Top War Criminals of World War 2 - Part 1: Italy

World War 2 was the largest war in human history. Many war crimes were committed by all nations during the war.

In this series, we will be examining some of the top war criminals from each nation.

Starting with Italy.

The war crimes of Italy during World War 2 are a lot less known than other nations, but many of the top generals in the Italian military were war criminals. 

Some of the people on this list didn't commit war crimes during World War 2 itself, but I will still be including them, as they were key players in the war as a whole.

Benito Mussolini

Crimes:

-Authorized the use of chemical weaponry during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War

Rodolfo Graziani

Crimes:

-Engaged in the deportation of Libyans during the Pacification of Libya to Concentration Camps

-Used chemical weaponry against Ethiopian soldiers in Gorahei on October 10, 1935

-Bombed Red Cross hospitals and ambulences for Ethiopian soldiers

-Ordered the massacre of up to 30,000 Ethiopian civilians from February 19-21 1937

Pietro Badoglio

Crimes:

-Ordered for the deportation of Libyans in Cyrenaica in June 1930

-Used chemical weaponry against Ethiopian soldiers in 1936

Mario Roatta

Crimes:

-Ordered summary executions, hostage-taking, reprisals, and burning of houses and villages in occupied Yugoslavia

Alessandro Pirzio Biroli

Crimes:

-Took part in executions of Yugoslav civilians in the Governorate of Montenegro

Mario Robotti

Crimes:

-Issued an ethnic cleansing policy in June 1942, saying, 

"I would not be opposed to all Slovenes being imprisoned and replaced by Italians. In other words, we should take steps to ensure that political and ethnic frontiers coincide."

Carlo Geloso

Crimes:

-Ordered the pillaging, bombing, plunder, and deportation of Greeks after partisan attacks

Ettore Bastico

Crimes:

-In a telegram on 9 September 1941, gave orders for the expulsion of Libyan Jews from Italian Libya

-Used Jewish forced labor and controlled concentration camps in Italian Libya

Pietro Koch

Crimes:

-Murdered hundreds of partisans and rounded up deportees in the Italian Social Republic. Executed for war crimes in 1945.

SOURCES:

Rainer Baudendistel, Between Bombs and Good Intentions: The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–1936, pp. 264–67.

Hidden in Plain Sight: Italian Concentration Camps in Cyrenaica: 1930-1933 p.16

Pankhurst, Richard (1999). "Italian Fascist War Crimes in Ethiopia: A History of Their Discussion, from the League of Nations to the United Nations (1936–1949)". Northeast African Studies. 6 (1–2): 127–136. doi:10.1353/nas.2002.000

Thomas P. Ofcansky, Chris Prouty, Hamilton Shinn, David (2004). Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia. The Scarecrow Press, Inc. p. 89

Hidden in Plain Sight: Italian Concentration Camps in Cyrenaica: 1930-1933 p.17

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2020/02/21/italian-war-criminal-rodolfo-graziani/

Barker, A. J. (1971). The Rape of Ethiopia 1936. New York: Ballantine Books p.56

James H. Burgwyn (2004). General Roatta's war against the partisans in Yugoslavia: 1942, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, Volume 9, Number 3, pp. 314–329(16)

Pajović, Radoje (1987). Pavle Đurišić (in Serbo-Croatian). Zagreb, Yugoslavia: Centar za informacije i publicitet p. 109

Tommaso Di Francesco, Giacomo Scotti (1999) Sixty years of ethnic cleansing, Le Monde Diplomatique, May Issue.

Santarelli, Lidia (2004). "Muted violence: Italian war crimes in occupied Greece". Journal of Modern Italian Studies. 9 (3): 280–299

Terracina, Giordana, Hidden responsibilities, The deportation of Libyan Jews in the concentration camp of Civitella del Tronto and the confinement town of Camerino, p.12

Hoppe, Jens (2018). "Italian-occupied North Africa". The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, Volume III: Camps and Ghettos under European Regimes Aligned with Nazi Germany. Indiana University Press. p. 527-529

Nicholas Farrell, Mussolini A New Life, Phoenix, 2004, pp. 449-450