The Legitimising Strategies of The Nazi Administration in Northern Italy - Propaganda in The Adria

The Legitimising Strategies of the Nazi Administration in Northern Italy: Propaganda in the Adriatisches Kstenland Author(s): Gianmarco Bresadola
Source: Contemporary European History, Vol. 13, No. 4, Theme Issue: Political Legitimacy in Mid-Twentieth Century Europe (Nov., 2004), pp. 425-451 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20081231 Accessed: 31/03/2010 22:33
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The Legitimising
Strategies
of in in
the Nazi Administration Northern Italy: Propaganda K?stenland
the Adriatisches
GIANMARCO
BRESADOLA
From
1943 to 25 April 1945 all of Italy not occupied by the Allied September forces was either controlled by the Fascist government of the Italian Social Republic law under the (Reppublica Sociale Italiana, RSI) or was under German martial of State the Reich for of Friedrich Walter Landfried, Secretary leadership Economy.1
the two northernmost areas of Italy, contiguous operations zones known
However,
as Alpenvorland governed In what by Nazi
and Adriatisches
K?stenland, civil administrators. I shall first summarise
were
set apart from this regime operandi
and
follows
the modus
in Italy, the status of the RSI and the general occupation civil administration in the two operations zones. I shall then examine the legitimising and the way inwhich strategies employed by the Nazis in the Adriatisches K?stenland
these were translated into propaganda, with particular attention to the German
of the Nazi military characteristics of the
language newspaper Deutsche Adria Zeitung, which the Reich's plans for the future of the region.
Italy after the armistice: Republic the German and the military operations
gives a particularly
clear idea of
administration, zone
the
Social
the early months of 1943, as the Fascist regime began were already considering a possible military occupation generals From
Translated The Williams. by Rosemary structure of the German military
to totter, the Nazi of their Italian ally
administration countries. There
in other wehrmacht-occupied a Rudolf Rahn), military
the attempt on Hitler's life on to SS-Obergriippenfiihrer Wolff, his authority. Landfried was also replaced, by SS Gruppenf?hrer Otto W?chter. considerably extending The most studies of the Nazi military of Italy are E. Collotti, tedesca important occupation L'occupazione dellTtalia occupata (1943?1943). Studio e documenti (Milan: Lerici, 1963), and L. Klinkhammer, L'occupazione tedesca in Italia (1943-1945) (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1993). Contemporary European History, 13, 4 (2004), pp. 425-451 ? 2004 Cambridge University DOI: 10.1017/S0960777304001882 Printed in the United Kingdom Press
European leader (General Plenipotentiary After SS chief and police leader Karl Wolff). (SS Obergruppenf?hrer 20 July 1944 General Toussaint was demoted and his powers transferred
set up in Italy was similar to that previously a leader (Reich Plenipotentiary political Rudolf and a chief of police and Toussaint) was
426 if its government

unawares by the 8
Contemporary European History decided

September
to pull out of the war. The Germans

armistice: they were ready with
were
not
caught
as
operation
'Alaric',
they called the occupation

and very soon seized control strategic
summer plan that had been drawn up in spring and

of most and of the country. The aims of the Italy occupation was to serve secondarily
1943,
were as a
primarily
and military,
propagandist:
warning
Moreover,
to other allies of Germany

the Germans saw central
who
and
felt inclined
northern
to withdraw
from the conflict.

of manpower
Italy
as a reservoir
for the factories

for the German was
of the Reich,
war chosen economy. to head
and a source of industrial

The the very fact that an
and agricultural
in the the Nazi's
products
person of
economist,
Landfried,
administration
reveals
preoccupation
with
resources of Italy.2 exploiting the human, material and logistic the Nazi generals favoured a policy of occupation pure and simple and Whereas ? backed by the the restoration of any Italian Fascist authority, others opposed von creation of a nominally the advocated Ribbentrop Foreign Minister, Joachim ? ? in a the alliance state which would perpetuate however limited way independent the Reich and relieve
The
with
the Wehrmacht
second alternative
of the tasks of internal policing

won out, leading to the constitution
and
of
territorial
organisation.
a government the Italian Social Republic Italy.3 It formed and most of his on 23 September The Duce, 1943, headed by Benito Mussolini.4 as a bastion to preserve the pure and political and military elite, envisaged the RSI at curbs imposed during their twenty from the free last of soul Fascism, uncorrupted and the Church. the monarchy years of power by the forces of conservatism, in Wehrmacht-controlled the new state, to the practicalities of setting up and governing were of the German the baulked Italian Fascists the however, intransigence by narrow limits were to the RSI within the confine determined authorities, which Italian the views of of Nazi war aims. Symptomatic of the very different German and When it came
new Republic was the question of the Italian regular army. Marshal Graziani, Minister
of Defence
success of
and Commander
call-ups and
in Chief,
had to grapple not only with

but also, and more
the very limited

importantly, with
recruitment
campaigns,5
opposition and openly
deeply political as have to and would for the stomach Italians' preferred fight, sceptical rather than sent to the battlefield. to see RSI manpower put to work for the Reich
from most
of the German
and military
leaders who were
2 of the military and political orientation The final say on the objectives occupation was the prerogative and the gauleiter Fritz and war production, of armaments of the agents of Albert Speer, Reich minister of labour. for the employment Sauckel, Reich plenipotentiary as the 'Repubblica di Salo', after the town on Lake Garda is also known The Italian Social Republic became the seat of government. which 4 was arrested and imprisoned in the mountainous After the coup d'?tat on 25 July 1943 Mussolini 12 September and taken to Italy, he was rescued by German parachutists region of the Gran Sasso. On W. Deakin, where he met Hitler a few days later to agree the outlines of a future Fascist Italian state. See F. 2000 [1962]). The Brutal Friendship: Mussolini, Hitler and the Fall of Italian Fascism (London: Phoenix, 5 on 9 October looked substantially to the annual call-up (announced For his recruitment pool Graziani in he succeeded considerable in German camps. With difficulty 1943) and to Italian soldiers interned but trained in Germany which were Italia and Littorio San Marco, Monterosa, forming four divisions to combat a very small part in military they were used mostly against the Allies; operations played only partisan guerrillas.
Nazi On
margin
Propaganda in theAdriatisches K?stenland side, again,

Italian
427 the smallest

and managed
the economic
of autonomy;
the Germans
was more
allowed
or
the RSI
less controlled
only
production
by the Nazis.
initiative, with
It was
the main
on
aim
the social side that Mussolini

of regaining the support of
tried hardest
the workers, who
to seize the
had become
occupation. increasingly ended in failure: itwas strongly opposed by ambitious programme of'socialisation'6 employers and by the Germans, who feared that it might reduce productivity, and and his henchmen the workers did not give it the warm welcome which Mussolini had anticipated. the sovereignty Although
unable to make its own
hostile
to both
the Republic
and the Nazi
But
the Duce's
of the RSI was acutely constrained

it was more than amere Nazi
and itwas effectively

'puppet state'.7 What
decisions,
to supply Nazi-occupied administration Italy with an Italian government, and army which pursued, and strove to perfect, a totalitarian project in sympathy ? aims inwhich the Fascists actively participated, for with the aims of Nazi Germany it did was
example as regards the persecution of the Jews.
nor the German military occupation was extended to the two to set up a Italian regions bordering on the Reich, where Hitler was determined Itwas no novelty for the Nazis to set up a civil administration civil administration. Neither the RSI in occupied territories: of Europe, particularly
the Reich considered as an interim
'German civil administrations in territories which

or Luxembourg), a future measure
had been
were
formally
or where annexation.'8
set up in other parts or actually annexed to

administration was
(e.g. Alsace-Lorraine
such
pending
The first operations zone, the Alpenvorland (Foothills of the Alps), was officially set up on 18 September and the included 1943 provinces of Bolzano, Trento and Belluno. The civil administration was headed by the Tyrolese gauleiter Franz Hofer, who took the title of high commissioner. He enjoyed the widest judicial, legislative
and executive powers and was directly responsible to the F?hrer.9
After a few weeks,

had the sprung eastern was into regions, set up renewed
during which
life after zone a second
German military
the disbanding of operations, of
units crushed partisan units that

the Italian army units stationed (Adriatic Gorizia, in K?stenland Trieste,
the Adriatisches the provinces
Coast),
on
1October.
It included
of Udine,
Pola,
6 7
Fiume
and Ljubljana.
Its high
commissioner
was
the influential
gauleiter
of
This
The RSI
Deakin's structure other
for managing their own factories. involved making workers responsible ? was for a long time neglected above historians. Apart from the works mentioned by in which and Klinkhammer, both focus on the pioneering study, and the works by Collotti of the German and the relationship between the Nazis and the government in Salo occupation are L. Ganapini, (Milan: Garzanti, La Repubblica delle camicie nere. I combattenti, i politici, gli amministratori, i I'alleato. 1940-1945, II: La guerra civile (1943 1999); R. De Felice, Mussolini sociale italiana, Annali della Fondazione 1997); P. P. Poggio (ed.), La Repubblica Laterza, 1986); G. Bocea, La repubblica diMussolini (Bari and Rome: 1977).
studies
socializzatori
1945) (Turin: Einaudi, 2 (Brescia, Micheletti 8 E. Collotti, R. Sandri and F. Sessi, eds., Dizionario tedesca in Italia', in E. Collotti, 'L'occupazione della Resistenza. Storia e geografia della Liberazione (Turin: Einaudi, 2000), 47. 9 zone has been little studied. See, e.g., R. De Felice, // problema dell'Alto Adige The Alpenvorland nei rapporti italo-tedeschi dall'Anschluss IlMulino, alla fine della seconda guerra mondiale 1973); (Bologna: K. Le Zone d'Operazione 1943-1945 (Gorizia: Prealpi e Litorale Adri?tico, Stuhlpfarrer, (Venice: Marsilio, 1979); various authors, Tedeschi, partigiani, popolazioni nell'Alpenvorland Libreria 1984). Adami,
428
Contemporary European History absolute power over the like Hofer, he had well-nigh Friedrich Rainer; was directly answerable and and financial life of his social, juridical province zone was
Carinthia, political,
to Hitler.
governed by a civil service led by a gauleiter; the Italian Social no the administration of the Alpenvorland and had authority. Officially, Republic the Germans had set up the Adriatisches K?stenland was geared to military needs Each
operations theory, zones temporary in other In parts of Italy where fighting ignoring was repeated, in progress albeit ? and it was, protests in the Germans, timorous,
reality
from a Mussolini zones

war, all or parts
now powerless to influence his Nazi allies, had incorporated the two into the Reich, and everything went to show that if the Axis powers won the
of them would be permanently removed from Italian sovereignty.11
The prospect of permanently the Nazi administration tomake

