title: Hey Duggee

text: Elements of the London Fire Brigade (LFB) complained on social media about "The Dressing-Up Badge". In the episode, Roly dresses up as a firefighter, but is described as being a "fireman", which the LFB described as being "outdated" and [that] the term "‘Firefighter’ is the preferred respectful, inclusive, non-sexist, non-gendered term that should be being widely used by all media but especially the BBC.


title: Short-tail stingray

text: The short-tail stingray or smooth stingray ("Bathytoshia brevicaudata") is a common species of stingray in the family Dasyatidae. It occurs off southern Africa, typically offshore at a depth of , and off southern Australia and New Zealand, from the intertidal zone to a depth of . It is mostly bottom-dwelling in nature and can be found across a range of habitats from estuaries to reefs, but also frequently will swim into open water. One of the largest stingrays in the world, this heavy-bodied species can grow upwards of across and in weight. Its plain-colored, diamond-shaped pectoral fin disc is characterized by a lack of dermal denticles even in adults, and white pores beside the head on either side. The body can have colors as well as dark grey or black with rows of white spots along each wing. Its tail is usually shorter than the disc and thick at the base. It is armed with large tubercles and a midline row of large thorns in front of the stinging spine which has the dorsal and ventral fin folds behind.


title: Short-tail stingray

text: The diet of the short-tail stingray consists of invertebrates and bony fishes, including burrowing and midwater species. It tends to remain within a relatively limited area throughout the year, preferring deeper waters during the winter, and is not known to perform long migrations. Large aggregations of rays form seasonally at certain locations, such as in the summer at the Poor Knight Islands off New Zealand. Both birthing and mating have been documented within the aggregations at Poor Knights. This species is aplacental viviparous, with the developing embryos sustained by histotroph ("uterine milk") produced by the mother. The litter size is typically but litter sizes of up to fifteen are not unheard of.


title: Short-tail stingray

text: The short-tail stingray is not aggressive, but is capable of inflicting a lethal wound with its long, venomous sting. It is often caught incidentally by commercial and recreational fisheries throughout its range, usually surviving to be released. Because its population does not appear threatened by human activity, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists it under least concern.


title: Short-tail stingray

text: The original description of the short-tail stingray was made by Frederick Hutton, curator of the Otago Museum, from a female specimen across caught off Dunedin in New Zealand. He published his account in an 1875 issue of the scientific journal "Annals and Magazine of Natural History", in which he named the new species "Trygon brevicaudata", derived from the Latin "brevis" ("short") and "cauda" ("tail"). Although long assigned to "Dasyatis", recent work by Last et al. (2016) resurrected "Bathytoshia" for it and the broad stingray, as well as the roughtail stingray. The short-tail stingray may also be referred to as giant black ray, giant stingray, New Zealand short-tail stingaree, Schreiners ray, short-tailed stingaree, shorttail black stingray, and smooth short-tailed stingray. It is closely related to the similar-looking but smaller pitted stingray ("Dasyatis matsubarai") of the northwestern Pacific.


title: Short-tail stingray

text: Heavily built and characteristically smooth, the pectoral fin disc of the short-tail stingray had a rather angular, rhomboid shape and is slightly wider than long. The leading margins of the disc are very gently convex, and converge on a blunt, broadly triangular snout. The eyes are small and immediately followed by much larger spiracles. The widely spaced nostrils are long and narrow; between them was a short, skirt-shaped curtain of skin with a fringed posterior margin. The modestly sized mouth has an evenly arched lower jaw, prominent grooves at the corners, and five to seven papillae (nipple-like structures) on the floor. Additional, tiny papillae are scattered on the nasal curtain and outside the lower jaw. Short Tailed Stingrays have between 45-55 densely arranged teeth, which are small, blunt, and conical. The teeth are arranged in a gridded, quincunx pattern, and have a flat, planar appearance. The pelvic fins are somewhat large and rounded at the tips.


title: Short-tail stingray

text: The tail is usually shorter than the disc and has one, sometimes two, serrated stinging spines on the upper surface, about halfway along its length. It is broad and flattened until the base of the sting; after, it tapers rapidly and a prominent ventral fin fold runs almost to the sting tip, as well as a low dorsal ridge. Dermal denticles are only found on the tail, with at least one thorn appearing on the tail base by a disc width of . Adults have a midline row of large, backward-pointing, spear-like thorns or flattened tubercles in front of the sting, as well as much smaller, conical thorns behind the sting covering the tail to the tip. The dorsal coloration is grayish brown, darkening towards the tip of the tail and above the eyes, with a line of white pores flanking the head on either side. The underside is whitish, darkening towards the fin margins and beneath the tail. Albino individuals have been reported. The short-tail stingray is the largest stingray species, known to reach at least in width, in length, and in weight. Reliable observers off New Zealand have reported sighting individuals almost across. Mature females are about a third larger than mature males.


title: Short-tail stingray

text: The short-tail stingray is common and widely distributed in the temperate waters of the Southern Hemisphere. Off southern Africa, it has been reported from Cape Town in South Africa to the mouth of the Zambezi River in Mozambique. Along the southern Australian coast, it is found from Shark Bay in Western Australia to Maroochydore in Queensland, including Tasmania. In New Zealand waters, it occurs off North Island and the Chatham Islands, and rarely off South Island and the Kermadec Islands. Records from northern Australia and Thailand likely represent misidentifications of pink whipray and pitted stingray, respectively. Over the past few decades, its range and numbers off southeastern Tasmania have grown, possibly as a result of climate change.


title: Short-tail stingray

text: Off southern Africa, the short-tail stingray is rare in shallow water and is most often found over offshore banks at a depth of . However, off Australia and New Zealand, it was found from the intertidal zone to no deeper than . Australian and New Zealand rays were most abundant in the shallows during the summer. A tracking study conducted on two New Zealand rays suggests that they shifted to deeper waters during the winter, but did not undertake long-distance migrations. The short-tail stingray is mainly bottom-dwelling in nature, inhabiting a variety of environments including brackish estuaries, sheltered bays and inlets, sandy flats, rocky reefs, and the outer continental shelf. However, it also makes regular forays upward into the middle of the water column.


title: Short-tail stingray

text: The short-tail stingray is usually slow-moving, but can achieve sudden bursts of speed, flapping its pectoral fins with enough force to cavitate the water and create an audible "bang". Cavitation is when a liquid is pushed faster that it can react, causing a drop in pressure. It is known to form large seasonal aggregations; a well-known example occurs every summer (January to April) at the Poor Knights Islands off New Zealand, particularly under the rocky archways. In some areas, it moves with the rising tide into very shallow water. Individual rays tend to stay inside a relatively small home range with a radius of under . Captive experiments have shown it capable of detecting magnetic fields via its electroreceptive ampullae of Lorenzini, which in nature may be employed for navigation.


title: Short-tail stingray

text: The short-tail stingray forages for food both during the day and at night. It feeds primarily on benthic bony fishes and invertebrates, such as molluscs and crustaceans. The lateral line system on its underside allows it to detect the minute water jets produced by buried bivalves and spoon worms, which are then extracted by suction; the excess water is expelled through the spiracles. Fishes and invertebrates from open water, including salps and hyperiid amphipods, are also eaten in significant quantities. Off South Africa, this ray has been observed patrolling the egg beds of the chokka squid ("Loligo vulgaris reynaudii") during mass spawnings, capturing squid that descend to the bottom to spawn. The short-tail stingray has few predators due to its size; these included the copper shark, the smooth hammerhead, the great white shark, and the killer whale. When threatened, it raises its tail warningly over its back like a scorpion. Smaller fishes have been observed using swimming rays for cover while hunting their own prey. Known parasites of this species include the nematode "Echinocephalus overstreeti", and the monogeneans "Heterocotyle tokoloshei" and "Dendromonocotyle" sp.


