May 1945 when some of her elements joined the Yugoslav or Italian partisans, while others either had joined the CLNAI or had simply fled home.

This is not completely exact: in Trieste Guardie don't fled to CLNAI, nor Tito: simply they waited for italian partisan to deliver the town to them or to new zealanders. Outside town proper, situation could have been somewhat different. I don't know exactly. But province was less important and Trieste was a symbol.

so I will take your numbers here for granted id est that you know what you're talking and are not just issueing or making up these numbers by heart.

No: my number were not maked by heart: in Italian Parlament, some times ago, was examined a law-project to grant a war pension to veterans; facts and numbers were annexed to this law-project.
Naturally you have to read 40 as 38 or 39 or 41 or... I dont' remember exactly.

Yes, I know what a foiba is, Maxis.

I had no doubt about: this was for forum users only: not involved into question.

Out of some 20,000 people that were allegedly executed at Kren caves

Effectively, I had no infos about this, neverthless I know that many hundred-thousand peoples were murdered in Slovenia, death-marches and more by Tito's partisans. I think this is history all to discover yet.

Once again I am really Sorry, but I have checked all my sources I have on this subject and there simply isn't anything about the types of clothing the GC used during the war nor about their emblem and to be franklly I don't even have a single taken photo of GC during the war, which could answer at many questions here.

Effectively, on my opinion, goat was not the symbol of Guardia Civica: I suspect that germans, fm mid 1944 begin to form a new armed formation, recalling to service some hundred veterans fm Austro-Hungarian Army, both italians & slavians: this is a direct witness received fm me some time ago, but not 100% sure. Then appeared the article on Istituto Friulano rewiew..... In this article author talks about, also, a Landschutz formed in Cividale del Friuli.... This is all I knows about.

From what I have read and understood the situation at that time, in May 1945 that is, many Italians stayed at their homes in Istria and Dalmatia.

This is correct: a lot of italians fled to Zara, but in 1943: the real exodus begin later. But we have to consider, also the psychological aspect.
Two questions were open on 1945: ehtnic one - italians against slavians
and political ones - communist against anti communists.
Italian people in Istria was totally catholic and, naturally, feared atheo-communism more than the evil. Besides those atheo-communists were slavians and fear rised exponentially.
On the other side there was an incredible attachment to motherland and traditions, unique in Italy (till now esuli and descendants - me also- consider Istria & Dalmazia the real Patria) and in those conditions was hard to choose exile. Till the last minute.
When was clear that Istria was lost for ever, (I dont' want to expose my point of wiew about Togliatti: I'll become unpleasantly disagreeable against him), fear prevaled and italians begin to leave.
I repeat: this was an athavic fear against slavians+communists, amplified by firstly rumors about foibe: thousand, many thousand, hundred thousand death! Those were the rumors that italians begins to hear.

We have to consider also jugoslavian regime, interested to let italians to leave and we have a complete picture.

As for italians war crimes, basically I agreed with Lupo.
But I repeated I consider myself military-oriented in history, not politics;
sometimes I remained involved in discussion like this....

Best to all
Max

[MAXIS]

ERRATA CORRIGE

This is the text of a message send by Generale Esposito - Military Command Venezia Giulia to Generale Mischi CSM RSI on April 27/1945:
"Sta di fatto che a Fiume, come in tutte le altre provincie del Litorale Adriatico, non esiste alcun reparto italiano alle nostre dipendenze. Transl: "in Fiume and in all OZAK provinces not exist any italian formation under our control".

THE CORRECT DATA IS APRILE 27, 1944 not 1945.

[Enrico Cernuschi]

