[Antipartigiana]

I recently discovered a YouTube (www.youtube.com) video called "italiani carabinieri crminali di guerra." It appears to be from Italian TV and is broken into six parts. My understanding of the Italian language is imperfect, although it's fairly obvious that the filmmaker's intention is to focus on crimes supposedly committed by the Carabinieri during World War II -- especially in the Balkans. How much truth is there to this assertion? Are there any books out there in English that deal with this topic? Thanks.

[Gian]

They are a Corps of military police and therefore may have taken part to counter-insurgency in Yugoslavia alongside other units. Manners were harsh on either side, but this does not make Carabinieri or Esercito criminal organizations like the SS. It would have been more effective to trial Badoglio, Roatta and co. as well as minor culprits. Angelo Del Boca has written some books on the subjects (try searching this forum).

[Antipartigiana]

Thanks for the rsponse. I checked out several books by Angelo Del Boca at Amazon.com, but none seem to focus on the Italian presence in the Balkans. Are there other books on this topic - again, written in English - that you would recommend? Also, what about video documentaries?

[Gian]

Antipartigiana said:

Are there other books on this topic - again, written in English - that you would recommend? Also, what about video documentaries?

Del Boca's Italiani Brava Gente has a small chapter on Yugoslavia, so you may buy the book anyway and get a translation of the pages of interest. Also there's some material in English in the bibliography of this article:
http://en.wikipedia....lian_war_crimes

[Oasis]

I can add some italian links as:

www.criminidiguerra.it/BrignoliSMessa.shtml
www.lintver.it/storia-dueguerre-raccontodrammatico.html
www.ibs.it/code/.../lager-italiani-pulizia.html

they refer also to the war diary of a military priest in Yugoslavia:
"Santa messa per i miei Fucilati", by Pietro Brignoli

Regarsds
Toni

[Gian]

The video may have disappeared in the meantime but I seem to recall that it borrowed some shots from Francesco Rosi's movie on Salvatore Giuliano. In the course of the repression of Sicilian banditry Carabinieri often turned out to be victims rather than perpetrators. Perhaps not trained for unconventional warfare, they had to face a cunning enemy armed, more often than not, with automatic weapons pilfered from WWII casualties, whereas their enlisted men were still being issued Cavalry carbines and only officers and NCOs could enjoy the firepower of a Beretta MAB or Thompson SMG. Not a few of them were blown to bits when their truck drove on a mine or was lured in an ambush. Others were kidnapped and later found in a hole with a bullet in their brain. There is really nothing to mythologize about Giuliano.

[DVX]

I don't know what video you could have seen, anyway as someone already answered to you, Carabinieri are a military police corp. They could be involved in anti-guerrilla operations and retaliations in the Balkans like every other Corp of the army. In Yugoslavia and Greece there were harsh and dirty foughts from both sides, hard guerrilla and anti-guerrilla methods. I don't think you can find so much publications in English about the Italian war crimes. You can find much more in Italian of course, but the most of this literature suffers a clear political deviation. For example, Angelo del Boca is an hostorician with strong links with the communist party (even if during the war he was a RSI soldier, as for example another clear factious intellectual like Dario Fo), and for example, his statements about Italian chemical weapons have been definitly demolished by an article of Pierluigi Romeo di Colloredo in Storia in Rete.
Perhaps one of the worst page about history of Italian war crimes was the massacre of Domenikon, in Greece.
Anyway nothing worse than similar episodes done by the Allies in Tunisia and Sicily... (ignoring the German ones...).