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Radio War Nerd EP #131 — The Italian Resistance Movement, with Annibale (Patreon)

Published:
2018-04-30 21:46:01
Edited:
2020-04-25 13:42:25
Imported:
2026-06
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Guest: Annabile, Italian war nerd 

Recorded April 26, 2018

We know all about the French Resistance in WWII, but nothing about the far larger Italian Resistance movement that emerged in 1943, and the various wars that took place inside Italy from 1943-45. Thankfully we have Italian war nerd "Annibale" to walk us through the complex and little-known history of that ugly war. All insurgencies are horrific, as Annibale reminds us over and over . . .

At 2:20:30 the War Nerd & Ames discuss current war news. First, the War Nerd talks about the assassination of the number two Houthi leader Saleh al-Samad. The Nerd theorizes he was killed by a drone — confirmed after we recorded this show by subsequent news reports . . . Then Ames discusses the alleged Douma chemical attack, which initially was said to be a sarin nerve gas attack, but lately has been described as a chlorine chemical attack. Ames explains why a chlorine chemical attack would be problematic for the US war party . . .

* Map: Italy during resistance 1943-45 

Total time: 2:53:31

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

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Comments

Andrew

Does Annibale have any info on the non-fascist extreme right that he mentioned fighting in the resistance? Been reading a book called “The Extreme Right in the French Resistance” and I was wondering if there had been a similar experience in Italy

Karl Knight

Good interlude, Brendan. Do you upload anything to soundcloud?

Benjamin James

For the life of me I cannot work out where to find an RSS feed for the podcast episodes. Can anyone help me with this?

Ronnie Gardocki

The RSS feed is in every Radio War Nerd newsletter.

mark

I think you might have misspelled his name in the title here.

Gengeros

Please do more World War II episodes.

Maya Min

Liked Annibale the first time, but he's vaulted to among my favorite guests with this appearance. Great show!

Brendon

You can stream a lot of the music on the website

Jed Hovey

I wonder what Annabile's opinion of Curzio Malaparte is. Rightly or wrongly, his books played a large role in my understanding of Italian views of WWII from the inside.

d

have yall considered having @trillburne from the age of napoleon podcast on to talk about that set of wars?

James Christensen

Years of Lead episode would be good. You talked a bit about online trash talk concerning who would "win" a civil conflict and what I always think is "who 'won' the Years of Lead?" As far as I can tell the short answer is "the status quo."

Dave Dolle

I have listened to this episode 3 times, please have him back again.

Brady Eklund

I think John has expressed some frustration with everyone's focus on WWII in the past, but there is so much that the mainstream narrative of the war totally misses, and it would be great for this podcast to fill in some of the blanks with some good scholars. It could also generate a lot of attention for RWN from the hordes of WWII geeks out there. The post-war political situation in Europe is also a topic that is both largely ignored in America's telling of the history and crucial to our understanding of world history.

radiowarnerd

Thanks for the tip! We'll check Trillburne out.

radiowarnerd

Hi Benjamin -- they're listed with the newsletters, which are sent out to subscribers at $5 a show or more.

xnfec

Great episode!. Interestingly, the area mentioned around Bologna (Emilia Romagna) is still one of the most left wing regions of Italy despite being one of the wealthiest - Ferrari, Ducati and Maserati are all from there.

Borvis

discussion re: the consequences of insurgency reminds me of a story out of Egypt re: Sisi taking power... it was reported that people just kept being disappeared, and the conclusion was that neighbors were informing on one another to resolve neighborhood conflict--if you didn't like your neighbor, you just said they were a CIA informant, and they disappeared. you can imagine (or maybe you can't--i can't) what that must be like if you live next to particularly unscrupulous people

Paul Vd

Yes. I thought Gary just said he wasn't a fan of the naval warfare in WW2. I can't stand the Pacific either. But the Eastern front in WW2 has it all. It's just the greatest. Maybe they can get Antony Beevor on.

Matthias Höck

On Jemen: There seems to be some indication that Sudan considers sending troops. Probably still haggling over the price.

simplebrute

Amazing episode. It would be tremendous if you had Annibale back on to discuss some finer points of this story.

radiowarnerd

Thanks. That's exactly what we're planning to do. Annibale is a prodigy--he could've gone into detail on any one of those topics.

Kamran Husain

my only concern with anything annibale has said is that there are few cartoon nazis, i think many are but are too cowardly and in line within the social order to fight their rightful current leader. it has nothing to do with the populations extremism but rather their inherent recognition and appreciation. of their submissive state to others in order to wield similar powers over the symbolic prey to their briefly assumed role as predator

Christopher Johnson

What's the name of the book you mention about the jewish industrialist in Turin who supported Mussolini?

Mark Ames

About Jewish industrialists who supported Mussolini. "Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism" by Alexander Stille.

Andrew

Does Annibale have any sources on the death squads mentioned around 1:26? Not sure I am spelling it right, but I believe he called them “Villateristi”

Andrew

Does Annibale have any books or articles (any language) on Operation Cinders that he mentioned, or on the SOE/ OSS involvement in Italy? It looks like there isn’t much out there written on it

Annibale

As far as I know, there's been only one study written on Op Cinders, and it's in Italian. It was prepared by the late professor Gianni Perona, who was the full professor of Resistance Studies at the University of Turin, and as far as I know, was the first to make extensive international research into the later phase in the relationships between the CLN and the Allies. The article title (translated) is "Turin between Athen and Warsaw - Operation Cinders", who was published in 1976 in the academic journal "Mezzosecolo". I will see if I can make a digital copy somewhere. Perona (who unfortunately passed away in 2019) had enormous experience in archival research but told me that while he had been given relatively easy access to US archives, he had been given just a slight chance to dig into the British documents, who have been classified for the most part until quite recently and are still classified in some part. Perona's thesis was that the British leadership was worried about a repeat of the Greek experience (and thus wanted to move proactively to seize Turin and the western Alps), but in the back of their mind there was also the desire to stop De Gaulle from attempting to do the same (which in fact he was planning to do...). Eisenhower cut short any talk about this because the OSS felt that any preemptive "police" operation in the Turin area would have been a disaster. The quick and brutal way Turin was seized by partisan forces in April 27 (despite the presence of large German forces in the area) quite vindicated the US prudence.

Annibale

As I've said, De Gaulle had made extensive planning to seize large areas in the Western Italian Alps, both political and military, through the use of three "missions" who had to prepare the terrain. De Gaulle's strategic goal was to seize the Aosta Valley, the Susa Vallet at least down to Susa, and the Roja Valley, linking Nice to Cuneo. But firm US opposition, the lack of enthusiasm of the local population and the presence of large Italian partisans forces, in the end, reduced the whole thing to the occupation of the Roja valley between Tenda and Ventimiglia. In the Susa valley, there was heavy fighting between the French Maquis and the Italian partisans for a couple of weeks, but the French forces never made any significant gain and the border was moved only one kilometre near the Montgenevre pass. The biggest disappointment for De Gaulle was the Aosta Valley, where he had planned a speedy military occupation and even printed maps with the new border near St. Vincent, but in the end, local French-speaking "autonomist" partisans decided it was against their interest to become French, and the US let De Gaulle know that any unilateral action would have created political and practical consequences. So, except for minimal adjustment of the border, the pre-war situation was maintained there.