Italian Military Internees
"Italian Military Internees" (Italienische Militärinternierte in German, Internati Militari Italiani in Italian, abbreviated as IMI) was the official name given by Germany to the Italian soldiers captured, rounded up and deported in the territories of Nazi Germany in Operation Achse in the days immediately following the World War II armistice between Italy and Allied armed forces (September 8, 1943).
After disarmament by the Germans, the Italian soldiers and officers were confronted with the choice to continue fighting as allies of the German army (either in the armed forces of the
The Nazis considered the Italians as traitors
The death rate of the military internees at 6-7% was second only to that of Soviet prisoners of war although much lower.[4]
Numbers of prisoners and casualties
The Germans disarmed and captured 1,007,000 Italian soldiers, out of a total of approximately 2,000,000 actually in the army. Of these, 196,000 fled during the deportation. Of the remaining approximately 810,000 (of which 58,000 were caught in France, 321,000 in Italy and 430,000 in the Balkans), more than 13,000 lost their lives during the transportation from the Greek islands to the mainland and 94,000, including almost all the Blackshirts of the
The estimates of losses among the IMI vary between 37,000 and 50,000. The causes of death were:
- the harshness and danger of forced labor (10,000 dead)
- disease and malnutrition, especially in the last months of the war (23,000)
- executions inside the camps (4,600)
- the allied bombings of facilities where they worked (2,700)
- others perished on the Eastern Front (5,000-7,000)
- attempted to escape to allied lines in Italy or the Western Front or neutral Switzerland and were either shot or died on to journey to freedom (Unknown Number)
At the end of the war, several thousand former IMI ended up in the hands of French, Soviets or Yugoslavs, and instead of being released, were kept in captivity for some time after the end of the war while others were liberated by American, British and Canadian soldiers.
Ships sunk carrying Italian POWs
- Ardena, Sep. 27 1943, Argostoli, 779 killed, sunk by a mine
- RAFair attack
- Maria Amalia, Oct. 13 1943, Kefalonia, 544 killed, sunk by a mine or by a Royal Navy submarine (either HMS Unruly or HMS Trooper)
- USAAFair attacks
- Aghios Antonios - Kal 89, Nov. 19th 1943, Karpathos, 110 killed, sunk by ORP Sokół
- Leda, Feb. 2nd 1944, RAFair attack
- Petrella, Feb. 8 1944, Souda, 2,670 killed, sunk by HMS Sportsman
- Cape Sounion, 4,074 killed, shipwrecked in a storm
- Sifnos, March 4, 1944, RAFair attack
- Tanais, June 9, 1944, Crete, 213 killed, sunk by HMS Vivid
Notable IMIs
- Vittorio Emanuele Giuntella
- Giovannino Guareschi
- Tonino Guerra
- Alessandro Natta
- Mario Rigoni Stern
- Gianrico Tedeschi
- Giuseppe Tontodonati
See also
References
- ^ a b "The Forgotten Italian Military Internees of WWII | the Stillman Exchange". Archived from the original on June 17, 2018. Retrieved April 14, 2018.
- ^ Zimmermann, Elisabeth (July 17, 2008). "Italian court to allow claims by Nazi victims". www.wsws.org.
- ^ "Home".
- ISBN 978-0-521-70689-6.
- ^ Or 1835, according to other sources
- ^ Colombo, Lorenzo (March 9, 2014). "Con la pelle appesa a un chiodo: Prigionieri".
- ^ "Error".
External links
- Between Two Stools. The History of the Italian Military Internees 1943 - 1945 web site of the exhibition at the Nazi Forced Labour Documentation Centre in Berlin
- The Sand Mine - documentary web about the massacre of 127 Italian forced labourers in April 1945 in Treuenbrietzen (Brandenburg).