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Author: Alfio Bernabei | Date: June 2005
Nazis of the French Waffen SS Charlemagne Division and Italian fascists who joined Mussolini’s Salò Republic were forced to cancel a “glorious reunion” last month after protests by anti-fascist organisations and local authority representatives in the Piedmont region of northern Italy.
The Charlemagne Division was the French unit that implemented the political will of Hitler and defended him up to the last hours before his death, as guards of his Berlin bunker. The division is believed to have been responsible for committing numerous war crimes, most notoriously at Oradour-sur-Glane. The Italian Waffen SS Division was formed through an agreement between Hitler and Mussolini, who set up the puppet regime in Salò, near Lake Garda, under Nazi command. It was active against civilians.
The meeting between the “Salò boys”, as the far right likes to call them, and the Charlemagne Nazis had been planned as a “twin ceremony” by supporters of Fascismo e Libertà. This Italian far-right movement, formed in 1991, managed to get four councillors elected at the recent local elections. As one might expect its website is in both German and Italian.
The first to find out about the meeting were the inhabitants of Condove, a town 20 miles from Turin where the reunion was due to take place in a local restaurant that the Nazis had hired. It was the same restaurant that had once hosted a meeting held by Alessandra Mussolini, the Duce’s granddaughter.
The Mayoress of Condove, Barbara De Bernardi, immediately alerted ANPI, the association of partisans who fought against the Nazis and fascists during the Second World War, and the President of the Piedmont region, Mercedes Bresso. Local people organised a public demonstration against the meeting in the main square and the Nazi-fascists were forced to drop their plans.
In her speech Ms Bresso condemned the historical revisionism that has given encouragement to fascists under Silvio Berlusconi’s government. She referred to another brazen episode of nazi-fascist bravado, this time in a football stadium, and pointed her finger in particular at the former blackshirt Gianfranco Fini, leader of Alleanza Nazionale, deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. “It is pointless to go to Israel [as Fini did in an attempt to make himself acceptable in Europe] if in matters closer to home those in power haven’t got the courage to take a clear stand against those who display Nazi-fascist symbols”, Ms Bresso declared.
The incident in the stadium went beyond any public Nazi-fascist apologia yet seen. For the whole of the 90 minutes of a match between Lazio and Livorno played in Rome, nazi-fascist Lazio supporters displayed a huge banner across one of the terraces which proclaimed “Roma è fascista” (Rome is fascist). Other banners carried fascist slogans, and swastikas and Celtic crosses were displayed. When the Lazio president Claudio Lotito walked into the stadium he was greeted with a chorus of “Duce! Duce!”, a salute to Mussolini.
The incident took place in front of a television audience of millions but Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu appeared much more concerned by some acts of vandalism which occurred after the match. As for Lotito, he sought to play down the display of Nazi symbols by his team’s fans and lavished praise on them for the way they had observed a minute’s silence for the Pope’s death. So they were according to their president “good boys”. Lotito feared that the apologia of nazi fascism displayed by the fans might cost the club a fine of at least E100,000 (£68,000), but the judge was very lenient and reduced it to E25,000. Meanwhile the enquiry into the fascist salute given by one of Lazio’s best known players, Paolo di Canio, is still under way.
The football authorities have known for years that the far right has penetrated fan clubs but to judge from the way in which such huge banners can be brought to matches they have been either negligent or ineffective in taking appropriate measures. Among the fascist movements that have been known to recruit among football fans is Forza Nuova led by the former terrorist Roberto Fiore, now a partner in Alessandra Mussolini’s party Alternativa Sociale.
Last month Fiore stood as a candidate in the local elections in the Basilicata region in southern Italy but polled only 1% of the vote (3,578 votes). Most fascists appear to be satisfied with casting their votes for the Alleanza Nazionale and do not feel they need to bother switching to other candidates.
Fini himself cannot at this stage personally afford to appeal directly to fascists. It would jeopardise his future career and prevent him from shaking hands with President George Bush or Prime Minister Tony Blair. But he seems quite happy to allow his closest allies to give as much support to the fascists as they can.
Ignazio La Russa, Fini’s right hand man and chief whip for Alleanza Nazionale, recently took the opportunity to let everyone know that instead of celebrating the anniversary of the liberation of Italy from Nazi-fascism he would instead pay homage to those who fought alongside Mussolini. Another prominent member of Fini’s party, Undersecretary of State Alfredo Mantica, summed up his position quite succinctly: “We have had enough of anti-fascism”.
© Searchlight Magazine 2005