Italian prisoners of war in the Soviet Union

Italian war prisoners in Soviet Union 1942-1954. Figures and facts Figures Almost all the Italian militaries captured on the Russian front were taken over during the decisive Soviet “Small Saturn offensive” which annihilated the ARMIR (Italian Army in Russia, about 235,000 men strong), between 11/12/1942 and 2/3/1943. In this period the total figure of missing Italian soldiers was 84,830. According to the Soviet archives, 54,400 Italian prisoners of war (POWs) reached the Soviet concentration camps alive; 44,315 POWs died in captivity inside the camps, most of them in the winter 1943; a list of the soldiers’ names, in Cyrillic, including date and place of death was yielded by Russian authorities after 1989. Eventually 10,085 POWs were repatriated between 1945 and 1954. The individual fate of 30,430 soldiers, dead during the fights and the withdrawal or after the capture is less known. It may be roughly estimated that about 20,000 men lost their lives due to the fights and 10,000 men died from the moment they became prisoners to that of their registration inside the concentration camps. Henceforth, it may be concluded that at least 54,000 Italian POWs died in Russia, with an astounding mortality rate of 84.5%, very high also if compared with the mortality of Russian POWs captured by the Germans during WW II (1,938,000 survivors over 5,160,000 captured ). Facts Travels to the destination camps in captivity covered hundreds of kilometres and were done mainly on foot; they were reported by survivors as the “davai” marches, (“davai” is Russian for “go ahead”) under the watch of Red Army soldiers, and, often, of partisans with little mercy for those who fell down congealed or exhausted; the transfer was completed into goods trains, where many prisoners died as a consequence of the extremely rigid temperatures and lack of food. Suzdal 160, Tambov, Oranki, Krinowoje, Michiurinsk, sited in Eastern European Russia, were the lagers where most Italian POWs were detained in dismal conditions; others are known just by their reference numbers, as Lager 58/c and Lager 171. Epidemic typhus and starvation related diseases, worsened by the rigid Russian winter climate, were the major causes of mortality inside the camps. Brutality from the soviet troops and partisans over unarmed prisoners was reported, but survivors testified also episodes of comradeship among soldiers of the two opposite nations, especially on the front line, and, more often, of humanity from the Russian civilians. POWs in Soviet Union received plenty of communist propaganda, which was carried out by communist cadres of the their own nationality, fled to Soviet Union due to the fascism (known in Italy as fuoriusciti, “people who left home”). Despite allurements and threats, most of the prisoners, particularly if not previously compromised with the fascism, resisted the propaganda. POWs’ conditions improved greatly with the spring 1943, because of Soviet Government concern, enhanced POW camps’ administration, sharply decreased figures of survived soldiers to care for and increased food availability (mainly provided by the US). Most of the survivors were allowed to come back to Italy in 1945/46. In the same years, a group of Italian officers under detention were accused of war crime and sentenced to many years of forced labour. After the death of Stalin accusations proved to be forged and they all were released in 1954. Italians in the Soviet Union had not acted as occupation troops, and atrocities against partisans and civilians of some scale were, therefore, unlikely. Soviets captured by the CSIR were delivered up to the Germans and endured the cruel treatment given to the Russians soldiers under Nazi rule; after the establishment of the ARMIR, prisoners were kept under Italian custody and benefited reasonable conditions, being fed with standard Italian Army rations. The issue of Italian POWs in Soviet Union remained a hot political argument in post-war Italy; it was never seriously investigated, because the Soviet authorities’ unwillingness to yield information allowed no answer about the destiny of the tens of thousands of missing soldiers. Their case was used in an instrumental way by the centre-right parties which accused the Soviet Union not to return its POWs, and denied as anti-communist propaganda by the left during the first democratic elections in Italy (1948). Unbiased information underpinning the size of the tragedy and an objective historical reconstruction came only after the fall of the Soviet Union when most of the public interest in Italy had already faded away.