of temporary occupation, where
incorporating far greater legitimising

the main aim was
the two zones into the Reich

to minimise
required efforts than was usual in zones

hostility on the part ?
of the inhabitants. The

to win over the population
civil administrations
in the short term
run by Rainer
? that is, until
and Hofer
the end of
not only had

the war but
to persuade them that their best option for the future (the best way to conserve their their their ethnic and national identity and promote cultural traditions, maintain inclusion in the territories of the economic and social wellbeing) was permanent Reich. administrations found themselves in the typical position of the occupying a state in power (or colony or protectorate) which has to constitute its own legitimacy the intention to annex these largely or entirely on a basis of hegemony12 Although was never of their administrations depended the declared, legitimacy regions openly Both closely on that of the National
'imperial development. hegemonic authority',
Socialist
stood as
state, which,
guarantor of
clothed
their
in the majesty
security and
of an
economic
of creating this legitimacy The difficulty of the Adriatisches K?stenland administration In the latter, the presence
speaking element with
(especially
strong
greater for the considerably than for that of the Alpenvorland. in the province of Bolzano) of a large German
and pro-Austrian sentiments encouraged
was
anti-Italian
the gauleiter, Hofer, to introduce a tough policy of racial discrimination. the policy of the Fascists, who had tried to Italianise the Alto Adige
He
reversed
and Trentino
to the prestigious of Nazi, was appointed post of gauleiter acumen leaders and contacts with Nazi In 1942 his considerable political on the a province for Carinthia, and Reichskommissar of gauleiter secured him the position bordering the culture, the area, which meant destroying In this position his chief concern was to Germanise Reich. and militant See M. Williams, 'Friedrich Rainer population. politics and indeed the persons of the Slovene-speaking 1 e Odilo Globocnik. L'amicizia ins?lita e i ruoli sinistri di due nazisti tipici', Qualestoria (June 1997). 11 seems to have or Alto Adige, into the Reich of Bolzano, of the province The final incorporation been taken for granted because and Belluno of Trento provinces lose Friuli the Mediterranean there; the fate of the population It seemed equally certain that Italy which had no other outlet to and Venezia Giulia, both of strategic value to the Reich, in the Balkans. On the other hand, racial and and was eager to increase its presence of seems the very large German-speaking to have been less assured. of the Adriatic coastal zone into the Reich. 1990), 556. di pol?tica (Turin: UTET,
10 an enthusiastic Rainer, Salzburg after the Anschluss.
would
the absorption have hampered would ethnic considerations 12 N. Bobbio, N. Matteuccia and G. Pasquino, Dizionario
Nazi
Propaganda in theAdriatisches K?stenland
429
the German speakers, and instead favoured the latter, by expelling or marginalising their folklore and service with the civil ethnic Germans and encouraging flooding On Austrian the other links the with hand, he sealed off traditions, stimulating Tyrol.13 the territory of the zone from the authority of the Social Republic (the Republican to operate in the Alpenvorland) and marginalised Fascist Party was not permitted the ethnic Italians, who, though in the majority, were relegated to a subordinate position.
which
Thus he created a loyal following

that in the short term the
based on ethnic
administration
and nationalist
could
criteria,
on a
meant
German
count
consensus of approval for its policies. In (because politically homogeneous) - or at least the province the longer term this would surely have ended in the region of Bolzano being incorporated into Austria and so into the Reich. secure Because
German-speaking
the population
?
of
the Adriatisches
K?stenland
none
was
of
not
them
substantially
very large,
were
to some parts of Friuli and the province of Ljubljana - the high could not follow the same sort of legitimising strategy as his commissioner, Rainer, of the composition colleague Hofer. Rather he exploited the peculiar ethno-social confined
region successful and attempt the numerous errors a in local widespread Fascist policies consensus in his to a considerable of his extent to create in favour administration.
the German-speaking
communities,
To understand must
the thinking behind Rainers strategies, therefore, we legitimising structure of the zone and recall its history from look at the whole ethno-social to its fall in July 1943.
structures eastern provinces and Fascist government
the advent of the Fascist regime

Ethnic
composition,
socioeconomic in the
With
all the provinces in the operations zones had been of Italy after the First World War. Trieste,14 Gorizia and Pola went to Italy just after the cessation of hostilities, Fiume in 1924 under the Rome Treaty between Italy and Yugoslavia. Ljubljana became part of Italy inMay was invaded by the Axis armies. Although the province of 1941 when Yugoslavia the exception of Udine, incorporated into the kingdom Udine was predominantly Italian and that of Ljubljana almost entirely Slovene,15 in territories of the region a variety of ethnic groups was living side by side: a census in 1939 showed that almost 40 per cent of the inhabitants of Venezia Giulia the other
were non-Italian speakers (about 25 per cent were Slovene, and just over 13 per cent
Croatian).
This striking ethnic complexity was matched by a very wide range of differing the ethnic groups. Most of the Slovenes social structures, both among and within
in this zone of operations the ethnic German element the Germans admitted of the province of Bolzano who, after the agreement between the Reich and Italy or Austria. 1939) had chosen to leave Italy for Germany (the alternatives offered in October 14 Trieste was not included until 1921, after a period of extraordinary administration. Although 15 to the 31 July 1941 census the population of Ljubljana consisted of 339,751 Slovene According In order to increase inhabitants 511 Serbs, 458 Italians and 1,376 et al, Dizionario della Resistenza, 13
to it those
5,053 Croatians, speakers (93.8 per cent of the total), 13,580 Germans, see M. Pahor, in Collotti other nationalities: 'La provincia di Lubiana', 607.
430
were or livestock
Contemporary European History

farmers. was the in Slovenia,
peasants
Ljubljana
poorest
province
and its economy depended on agriculture and timber (40 per cent of the province was wooded and there were about 250 sawmills). Even in the predominantly Italian areas there was a sizeable rural population, principally in central Istria, which had the largest proportion of Croatian speakers, and in Friuli, whose economy was chiefly dependent on agriculture; what little industry there was had been struggling to recover from the effects of the First World War. All the towns of Friuli and Venezia Giulia had some
social
sort of industry16 and a fairly well-developed

make-up was more complex, with a modest
commercial
working class
base; hence
and a
their
substantial
petty and middle bourgeoisie. Of had the most complete economic

sector engaged in commerce, a vast white-collar
all the towns in the region, Trieste unquestionably and social profile: it had a large upper-middle-class
and industry, employed a commercial in administration and professional insurance, and
finance contingent
bourgeoisie,
class employed in various industries, chiefly shipbuilding. and a large working Fascism had emerged quite early in Friuli and Venezia Giulia, in 1919/20, but only in Trieste did it have a substantial presence;17 in the other towns it remained
inconspicuous for some time. The Fascist successes in the 1921 elections were striking,
like the Slovene and Croatian the opposition parties, which, a vote. received substantial of the After the seizure of power by parties, portion economic situation the and the Mussolini, reigning changed: political elites stampeded
into skilful the party so as to secure the leading gained government a very wide posts, measure and Fascism, of consent thanks among to and
but did not obliterate
pervasive
propaganda,
and almost all social groups. Faced with the difficult task of postwar reconstruction the integration of the regional economy with that of Italy, the Fascist government
was generous with also public money projects especially for agricultural where industry improvement was and concerned, urban though restoration. there were ambitious
The policy met with

by incessant and insistent
only modest
propaganda,
success, but the local Italian population,

soon mustered under the Fascist banner;
beguiled
while
the traditional
elites were
rewarded
for their adherence
Italian politics and the Italian economy, promises also appealed to the middle
by prestige in the regime s ferocious nationalism and lavish and lower classes. The strength of 'border increased
16 Monfalcone,
Muggia
and Fiume
had
large shipbuilding
facilities;
Udine,
Pordenone
and Gorizia
of the movement. had been spectacular and entered into the mythology in April constituted the Fascio Triestino di In early 1919 a Fascist movement there which developed Trieste's Fascio ('band') grew rapidly: in 1921 itwas the largest in Italy, with nearly 15,000 Combattimento. was had come into Venezia Giulia The membership members. by Italian immigrants who augmented a large number of demobbed soldiers who had been drafted in to replace after the Great War, including Austrian civil servants. From 1922 the Fascist Party absorbed the politicians who had hitherto governed came the higher bourgeoisie in their wake of merchants, the city as liberal-conservative nationalists; and the first ten years di Combattimento industrialists and financiers. The birth of the Fascio Triestino
textiles. produced mainly 17 Fascism's first steps in Trieste
Uomini
a Trieste. in detail by D. Mettiussi in // Partito NazionaleFascista Fasicst Party are described e organizzasione Storia la del di del potere 1919^-1932 (Trieste: Istituto Regionale Movimento per ? Venezia Giulia, nel Friuli Liberazione 2002). of the Trieste
Nazi

social were On were hand, violent and its exaltation repression of of
431
Fascism',18 Italian substantial spirit
as far and ethnic
as
these
groups
concerned, the the one
the the
its welfare minorities
Giulia
and Istria ? satisfied the Italians' thirst for supremacy a foreign policy of expansion into the Balkans which would central location and so enable
a social policy
programme. particularly
Slovenes
Croatians
of Venezia
and seemed
to herald
it to fulfil its historic

based on lavish welfare
put Trieste in amore role as 'the Rome of the east';

payments, omnipresent mass
on
the
other,
movements
the poorest However,
and the reorganisation

elements while in society. the regime was
of public
life had largely won

and very
the support of even

its promises,
widely
accepted,
free with
many of the lower ranks, particularly outside the big towns, were suffering real improvement despite the huge hardship, and there was no rapid overall economic The subsidies. bore consequences government particularly hard on the business sector, whose been
the
prosperity depended on the condition of the port of Trieste, which had always the main driver of the regional economy but had been in deep recession since
1920s. some years before these problems began to sap the mass popularity of
early It was
Fascism, but, once Italy had entered the war, support for Mussolini's regime visibly in April declined. For a brief period following the Axis conquest of Yugoslavia in the 1941, the people of Friuli and Venezia Giulia appeared to regain confidence Duce the Balkans,
power soon
at last become and his regime: it seemed that Trieste would as Fascist propaganda had so noisily proclaimed. But
vanished: a succession of military defeats, the explosive
the gateway this mirage

situation in
to of
the
Balkans
great
and the entry into the war of the Soviet Union