title: Short-tail stingray

text: The summer aggregations of the short-tail stingray at the Poor Knights Islands seem to at least partly serve a reproductive purpose, as both mating and birthing have been observed among the gathered rays. Courtship and mating takes place in midwater, and the rising current flowing continuously through the narrow archways is thought to aid the rays in maintaining their position. Each receptive female may be followed by several males, which attempt to bite and grip her disc. One or two males may be dragged by the female for hours before she accedes; the successful male flips upside down beneath her, inserting one of his claspers into her vent and rhythmically waving his tail from side to side. Copulation lasted 3–5 minutes. Females in captivity have been observed mating with up to three different males in succession.


title: Short-tail stingray

text: Like other stingrays, the short-tail stingray was aplacental viviparous; once the developing embryos exhaust their yolk supply, they are provisioned with histotroph ("uterine milk", enriched with proteins, lipids, and mucus) produced by the mother and delivered through specialized extensions of the uterine epithelium called "trophonemata". Females bear litters of six to 10 pups in the summer; males appear to assist in the process by nudging the female's abdomen with their snouts. Females are ready to mate again shortly after giving birth. Newborns measure across.


title: Short-tail stingray

text: Curious and unaggressive, the short-tail stingray may approach humans and can be trained to be hand-fed. At Hamelin Bay in Western Australia, many short-tail stingrays, thorntail stingrays, and New Zealand eagle rays regularly gather to be hand-fed fish scraps; the number of visitors has steadily increased in recent years, and interest exists in developing the site as a permanent tourist attraction. However, if startled or harassed, this species is capable of inflicting a serious, even fatal wound with its sting. The sting can measure over long and can penetrate most types of footwear, including kevlar bootees, and its mucous sheath contains a toxin that causes necrosis. The most dangerous injuries involve damage to a vital organ, massive blood loss, and/or secondary sepsis or tetanus. A startled ray is also able to leap through water, and inflict injuries with its tail. This species is responsible for the majority of stingray injuries off New Zealand; the most infamous incident was the death of Australian naturalist Steve Irwin when a stingray pierced his chest with its barbed tail.


title: Short-tail stingray

text: Throughout its range, the short-tail stingray is caught incidentally by various commercial fisheries using trawls, Danish and purse seines, longlines and set lines, and drag and set nets. Sport fishers occasionally keep captured rays for meat or angling competitions; a few are also kept for display in public aquariums, and they reproduce in captivity. As it survives fishing activities well and remained common throughout its range, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has assessed the short-tail stingray as least concern. Within most of this species' range off New Zealand, targeting it commercially is prohibited. In June 2018 the New Zealand Department of Conservation classified the short-tail stingray as "Not Threatened" with the qualifier "Secure Overseas" under the New Zealand Threat Classification System.


title: Greg Cipes

text: Gregory Michael Cipes (born January 4, 1980) is an American actor. He was a cast member in the reality television program "Twentyfourseven" and had recurring roles in "MDs" and "Peacemakers". His voice acting roles include Beast Boy in "Teen Titans", "Teen Titans Go!" and "", Chiro in "Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!", Kevin Levin in "Ben 10", Michelangelo in the 2012 edition of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", and Splaat from "RoboSplaat!".


title: Greg Cipes

text: Cipes was born in Coral Springs, Florida, on January 4, 1980. Growing up, he was an avid surfer who won several competitions, eventually ranking to #3 in junior surfing.


title: Greg Cipes

text: Cipes voices Beast Boy in the animated television series "Teen Titans" and Kevin Levin in "Ben 10". He also voices Stinkfly in the Ben 10 reboot media franchise. He reprised the role of Beast Boy in the spin-off series "Teen Titans Go!", as well as the video games "Teen Titans", the video game adaption of the series, and the online game "DC Universe Online". He voiced Atlas in the "Astro Boy" anime series in 2003, as well as Chiro in the "Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!" in 2004. He is also referred to in the comic "Teen Titans Go" #26 as a stunt double named Craig Snipes. In 2012, he began working on Nickelodeon's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" voicing Michelangelo. He also voiced Tu in "The Legend of Korra".


title: Greg Cipes

text: Four of his roles have love interests who are voiced by Ashley Johnson (Terra in "Teen Titans", Jinmay in "Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!", Gwen Tennyson in "Ben 10" and Renet in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles").


title: Greg Cipes

text: Cipes has made numerous appearances in television, in both commercials and television programs. He was one of seven friends in the MTV reality show "Twentyfourseven". Cipes made some guest appearances on "One on One" as Butter, one of Arnaz Ballard's band members. He guest starred on "House M.D." in the episode "Family" as a cane salesman. He has made appearances in the television series "Gilmore Girls", in the season four episode "Ted Koppel's Big Night Out", and "Deadwood". Cipes has also guest starred in an episode of "Ghost Whisperer" in the episode "Love Still Won't Die". He appeared as a freegan in the "Bones" season six episode "The Body and the Bounty". He also played a man who camps out in Roseanne's yard in her series "Roseanne's Nuts". From 2009 to 2018, he appeared in a recurring role as Chuck, Mike Heck's freewheeling co-worker, in the ABC television series, "The Middle".


title: Greg Cipes

text: Cipes is the front man for the reggae/hip-hop band Cipes and the People. The band has developed a following in Southern California, and other parts of the United States and Asia. Their first album, "Conscious Revolution", was released by High Valley Entertainment on September 18, 2007. The song "Rescue" on the band's 2007 debut release "Conscious Revolution" features teenage pop star Jesse McCartney. Cipes also works as a singer in clubs in Los Angeles. He has released music videos for the songs "Fade Away", "Free Me", and "Oh Why Oh Why (Greg Cipes and Jah Sun)".


title: Greg Cipes

text: Cipes was the announcer for Cartoon Network from July to October 2008. In April 2017, he and Kevin Coulston created a new animated political parody impov series on Kickstarter, called "A Fowl American". The story takes place on Planet Earth, where humanity has been wiped out. Animals rule the land, but President Rump, a parody of the 45th United States President, Donald Trump, is determined to repeat history.


title: Greg Cipes

text: Beginning when he was eight, Cipes has eaten a vegetarian diet. In 2009, he became vegan. He was raised a Messianic Jew and identified as a "Christian Jew" in 2019, though previously he identified as irreligious in 2017, saying he was "free of mental slavery and hypocrisy" and joking to be a "believer in dog".