Ok Gentlemen,
war is over.
As the first purpose of this forum is to discover and know more and more facts about the Wehrmacht and WW II history I think that now many more readers are able to understand what happened in the Lubiana-Zara-Trieste corner of Europe since 1943 until 1945; someone (anglosaxons) perhaps will be able to discover too the unknown realities of the previous season, since 1918 until the Italian armistice of 8 Sept. 1943 ot these lands and peoples (but it would be possible to go back until the year 1004 title of Dux Veneticorum et Dalmatorum of the Venetian Doge - the elected life Prince of Venice - or to the Absburg dinasy union with Trieste of the XIV Century).
By the military point of view the Slovene guerrilla active there since the end of 1941 (before, since the Twenties or, if you prefer, since the 1918 end of the Great War, there were only some terrorist (?) criminal(?) patriotic (?),you may choose the preferred word, initiatives like the today IRA ones, but not armed bands walking along the country) was a nuisance; after the Italian armistice (or, better, since Aug. 1943) the Croat element in Istria begun some minor actions (phone lines cutting and so on, no weapons available until Sept 1943, the same military and band organization was at the very beginning too) which, after the 8 Sept. 1943, become a real guerrilla. Still the military situation was, in comparison with the interior of Yougoslavia civil war fought since July 1941, a minor affair.
To guard this particoular sector, formed mainly by the Italian provinces of Trieste, Pola and Fiume, the Germans neeeded men and they had not them; their Army was overstreched.
The Slovene origin but pure German SS General Odilo Globocnik, himself Trieste born and one of the most wanted Criminal of war accused by the same Nazi Party, during Summer 1943, to be only a thief and a killer for his activities in Poland (there was a law in Germany too, until Sept. 1943 at least, then - after the Italian armistice, political condictions changed, there was no more the necessity to seem, at least, respectable and the more and more Total Himmler kingdom, to the shame of the unfortunate German people, begun) decided, as a pratical man, to use all the hornets of that traditional nest to fight using them one against the other; the final consequences of this clever policy - formally ended with the German escape from Pola and Trieste at the beginning of May - losing forever their right at these land the romantic, hard Austrians were still dreaming to recover since, at least, Summer 1942 - sailing for Ancona or trying to go towards the interior of Veneto or to arrive at the Brennero pass (not all were able tu run away, of course; many sailors could, as they had the ships, and the SS too as they were the SS; the poor bastard of the Army had to stay and to die, often in an horrific way after surrender but this was a well know category; do not forget that, traditionnally, when it was necessary that someone had to disappear (a disgraced officier, a party member no more welcome at the Gauleiter court ect.) the ideal solution was to send him in Yougoslavia "to incenerate" himself as the local partisan warfare was really vicious, wild and barbaric according the best local habits, think only at the recent wars in Bosnia, Kossovo ect. - was we are still quarreling here.

About some little details:

the Capra istriana (goat) is a very old ensign and you may find it among the many shields of the regions of the Croat state (there is not only the national white and red little squares shield).

The Guardia Civica status was more like the Fire brigade or local police one than a true military RSI corps. As the RSI paid them through the city of Trieste balance this distinction may seem a very subtile one but is possible to remember the much more important (some thousand and well armed) PAI -Polizia dell'Africa Italiana. Italian African colonies policy - experience. After the Italian armistice this corp (which was one of the personal Mussolini ideas) was used to guard the ordinary police services in Rome (burglers, thiefs and so on, no Jews or (the not many) partisans, to be clear) in name of the Città aperta at the order of gen. Chirieleison. Rome was included, of course, in the new RSI Republic territory but as the Citta Aperta state had been declared before it was possible, with the Vatican aid, to consider this particoular police force as an indipendent and neutral one. They remained in Rome when the Germans and the RSI battalions at Anzio had to retreat granting the order against all (firstly the partisans of the last hour, mainly Communist with a Fascist past which had to become "clean" in the fastest way, possibly killing someone of the old masters to give a substanital proof of their new, pure, democratic spirit) and they were not disbanded by the Angloamericans.
In Trieste this was not possible (they were too few and not well armed while the partisans had clear orders and their doom was the only one possible, to die).

Many among the members of this forum seems to believe that partisans were something like an army and their enemies too. This is nonsense. During partisan warfare changes of field are the rule. Most of the partisans (except for the well feed and paid, few cadres of the Party), with bad season, had to go back to the plain to survive and there they had to work to live. The solution was, generally, to work for the Todt. The German needed men and were not too much severe about documents. The examples of partisans joining the enemy Armies are, then, numerous (many thousands of documented cases); soldiers joining the partisans (in particoular at the end of the war) were a classic too; many people were able to serve, season after season, with the Army, the partisan and the labour serivices. An uniform, in the Balkans, is often clothing and no more.