? produced disillusion and discouragement,
and the United

and the region's
States
the
powers
population
developed a positive aversion to the regime which had failed to provide them with a decent standard of living. Dissatisfaction with Fascist policies which had repeatedly
failed to
with
the atrocious management of supplies, including the essentials of life - for which the Party had assumed the entire responsibility and there was a 'growing distrust
the men in power.. .who were viewed as incompetent freebooters'.19 After the
regenerate
the
region's
economy
was
supplemented
by
intense
impatience
of
invasion of Yugoslavia
armed region From anti-Fascist assumed the a wider outset,
and the annexation

intensified not and merely
of the province
the problem but into
of Ljubljana
of resistance nationalistic. military-style
the Yugoslav
in the eastern
resistance import the
political, organised
'border'
Fascists,
'civil
self
defence
squads', Slav communities
had
distinguished of Venezia Giulia
themselves
by and Istria. Scores the worst
their
savage of Slovene
attacks
on
the
and Croatian the burning
organisations
had their headquarters
destroyed,
incident being
'Border Fascism' (fascismo region's Fascists so as to highlight 19 'Rapporto del 31 dicembre della pubblica sicurezza, Divisione Dizionario della Resistenza, 600.
18
di confine) was the term applied to themselves from the outset by the the ultranationalist the movement. inspiration behind Direzione 1942 del questore di Trieste alMinistero dell'interno, gen?rale affari generali e riservati', cited in G. Fogar, 'Trieste', in Collotti et ah,
432
of the Narodni
Contemporary
European
History
Dom,
the modern
cultural
centre
that
symbolised
the
strong
presence
in Trieste. As Anna Vinci has commented, this episode community true the its birth of and the local Fascism, press showed approval by signalled the 'undoubted consensus between liberal nationalist groups and nationalists'.20 With the Fascists in power throughout Italy, the brutality of the Fascist squads which were - was actually illegal, though generally tolerated by the authorities replaced by repres sion by the state, which, far from disowning the worst outrages, backed the violence of their national identity: clubs by taking radical steps to deprive the ethnic minorities of the Slovene
were shut down, Slovene and Croatian schools suppressed, 'aliens' were excluded
from
the economic and political elites, and Slav names Italianised. This despotic which propagandists dressed up as a triumph of Latin civilisation over Italianisation
Slav of young the regime. ? peasants Slovenes The was with Slav opposed a from the of sought late Italian both 1920s by various groups, who took and consisting up arms anti-Fascists, social
primitive mostly against
leavening
partisans
recovery
a national
uprising
the Slav
against the Italian oppressor. The Axis

resistance, which under communist
occupation
of Yugoslavia
a degree
galvanised
of military
guidance
assumed
organisation which greatly increased its combative capacity; the guerrilla war even reached into the towns and was a particular threat to Gorizia and Trieste. Mussolini - in ordered draconian reprisals April 1942 a Special Public Safety Inspectorate for Venezia Giulia was set up in Trieste and ordered to crush the partisans without mercy indeed strengthened but they could not overcome the Yugoslav organisation, which its recruitment of young Slovenes and Croatians, and also, thanks to its solid political and ideological backing, attracted Italian anti-Fascists with communist leanings. The
Slav partisans became a mass movement under the banner of national recovery,
combining
Italian state.
the prospect
From autumn
of socio-political
1942 the communist
revolution
guerrilla
with
that of revenge
publicly
on the
leaders
announced
their intention that had been The

economy
of removing
from Italian control
the Slovene
and Croatian
territories
incorporated into the kingdom of Italy. Italians of Friuli and Venezia Giulia, already suffering from an ill-managed war
and discouraged by the disastrous military situation of the Italian army, were
now further afflicted by the immediate day-to-day insecurity generated by resistance activity and the imminent prospect of losing their primacy as a national group. Like the rest of Italy, the whole region - even Trieste, which had been a hotbed of Fascism and his regime in July 1943; produced no hostile reaction to the fall of Mussolini
indeed, it was greeted with a certain relief. However, the collapse of the regime
ushered
the entire
in a period
country,
of profound
'assumed
collective
disorientation,
on the
which,
eastern
while
frontier,
common
since
to
the
a further
dimension
disappearance of Fascism removed the foundation the defence of their national identity'.21
of their principal
preoccupation,
20
A. M.
Vinci,
'Il fascismo
e la societ?
locale',
in Friuli
e Venezia in Friuli
Giulia
Storia del
'900 (Gorizia:
Editrice 21 R.
Goriziana, 1997), 226. del regime, 'Crisi Pupo,
guerra
totale e Resistenza',
e Venezia Giulia,
355.
Nazi Thus it was
433
the Adriatisches engendered

by offering
at the helm of the Nazi administration that Friedrich Rainer, in was use to the able and tensions nationalist ethnic K?stenland, by Fascist repression as a lever when developing his legitimising strategy,
? albeit ? illusory solutions to the many critical questions that
attractive
of regime had been unable to answer. He had a thorough understanding the regional context and strove to find ways of encouraging each of its diverse ethnic and social groups to look to the Reich, and hence to the local Nazi administration, the former
as the promoter of its national destiny, the guarantor of its socio-political security and
the harbinger of its economic prosperity. The financial, commercial and industrial elite of Venezia Giulia - and indirectly, all Italians in the region ? were promised a new dawn of prosperity from the revival of the Trieste port complex as part of
Hitler's new continental order; the workers and peasants were to enjoy the benefits
of the German welfare

against the social revolution
state; the petty and middle

advocated by the
bourgeoisie
would
And
be safeguarded
the Slovenes
communist
resistance.
were
the important positions which Fascist de given the prospect of reoccupying nationalisation had denied them, together with new markets for their timber and
agricultural products.
Propaganda One of the most
and repression: effective
the two faces
of the Nazi
civil administration
German
days means of
administrators
the of occupation
tools available to the legitimising and consensus-building in the Adriatisches K?stenland was propaganda. From the first
were determined to zone. acquire On complete control over every in the operations 10 November 1943 Karl
they
communication
II - Propaganda, Press and Culture - issued an order that no news from an Italian source was to be broadcast unless it had been specifically authorised in by his department. Before long Lapper, who had already worked with Rainer an structure had built efficient which Carinthia, up every permeated propaganda head of Section
corner of the territory, organised an intensive programme of radio broadcasts and
Lapper,
(while reducing Trieste's venerable daily // Piccolo to amere bulletin) created a number of newspapers and periodicals targeting individual ethnic and national groups.22 The Nazi propaganda machine in the Adriatisches K?stenland also embraced an illustrated as known the Adria Illustrierte Zeitung and a daily, the weekly German-language Deutsche Adria Zeitung, published by Europa Verlag and containing articles from both the Reich press agencies and the paper's Trieste-based editors.23 The Deutsche Adria Zeitung, which was available in all the Adriatic provinces, is the best example of how Rainer s administration used propaganda to legitimise itself vis-?-vis the assorted national and social groups in the region, and of how the Nazis that region into the Reich. While Rainer made extensive use of propaganda to sustain and nourish
22
set about incorporating
the legitimisation
for the purposes of persuasion, the strategies of the Nazi administration,

respectively 14 Jan. 1944, Groiski List, Glas Primorja 1945. and
The magazines for Slovenes, Croatians - were Voce di Furlania successful. particularly 23 The first issue of Deutsche Adria Zeitung
and Friulians on
appeared
the last on 28 April
434
of the

Adriatic Coast zone into Hitler's New
incorporation
operations
planned
European
forces ?
Order
Italians
was
no less
largely pursued
than Slavs ?
by violence.
persecuted
Opponents
and fought
of the occupying
with a harshness
were
almost unequalled
only extermination
in the rest of Nazi-controlled

camp, at Risiera di San Sabba,
Italy; in fact Trieste

where more than
housed
two
Italy's
thousand
Jews and political opponents perished. The was Obersturmf?hrer Odilo Lothar Globocnick, with Rainer for many
commandant who
had been
of the San Sabba camp a fellow-Nazi militant
years in Austria; Rainer now appointed him chief of police and SS units stationed in the operations zone. Before coming to Trieste Globocnik had served in the Polish district of Lublin, where, first as local SS and police chief in the he had been a prime mover and then as the director of Aktion Reinhardt, of the Jews.24 He brought with him to the operations zone most of his Aktion Reinhardt that associates, and with them the ferocious repressive methods extermination
had been used in the war of extermination in eastern Europe: murder of prisoners,
and the destruction of entire villages savage reprisals against the civilian populations were if they merely suspected of harbouring partisans. In view of this extensive use of coercion which accorded with the strongly content Nazi of value the the administration, however system peddled by ideological ? it might be dressed up the use of concepts of consensus and legitimacy to give the idea that part at least of the population
Nazi regional government is of critical
in the operations
No power
zone
accepted
can
the
be
importance.
structure
considered
it governs; legitimate unless it is accepted by the majority of the population on a the freedom of their acceptance. While the value of that legitimacy depends to accept significant proportion of the population of the Adriatic Coast was willing government,
be of said that alternatives
Nazi
cannot range
and to be incorporated
this was and a free only in and fully those
into the Reich

autonomous choice can
in the medium
from exercise among the
term,
a wider
it
circumstances
of power
be
deemed
truly legitimate. The future of Trieste in the New administration the Germans European Order K?stenland links had
The
first steps taken by the German how determined show unequivocally the RSI. links with Rainer removed the former
of the Adriatisches were
with had
in a large number of civil servants from Austria; he ratified a new legal order to replace the Italian system, Fascist Party, stopped recruitment for Graziani's put a tight curb on the Republican the and army prevented application of the RSI's social legislation. A good measure
the leading political Fascist regime and brought
to sever the region's and business figures who
24 some 1,500,000 persons died in the camps of Belzec, to Hilberg, and Sobib?r, Treblinka According as head of Aktion Reinhardt, between Lublin, which were directly controlled by Globocnik, September The Destruction 1942 and October 1943. See Raul Hilberg, (New York: of the European Jews, 3 vols. Holmes and Meier, der Bewegung f?hrend Drava Verlag, 1997). 1985), II, table IX/8. There t?tig'. Odilo Globocnik-K?mpfer f?r is a biography of Globocnik by Siegfried den Anschluss, Vollstrecker des Holocaust Pucher, 'In (Klagenfurt:
Nazi of the Nazis'

the
435
determination
lire with
in the first few months

replacing
to cut off the operations zone from Italy is the fact that so far as to propose went of occupation the Reichsbank
currency, the Adria-Krone, although the project was
a new
eventually given up as impracticable. The high commissioner proposed and intended to obliterate all traces of Italy and Mussolini's from republican Fascist government the horizon of the local population and turn their eyes wholly towards the National
Socialist Reich. However, the new symbolic focus, replacing Rome, was to be
but Vienna, the capital of the former Austro-Hungarian empire which had ruled the region wisely and well until the end of the Great War, fostering its
economic development and ensuring peaceful coexistence between national groups.
not Berlin
The Germans
the operations zone 'Adriatisches K?stenland' because this name had been used under the Austro-Hungarian to denote the lands north empire christened of the Adriatic, every possible
heart of this
showing opportunity
to
themselves
to be 'shrewd manipulators to recall the happy and prosperous