title: Ralph Ellison

text: Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel "Invisible Man", which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote "Shadow and Act" (1964), a collection of political, social, and critical essays, and "Going to the Territory" (1986). "The New York Times" dubbed him "among the gods of America's literary Parnassus." A posthumous novel, "Juneteenth", was published after being assembled from voluminous notes he left upon his death.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: Ralph Waldo Ellison, named after Ralph Waldo Emerson, was born at 407 NE 1st Street in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to Lewis Alfred Ellison and Ida Millsap, on March 1, 1913.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: Oklahoma City's 407 East First Street buzzed with excitement as Ida Ellison, whom close friends called “Brownie,” neared term in early 1913. She and


title: Ralph Ellison

text: her husband Lewis lived in an apartment in a large rooming house owned by J. D. Randolph and his family.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: He was the second of three sons; firstborn Alfred died in infancy, and younger brother Herbert Maurice (or Millsap) was born in 1916. Lewis Alfred Ellison, a small-business owner and a construction foreman, died in 1916, after an operation to cure internal wounds suffered after shards from a 100-lb ice block penetrated his abdomen, when it was dropped while being loaded into a hopper. The elder Ellison loved literature, and doted on his children. Ralph later discovered, as an adult, that his father had hoped he would grow up to be a poet.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: In 1921, Ellison's mother and her children moved to Gary, Indiana, where she had a brother. According to Ellison, his mother felt that "my brother and I would have a better chance of reaching manhood if we grew up in the north." When she did not find a job and her brother lost his, the family returned to Oklahoma, where Ellison worked as a busboy, a shoeshine boy, hotel waiter, and a dentist's assistant. From the father of a neighborhood friend, he received free lessons for playing trumpet and alto saxophone, and would go on to become the school bandmaster.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: Ida remarried three times after Lewis died. However, the family life was precarious, and Ralph worked various jobs during his youth and teens to assist with family support. While attending Douglass High School, he also found time to play on the school's football team. He graduated from high school in 1931. He worked for a year, and found the money to make a down payment on a trumpet, using it to play with local musicians, and to take further music lessons. At Douglass, he was influenced by principal Inman E. Page and his daughter, music teacher Zelia N. Breaux.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: Ellison applied twice for admission to Tuskegee Institute, the prestigious all-black university in Alabama founded by Booker T. Washington. He was finally admitted in 1933 for lack of a trumpet player in its orchestra. Ellison hopped freight trains to get to Alabama, and was soon to find out that the institution was no less class-conscious than white institutions generally were.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: Ellison's outsider position at Tuskegee "sharpened his satirical lens," critic Hilton Als believes: "Standing apart from the university's air of sanctimonious Negritude enabled him to write about it." In passages of "Invisible Man", "he looks back with scorn and despair on the snivelling ethos that ruled at Tuskegee."


title: Ralph Ellison

text: Tuskegee's music department was perhaps the most renowned department at the school, headed by composer William L. Dawson. Ellison also was guided by the department's piano instructor, Hazel Harrison. While he studied music primarily in his classes, he spent his free time in the library with modernist classics. He cited reading T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" as a major awakening moment. In 1934, he began to work as a desk clerk at the university library, where he read James Joyce and Gertrude Stein. Librarian Walter Bowie Williams enthusiastically let Ellison share in his knowledge.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: A major influence upon Ellison was English teacher Morteza Drezel Sprague, to whom Ellison later dedicated his essay collection "Shadow and Act". He opened Ellison's eyes to "the possibilities of literature as a living art" and to "the glamour he would always associate with the literary life." Through Sprague, Ellison became familiar with Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" and Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure", identifying with the "brilliant, tortured anti-heroes" of those works.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: As a child, Ellison evidenced what would become a lifelong interest in audio technology, starting by taking apart and rebuilding radios, and later moved on to constructing and customizing elaborate hi-fi stereo systems as an adult. He discussed this passion in a December 1955 essay, "Living With Music," in "High Fidelity" magazine. Ellison scholar John S. Wright contends that this deftness with the ins-and-outs of electronic devices went on to inform Ellison's approach to writing and the novel form. Ellison remained at Tuskegee until 1936, and decided to leave before completing the requirements for a degree.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: Desiring to study sculpture, he moved to New York City on July 5, 1936, and found lodging at a YMCA on 135th Street in Harlem, then "the culture capital of black America." He met Langston Hughes, "Harlem's unofficial diplomat" of the Depression era, and one—as one of the country's celebrity black authors—who could live from his writing. Hughes introduced him to the black literary establishment with Communist sympathies.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: He met several artists who would influence his later life, including the artist Romare Bearden and the author Richard Wright (with whom he would have a long and complicated relationship). After Ellison wrote a book review for Wright, Wright encouraged him to write fiction as a career. His first published story was "Hymie's Bull," inspired by Ellison's 1933 hoboing on a train with his uncle to get to Tuskegee. From 1937 to 1944, Ellison had over 20 book reviews, as well as short stories and articles, published in magazines such as "New Challenge" and "The New Masses."


title: Ralph Ellison

text: Wright was then openly associated with the Communist Party, and Ellison was publishing and editing for communist publications, although his "affiliation was quieter," according to historian Carol Polsgrove in "Divided Minds". Both Wright and Ellison lost their faith in the Communist Party during World War II, when they felt the party had betrayed African Americans and replaced Marxist class politics with social reformism. In a letter to Wright, dated August 18, 1945, Ellison poured out his anger with party leaders: "If they want to play ball with the bourgeoisie they needn't think they can get away with it. ... Maybe we can't smash the atom, but we can, with a few well chosen, well written words, smash all that crummy filth to hell." In the wake of this disillusion, Ellison began writing "Invisible Man," a novel that was, in part, his response to the party's betrayal.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: In 1938, Ellison met Rosa Araminta Poindexter, a woman two years his senior. They were married in late 1938. Rose was a stage actress, and continued her career after their marriage. In biographer Arnold Rampersad's assessment of Ellison's taste in women, he was searching for one "physically attractive and smart who would love, honor, and obey him--but not challenge his intellect." At first they lived at 312 West 122nd Street, Rose's apartment, but moved to 453 West 140th Street after her income shrank. In 1941 he briefly had an affair with Sanora Babb, which he confessed to his wife afterward, and in 1943 the marriage was over.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: At the start of World War II, Ellison was classed 1A by the local Selective Service System, and thus eligible for the draft. However, he was not drafted. Toward the end of the war, he enlisted in the United States Merchant Marine. In 1946, he married Fanny McConnell, an accomplished person in her own right: a scholarship graduate of the University of Iowa who was a founder of the Negro People's Theater in Chicago and a writer for "The Chicago Defender". She helped support Ellison financially while he wrote "Invisible Man" by working for American Medical Center for Burma Frontiers (the charity supporting Gordon S. Seagrave's medical missionary work). In 1946, Ellison composed and wrote the lyrics for at least two songs, “Flirty” and “It Would Only Hurt Me If I Knew.” From 1947 to 1951, he earned some money writing book reviews but spent most of his time working on "Invisible Man". Fanny also helped type Ellison's longhand text and assisted him in editing the typescript as it progressed.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: Published in 1952, "Invisible Man" explores the theme of a person's search for their identity and place in society, as seen from the perspective of the first-person narrator, an unnamed African American man, first in the Deep South and then in the New York City of the 1930s. In contrast to his contemporaries such as Richard Wright and James Baldwin, Ellison created characters that are dispassionate, educated, articulate, and self-aware. Through the protagonist, Ellison explores the contrasts between the Northern and Southern varieties of racism and their alienating effect. The narrator is "invisible" in a figurative sense, in that "people refuse to see" him, and also experiences a kind of dissociation. The novel also contains taboo issues such as incest and the controversial subject of communism.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: In 1962, the futurist Herman Kahn recruited Ellison as a consultant to the Hudson Institute in an attempt to broaden its scope beyond defense-related research.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: In 1964, Ellison published "Shadow and Act", a collection of essays, and began to teach at Bard College, Rutgers University and Yale University, while continuing to work on his novel. The following year, a Book Week poll of 200 critics, authors, and editors was released that proclaimed "Invisible Man" the most important novel since World War II.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: In 1967, Ellison experienced a major house fire at his summer home in Plainfield, Massachusetts, in which he claimed more than 300 pages of his second novel manuscript were lost. A perfectionist regarding the art of the novel, Ellison had said in accepting his National Book Award for "Invisible Man" that he felt he had made "an attempt at a major novel" and, despite the award, he was unsatisfied with the book. Ellison ultimately wrote more than 2,000 pages of this second novel but never finished it.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: Ellison died on April 16, 1994, of pancreatic cancer and was interred in a crypt at Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: The award was his ticket into the American literary establishment. He eventually was admitted to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, received two President's Medals (from Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan) and a State Medal from France. He was the first African-American admitted to the Century Association and was awarded an honorary Doctorate from Harvard University. Disillusioned by his experience with the Communist Party, he used his new fame to speak out for literature as a moral instrument. In 1955 he traveled to Europe, visiting and lecturing, settling for a time in Rome, where he wrote an essay that appeared in a 1957 Bantam anthology called "A New Southern Harvest". Robert Penn Warren was in Rome during the same period, and the two writers became close friends. Later, Warren would interview Ellison about his thoughts on race, history, and the Civil Rights Movement for his book "Who Speaks for the Negro?" In 1958, Ellison returned to the United States to take a position teaching American and Russian literature at Bard College and to begin a second novel, "Juneteenth". During the 1950s, he corresponded with his lifelong friend, the writer Albert Murray. In their letters they commented on the development of their careers, the Civil Rights Movement, and other common interests including jazz. Much of this material was published in the collection "Trading Twelves" (2000).