I have got the names of more than 9.800 italians citizens (civilians, soldiers, women, children, even less than five years old) died in the Foibe and identified, after the war, by a parliament commission led by a Communist president. If someone want this sad record (I sent a copy to a reader of this forum living in New Zealand some weeks ago) I can mail it. I do not contest that there were Slovenians, Croats, Gypsy, Jews, ect. victims of Tito partisans too but, as a matter of fact, the murderers of the foibe are recorded mainly as Slovene, as it was natural: they lived there too and the most dangerous of the enemies, after the war, is the neighbour who knows where do you live and what may be stealed from your house.
According the US Gov. 1919 statistics quoted by Mario Silvestri in his: La decadenza dell'Europa occidentale, ed. Einaudi, Torino (hardly a fascist publisher), 1978, pg. 32, the East territories of Trieste, Pola, Fiume and Zara annexed to Italy after the Great War had 970.161 inhabitants. An half of them were Italians and the other half Slavs (Slovene around Trieste, Croats in Istria); not all the Slavs were of slavic sentiments, many, since the X Century, considered themselves Italians and had give a clear proof of this sentiment during the Risorgimento and World War one.
After the Spring 1945 massacres the Americans decide that it was too much (yanks are good fellows but a bit slow, as history and recent wars confirm) and occupied Trieste and Pola pushing out Tito and his cut throats after 40 savage days; the British were puzzled (they slobber for revenge against Italy but Tito had suddenly remember, in May 1945, to be a Stalin communist toad and, so, as there was the real and present danger to give to the Russinas the CRDA - Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico - Trieste shipbuilding enterprise, able to project and to build battleships and any other kind of ships, machines and weapon, too much a danger for the Royal Navy) but had to obey. The USA were paying their Army and feedeing the ruined UK while the New Zealander around Trieste (to use British troops at war is such a disgusting matter, quite better the Maoris, the Gurkas, the Aussies ect. if French or Germans, like Frederick der Grosse armies of the XVIII Century, are not availabe) had a much more chivalrous style than the pure Britons brass hats who, against the Geneva Convention, were sendign to Tito and the Russians trains of POWs and civilians and so the first time of that butchery ended, a leat in the re- occupied Italian lands. After the Treaty of 1947 more than 350.000 Italians (perhaps some of Slav name but clear sentiments) preffered to abandon everything and to go in Italy. When you think that the lost provinces had a documented loss of more than 25.000 victims of war - the Hightest among the Italian provinces - it's not too much difficoult to understand the terms fo this sad history.
It's possible to say this was O N L Y an "ethinc cleaning" but the Jews genocide too was not a total one, some one survived and about 700.000 jews were protected, durng the war, by the Vatican as the same Jewish Agency recognized during a meeting with the Pope Pio XII in Nov. 1945.
Someone survivded, and remember.
I'm not asking for revenge, war is over, but I dont't like lies too. This, above all, would be an idiot exercise too, as truth will out, always. EC

[croat]

For a look at the current coat of arms of the Croatian portion of Istra (Istria) please check this site:

http://zeljko-heimer-fame.from.hr/descr/hr-pn.html

The goat emblem on the coat of arms of Istra dates back to the Habsburgs.

The Istrian shield is also incorporated into the coat of arms of the Republic of Croatia (one of the 5 portions of the 'crown' above the red-white checkerboard shield).

Let me just add that, in my opinion, the Italians, Slovenes and Croats should be friends and partners. We share one of the most amazing regions in the World, rich in natural beauty and history. We have so much more in common than we have differences, and I would like to see our three nations concentrate on these things rather than argue past history. There were horrid actions from all sides over the past centuries, as well as conflicts and pain caused by many an outsider; but today, we should accept that, for better or for worse, our borders are here to stay. In an increasingly united Europe, these lines on a map become more irrelevant from day to day anyway. During my life in Rijeka/Fiume, I enjoyed travelling to Trieste to do some shopping and to sample some Italian cuisine; my road-trip to Venezia, Milano, Como, Genoa is one of the most memorable of my life, and I have travelled quite a bit; heck, even my wife is Italian. I hope that, in this vein, we are all able to bury old nationalistic grudges and become friends - polite discussion on this forum, as history buffs and researchers, is a good indication that this is not just a pipe dream.

My kindest regards to all.