History Thread : The Massacare of the Acqui Division of the Italian Army

One of the oddest parts of WW2 was what happened between Germany and Italy after the fall of Mussolini. Italy was now allied with the Allies, though they were not to show 'common cause' with the allies or any occupied nation.

Most Italian armies surrendered to wither Allies or Axis powers and were stripped of weapons and sent back to Italy. Yet in Greece, on the island of Cephalonia fighting broke out between the two former allies and what followed was one of the single worst massacres of the war. (exceeded only by the Soviet massacre of the Poles at Katyn)


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This man is General Antonio Gandin, a very pro-German soldier. In fact he was given command of this island because he was so pro german and the new high command wanted him out of the mainland part of the country because he wasn't trusted to put Italy ahead of Germany. He was a recipient of the Iron cross for his valor on the Russian front.
He was in command of a relatively peaceful detachment. Little war was seen on the island and the occupying Italian got along well with both the Greeks and the Germans in the area. While the Acqui division was part of the Italian Army it's chain of command was through German forces. The Germans saw the Acqui as a German force even after surrender of Italy.

Before the September armistance, Germany had began bulking up holdings in the Balkans preparing for italys innevatible surender. Lt Col barge arrived on the island with a force including mechanized guns and infanty. In September when Italy surrendered he issued an ultimatium.

1) Join Germany in the fight against the allies
2) lay down arms and surrender
3) fight

At this point the two commanders where friendly almost buddy buddy. Nothing was suspected of either side.

Then oddly a command was given to resist all German forces. Gandin had a huge dilemma . On one hand the high command had originally said not to make cause with the allies and not to resist occupying armies, but now they were told to fight the Germans.

To make matters worse, it was being spread the surrendering Italians were being sent to camps and not back to Italy as originally promised by Germany.

The officers of the Acqui were polled by Gandin and given the three options Gandin was given. The decision was made to fight the Germans.

Being outnumbered and having no air superiority the Acqui were quickly defeated, having lost 1300 men and running out of ammo in less than a week.
Italy surrendered, but what happened next was totally unexpected.

The Germans treated the Italians as traitors and not prisoners of war.

quote:

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After the Italian surrender, Hitler had issued an order allowing the Germans to summarily execute any Italian officer who resisted "for treason", and on 18 September, the German High Command issued an order stating that "because of the perfidious and treacherous behavior on Cephalonia, no prisoners are to be taken."

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quote:

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The Germans first killed the surrendering Italians, where they stood, using machine-guns. When a group of Bavarian soldiers objected to this practice they were threatened with summary execution themselves. After this stage was over, the Germans marched the remaining soldiers to the San Teodoro town hall and had the prisoners executed by eight member detachments

General Gandin and 137 of his senior officers were summarily court-martialled on 24 September and executed, their bodies discarded at sea.

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General Gandin publicly denounced Germany and threw his Iron cross into the dirt before his execution. German officers were called traitors before facing the firing squad. Since the armies of Germany and Italy in Greece were unified Germany was able to call this an execution of traitors and a war crime.

After a while the executions stopped while Germans tried to remove any italians from South Tyrol, which was now annexed by Germany. Whiel the executions where halted a chaplin succesfully got the officers to reconsider finishing the executions and the remaining men were kept as prisioners of war. Though a further 3,000 of these died when their ship was sunk.

In total 5,100 Italian POWs were executed by firing squad, with 1,500 KIA and 3,000 died as a result of a ship being sunk.

Even though Italy was an Axis power in the war, at that point they fought on the side of the allies, lost and paid dearly for it.



There is so much to WW2 it amazes me at what happened we never hear about.



There is a movie with Nic Cage that uses this moment in history as a back drop titled ' captain correli's Mandolin' which is based on a highly rated book.




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