affective and cultural links with
of nostalgia',25 using imperial past. At the

Austria was Trieste, a
drive
re-forge
city many
recent
of whose
inhabitants well
past. An
remembered,
abundant series
if they did not actually pine for, the

of cultural events was organised
Austro-Hungarian
to celebrate
of harmony between Vienna and Trieste, notably the 'Wien gr?sst Triest, Triest gr?sst Wien' programme which enabled leading Trieste
to visit Vienna and vice versa.
the restoration
musicians
This pretence that Nazi Germany was empire was aimed principally at winning
crying out for a new and powerful would be capable of regenerating the region's
Trieste at the heart of European commerce.
the direct heir of the Austro-Hungarian over the Italian middle class, who were interlocutor which, unlike the Fascist regime, economy
the
and putting
break-up of
the port
the Austro
of
Before
Hungarian empire Trieste had been a hub of central European trade, but it had been isolated as a result of the geopolitical reshuffle determined by the 1919 Treaty of St Germain and the subsequent political and economic recovery of Germany. This
loss of European markets could not be compensated for by the incorporation of
Trieste
appeared peripheral and relatively unimportant. Despite repeated promises to turn it into one of Italy's most internationally important seaports, the Fascists had done nothing to prevent the volume of trade from diminishing. The local Fascists had proved equally incapable of dealing with the crisis in Trieste's trade: despite their early prominence, they had quickly lost influence and representation at national level. Another serious blow to the economy of Trieste and Venezia Giulia was a
consequence of Austria's absorption into the Reich: the customs union between
and Fiume
into the Italian trading system, in which
context Trieste
the two countries, followed by the Anschluss, reduced imports and exports through Trieste to a trickle. By 1938 over half the overseas trade of Austria, Czechoslovakia ? and Hungary had been diverted away from Trieste its age-old and natural outlet
towards north European ports. Without some reconfiguration of central European
geopolitics,
25 R.
the decline
Sotto la Todt
of Trieste,
ever more
bound
to a national
economy
which
Spazzali,
(Gorizia: Editrice
Goriziana,
1995), 24.
436
tended Austria's own to favour annexation aspiration, in
Contemporary
European
History
Genoa, were
Naples not
and Venice, solely economic:
seemed
ineluctable.
The also ?
consequences rekindled now Austria's re-expressed
of
the Anschluss expansionism
the wake
as part of the Nazi project for a New European Order - to include Trieste in a Reich-dominated Mitteleuropa. The Italian government was uneasily aware of this as Galeazzo Ciano noted in his diary on 9 September Austrian expansionism, 1939: 'InVienna they are already singing a song to the effect that "What we have we hold, and tomorrow we mind, although The region's political
the Reich, Even setting at this point aside fears
of Austro-Hungarian
shall go for Trieste". Hatred the Axis may have temporarily and business
reaching of to their very
of Italy is always alive in the German anaesthetised the feeling.'26 saw the question
as one at of the
elites now
annexation
of relations with
capital time importance. was an idea
possible
doorstep, ? which
confined
to certain Austrian Nazi in events north to define
their interest
Fascism to
circles and was not part of official Berlin policy ? of the Alps was increased by the obvious inability of
trade and economy of the region.
regenerate
the maritime
the political and commercial relationship between Venezia Giulia and Nazi Germany became particularly urgent in the second half of 1940, when the rapid and seemingly unstoppable advances of the Nazi armies on every front seemed to presage a Nazi victory in Europe. And the end of the war would bring about Hitler's New Order, aGerman-dominated political and economic system which would redefine the prerogatives and ambitions of both states and regions all over the continent: allwould stand or fall according to their degree of integration with this German-controlled system. This was of fundamental importance to Trieste. If its itwould once again become port facilities were to be put at the service of the Reich, a trading centre of European importance: it would regain its status asMitteleuropan chief Mediterranean outlet. But if Germany preferred other ports, Trieste would
soon be entirely marginalised.
The
need
The
government
region's
to
leading
examine
business
ways of
interests were
ensuring that
not
slow
would
in pressing
be at the
the
heart
Italian
of the
Trieste
continental
dei Traffici
trade focused
suggested that
on the Reich.
the government
In September
should
1940 the Comitato

railways...
Triestino
access to
'offer German
itsTrieste be to make
seemed and the
and Fiume
to offer entire
routes' and suggested and city of Trieste] port [the

an unmissable Venezia Giulia, opportunity there was
that in the near future
a free port'.27 Although

for some the economic about anxiety what
'the best plan would Nazi Germany

of Trieste entry into the an
regeneration
Reich
and financiers were particularly might mean. Trieste's leading businessmen that Germany, pressed by Austria, would make territorial claims, and that massive penetration by powerful German finance and business interests would distort worried the local economy and jeopardise their own hegemony.
26 27
G. Ciano, Comitato
Trieste,
I: 1939-1940 (Milan/Rome: Diario, Rizzoli, 1947), 161. triestino dei traffici. Esame della nuova situazione dell'Europa centro-orientale, n.p., n.d. (must be in Elio Apih, Storia delle citta italiane. Trieste (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 1940), quoted 1988), 138.
Nazi
437
The hopes and fears besetting Trieste entrepreneurs emerge limpidly in a letter sent to the prefect, Dino Borri, inNovember by a leading businessman, Antonio Cosulich,
1940. the Cosulich Italian argued that since Germany to do was clearly to ensure seeking that a Mediterranean the Reich would outlet, choose government ought its best
Fiume been
and Trieste, since sacrificed to events
hinterland'.28
Mediterranean, trade would,
location, [these cities] have 'owing to their geographical that have undermined the economy and trade of their If this did not happen, and Germany found an alternative outlet to the
'then almost or later, certainly [follow] all the the currents route, of central same and track, eastern and European this would same the
sooner
deal a grievous blow to the ports of Trieste and Fiume'. Since, for obvious and interest would well-rehearsed reasons, Germany's inevitably focus on geographical Fiume and Trieste, Cosulich considered it absolutely necessary to anticipate requests Axis the 'political and military comradeship of the government. Although it unlikely that Germany was aiming to incorporate Venezia Powers' made believed that the Reich might aspire Giulia into the Reich, Cosulich nonetheless from the Nazi to 'a sort of corridor of Germany, public from to the sea, with valleys, or more precisely from the borders conditions for rail traffic, customs and perhaps special a to that such claim would be highly detrimental thought the Alpine
safety'. Cosulich Italy's interests and to its European prestige, and would be tantamount to ceding could only accept it for 'higher reasons that can territory, so the Italian government level'. As a local businessman, Cosulich preferred the be evaluated only at government idea of declaring Trieste and Fiume a free port: in that way, Italy would safeguard her territorial integrity, Germany
at last recover
would
its status
have itsMediterranean
as a commercial hub and
outlet
a port
and, best of all,

of international
Trieste
would
importance.
Cosulich's
economy - was
idea
that Trieste
by the
should become
emergency arising
a free port
from the very
serving
recent
the Reich
upheavals
sparked
in the European
had been, over 'the history:
order; itwas
most of the between
intended as the most

previous national century, aspirations one
balanced
of and the
solution possible
dilemmas destiny',29
to what
chief
of Trieste's between
contrast
economic
the desire to belong

the city's But economic the war
to Italy and the awareness

and commercial did not ambitions. end as soon
that that choice might

as anticipated, and
acutely restrict
from the second
in Europe
half of 1942 the Axis armies suffered a series of setbacks which put an abrupt curb on the prospects envisaged by Cosulich and the Trieste port authorities. The armistice signed on 8 September
creation of the operations
1943, the breakdown

zones abruptly
of the Italo-German
refocused attention on
alliance and the

the relationship
between Venezia country to which
Giulia
and Germany and radically re-presented Trieste and Fiume should belong.
the problem
of the
28
Letter
dell'Istituto L/fascicolo 29 Pupo,
to the Prefect 8 Nov. from Antonio of Trieste, Dino Cosulich 1940, Archivio Borri, di Liberazione nel Friuli-Venezia Giulia, VG busta per la Storia del Movimento Regionale XIX. citations are from the same document. Subsequent 'Crisi del regime, guerra totale e Resistenza', 347-70.
438
The business German community administrators wished
Contemporary
European
History
of above
the Adriatic all to regain
Coast access
were to
well central
aware European
that
Trieste's markets,
to ally themselves and that many of itsmembers had recently expressed awillingness a in the region. Hence the revival of Trieste as a commercial with Germany hegemony numerous centre was one of the bastions of the Nazis' legitimisation strategy.While business to collaborate with the occupiers, leaders expressed an immediate willingness German and the high commissioner accordingly appointed sympathisers to leading administrative and financial positions, the powerful propaganda machine harped
continually order, on the of regeneration the old of the region's ports as part of a new continental of the a renewal Austro-Hungarian 'Trieste, Queen
Mitteleuropa.
Adriatic' become
could (K?nigin der Adria)30 was an alluring and flattering image which its links with the Reich-dominated reality only if the city strengthened
system; recent experience had shown that itwould European political and economic not become reality if Trieste remained part of the Italian state. The very first issue of the Deutsche Adria Zeitung contained an article setting forth this Nazi vision and clearly explaining the Reich's plans for the future of the region. Trieste's commercial decline, it said, had been caused by global changes after the First World War and the subsequent recrudescence of German power, which had created a huge economic
the European
hinterland whose
situation took
trade had flowed

for the worse,
chiefly
continued
through Hamburg. When

the article, the Italian
a turn
it quite explicitly meant the Fascists had proved utterly government the of Trieste it port by incorporating incapable of sustaining profitably into the on the other hand, would be able to revitalise pattern of Italian trade. The Reich, by which
Trieste's economy: 'in the new
to the Nazi
become
design
Europe,
after
the war
Europe re-forged according
all ports will

