Liberation Day ( ), also known as the Anniversary of Italy's Liberation (), Anniversary of the Resistance (), or simply 25 April ( ) is a national holiday in Italy that commemorates the liberation of Italy from Nazi German occupation and from the collaborationist puppet state of the Italian Social Republic, during the final phase of World War II. That is distinct from Republic Day (Italy) (), which takes place on 2 June and commemorates the 1946 Italian institutional referendum.
Background
In Italy, Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime used the term anti-fascist to describe its opponents. Mussolini's secret police was officially known as the Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism. During the 1920s in the Kingdom of Italy, Anti-fascists, many of them from the labor movement, fought against the violent Blackshirts and against the rise of the fascist leader Benito Mussolini. After the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) signed a pacification pact with Mussolini and his Fasces of Combat on 3 August 1921,Charles F. Delzell, edit., Mediterranean Fascism 1919–1945, New York, NY, Walker and Company, 1971, p. 26 and trade unions adopted a legalist and conciliatory strategy, members of the workers’ movement who opposed this approach formed the Arditi del Popolo.
The Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGL) and the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) refused to officially recognize the Anti-fascist militia and instead maintained a non-violent, legalist strategy, while the Communist Party of Italy (PCd'I) ordered its members to quit the organization. The PCd'I organized several militant groups, though their actions were relatively limited.Working Class Defence Organization, Anti-Fascist Resistance and the Arditi Del Popolo in Turin, 1919–22 , Antonio Sonnessa, in the European History Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 2, 183–218 (2003)
The Italian anarchist Severino Di Giovanni, who exiled himself to Argentina following the 1922 March on Rome, organized several bombings against the Italian fascist community. The Italian liberal anti-fascist Benedetto Croce wrote his Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals, which was published in 1925. Other notable Italian liberal anti-fascists around that time were Piero Gobetti and Carlo Rosselli.James Martin, 'Piero Gobetti's Agonistic Liberalism', History of European Ideas, 32, (2006), pp. 205–222.
Concentrazione Antifascista Italiana (), officially known as Concentrazione d'Azione Antifascista (Anti-Fascist Action Concentration), was an Italian coalition of Anti-Fascist groups which existed from 1927 to 1934. Founded in Nérac, France, by expatriate Italians, the CAI was an alliance of non-communist Anti-fascist groups (including republican, socialist, and nationalist) seeking to promote and coordinate expatriate actions to fight fascism in Italy; they published a propaganda paper entitled La Libertà.
Giustizia e Libertà () was an Italian anti-fascist resistance movement, active from 1929 to 1945.James D. Wilkinson (1981). The Intellectual Resistance Movement in Europe. Harvard University Press. p. 224. The movement was co-founded by Carlo Rosselli, Ferruccio Parri, who later became Prime Minister of Italy, and Sandro Pertini, who became President of Italy, were among the movement's leaders.Stanislao G. Pugliese (1999). Carlo Rosselli: socialist heretic and antifascist exile. Harvard University Press. p. 51. Members of the movement held diverse political beliefs but shared a belief in active, effective opposition to fascism, in contrast to the more cautious approach of older Italian anti-fascist parties. Giustizia e Libertà also made the international community aware of the realities of fascism in Italy, thanks to the work of Gaetano Salvemini.
Many Italian anti-fascists participated in the Spanish Civil War with the hope of setting an example of armed resistance to Franco's dictatorship against Mussolini's regime; hence their motto: "Today in Spain, tomorrow in Italy".
Between 1920 and 1943, several anti-fascist movements were active among the Slovenes and Croats in the territories annexed to Italy after World War I, known as the Julian March.Milica Kacin Wohinz, Jože Pirjevec, Storia degli sloveni in Italia : 1866–1998 (Venice: Marsilio, 1998)Milica Kacin Wohinz, Narodnoobrambno gibanje primorskih Slovencev : 1921–1928 (Trieste: Založništvo tržaškega tiska, 1977) The most influential was the militant insurgent organization TIGR, which carried out numerous acts of sabotages, as well as attacks on representatives of the National Fascist Party and the military.Milica Kacin Wohinz, Prvi antifašizem v Evropi (Koper: Lipa, 1990)Mira Cenčič, TIGR : Slovenci pod Italijo in TIGR na okopih v boju za narodni obstoj (Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1997) Most of the underground structure of the organization was discovered and dismantled by the Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism (OVRA) in 1940 and 1941,Vid Vremec, Pinko Tomažič in drugi tržaški proces 1941 (Trieste: Založništvo tržaškega tiska, 1989) and after June 194, most of its former activists joined the Slovene Partisans.
During World War II, many members of the Italian resistance left their homes and went to live in the mountains, fighting against Italian fascists and German Nazi soldiers during the Italian Civil War. Many cities in Italy, including Turin, Naples and Milan, were freed by anti-fascist uprisings.
