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Italian prisoners of war in the Soviet Union

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Almost all the Italian militaries captured on the Russian front were taken over during the decisive Soviet Operation little Saturn offensive: (December 1942), which annihilated the ARMIR (Italian Army in Russia, about 235,000 men strong), between December 1942 and February 1943. In this period the total figure of missing Italian soldiers amounted to 84,830 (Italian Ministry of Defence, 1977a 1977b). According to the Soviet archives, 54,400 Italian prisoners of war reached the Soviet concentration camps alive; 44,315 prisoners 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 (Italian Ministry of Defence, 1996). Eventually 10,085 prisoners 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 World War II (1,938,000 survivors over 5,160,000 captured)(Werth, 1964).

The way to the lagers

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 the Russian word 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 (Revelli, 1966); the transfer was completed into goods trains, where many prisoners died as a consequence of the extremely rigid temperatures and lack of food.

Camps, treatment of the POWs and causes of death

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 (Italian Ministry of Defence, 1996). Epidemic typhus and starvation related diseases, worsened by the rigid Russian winter climate, were the major causes of mortality inside the camps (Giusti, 2003). 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 (Rigoni Stern, 1965) and, more often, of humanity from the Russian civilians (Vio, 2004).

Prisoners of war 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”)(Zilli, 1950). Despite allurements and threats, most of the prisoners, particularly if not previously compromised with the fascism, resisted the propaganda (Giusti, 2000). Prisoners' conditions improved greatly with the spring 1943, because of Soviet Government concern, enhanced camps administration, sharply decreased figures of survived soldiers to care for and increased food availability (mainly provided by the US).

War criminals

Most of the survivors were allowed to come back to Italy in 1945-1946. 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 (Reginato, 1965). 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 (Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia, from July 1941 to June 1942) 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 (from July 1942 to May 1943), prisoners were kept under Italian custody and benefited reasonable conditions, being fed with standard Italian Army rations (Ricchezza, 1978).

Reasons of a forgotten tragedy

The issue of Italian prisoners of war 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 prisoners of war (Democrazia Cristiana manifesto, 1948), and denied as anti-communist propaganda by the left (Robotti, 1948) 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 (Giusti, 2003) when most of the public interest in Italy had already faded away.

References

  • CHIDK (Centr Hranenja Istoriko-Documentalnoj Kollekcij, F. 1p, 1/4b, 4/n,b 4/1,b, 4/4,b) (Russian)
  • Democrazia Cristiana manifesto. Mandati in Russia dai Fascisti, trattenuti dai comunisti, 1948
  • Giusti, Maria Teresa. La propaganda anti-fascista tra i prigionieri di guerra Italiani nell’URSS. Il Mulino, Bologna, anno 3, numero 3, September 2000
  • Giusti, Maria Teresa. I prigionieri italiani in Russia. Il Mulino Bologna 2003 (Italian)
  • Italian Ministry of Defence. Stato Maggiore Esercito. Ufficio Storico. Le operazioni del CSIR e dell’ARMIR dal Giugno 1941 all’ottobre del 1942. Roma, 1977 (Italian)
  • Italian Ministry of Defence. Stato Maggiore Esercito. Ufficio Storico. Le operazioni delle unità italiane al fronte russo 1941-1942. Roma 1977 (Italian)
  • Italian Ministry of Defence. Commissariato Generale Onoranze Caduti in Guerra. CSIR-ARMIR, Campi di prigionia e fosse comuni. Stabilimento grafico militare, Gaeta 1996.
  • Reginato, Enrico. Dodici anni di prigionia nell’URSS. Garzanti 1965 (Italian)
  • Revelli, Nuto. La strada del Davai. Einaudi Torino 1966 (Italian)
  • RGASPI (Rossiskiy Gosudarstvennyj Arhiv Social’no-Političeskoj Istorii f. 495 o 77: d. 26, d. 21a, d. 25, d. 26, d. 27, d. 39, d. 40, d. 49)
  • Rigoni Stern, Mario. Il sergente della neve. Einaudi 1965 (Italian)
  • Ricchezza, Antonio. Storia Illustrata di tutta la campagna di Russia: luglio 1941 – maggio 1943. Longanesi 1978 (Italian)
  • Robotti, Paolo. Perché non si è fatta luce sulla campagna di Russia. Dove sono i soldati dell’ARMIR. Supplemento all’Unità, 13 Agosto 1948 (Italian)
  • Valori, Aldo. La campagna di Russia CSIR, ARMIR 1941-1943. Roma 1951 (Italian)
  • Vio, Emilio. Corvi sulla neve. Roma Ellemme 2004 (Italian)
  • Werth, Alexander. Russia at war: 1941-1945. Carroll & Graf, New York 1964
  • Zilli, Valdo. Fascisti e anti-fascisti. Il trattamento politico dei prigionieri di guerra nell’URSS. In 'Il ponte, anno 6, No 11, November 1950 (Italian)
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