emporium
be open
for the
to the world
and
and Trieste will

the
once
again
of its
the Europe's
south
south-east...
advantage
closeness
the new
toMitteleuropa and relative closeness of the Levant, which has benefited so little since the end of the FirstWorld War, will surely prove positive for Trieste
Europe'.31
it in
'The interests of a commercial Zeitung,
'extend far beyond a itmust take the [Trieste] large part of Europe is a vital sphere of influence inwhich keenest interest.'32 The people of Trieste could not stand aside from the destiny of Europe because their city's future depended on it:without peace and order north of the Alps, Trieste would never regain access to the vast continental markets. And only a Nazi victory could bring that about, re-establishing the natural geopolitical order of Europe and ending the 'unnatural national groupings'33 set up in the Balkans by
30 1944). 31
like Trieste', explained the Deutsche Adria its immediate hinterland and indeed its nation. For
centre
See
'Die
"K?nigin
der Adria".
Triest
in Krieg
und
Frieden',
Deutsche
Adria
Zeitung
19 (1 Feb. Adria
Zeitung 32
Triest ins Mittelmeer. Die Hafenstadt 'Europas Fenster 1 (14 Jan. 1944). 'Krise oder Chance', Deutsche Adria Zeitung 274 (15 Oct. 33 und Standortfaktoren 'Triestiner Perspektiven-Raumkr?fte 1944).
im Wandel
der Zeiten',
Deutsche
1944). der Hafenstadt',
Deutsche
Adria Zeitung
31 (13 Feb.
Nazi

after the First World War. France and Britain, explained
439
the
the
victorious
powers
Adria Zeitung, had used these artificial statelets to extend their economic power right into the heart of Europe; their policy was to foment ethnic and national chaos so as
to impose their own supremacy, on the 'divide and rule' principle. It was in the best
interests of Germany,
harmonious
on the other hand,

system
to pacify peoples
sweep
and nations
away the
and set up a
barriers,
politico-economic
that would
customs
the crippling taxes and other in such an international Only

hinterland, 'which once extended
obstacles context
concepts. imposed by outdated economic could Trieste regain its natural commercial
am Main, Prague and Warsaw'.34
as far as Frankfurt
The Germans be incorporated
had a clear idea of the city's future. If they won the war, Trieste would into the Reich. No other view would satisfy Nazi Germany, and the
propagandists took care to point out that no other would be satisfactory for Trieste. In spring 1944 certain voices began to call quite insistently for Trieste to be declared a 'free city' after the war. Immediately, an article appeared in the Deutsche Adria Zeitung arguing
autonomy
that such an option would

and economic prosperity.
have a catastrophic
To illustrate the
impact on the city's political

awful consequences of any
such false step, the German propagandists cited the plight of Danzig (now Gdansk, port that had been declared a 'free city' in 1919.35 Far Poland), the old Hanseatic from becoming the fulcrum of eastern and central European trade, as it had wished, of Danzig had cut it off from the trade routes of the very the internationalisation
countries that were supposed to constitute its economic hinterland: Germany had
and Poland had set up and Bremen), preferred its own ports (particularly Hamburg its own trading centre, the port of Gdingen. Not until Danzig was reabsorbed into economic the Reich-dominated and trading system had it begun to flourish once again, or its population recover the financial and social security it had once had. The to Trieste: if the latter wanted troubles of Danzig must serve as an awful warning economic prosperity in future it must immediately abandon the will-o'-the-wisp 'free port' idea and seek the protection of a stable and powerful state that could provide
the was recent
itwith
awide
of
and wealthy
the Fascist
hinterland.
government,
In view of Italy's previous

the only candidate
failures and
Europe
collapse
in central
the Reich.
Plans
and
models
for
a new
welfare
state
Itwas not only the rich who were

along the Adriatic coast would
offered prosperity
profit enormously
by the Nazi Reich.

from German
All workers
-
and the humblest would benefit most, because explained the German propagandists the Germans had set up the most complete, best-articulated welfare state that had ever existed. Rainer painted an idyllic picture of working conditions in Germany and indicated that very soon these would be extended to Adriatic workers. This enabled
government
34 35 1944).
'Handelszentrum 'Das Schicksal
122 (15May Triest', Deutsche Adria Zeitung einer freien Stadt. Brief an einen Triestiner',
1944). Deutsche
Adria
Zeitung
in
(4May
440 him to contrast the glowing

the former Fascist
Contemporary
European
History
prospect
of life under
the Nazis with
the dire realities of
administration.
Even before standards of most
things had got worse owing to Italy's entry into the war, the living lower-class people in Friuli and Venezia Giulia had been profoundly
In the countryside the rapid failure of sbracciantizzazione (a campaign unsatisfactory to eliminate the class of braccianti or agricultural day labourers by giving them small plots of land) had reduced many agricultural workers to abject poverty, while factory had been savagely exploited. Working hand in glove with the regime, factory had pinned down wages, jacked up production and virtually ignored poor conditions and considerations of This working safety. exploitation of the workforce, a blaze of publicity by in initiatives under welfare amidst thinly disguised brought industrialists working with the Party and the Fascist trade union (every workplace workers owners had a unit of the Opera Nazionale
goaded some worker groups into
Dopolavoro),36
organising clandestine
triggered numerous
anti-Fascist
protests
and
activities.
In the
most
of
heavily
industrialised
... betrayed
parts of Venezia
an awareness
Giulia
that a
'the prefects'
large section of
anxious
the
surveillance
did
the workforce
population
not assent to the dictatorship'.37 Rainer, in an attempt to heal the breach between in industry and ensure that the latter actively the regional government and workers a propaganda administration image of a Nazi supported his regime, constructed
sensitive to the needs of the poorest in society and ready to fly to their assistance.
The Deutsche Adria Zeitung admitted that a complete reform of the social system into the Reich, had to await the end of the war and the region's incorporation
but Rainers administration was aware of the Fascists' disastrous social policy and
was paying
commissioner Its remit was
the closest attention

had to set support up a
to the working
department, in every way,
environment;
the from 'factory ensuring
to this end the high

workers' proper bureau'.38 health and
special
workers
safety conditions
providing workers
to promoting
with new
cultural and recreational

? from overalls
activities. often
Itwould
because
start by
(explained
clothes
to overshoes
the Adria Zeitung) inadequate

be instrumental in
it had been
noticed
that men
were
forced
the war,
to wear
clothing. The bureau would

overcoming the food
also provide work

problems caused
canteens39 which
by ensuring
old, would
that
got a full and satisfying meal. Finally, the bureau would distribute extra think that cigarettes are not really a cigarette rations, since 'although some might that they are one of the little things fundamental need of life, itmust be acknowledged everyone
that make life a bit easier and more endurable.... Therefore the factory workers'
36 was set up as a public body in 1925 to develop This Activities' 'National Institute for After-Work Itwas the and manage welfare and recreation projects not only in factories but also in town and country. for the Nazis' Kraft durch Freude organisation, which was set up by the Deutsche model Arbeitsfront. e cultura di massa is V. de Grazia, Consenso The best study of the Opera Nazionale (OND) Dopolavoro nellTtalia Fascista. L'organizzazione del Dopolavoro (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 1981). 37 'II fascismo e la societ? locale', 241-2. Vinci, 38 188 (21 July 1944). Deutsche Adria Zeitung 'Soziale Betretung der Schaffenden', 39 a came The Deutsche Adria Zeitung devoted it claimed, canteens, which, long article to these work in Italien: Wermachtseinrichtungen in under the German 'Werkk?chen fur die Arbeiter', occupation: Deutsche Adria Zeitung 84 (6 April 1944).
Nazi in collaboration
taken The care to German in rather the
Propaganda in theAdriatisches K?stenland with the High

its proteges were
441 had
to
bureau,
always time.' activities system, as
Commissioner's
with anxious an extra to stress seen as
business
cigarette that
department,
from and to the time
provide propagandists
ration
recreational
cultural welfare is just not live
workplace an
would accessory: assistance.
always 'Meeting To quote
be the
fundamental needs of
than as material
cultural
the workers man does
important
a well-known
saying,
by bread alone.'40 The newspaper waxed

regular concerts given during and lunch by workers, managers
particularly
in of the the Nazi
lyrical about the Werkskonzerte:

region's main factories, attended administration.
breaks
representatives
This new welfare on the workers, its construction to demonstrate

workers. newspaper On 20
and protection system on the German model would not be forced explained the Deutsche Adria Zeitung: they would play an active part in in collaboration with the Nazis. Commissioner Rainer himself liked his willingness
February, on a not meeting
to engage
long after between
in productive
the German the gauleiter
dialogue with
was and a workers'
the region's
set up, delegation. the
administration
reported
Rainer
inwhich he expounded a favourite had begun by making a speech of welcome Nazi of social the elimination all social classes and distinctions. of concept ideology: 'The supreme law of all true socialism', he said, 'should be that there is no privileged
and no one is entitled to live at other people's expense'. After which, reported
class
the Deutsche Adria Zeitung, he held a long conversation with

economic latter would and social matters the fullest and listening to their requests',41 the German receive consideration from
the workers,
promising authorities.
'discussing
that the
The
real experience
and
of workers
a the
rosy propaganda
and of salaries, a welfare
picture. No
he made but
in the operations zone was quite different from this doubt Rainer was sincere in his desire to review wages
demagogic scanty promise personally actually taken to were standard ensure quite of the creation measures workers, insufficient living, and if
system; workers,
to guarantee
especially
manual
a decent
improvements were made

over the cracks. and more Propaganda overwork; appeal privation much
toworking
carried shipyard -
conditions
small
in the factories,
to ? in the people to whom Italian
they merely
who endured communism resistance,
papered
daily had many of
conviction in particular
workers were
than Nazism
prominent
organisation, either on the impressive defences being constructed to guard against a potential Allied invasion of the Adriatic coast or on securing vital road and rail links, which were the propagandists promised being continually damaged by partisan attacks.42 While
new clothes and shoes, abundant food and generous wages, the Todt workers -
them joining Conditions
of Friuli. the 'Garibaldi' brigades in the mountains were particularly bad for those working for the Todt
ostensibly
volunteers,
but most
of them under
coercion
? were
forced
to work
in
appalling conditions,
dressed in rags, living in improvised barracks near the building
40 41
'Soziale Betretung der Schaffenden'. Deutsche 'Arbeiter beim Obersten Kommissar', 42 For a detailed account of the Todt organisation
Adria Zeitung 36 (20 February 1944). in the Adriatic Coast operations zone
see Spazzali,
Sotto la Todt.
442
ill-fed and to
Contemporary
European
History
sites,
subject
implacable
Nazi
surveillance.
The
wages,
it is true,
were
not to be despised,
most from Rainers who entrepreneurs
being
labour chose
rather above the regional average. But

policies were not with the manual the Nazis workers and made to collaborate
those who
but huge the
benefited
numerous out of
profits
munitions
Besides
orders with
wooing
the help of a thoroughly

in the regional
browbeaten
economy, the
workforce.
German propagandists
workers
had another primordial

and This work in Germany, recruitment
objective:
either was
to persuade
a
asmany
or
local men
for the
as possible
Todt
to go
in munitions major
factories preoccupation,
organisation. pursued by
of workers
vigorously
in the Adriatisches K?stenland: it Italy, not merely of both the Reich for the of engaged plenipotentiary employment When calls for volunteers proved labour, Friedrich Sauckel, and the Wehrmacht. unprofitable, from early 1944 Sauckel's organisation began to round up workers. But the German occupiers the attention even forced recruitment
a mere 87,517 Italians
all over
did not yield the expected