title: Ralph Ellison

text: Writing essays about both the black experience and his love for jazz music, Ellison continued to receive major awards for his work. In 1969, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom; the following year, he was made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France and became a permanent member of the faculty at New York University as the Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities, serving from 1970 to 1980.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: In 1975, Ellison was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and his hometown of Oklahoma City honored him with the dedication of the Ralph Waldo Ellison Library. Continuing to teach, Ellison published mostly essays, and in 1984, he received the New York City College's Langston Hughes Medal. In 1985, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. In 1986, his "Going to the Territory" was published; this is a collection of seventeen essays that included insight into southern novelist William Faulkner and Ellison's friend Richard Wright, as well as the music of Duke Ellington and the contributions of African Americans to America's national identity.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: In 1992, Ellison was awarded a special achievement award from the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards; his artistic achievements included work as a sculptor, musician, photographer, and college professor as well as his writing output. He taught at Bard College, Rutgers University, the University of Chicago, and New York University. Ellison was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: After Ellison's death, more manuscripts were discovered in his home, resulting in the publication of "Flying Home and Other Stories" in 1996. In 1999, his second novel, "Juneteenth", was published under the editorship of John F. Callahan, a professor at Lewis & Clark College and Ellison's literary executor. It was a 368-page condensation of more than 2,000 pages written by Ellison over a period of 40 years. All the manuscripts of this incomplete novel were published collectively on January 26, 2010, by Modern Library, under the title "Three Days Before the Shooting..."


title: Ralph Ellison

text: On February 18, 2014, the USPS issued a 91¢ stamp honoring Ralph Ellison in its Literary Arts series.


title: Ralph Ellison

text: A park on 150th Street and Riverside Drive in Harlem (near 730 Riverside Drive, Ellison's principal residence from the early 1950s until his death) was dedicated to Ellison on May 1, 2003. In the park stands a 15 by 8-foot bronze slab with a "cut-out man figure" inspired by his book "Invisible Man".


title: Anna Lewandowska

text: Anna Lewandowska ( Stachurska; 7 September 1988) is a Polish karateka, personal trainer and entrepreneur. She is a multiple medalist in the World, European, and national Championships. She is the wife of footballer Robert Lewandowski.


title: Anna Lewandowska

text: Lewandowska was born in Łódź to Bogdan Stachurski and his wife Maria. She is a graduate of the Academy of Physical Education in Warsaw, defending her thesis in 2012.


title: Anna Lewandowska

text: Lewandowska is a member of Pruszkow Karate Club. During her career she won three medals in the world championships seniors, six European Championships medals in different age categories (including two European Championships seniors), and 29 Polish Championship medals.


title: Anna Lewandowska

text: At September 2013, Lewandowska became a nutritionist. She started the blog "Healthy Plan by Ann", which provides nutritional advice and workout plans.


title: Anna Lewandowska

text: In 2014, she published her first book "Żyj zdrowo i aktywnie z Anną Lewandowską" (Lead a Healthy and Active Life with Anna Lewandowska) in which she encourages readers to change their eating habits and offers recipes for a number of dishes as well as exercises prepared by herself.


title: Anna Lewandowska

text: In 2016, she was appointed director of the Polish Special Olympiads, an organization which provides support for the mentally disabled through sport as well as raises social awareness about the challenges faced by this group of people. The same year, she launched the "Foods by Ann" brand which sells healthy snacks and dietary supplements.


title: Anna Lewandowska

text: In 2019, she became a host of the TV show "Sztuki walki" (Martial Arts) aired on the morning television programme "Dzień Dobry TVN". The same year, she launched her cosmetics brand "Phlov".


title: Anna Lewandowska

text: On 22 June 2013, she married Robert Lewandowski, a Polish footballer, in Serock. In December 2016, Lewandowski announced that Anna was expecting their first child and was five months pregnant. She gave birth to their daughter Klara on 4 May 2017.


title: Anna Lewandowska

text: In November 2019, Lewandowski confirmed that Anna was pregnant for the second time. Their second daughter, Laura, was born on 6 May 2020.


title: The Housemaid (2010 film)

text: The Housemaid () is a 2010 South Korean erotic psychological thriller film directed by Im Sang-soo. The story focuses on Eun-yi, played by Jeon Do-yeon, who becomes involved in a destructive love triangle while working as a housemaid for an upper-class family. Other cast members include Lee Jung-jae, Youn Yuh-jung and Seo Woo. The film is a remake of Kim Ki-young's 1960 film of the same name. It competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.


title: The Housemaid (2010 film)

text: The film opens with a bustling city street, where a young woman commits suicide by jumping from a building ledge to her death. Eun-yi, who works in a restaurant, persuades her coworker and roommate to drive her to the scene of the suicide, and she stands distraught over the chalk outline where the woman's body had lain. The next morning, an older woman by the name of Byeong-sik visits her small apartment and later expresses interest in giving her a job.


title: The Housemaid (2010 film)

text: Eun-yi is hired as an au pair for Hae-ra (pregnant with twins) and her rich husband Hoon. Eun-yi's primary task is watching the couple's young daughter, Nami. Eun-yi is eager to connect to Nami, who gradually warms to her. Hoon begins to secretly flirt with Eun-yi, enticing her with glasses of wine and his piano playing, and they eventually begin a sexual relationship. Despite the affair, Eun-yi is still warm and friendly to Hoon's oblivious wife, Hae-ra; she even expresses enthusiasm and delight at the progress of Hae-ra's pregnancy.


title: The Housemaid (2010 film)

text: Byeong-sik, aka "Miss Cho" (the other live-in maid, originally Hae-ra's childhood maid) witnesses Eun-yi and Hoon having sex. She tries to subtly pry details from Eun-yi, but Eun-yi brushes her off casually. Later, Miss Cho reveals her suspicion that Eun-yi is pregnant to Hae-ra's mother, Mi-hee. Mi-hee then visits the family and stages an "accident," resulting in Eun-yi falling from a ladder positioned at the top of a set of stairs. Dangling from a chandelier, Eun-yi begs Mi-hee to pull her over the railing. She does not oblige, and Eun-yi falls. Suffering only a concussion, Eun-yi spends the night in the hospital. During her stay, she learns that she is pregnant and contemplates abortion. Meanwhile, the affair is revealed to Hae-ra.