History
The date of April 25 was chosen because it marked the day in 1945 when the National Liberation Committee for Northern Italy (CLNAI) proclaimed a general insurrection in territories still occupied by Nazi-fascist forces. - whose command was based in Milan and was chaired by Alfredo Pizzoni, Luigi Longo, Emilio Sereni, Sandro Pertini, and Leo Valiani (present among others the designated president Rodolfo Morandi, , and ) - proclaimed a general insurrection in all the territories still occupied by the Nazi-fascists, indicating to all the partisan forces active in Northern Italy that were part of the Volunteer Corps of Freedom to attack the Nazi and Fascist garrisons by imposing the surrender, days before the arrival of the Allied troops; at the same time, the National Liberation Committee for Northern Italy personally issued legislative decrees,There are three fundamental decrees that seal the legislative work, already active since 1944: All powers to CLNAI; Decree for the administration of justice; Of socialization. assuming power "in the name of the Italian people and as a delegate of the Italian Government", establishing among other things the death sentence for all fascist hierarchs and other collaborationists of the Nazi occupiers, including Benito Mussolini, who would be killed three days later. "Surrender or die!" was the rallying call of the partisans that day and those immediately following.
The war ends in Italy on 2 May 1945, with the complete surrender of German and RSI forces to the Allied forces, as formally established during the so-called Surrender at Caserta on 29 April 1945, marks the definitive defeat of Nazism and Fascism in Italy. By 1st May, all of northern Italy was liberated from occupation, including Bologna (21 April), Genoa (23 April), Milan (25 April), Turin and Venice (28 April). The liberation put an end to two and a half years of German occupation, five years of war, and twenty-three years of fascist dictatorship. The aftermath of World War II left Italy bitter toward the monarchy for endorsing the Fascist regime for over 20-plus years. These frustrations contributed to a revival of the Italian republican movement.
The liberation symbolically represents the beginning of the historical journey which led to the referendum of 2 June 1946, when Italians opted for the end of the monarchy and the creation of the Italian Republic. This was followed by the adoption of the 1948 Constitution of the Republic,Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p. 1047 created by the Constituent Assembly and representatives from the anti-fascist forces that defeated the Nazis and the Fascists during the liberation of Italy and the Italian Civil War.Smyth, Howard McGaw Italy: From Fascism to the Republic (1943–1946) The Western Political Quarterly vol. 1 no. 3 (pp. 205–222), September 1948.
Although other European countries such as Norway, the Netherlands, and France also had partisan movements and collaborationist governments with Nazi Germany during World War II, armed confrontation between compatriots was most intense in Italy, making the Italian case unique. The use of the term "civil war" was frequent by fighters and during the war itself, for example in literary works by Beppe Fenoglio. In the post-war era the definition was generally avoided and used mainly by the right as by fascist politician and historian Giorgio Pisanò. Claudio Pavone's book Una guerra civile. Saggio storico sulla moralità della Resistenza (A Civil War. Historical Essay On the Morality Of the Resistance), published in 1991, led the term "Italian Civil War" to become a widespread term used in ItalianSee as examples Renzo De Felice and Gianni Oliva. and internationalSee as examples the interview to French historian Pierre Milza on the Corriere della Sera of 14 July 2005 (in Italian) and the of historian Thomas Schlemmer at LMU Munich (in German). historiography.
Institution
The current date was chosen in 1946. On the proposal of the Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi, King Umberto II of Italy, then prince and lieutenant of the Kingdom of Italy, on 22 April 1946 issued the lieutenant legislative decree n. 185 "Disposizioni in materia di ricorrenze festive" ("Provisions on festive occasions"). The bill states that:
The anniversary was also celebrated in subsequent years, but only on 27 May 1949, article 2 of law n. 260 "Disposizioni in materia di ricorrenze festive" ("Provisions on festive occasions") made the anniversary a permanent, annual national holiday, together with the Italian national holiday of 2 June:
Celebrations
Public events in commemoration of the event, such as marches and parades, have been organized annually in various Italian cities, especially in those decorated with military valor for the war of liberation. Among the events of the festival program there is the solemn homage, by the President of Italy and other important officers of the State, to the chapel of the Italian Unknown Soldier (Milite Ignoto), buried in the Altare della Patria in Rome, with the deposition of a laurel wreath in memory of the fallen and missing Italians in wars. On this day, the Italian flag and the European flag are displayed on all buildings that house public offices and institutions.
In 1955, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary, prime minister Mario Scelba addressed a message to the nation via RAI.
In April of the same year, the neo-fascist political party Italian Social Movement carried out a campaign for the abolition of the celebrations of 25 April through the Secolo d'Italia, on the initiative of Franz Turchi. A celebration was also organized in Rome in memory of the fallen of the Italian Social Republic; the Fascist salute and the Italian Social Movement songs caused clashes with some young communists who were present.
In 1960, when confidence in the Tambroni government was being discussed in the Senate of the Republic with the parliamentary support of the Italian Social Movement, at the time of the Liberation celebrations the senators of the Italian Social Movement left the chamber, greeted upon their return by sarcastic comments (for example socialist Luigi Renato Sansone is quoted saying "Your thirst has disappeared, as usual").