to Germany, whereas
results: from 8 September

the Germans had expected
onwards
to send
went
at least amillion
caused by rivalry
and a half. As Klinkhammer

between various elements
has pointed
in the Nazi
out, this failure was partly

occupation apparatus, and
partly by curbs imposed on German

quite successful in frustrating
rapacity by the RSI, whose

plans, at least at local
representatives were
level.43
deportation
In the Adriatisches hands officials

recruit anxious
K?stenland,
of the high commissioner, and the impotence of local RSI

manpower. to ensure Before that satisfying
the extraordinary the lesser number
of power in the of potentially rival German it easier to made much very representatives concentration
needs of in the the Reich, zone, however, Rainer the Todt,44 was had
the working
organisations
particularly -
first call on the workforce;

either voluntarily or under
only then would

coercion. The
he encourage workers
propagandists whose
to go to Germany,
work is, once again,
best represented by the Deutsche Adria Zeitung

the Nazi welfare state and the very real benefits
then set out to laud the perfection

always available to German workers
of
and Italians working had enjoyed

differences
in the Reich. that Germany the profound

working-class
First and foremost, the Adria Zeitung trumpeted the social harmony ever since Hitler came to power. Without underplaying
between the situation in Germany and in ? Italy where
the newspaper declared agitation had precipitated the crisis in the Fascist regime national socialism had won the hardest and most decisive battle: it had dismantled
that the
recruitment of Italian labour see Klinkhammer, and enforced 131-77. L'occupazione, voluntary in Germany of Italian workers include C. Bermani, AI lavoro nella Germania di of the experiences Hitler. Racconti e memorie dell'emigrazione italiana, 1937?1943 (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1998); B. Mantelli, 'Camerati al lavoro'. I lavoratori italiani emigrati nel Terzo Reich nel periodo dell'Asse 1938?1943 (Florence: La On Studies and B. Mantelli, Proletarier der Achse'. der S. Bologna Italia, 1992); C. Bermani, Sozialgeschichte italienischen Fremdarbeitt inNS-Deutschland Gli schiavi di (Berlin: Akademie 1997); L. Ricciotti, Verlag, Hitler. I deportati italiani in Germania nella seconda guerra mondiale (Milan: Mondadori, 1996). 44 in the eyes of the Nazi is clear from of labour recruitment administration The primary importance zone: labour in service in the operations Rainers Order 1943, governing military 8, issued on 29 Nov. was put on a par with joining the German the ranks of the Todt, or in Germany, army or the local Nuova defence militia. See Spazzali, Sotto la Todt, 85-7.
43
Nazi
443
the old, class-based social system which inevitably generated civil strife, weakening and replaced itwith a single national community cohesion and strength of the nation to which all could feel they belonged, irrespective of social status. Of course, this
had taken continued persuasion and indoctrination: 'above all, national socialism has
and responsible community of destiny people and work'.45 But education and persuasion would have been in vain if the Reich had not actually constructed amodel society that could offer tangible benefits to every educated the German
citizen, even the most destitute being covered by an extraordinary and unequalled
into a conscious
welfare state. Sublimely Adria Zeitung declared
ignoring the reality (which was very different), the Deutsche that German workers could truly call themselves fortunate,
since they had full accident insurance,46 all their needs were met by the welfare system, their health service was the best in the world,47 their workplaces were salubrious and quiet and the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront) provided them with an indispensable programme of recreational and cultural activities that had formerly been the prerogative of the rich. The Reich had devoted particular attention to women in worked shorter less taxing jobs, and were offered frequent workers: hours, they breaks from work; those with children enjoyed so many advantages that they were
guaranteed The best a level witnesses of protection to 'unknown of in any other country welfare in the world'.48 of course, the wonders the German state were,
Italians working
readers received that equal their
in factories
in the Reich.
could be offered as long as the war

compatriots with treatment
of peacetime Although lasted, the Deutsche Adria Zeitung assured its Italian
had workers no in reason every to complain, and since undoubtedly they respect,
not all the benefits
in Germany German
than their opposite enjoyed better conditions declared that recruits to the Todt organisation their German activities,
'feel Workers
hosts: from the choice
in Italy. The Adria Zeitung had also been warmly welcomed by - to of food all imported from Italy leisure numbers specially designed
amazed and
everything
returning
in the Todt camps had been

to Italy would of course
to make
Italians
of
at home'.49 give admiring accounts
the Utopian
stay-at-home
conditions
colleagues.
they had met with

InMarch 1944,
in German
the Deutsche
factories,
Adria Zeitung
to the envy of their

reported, a group
of workers' Rainer
to be German
with Gauleiter representatives from Trieste had been invited to learn about German provision for workers in the Adriatic region. Their in the Reich: 'All we want is sole request was to be treated equally with workers
like German and told workers.... us how German Once workers again comrades live. Why of can't ours we have have returned the same?'50 from
to meet
45 46
Deutsche Adria Zeitung 95 (18 April 1944). Sozialpolitik', 'Die deutsche Unfallversicherung', Deutsche Adria Zeitung 264 (5 Oct. 47 'Tuberkolose. und Erfassungsmethoden', Neuartige Untersuchungs(27 April 1944). 48 'Deutsche Arbeitsschutzbestimmungen-Die soziale Stellung der Frau Adria Zeitung 234 (5 Sept. 1944). 49 1 (14 Jan. 1944). 'Italiener in Deutschland', Deutsche Adria Zeitung 50 'Triester Arbeiter', Deutsche Adria Zeitung 52 (5March 1944).
'Deutsche
1944). Deutsche
Adria
Zeitung
104
im Arbeitsleben',
Deutsche
444
Contemporary
European
History
The Deutsche Adria Zeitungs enthusiastic accounts disagreed violently with those had gone to Germany in the late 1930s or later. A confidential memorandum of the Italian political police sheds light on the dire reality of life in of Italian workers who
the work The camps:
no facilities whatever, Italians live in barracks and camps, with like animals, fed on a handful of potatoes and sauerkraut; and their every movement is observed. they are watched incessantly to Italy, but Most a few run away but are of them would like to come home they cannot; stopped at the frontier; even those who out their six-month are forced contract have worked to renew it for another adventure. The fact six months... The Even the unemployed being reports spread by from are no those longer tempted by the wages from Germany is just more effective or the chance too persuasive.51 official of
propaganda verbal
returning were
that
returnees
than
propaganda
1944 only call-up seventy-five
is demonstrated
in the operations up,
by the more
zone: suitcase of
or less disastrous
the 1,400 labourers at the Nazi
outcome
summoned
of the March
to Trieste The great
showed
in hand,
command
posts.
majority
coercion,
of those who
not because
left the Adriatic

they were convinced
coastlands for German

by the purple prose
factories went
of propaganda.52
under
Propaganda Nationalist legitimising

of radical
and ethnic
policies
policies
to Rainers and their supporting propaganda were fundamental Whereas Fascists the from the had, first, pursued a policy strategies.
the Nazis preferred to accentuate the region's ethnic
Italianisation,
fragmentation Italy and with Fascism, and present the as the only force capable of ensuring that all the national groups lived Germans peaceably side by side. To this end, the Germans also exploited the fiction of Germany
as a natural example of entity, the heir of state the Austro-Hungarian and had governed empire, the northern which had Adriatic been a rare a multi-ethnic territories
so as to sever links with
successfully
competition
by recognising
among them.
the autonomy
of all the national three major
groups
and limiting ? Slovenes,

and Mor chaotic ?
Rainers
Italians lacchi. and The
complicated
Friulians ethnic mix -
ethnic jigsaw included

and was a number further of ethnic
'nationalities'
Cicci more
complicated
minorities, including or rendered even
by Rainer s deliberate insertion of a substantial and pugnacious Cossack community from eastern Europe, which settled in the valley of the river Tagliamento. The Cossacks were entrusted with defending the territory against the partisans, and in return for thismilitary service, and for their fidelity to the Reich, they were promised
a permanent homeland documents in this part and of the operations zone, referred to as 'Kosakenland' in German
propaganda.
The harshly
hounded
national
group most favoured by the Nazis was the Slovenes, who had been the Wehrmacht and the SS mercilessly persecuted by the Fascists. While
the partisan guerrillas, Rainer, anxious to create a solid front of Slovene
in Bermani, Al lavoro nella Germania diHitler, 159. Quoted in April Of the 659 men who left for Germany 1944, for example, only were called up and 556 were recruited by force (Spazzali, Sotto la Todt, 85-7). 52
51
33 were
volunteers,
67
Nazi

Slav resistance set up positions. presented some from into a nationalist and to put
445
loyalty reopened into Slovene
and
prevent
the
turning
crusade, Slovenes a
Slovene-language local
schools, government front
collaborationist However, insuperable
militias this attempt difficulties:
important
construct because
collaborationist
first,
the partisan movement

and, second, because
that had arisen in late 1941 had substantial popular

Slovenia, which was overwhelmingly rural, almost
support
entirely
lacked
Germany
the trade- and industry-oriented

as an advantageous trading
middle
class that would

collaboration.
have
The
seen Nazi
creation
partner
justifying
collaborationist force under Nazi directed by the mayor of Ljubljana, General Leon Rupnik, who re-formed the militias attached to various Slovene anti-communist groups into the ranks of the domobrani (defenders of the homeland).53
Rainer's other concession to the Slovenes in contrast to the Nazis'
of a Slovene
control was
traditional element
discrimination
and irredentist sentiments, having proved fertile a its colours to the mast of national recovery and for which had nailed Fascism ground disenfranchisement of the Slavs. In order to demolish the Fascist image of Friuli and Venezia Giulia as solidly and monolithically Italian, the Nazi propagandists stressed was the fact that the region deeply marked by its Slav past and that the Slav ethnic component
out to explain
of the population significant to those with nationalist
? was also intended to demote the Italian against Slavs areas were most in its those that by challenging primacy
sharp
was essential to its identity. In its first issue, the Deutsche Adria Zeitung
that at Trieste's very doors there were two completely different worlds,
set
wholly opposed to each other in every way. Only twenty-five minutes' journey from the city lay the village of Opicina: 'here begins that part of the Adriatic Coast where the mother is and Slovene, tongue people have different names, look different, and live a different kind of life':54 this part of the operations zone had almost nothing Italian about it, and everything
hand, bring and an the one article to went on, a early a Muggia, place
bore witness
of of glorious church,
that itwas not part of Italy. On