title: The Housemaid (2010 film)

text: Mi-hee instructs Hae-ra to ignore the affair; she insists that all wealthy husbands will eventually cheat and that if Hae-ra ignores it she can "live like a queen." Later that night, Hae-ra stands over Eun-yi's bed with a golf club but is unable to strike the sleeping woman. The next day, Hae-ra and her mother confront Eun-yi, offering her $100,000 to have an abortion and leave. Hae-ra knows that Eun-yi would not abort her child "for all the money in the world," so she takes matters into her own hands by poisoning the herbal medicine packets Eun-yi drinks every day. Hae-ra goes to the hospital and delivers her twin sons. Hoon visits the hospital, where Hae-ra makes her ill will toward him known. Furious, he returns home alone and finds Eun-yi in his bathtub. She reveals that she is pregnant and plans on keeping the baby.


title: The Housemaid (2010 film)

text: Eun-yi falls unconscious to the effects of the poison, and Mi-hee arranges an abortion without Eun-yi's consent. After the abortion, Miss Cho reveals that she told Mi-hee about Eun-yi's pregnancy. Eun-yi is angry, but forgives Miss Cho and vows to get revenge on the family. After recovering from her abortion, Eun-yi sneaks into the house with Miss Cho's assistance. Hoon finds her breastfeeding one of the newborn babies. Hae-ra insists that Miss Cho chase Eun-yi out of the house, but Miss Cho refuses and quits her job on the spot. Eun-yi then confronts the entire family (Hae-ra, Mi-hee, Hoon, and Nami), hanging herself from the same chandelier she once clung to, then lighting her body on fire as the family watches in horror.


title: The Housemaid (2010 film)

text: The final scene depicts the family outdoors in the snow celebrating Nami's birthday, all speaking English. While Hae-ra sings "Happy Birthday", Hoon hands a glass of champagne to Nami. Both appear insane as Nami looks on.


title: The Housemaid (2010 film)

text: Beth Accomando of KPBS described the story as "a seductive and disquieting thriller in which overt violence is rare but ruthless manipulation and a callous lack of concern for people are commonplace."


title: The Housemaid (2010 film)

text: Accomando compared several characters to those in "The Great Gatsby" and stated that they "are only concerned with themselves and the image of perfection they present."


title: The Housemaid (2010 film)

text: An early draft of the screenplay was written by Kim Soo-hyun, but after director Im Sang-soo had edited the script so heavily that Kim considered it to be entirely Im's own work, she decided to leave the project and publicly expressed her dissatisfaction. Although the film includes some key elements of the original, Kim Ki-young's "The Housemaid" from 1960, Im has said that he tried to never think of it during the production in order to come up with a modern and original work. One major difference between the versions is that the original film took place in the middle class, while the remake is set in an extreme upper-class environment. Im explains this with South Korea's social structure around 1960, which was a time when the country's middle class started to form and many poor people moved from the countryside to work in the cities: "women became housemaids who served not only for the rich but also the middle class and that issue had served as the basis to Kim Ki-young's work. What I realized upon reworking "The Housemaid" in 50 years was that there are much more wealthy people now, people who are millionaires. ... I wanted to depict the reality in which housewives from normal families have to undertake hard work too". The film was produced by the Seoul-based company Mirovision.


title: The Housemaid (2010 film)

text: Im stated that the design of the house reflects a "traditional European lifestyle" enjoyed by wealthy people around the world in the 2010s and that "Myself, I find it questionable that this would be a life they genuinely enjoy or if it's not more for show." In the bird's-eye shots used in the film from time to time, a large ornate chandelier is an observer that looks down on the bourgeois family for which Eun-yi works. It also plays a role in the dramatic and tragic end of the movie's heroine. That chandelier in all its detail is actually a copy of the 2008 work "Song of Dionysus" created by artist Bae Young-whan. The decision to include the chandelier in "The Housemaid" was quite a deliberate one. At first glance, the light fixture looks like an elegant Art Nouveau craft, but a closer look reveals that its green glass pieces are actually sharp shards from broken wine and soju bottles. In the same sense, the high-class family members in the movie look elegant at a glance but are actually selfish and cruel enough to break their housemaid's heart.


title: The Housemaid (2010 film)

text: In regards to the initial suicide scene, Im stated that the purpose was to show the effect of suicide in Korea and that the audience is unaware of the circumstances of the first suicide like they become with that of the main character, in that members of the general public learn about suicides and then move on with their lives without considering the circumstances of the suicides.


title: The Housemaid (2010 film)

text: Im stated that in regards to the birthday party scene, "I wanted audiences to wonder if [Nami] could truly heal from such an event?" He added that a producer of the film had unsuccessfully requested its deletion and that "There has been a lot of controversy surrounding that last scene", but that the film "would have been just so-so" if the final scene was deleted.


title: The Housemaid (2010 film)

text: There are two scenes within this movie which show a large scar, or burn, on Jeon Do-yeon's upper thigh. Director Im Sang-soo said, "Jeon Do-yeon does, in fact, have a scar there, and before filming began, she mentioned the scar to me because she knew that there were many scenes involving nudity within the film. I didn't have a problem, or filming issues, with it at all, but as shooting progressed, I felt that the scar matched ideas within the film very well, so it is true that I had a couple of scenes specifically focusing on it. We could have erased it with computer graphics, but I talked to Jeon Do-yeon about it and we both agreed that it matched the film so well that it should be kept in."


title: The Housemaid (2010 film)

text: The film premiered in South Korea on 13 May 2010. Released by Sidus FNH, it opened on 679 screens and topped the box office chart for the first weekend with a revenue corresponding to around $5.7 million. The number of screens had been reduced to 520 after week two, and "The Housemaid" dropped to second place on the chart, having been overtaken by "How to Train Your Dragon". Box Office Mojo reported a total revenue of $14,075,390 in the film's domestic market. The film had 2,289,709 admissions nationwide being the 10th most attended domestic release of the year. The international premiere took place on 14 May in competition at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. American distribution rights were acquired by IFC Films, who released it in 2011. Latin American distribution rights were acquired by Energia Entusiasta. The film is available in Amazon Prime Video in Latin America.


title: The Housemaid (2010 film)

text: Following the screening in Cannes, Maggie Lee of "The Hollywood Reporter" called the film "a flamingly sexy soap opera whose satire on high society is sometimes as savage as Claude Chabrol's "La Cérémonie"". However, Lee also found the film to have several prominent flaws: "plot developments are glaringly melodramatic" and "even with Jeon's calibrated performance, Eun-yi's characterization is problematic...[T]he absence in motivation of her behavior does not really convince". Lee Hyo-won of "The Korea Times" was all praises, saying that Im "brings a sexy, seamlessly quilted film that throbs with intrigue, lively characters and finely crafted melodrama". In 2014, it made Time's list of "Top 12 Female Revenge Movies" along with another South Korean film "Lady Vengeance"; with the review "the grim, gleaming Housemaid has a silky thread of tension tightening around the viewer's rooting interest, right up to the cutting revenge Eun-yi takes on her torturers."