to the south-east with to of Trieste Roman roots, traditions, witness ancient its Roman
the other
would walls wholly
journey
a few miles Italian a living
important
Christian
and entirely
To subvert
Italian.
the unity of Italian nationals and Italian speakers, the Deutsche Adria
stirred up the embers of Friulian Zeitung, propaganda machine, Even Fascists the had celebrated the separatism. myth of Friulian identity, lauding the bravery shown by Friulians in the FirstWorld War, their robust peasant character and their glorious past under the Roman empire.55 But Nazi propaganda followed a completely different tack: intent on dismantling the links between the regional minorities and Italian history and culture, Friulians' Roman past or of their heroism
53
and the whole
Nazi
said nothing either of the in the Great War, dwelling rather on
the Nazis
L. Chersovani, 'Alcuni aspetti della politica comunista del partito sloveno (Pcs-Kps) nella zona 1/2 (1995), 29. Adriatisches K?stenland Qualestoria (1943-1945)', d'operazioni 54 1 (14 Jan. nach Muggia. Zwei Welten vor den Toren Triests', Deutsche Adria Zeitung 'Von Opicina 1944). 55 Vinci, 'II fascismo e la societ? locale', 241, 242.
446 their solid links with
Germany. The Deutsche Adria Zeitung devoted a good deal of to articles about the uniqueness of Friuli s history and the greatness space flattering of its people, the ancientness of its traditions and the extraordinary beauty of its landscapes. In particular, it stressed the links between Friuli and the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick II, recalling that even in those far-off days Friuli had been an integral part of the great German Reich earned from German princes and from and calling attention to the respect it had the emperor.56 Friuli s long and glorious its rich cultural and ethnic heritage, entitled it to be considered
history, along with asmuch more than just one element of the Adriatisches K?stenland. Its culture and must not must traditions be given the strength and vigour merely be preserved, they To in deserved. the show which the Friulian community was respect they high as awhole ? from May 1944 held by the Nazi administration and the Third Reich Radio Trieste broadcast a daily programme entitled Die Stunde derFriulaner (Friulians' Hour),
the
which
As
(according
another ? nation a
to the Deutsche Adria Zeitung) was always a big hit with

to newspaper this positive began to reassessment appear, of'Furlanentum' under the title Voce
the
? di
population. Friulian
contribution weekly
'must have had its Furlania, full of local patriotism and separatist declarations, which effect, if it is true that this period gave birth to certain aspects of Friulian autonomist thinking perhaps only the most petty and parochial ones'.57
Rainer s administration encouraged these concrete and propagandistic endeavours
to exploit
as a force
the ethno-nationalistic
for order, capable of
complexity
soothing
of the region in order to present Nazism

antagonisms and restoring the
nationalistic
the region had enjoyed under harmony which rule. Once administration again the German contrast with
policy whose
the Habsburgs
but lost under
Italian
Fascist failures: whereas

main achievement had
itself through sought to legitimise the Fascists had applied amisguided nationalist
been to destroy the region s ethnic balance,
the Nazis
and
would
acknowledging
harmony. 'so many
able to govern this bundle of nationalities prove by their individuality while ensuring that they lived together in peace themselves
zone, explained forces, the Deutsche that they Adria inevitably Zeitung, clash there were from time so many different
In the operations
nationalities,
to time'.58 And divisions which one need only

between Bolshevists and
political, religious the Fascists had not only failed to heal but had crassly exacerbated: to see how it had been internally split look at the Italian contingent
who reject patriots, all who extremes, are the against Fascists, everyone the Monarchists, else'. Nor could the the the so-called
these ethnic clashes could combine with
and social
'the moderates,
Slavs claim dangerous the Adriatic whole

56
to be united; they not only had political differences, but also ongoing 'The hotbed of political and national passions' along religious conflicts. Coast made it into one of the most the Nazis were fervid and unstable capable of guaranteeing
Friedrich II und sein europ?isches
of Europe. Only
'Der Hoftag
regions in the the peace and safety

Reich', Deutsche Adria
in Friaul. Der Hohenstaufe
169 (2 July 1944). Zeitung . 57 E. Collotti, ordine europeo (Milan: Vangelista, // Litorale Adri?tico nel Nuovo 1974), 45. 58 Deutsche Adria Zeitung 'Freundliche Zueignung', 83 (25 March 1945). Further citations are from the same article.
in the text
Nazi
447
more
own
of these peoples: 'all these forces are wisely held in check by the German hand, one of its proof that even at this perhaps the most difficult and critical -juncture
history, Germany is the only true power that can guarantee order in Europe'.
Defending
Western
civilisation:
the
anti-partisan
struggle
as
interpreted
by the Deutsche The Nazi
Adria
Zeitung
in thinking that the British and US forces in high command was wrong to the intended attack Adriatisches from the sea: the region, in the K?stenland Italy never saw any conflict between the charge of Wehrmacht general Ludwig Kubier, German armies and the Allies. Apart from frequent massive British and US air raids59 and a few small-scale diversionary enemies who threatened the Nazi
Italian partisans. Resistance units especially
raids by the British on the Istrian coast, the only in the Adriatic region were Slav and government
Slav ones, which were comparatively
well
organised and equipped proved such a thorn in the side of the German in that General Kubier issued a harsh set of pronouncements army February 1944 if it were even suspected that they authorising reprisals against the civil population
-
had given help to the partisans:

This it is our enemies who it_We have decided have only one option, an an a war a In for tooth for tooth!... that leads to eye, eye against anything success is to that end. Captured Iwill endorse and necessary. bandits any pronouncement legitimate are to be hanged or shot. Anyone who them food gives aid to these bandits, voluntarily by giving or shelter, or in any other way, deserves their presence death and must be eliminated.'60 concealing up to the hilt to use terror terror, is war
This pitiless 'war up to the hilt' against the partisans ? inwhich the Germans also - was used Italian army units stationed in the region backed by a huge propaganda not the Nazis campaign through which only sought to justify the unprecedented
violence of the repression but also, and more importantly, proposed a further source
of legitimacy
Adriatic control of the
for the German

zone region and far less
occupation.
the a resistance 'war of
The
units
struggle between
was presented from the
the Nazis
not as a war but
in the
for as a
operations
liberation'
partisans
struggle between the defenders of Bolshevik anarchy.
ofWestern
civilisation
and revolutionary
proponents
strove to win the support of The Nazi government of the Adriatisches K?stenland the local people for a civil war not between communism and Nazism, but between
revolution and stability, terror and order. The 'revolutionaries', as presented by the
Adria Zeitung, did have an ideology, but their destructive fury was directed not against the German army, as the military wing of the local Nazi administration, or even against a politically distinct group, but against the entire civil community and to the Nazi propagandists all itsmost cherished social and cultural values. According the communist partisans would not stop at bringing down the Nazi administration: if
59 to research by Galliano According Fogar, 'the bombing fatalities and thousands of injuries': see G. Fogar, 'Trieste', 602. 60 II Litorale Adri?tico, 88. Collotti,
raids [on Trieste] caused about six hundred in Collotti et al, Dizionario della Resistenza,
448
this would
Contemporary
European
History
they
succeeded,
fatally
subvert
the whole
value
system
of Western
society.
The victory of the Resistance the legitimacy of the German would The it be possible
enemy revolutionary had sworn
would
a return to barbarism; only by accepting administration and collaborating with theWehrmacht the moral,
to destroy.
mean
to maintain so high
civic and ethical
safeguards
that the
coast that each and every citizen along the Adriatic must take part in the struggle: 'itwould be unforgivably for the local short-sighted inhabitants to expect the Germans to protect their livelihoods and their future without themselves who wants threatened
passive
stakes were
to this task with equal force and dedication. Every citizen contributing to live in peace, enjoying the fruits of his labours and his family life, is in both his material and his physical existence.'61 No one could remain
on chance: it was up to 'every citizen, [every] reasonable man, to
or wait
help all right-thinking

the fence as eternally of'conscious
people
passive
to frustrate
spectators'
these bandits
and begin which
and reject those who

that web sooner or of would later
sit on
to weave
personal bring
relationships,
private
surveillance',62
of justice and of liberty This call for collaboration was backed by clear and unequivocal threats of reprisals. attack would be followed While every partisan inevitably by reprisals against civilians and prisoners, wholeheartedly of a civil war,
from every had and the partisans man Some
down
the enemies
did not collaborate the propagandists warned that anyone who would be considered as an enemy and treated as such. In the midst someone who failed to stand apart there was no difference between
and must attacks someone contribute could who actively supported them:
reasonable
these bandits. immediately
have
denounced
them, people to be shall
to the limits of his strength, to the struggle against resolutely, if those who been averted heard about such criminal plans or tried to catch It is shamefully the perpetrators. cowardly that these bandit attacks do not concern have them, been or they who that is burning down, case take the harshest and most forcible just hit by
of some short-sighted it does not happen because In future we the bullets... these bandits and all their
to believe their house in every
measures
against
accomplices.63
When
not hesitate
ordinary warnings
to use the direst of civilians accused
and intimidation
threats collaborating and most with
proved
terrifying the
insufficient,
propaganda. always
the Germans
Any received
did
reprisals massive
against
partisans
publicity. After one partisan attack, and the consequent appeared which read:
Men and women you been of the Adriatic Coast! For several months
reprisals, a poster immediately
the German
authorities
have crimes have
been could shown
informing not have
of numerous perpetrated
acts of destruction without
these horrifying bandits; by Bolshevik the consent of the population and the authorities
zu den Selbstschutzverb?nden', Ein Wort Deutsche Adria Zeitung 76 (29March 'Spaten und Gewehr. citation in the text is from the same article. 1944). The previous 62 zur Wahrung an die Bev?lkerung Ein Appell der Ruhe und 'Terroristen, Idealisten, Attentisten. Deutsche Adria Zeitung 107 (30 April Sicherheit', 1944). 63 zu den Vorg?ngen in Opicina', werden! Deutsche 'Jeder Terror wird gebrochen Stellungnahme Deutsche Adria Zeitung soldiers near (8 April 1944). 'Criminal plans' refers to a partisan attack on German Opicina, just outside Trieste.
61
Nazi
the
449
On for the vile assault on a 15 February 1944, as punishment right path to follow... ? were Comeno bandits executed. The Italian column between and Rifembergo, 150 some in Dol and and houses of Comeno, Tomasevizza, Piccolo, Britovac, Rifembergo villages were the bandits; the population have been razed to the ground because Scherbina, sheltering they was evacuated return as soon as calm is restored and their ideas have been adjusted. Any and may you German future offences will sons, brothers We shall resume on you whether in the same way... It now depends be punished your fathers, or are restored to you. in in German remain protection, custody police us to restore law and order. BUT WE our earlier mildness if the population helps now
etc.,
SHALLHIT BACK THREE TIMES HARDER, ARE THE STRONGEST.64 This
IFTHIS WARNING
IS NOT HEEDED. WE
practice of publicising reprisals, however brutal, was entirely typical of Nazi deterrent propaganda the Deutsche Adria Zeitung published gruesome accounts and
photographs of German vengeance remained unofficial for some time, but was
normalised
and extended
to the whole
was
of Nazi-occupied
aimed at the widest
Italy by order of General