title: The Housemaid (2010 film)

text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 70% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 70 reviews, with an average rating of 6.74/10. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100 based on 21 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Italian Civil War

text: The Italian Civil War (Italian: "Guerra civile italiana", ) was a civil war in the Kingdom of Italy fought during World War II by Italian Fascists against the Italian partisans (mostly politically organized in the National Liberation Committee) and, to a lesser extent, the Italian Co-Belligerent Army. Many of the Italian Fascists were soldiers or supporters of the Italian Social Republic, a collaborationist puppet state created under the direction of Nazi Germany during its occupation of Italy. The Italian Civil War lasted from around 8 September 1943 (the date of the Armistice of Cassibile) to 2 May 1945 (date of the Surrender of Caserta). The Italian partisans and the Italian Co-Belligerent Army of the Kingdom of Italy, sometimes materially supported by the Allies, simultaneously fought against the occupying Nazi German armed forces. Armed clashes between the Fascist National Republican Army of the Italian Social Republic and the Italian Co-Belligerent Army of the Kingdom of Italy were rare, while clashes between the Italian Fascists and the Italian partisans were common; meanwhile, there was some internal conflict within the partisan movement. In this context, Germans, sometimes helped by Italian Fascists, committed several atrocities against Italian civilians and troops.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The event that later gave rise to the Italian Civil War was the deposition and arrest of Benito Mussolini on 25 July 1943 by King Victor Emmanuel III, after which Italy signed the Armistice of Cassibile on 8 September 1943, ending its war with the Allies. However, German forces began occupying Italy immediately prior to the armistice, through Operation Achse, and then invaded and occupied Italy on a larger scale after the armistice, taking control of northern and central Italy and creating the Italian Social Republic (RSI), with Mussolini installed as leader after he was rescued by German paratroopers in the Gran Sasso raid. As a result, the Italian Co-Belligerent Army was created to fight against the Germans, while other Italian troops, loyal to Mussolini, continued to fight alongside the Germans in the National Republican Army. In addition, a large Italian resistance movement started a guerrilla war against the German and Italian fascist forces. The anti-fascist victory led to the execution of Mussolini, the liberation of the country from dictatorship, and the birth of the Italian Republic under the control of the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories, which was operational until the Treaty of Peace with Italy in 1947.


title: Italian Civil War

text: Although other European countries such as Norway, the Netherlands, and France also had partisan movements and collaborationist governments with Nazi Germany, armed confrontation between compatriots was most intense in Italy, making the Italian case unique. In 1965, the definition of "civil war" was used for the first time by fascist politician and historian Giorgio Pisanò in his books,


title: Italian Civil War

text: The confrontations between the factions resulted in the torture and death of many civilians. During the Italian Campaign, partisans were supplied with small arms, ammunition and explosives by the Western Allies. Allied forces and partisans cooperated on military missions, parachuting or landing personnel behind enemy lines, often including Italian-American members of OSS. Other operations were carried out exclusively by secret service personnel. Where possible, both sides avoided situations in which Italian units of opposite fronts were involved in combat episodes.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The first groups of partisans were formed in Boves, Piedmont, and Bosco Martese, Abruzzo. Other groups, composed mainly of Slavs and communists, sprang up in the Julian March. Others grew around Allied prisoners of war, released or escaped from captivity following the events of 8 September. These first organized units soon dissolved because of the rapid German reaction. In Boves, on 19 September 1943, the Nazis committed their first massacre on Italian territory.


title: Italian Civil War

text: On 8 September, hours after the radio announcement of the armistice, the representatives of several antifascist organizations converged on Rome. They were Mauro Scoccimarro and Giorgio Amendola (Italian Communist Party), Alcide De Gasperi (Christian Democracy), Ugo La Malfa and Sergio Fenoaltea (Action Party), Pietro Nenni and Giuseppe Romita (Italian Socialist Party), Ivanoe Bonomi and Meuccio Ruini (Labour Democratic Party), and Alessandro Casati (Italian Liberal Party). They formed the first Committee of National Liberation (CLN), with Bonomi taking over its presidency.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The Allies did not believe in the guerillas' effectiveness, so General Alexander postponed their attacks against the Nazis. On 16 October, the CLN issued its first important political and operational press release, which rejected the calls for reconciliation launched by Republican leaders. CLN Milan asked "the Italian people to fight against the German invaders and against their fascist lackeys".


title: Italian Civil War

text: In late November, the Communists established task forces called "Distaccamenti d'assalto Garibaldi," which later would become "brigades" and "divisions" whose leadership was entrusted to Luigi Longo, under the political direction of Pietro Secchia and Giancarlo Pajetta, Chief of Staff. The first operational order, dated 25 November, ordered the partisans to:


title: Italian Civil War

text: Shortly after the Armistice, parts of the Italian Communist Party, the "Gruppi di Azione Patriottica" ("Patriotic Action Groups") or simply "GAP", established small cells whose main purpose was to unleash urban terror through bomb attacks against fascists, Germans and their supporters. They operated independently in case of arrest or betrayal of individual elements. The success of these attacks led the German and Italian police to believe they were composed of foreign intelligence agents. A public announcement from the PCI in September 1943 stated:


title: Italian Civil War

text: The GAP's mission was claimed to be delivering "justice" to Nazi tyranny and terror, with emphasis on the selection of targets: "the official, hierarchical collaborators, agents hired to denounce men of the Resistance and Jews, the Nazi police informants and law enforcement organizations of CSR", thus differentiating it from the Nazi terror. However, partisan memoirs discussed the "elimination of enemies especially heinous", such as torturers, spies and provocateurs. Some orders from branch command partisans insisted on protecting the innocent, instead of providing lists of categories to be hit as individuals deserving of punishment. Part of the Italian press during the war agreed that murders were carried out against moderate Republican fascists willing to compromise and negotiate, such as Aldo Resega, Igino Ghisellini, Eugenio Facchini, and the philosopher Giovanni Gentile.


title: Italian Civil War

text: Women also participated in the resistance, mainly by procuring supplies, clothing and medicines, distributing anti-fascist propaganda, fundraising, maintaining communications, organizing partisan rallies, and participating in strikes and demonstrations against fascism. Some women actively participated in the conflict as combatants.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The first detachment of guerilla fighters rose up in Piedmont in mid-1944 as the Garibaldi Brigade "Eusebio Giambone". Partisan forces varied by seasons, German and fascist repression and also by Italian topography, never exceeding 200,000 people actively involved.


title: Italian Civil War

text: When the Italian Resistance movement began, consisting of various Italian soldiers of disbanded units and many young people not willing to be conscripted into the fascist forces, Mussolini's Italian Social Republic (RSI) also began putting together an army. This was formed with what was left of the previous Regio Esercito and Regia Marina corps, fascist volunteers, and drafted personnel. At first it was organized into four regular divisions ("1ª Divisione Bersaglieri Italia" – light infantry, "2ª Divisione Granatieri Littorio" – grenadiers, "3ª Divisione fanteria di marina San Marco" – marines, "4ª Divisione Alpina Monterosa" – mountain troops), together with various irregular formations and the fascist militia "Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana" (GNR) that in 1944 were brought under the control of the regular army.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The fascist republic fought against the partisans to keep control of the territory. The fascists claimed their armed forces numbered 780,000 men and women, but sources indicate that there were no more than 558,000. Partisans and their active supporters numbered 82,000 in June 1944.


title: Italian Civil War

text: In addition to regular units of the Republican Army and the Black Brigades, various special units of fascists were organized, at first spontaneously and afterward from regular units that were part of Salò's armed forces. These formations, often including criminals, adopted brutal methods during counterinsurgency operations, repression and retaliation.


title: Italian Civil War

text: Among the first to form was the "banda" of the Federal Guido Bardi and William Pollastrini in Rome, whose methods shocked even the Germans. In Rome, the "Banda Koch" helped dismantle the clandestine structure of the Partito d'Azione. The "Banda Koch," led by Pietro Koch, then under the protection of General Kurt Mälzer, the German military commander for the Rome region, were known for their brutal treatment of anti-fascist partisans. After the fall of Rome, Koch moved to Milan. He gained the confidence of Interior Minister Guido Buffarini Guidi and continued his repressive activity in various Republican police forces. The "Banda Carità", a special unit constituted within the 92nd Legion Blackshirts, operated in Tuscany and Veneto. It became infamous for violent repression, such as the 1944 Piazza Tasso massacre in Florence.


title: Italian Civil War

text: In Milan, the "Squadra d'azione" Ettore Muti (later Autonomous Mobile Legion Ettore Muti) operated under the orders of the former army corporal Francesco Colombo, already expelled from the PNF for embezzlement. Considering him dangerous to the public, in November 1943, the Federal (i.e., fascist provincial leader) Aldo Resega wanted to depose him, but was killed by a GAP attack. Colombo remained at his post despite complaints and inquiries. On 10 August 1944, Muti's "Squadrists", together with the GNR, perpetrated the Piazzale Loreto massacre in Milan. The victims were fifteen anti-fascist rebels, killed in retaliation for an assault against a German truck. Following the massacre, the mayor and chief of the Province of Milan, Piero Parini, resigned in an attempt to strengthen the cohesion of moderate forces, who were undermined by the heavy German repression and various militias of Social Republic.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The command of the National Republican Army was in the hands of Marshall Graziani and his deputies Mischi and Montagna. They controlled the repression and coordinated anti-partisan actions of the regular troops, the GNR, the Black Brigades, and various semi-official police, together with the Germans, who made the reprisals. The Republican Army was augmented by the "Graziani call-up" which conscripted several thousand men. "Graziani" were only nominally involved in the armed forces, under the apolitical CSR.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The Republican Police Corps formed in 1944 under Lieutenant-General Renato Ricci. It included the Fascist Blackshirts, the Italian Africa Police members serving in Rome, and the Carabinieri. The Corps worked against anti-fascist groups and was autonomous (it did not report to Rodolfo Graziani), according to an order issued by Mussolini on 19 November 1944.


title: Italian Civil War

text: After the victory achieved in the North African campaign, the Allies started the Italian Campaign: between 11 and 12 June 1943, Lampedusa and Pantelleria were the first Italian territories to be conquered in Operation Corkscrew. On 10 July, the landing in Sicily began, and on 19 July, Rome was bombed for the first time.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The threat of the invasion of the national territory, the conviction of the inevitability of defeat, the inability of Benito Mussolini to "detach himself from Germany", together with the awareness that his presence prevented any negotiations with the Allies, determined the fall of the his government: on the night between 24 and 25 July, the Grand Council of Fascism approved a motion of no confidence against the prime minister, called the Grandi agenda, named after its promoter Dino Grandi. The next day King Victor Emmanuel III had Mussolini put under arrest and replaced him with Marshal Pietro Badoglio.


title: Italian Civil War

text: Faced with the coup d'état, the fascists remained inert and the army was able to occupy both Wedekind and Braschi palaces, the headquarters of the party and of the Roman federation respectively, without encountering resistance. In the absence of orders from General Enzo Galbiati (who had also voted against the dismissal of Mussolini), not even the Blackshirts moved, although they could count on the 1st Armored Division "M", made up of elements loyal to the regime, which was located north of Lake Bracciano.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The news of Mussolini's resignation was considered by a part of the Italians, exhausted by the conflict, as proof of its imminent conclusion; there were manifestations of jubilation, but also of violence, with the destruction of goods and property of the National Fascist Party and party organizations and the removal and damage of symbols and monuments linked to fascism. However, the hopes of peace soon vanished, following the proclamation in which Badoglio announced: "The war continues. Italy [...] keeps its word ". Thus began the period of "forty-five days", in which secret negotiations began to conclude a separate peace with the Allies, disguised by public declarations of loyalty to Germany. Meanwhile, the Germans, prepared for the eventuality of an Italian surrender, were planning Operation Achse to occupy Italy.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The Badoglio government began the work of dismantling the fascist state and took measures to maintain order in the country: it dissolved the PNF, maintained the prohibition of the establishment of political parties and imposed martial law. In addition, some anti-fascist demonstrations were bloodily repressed, such as those that took place on 28 July in Bari (massacre of via Nicolò dell'Arca) and Reggio Emilia (massacre of Reggiane), where the military fired at the demonstrators as set out in a circulated memo written by General Mario Roatta, chief of staff of the army, who ordered soldiers to face the riots "in combat formation" and to "open fire at a distance even with mortars and artillery without warning of any kind".


title: Italian Civil War

text: These provisions made it possible for the anti-fascists to spread the idea of a substantial continuity between the government of Mussolini and that of Badoglio, to the point of "asking oneself whether the liquidation of fascism is not by chance a tragic deception". This sentiment was also supported by the fact that many public officials of the fascist period in key posts had been left in their place by the new government, as remarked by the verse of "La Badoglieide": "You called the squadrists back / the anti-fascists you put them in jail / the shirt was no longer black / but fascism remained the master."


title: Italian Civil War

text: Subsequently, Badoglio managed to completely neutralize the militia, incorporating it into the army and replacing the senior cadres with officers of sure monarchical faith. Galbiati's successor in command of the corps, Quirino Armellini, issued a circulated memo on July 30 in which he guaranteed Badoglio the harmlessness of the black shirts, stigmatizing "the reaction of the country, unpleasant and often brutal towards the militia", and assuring the will of the new government to continue the war against the Anglo-Americans, described as an enemy "animated by inhuman hatred and by the determined resolve to annihilate" the homeland, to which it was necessary to "oppose our breasts and our weapons, strenuously fighting alongside the ally".


title: Italian Civil War

text: In the same days, the anti-fascists began to reorganize themselves thanks to the return from prison, confinement or exile of numerous leaders: Luigi Longo, Pietro Secchia and Mauro Scoccimarro for the communists; Pietro Nenni, Sandro Pertini, Rodolfo Morandi and Giuseppe Saragat for the socialists; and Riccardo Bauer, Ugo La Malfa and Emilio Lussu for the actionists. The first anti-fascist organizations and the first "inter-party opposition committees" began to form, laying the foundations for the future National Liberation Committee. On 3 August, a delegation from the Central Opposition Committee - made up of Ivanoe Bonomi, Alcide De Gasperi, Luigi Salvatorelli, Meuccio Ruini and Giorgio Amendola - presented Badoglio with a declaration "complaining" from the government, "without hesitation and delay which could be fatal, the cessation of a war contrary to national traditions and interests and popular sentiments, the responsibility for which lies and must rest on the fascist regime".


title: Italian Civil War

text: During the night between 23 and 24 August, the fascist hierarch Ettore Muti - accused of plotting to restore power to Mussolini - was killed by the carabinieri sent to arrest him, officially during an escape attempt. Following the founding of the RSI, the fascists indicated Badoglio as the instigator of the killing and widely celebrated Muti as the first fallen of the civil war, claiming the conspiracy theory as proof that they had not remained inactive after 25 July. The argument that an attempt at a fascist revolt against Badoglio would have been prevented by the death of Muti - as well as by the absence of the "best fascists" engaged at the front, and by having believed in the continuation of the alliance with Germany - was re-proposed by the publications of Salò even after the war.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The estimates of the killings of fascists and the attacks they suffered during the forty-five days are variable. In the following months, the anti-fascists became convinced that they had been excessively lenient towards the exponents of the deposed regime, so much so as to trace the beginning of the civil war to the fact that "the fascists returned because fascist blood was not shed on 25 July". Conversely, for the Fascists, their "martyrdom" began on 25 July, for which they had to take revenge.