swathe of the
Albert Kesserling
Nazi anti-partisan
on 1 July 1944.65
propaganda possible
irrespective of social status, ethnicity or nationality, and even political population, orientation. Solidarity with the Germans was presented not as an ideological choice sense. Fighting the partisans did not but as a civil and political one in the widest
necessarily mean espousing national socialist politics; it was the only effective way of
culture and tradition against the menace of Bolshevik revolution. defending Western For example, explained the Deutsche Adria Zeitung, Nazi-organised defence groups or Selbstschutzverb?nde
reasons but from the arisen not for ideological of self-defence. who thinks Anyone exigencies to the defence he can take part in the great ideological of our country struggle without contributing a is deluding himself. Those who refuse to let themselves be slaughtered without and are fight, have resolved not to defend close themselves to their hearts. socialism actively, need Those who or any other to deliver not chose fear being labelled with to join a self-defence any sort of 'ism' that is are not swearing group their own party, the party of
truly to national allegiance fellow-citizens united were and
in their will not
but choosing ideology, from chaos. their country respect to plunder
The but
partisans Banditen
Terroristen
who would soldiers, regular ? common out criminals
the
civilian
population, of honest
the property
citizens and disrupt the even tenor of their lives. To oppose their spread, fight against them by joining one of the Selbstschutzverb?nde, and denounce them to the German
authorities ensure this that was the for you the safety only course for anyone and anxious to defend his own property and of his nearest dearest: of your his crops
is a fight
City-dwellers,
all you hold most the happiness life, your property, dear, your can do something to save the peasant to yield from having
family! to the
64
Regionale Giulia, IX, doc. no. 618. 65 'Wherever there is a substantial busta to be arrested, The population d'operazione the numbers
Archivio
delTlstituto
per
la Storia
del Movimento
di Liberazione
nel Friuli
Venezia
some of the local male population of partisan bandits, is presence occur. to be decided ad hoc, and they are to be shot if any acts of violence must be informed of this. If soldiers are attacked the village whence the shots were fired are to be in R. Kaltenegger, Zona is to be burned. Criminals and ringleaders publicly hanged.' Cited Litorale Adri?tico (Gorizia: Libreria Editrice Goriziana, 1996), 66.
450
bandits cows instead
to ensure that your of bringing them in to market. Peasants, you can do something now about with your hands slaughtered by the bandits. You young men who lounge can do something to prevent in your pockets the door clanging shut on your future. And workers, to tell you that you must raise your should industrious hands, now and always, your consciences are not the bread helps in your own mouths help themselves!66 and ensure that society can enjoy the fruits of your labours. those who
keep God
and non-nationalistic apparently non-political appeal to defend local values and was not to Nazis it featured traditions the of the Adriatisches K?stenland: peculiar regularly in both operations zones. In the province of Trento, part of operations zone to set up a the local prefect, Bertolini, the Germans commissioned Alpenvorland, This militia 'security corps', backed up by a propaganda campaign explaining that itwas 'a in the service of law and order and local well-being' which would win the support of 'allwho love their country and want it to come through these times without sinking
into disorder'.67 By promoting such volunteer groups, in whose constitution the
Italian authorities
recruits, the Germans
apparently played
not only
the leading part by making

additional forces to use
personal
against
appeals for
the partisans
procured
but also, and more

Germans' role
importantly,
of the
suborned
local
the Italian authorities

its traditions
to legitimise
and values.
the
as defenders
community,
Italian
collaboration
How
in the Adriatisches K?stenland did the Italian population respond to the Nazis' can be gained from the conduct and motivation of strategies? An idea legitimising the men who the Nazis.68 held Itmust the most
areas In other
important local government positions in Trieste under there was collaboration be pointed out that while throughout
of northern areas, those Italy, who the took two operations the German zones side were could in many say that
the German-occupied ways exceptional.
their collaboration sovereign

power was collaborate unmediated put
was
state. But
'filtered' through the RSI, notionally an independent Italian in the Adriatisches K?stenland German and the Alpenvorland
by any Italian governmental at the service of authority, the and those who chose a heavy to directly
themselves
occupiers,
incurring
burden
a
of responsibility because they claimed to be representing the whole Italian in in but fact became however and however subordinate part, community indirectly
capacity, In Trieste of the Nazi the administrative important machine. offices were conferred on prominent members two most
class: the prefect was Bruno Cociani, Pagnini, formerly president of the Italo-German Association of people who held public the war, like the vast majority of the upper middle
66 1944) 67
the podesta was Cesare of Venezia Giulia. After office under the Nazis,
'Spaten und Gewehr. 'Per l'ordine',
Ein Wort
zu den Selbstschutzverb?nden',
Deutsche in Ganapini,
Adria Zeitung La Repubblica
76 (29March delle camicie
// trentino 16-17 in Trieste Vinci,
(November
1943),
quoted
nere, 359. 68 On collaboraton (1976), 91-108. 33-7; A. M.
'Trieste
see G. Fogar, e guardia civica', Qualestoria collaborazionista 'Capitalismo il problema del collaborazionismo', 1943-1945: Qualestoria (1998),
Nazi
451
they both claimed that they had agreed to collaborate in order to 'mitigate the rigour of the occupation and oppose Nazi policies',69 or to ease the grip of repression and safeguard economic interests under threat from the Nazis. Such may indeed have been
the intentions of Trieste's prefect and podesta, but students of collaboration in the city
have pointed out that their strategy had little success and was certainly not the only motive for collaboration. What principally inspired the 'institutional collaborators' of
Trieste resist not and the only its region was rather Yugoslav a revolutionary the desire liberation overthrow presented movement. of the as an absolute imperative resistance order, it also to communist-led threatened Slav communist
socio-political
constituted
of
a clear nationalist
had expressed
challenge:
an intention
as far back
to
as November
1943 the leader

Slav areas,
the movement
incorporate
the majority
and Venezia
the region's
Giulia
Italian
itself, into a resurgent Yugoslav

character and preserve its
state after the war.70 To defend

politico-social orientation,
traditional
Coceani
community, capable Italian of
and Pagnini, with

preferred combating were to the
the approval of the great majority

support Slav and the Germans, whom partisans. values, and they But their communist national
of Trieste's
saw this as the
business
force that with the the
only
pretence pact
authorities
defending
anti-Slav
Nazis, proved substantially counterproductive, giving the impression that the local Italian population was radically, indeed violently, nationalistic and negating attempts by the Italian resistance to forge a national identity based on the defence of the political liberties destroyed by the 'border' Fascists.
apart, some of Trieste's leading businessmen and financiers chose Nationalism
collaboration
in the longer
in the hope
term, of
of reaping huge
short-term
at
profits from Nazi

the centre
orders and,
re-establishing
themselves
of Nazi-dominated
Europe,
But commercial social
as German
it was when ambitions, and
propaganda
evoking that Rainers the will
had promised
defence against legitimising
they would
the partisan strategy
do.
threat, scored and the region's successes:
its greatest
can be seen as the common to power denominators of Nazi ensure the collaboration of local groups (particularly ship-builders, to adapt to the new conditions insurance in the agents and forwarding agents) who were willing ? ? a own corner in of and their of future the south-eastern the securing hope leading position Of course there were serious conflicts of interest and of course the German take-over greater Reich. demagogy administrators, and this would was not a to avoid Communists. one painless overt clashes It is hard ... but each and and every conflict was suppressed potential interest of defence the common perfect fusion between by the determination the Slavs and interests.71
acknowledge a more to imagine
against class and national
B. Coceani, Trieste durante l'occupazione tedesca (Trieste, 1959), quoted in Ganapini, La Repubblica d?lie camicie nere, 343. 70 See T. Sala, La crisifinale nel Litorale Adri?tico 1944-1943 (Udine: Del Bianco, 1962); M. Pacor, Confine orientale. Questione nazionale e resistenza nel Friuli Venezia Giulia (Milan, 1964); G. Fogar, Sotto l'occupazione nazista neue province orientali (Udine: Del 71 II litorale Adri?tico, 62-3. Collotti, Bianco, 1961).
69

The Legitimising Strategies of The Nazi Administration in Northern Italy - Propaganda in The Adria

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The Legitimising Strategies of The Nazi Administration in Northern Italy - Propaganda in The Adria

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The Legitimising Strategies of the Nazi Administration in Northern Italy: Propaganda in the Adriatisches Kstenland Author(s): Gianmarco Bresadola

the Nazi Administration Northern Italy: Propaganda K?stenland

as Alpenvorland governed In what by Nazi

K?stenland, civil administrators. I shall first summarise

set apart from this regime operandi

of the Nazi military characteristics of the

to totter, the Nazi of their Italian ally

administration countries. There

in other wehrmacht-occupied a Rudolf Rahn), military

426 if its government

Contemporary European History decided

to pull out of the war. The Germans

they called the occupation

summer plan that had been drawn up in spring and

to other allies of Germany

from the conflict.

for the factories

and a source of industrial

of the tasks of internal policing

had to grapple not only with

the very limited

opposition and openly

leaders who were

Propaganda in theAdriatisches K?stenland side, again,

427 the smallest

the social side that Mussolini

and the Nazi

of the RSI was acutely constrained

and itwas effectively

'German civil administrations in territories which

set up in other parts or actually annexed to

After a few weeks,

units crushed partisan units that

the Adriatisches the provinces

Deakin's structure other

from a Mussolini zones

The prospect of permanently the Nazi administration tomake

incorporating far greater legitimising

the two zones into the Reich

required efforts than was usual in zones

of the inhabitants. The

not only had

10 an enthusiastic Rainer, Salzburg after the Anschluss.

Propaganda in theAdriatisches K?stenland

Thus he created a loyal following

the advent of the Fascist regime

Contemporary European History

sort of industry16 and a fairly well-developed

petty and middle bourgeoisie. Of had the most complete economic

but did not obliterate

The policy met with

success, but the local Italian population,

for their adherence

textiles. produced mainly 17 Fascism's first steps in Trieste

Propaganda in theAdriatisches K?stenland

Fascism',18 Italian substantial spirit

as far and ethnic

concerned, the the one

its welfare minorities

it to fulfil its historic

put Trieste in amore role as 'the Rome of the east';

and the reorganisation

life had largely won