title: Italian Civil War

text: In the weeks following the fall of Mussolini, while Italy continued the war alongside Germany, the new government tried with some confusion to get the country out of the conflict: on 3 September it signed the Armistice of Cassibile, imposed by the Allied Powers, and it unexpectedly announced the armistice with a radio message read by Marshal Badoglio on the evening of 8 September.


title: Italian Civil War

text: By July 25, despite the initial enthusiasm with which most of the population received the news, it became clear that the armistice would not bring peace. The same day, the king and Badoglio fled the capital, taking refuge in Apulia with most of the members of the government, in order to avoid the feared German reaction to the Italian surrender. In a short time, the Germans carried out Operation Achse and occupied a large part of the peninsula, including Rome.


title: Italian Civil War

text: In Italy and in the areas of occupation (southern France, the Balkans and Greece), there were hundreds of thousands of soldiers who, in the absence of orders, surrendered without fighting and were deported to Germany, where they were detained as "military internees". Others managed to get civilian clothes and find refuge, benefiting from the numerous demonstrations of solidarity in which the civilian population worked. The cases in which some units reacted successfully to the German aggression were rare and due to the lack of personal initiative of the commanders. In the cities, the scenes in which multitudes of disbanded Italian soldiers were quickly overwhelmed by a few German soldiers provoked anger and despair: it was the sudden defeat suffered at the hands of Italy's former allies, even more than the surrender to the Anglo-Americans, that was perceived as a "new immense Caporetto".


title: Italian Civil War

text: The announcement of the armistice took many Italians off guard: the circumstances in which it was made public caused soldiers and civilians to feel that they had been abandoned and left to themselves, the former by the officers and the latter by the public authorities respectively, and there were those who saw in September 8 and its consequences the moment of the disappearance of the national connective tissue.


title: Italian Civil War

text: Following the public disclosure of the armistice and the consequent events, Italy found itself divided into several political-territorial entities. The Badoglio government, presided over by the King, found itself exercising its authority only over a part of the territory of the Kingdom of Italy, corresponding mainly to the provinces of Brindisi and Taranto and to Sardinia. Only gradually did the Italian territories gradually conquered by the Anglo-Americans come under the royal jurisdiction. The Italian lands under Allied control not yet entrusted to the royal administration were subjected to a military occupation government, the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT). In this context it was created the Italian Co-belligerent Army, which was made up of various divisions of the former Royal Italian Army during the period when it fought alongside the Allies.


title: Italian Civil War

text: In the days immediately following the armistice, with the eclipse of the power of the royal state, the two sides of the civil war began to take shape, the partisans and the fascists, both convinced that they legitimately represented Italy. Many of those who took up arms were caught by surprise by the armistice on one side or the other almost by chance and had to make their choice of side on the basis of circumstances. The decision was made more dramatic by the isolation in which it took place, since in the face of the collapse of the state there was no longer the possibility of referring to an authority, but only to one's own values. Of course, the choices were not all instantaneous and based on absolute certainties, rather "a nothing, a false step, a soaring of the soul" was enough to find oneself on the other side.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The choice was particularly burdensome for the military, bound on the one hand to honor their oath to the king and on the other to respect the alliance with the Germans, in both cases the penalty for their honor as soldiers; some solved the problem by appealing to their conscience: some, considering the oath to the King dissolved due to his behavior, presented themselves to the German commands asking to be enlisted, receiving as a badge an armband with a tricolor and the inscription "Dienst der Deutschen Wehrmacht" ("in the service of the German Wehrmacht"); others, while also considering themselves no longer bound by the oath to the King, still chose not to side with the Axis.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The historian Santo Peli writes that, after 8 September, the Italian soldiers captured by the Germanic armed forces were more than 800,000; of them about 186,000 chose to collaborate in various capacities with the Germans. "For the remaining, more than six hundred thousand, who initially refused to remain "faithful to the alliance", the doors of the camps are opened wide. [...] In the camps located in territories under the jurisdiction of the Wehrmacht, in February 1944, 615812 former Italian soldiers were still imprisoned, who had refused any collaboration with the German and fascist armed forces".


title: Italian Civil War

text: In some cases the fate after 25 July was also decisive, as happened to the future partisan commander Nuto Revelli:


title: Italian Civil War

text: Riots and gun battles took place during the days of the armistice, but rarely involved Italians from both sides. The staff of the Royal Army in some cases changed the commands with elements of certain monarchical faith, as happened to the 1st Armored Division "M", which became the 136th Armored Legionary Division "Centauro" and was assigned to General Giorgio Calvi di Bergolo, son-in-law of the king; however, the Supreme Command did not consider the division reliable, since it did not move to defend Rome during the events of 8 September.


title: Italian Civil War

text: Relevant bloody events were recorded in Sardinia, where the Italian contingent, enjoying a clear numerical superiority and a good quality of the departments available, including the 184th Paratroopers Division "Nembo", forced the Germans to retreat from the island. Consequently, unlike the rest of Italy, there was no room for maneuver for those Italians who did not want to obey the armistice provisions and who therefore had to make the choice of side immediately. Sardinia was therefore the scene of "one of the first episodes of civil war", when at the announcement of the armistice the XII battalion of the "Nembo", under the command of Major Mario Rizzatti, mutinied to follow the Germans of the 90th Light Infantry Division and then continue the fight against the Anglo-Americans. Lieutenant Colonel Alberto Bechi Luserna, who was sent to quell this sedition, was killed by the mutineers. Five days later, the ordinary marshal Pierino Vascelli was killed by an unknown person, who, although he had not joined the mutineers, had not hidden his fascist feelings.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The 63rd battalion of the Black Shirts Tagliamento legion, made up of a hundred paratroopers from the Viterbo school, a part of the 10th Arditi department at Civitavecchia, and the soldiers of the 10th MAS Flotilla stationed in La Spezia, was commanded by Prince Junio Valerio Borghese, who reconstituted the body keeping the same name, mainly as a marine infantry.


title: Italian Civil War

text: In the general climate in which "everyone was as if possessed by a" need for great betrayals "against which to retaliate", both sides (although among the partisans there was a minority of convinced monarchists) were united by the condemnation of the king and di Badoglio: the fascists accused them of having betrayed the alliance with the Germans and of having thus compromised the honor of Italy in the eyes of the world, while the resisters of having prevented September 8 from "transforming into a triumphal and redemptive day of resurrection".


title: Italian Civil War

text: The first groups of fascists resumed the initiative; at the same time, in Rome - while the fighting between the Italian Royal Army and Wehrmacht still continued - the first National Liberation Committee was founded by the exponents of political anti-fascism, while, especially in Piedmont and Abruzzo, the first partisan groups were formed. In those days, the foundations of both "active resistance" and "passive resistance" were laid, with the civilian population offering solidarity and help to soldiers who went into hiding or who chose "not to choose", putting themselves in the "gray area" or among the "waiters".


title: Italian Civil War

text: The civil conflict fought between fascists and partisans rarely involved the armed forces of the Italian Social Republic and the Kingdom of Italy in direct clashes. The two Italian states in principle avoided deploying their own units at the front against the other's units. In some cases, however, Italian soldiers found themselves fighting other Italians: the "Forlì" Battalions Group of RSI framed in the 278th German Division faced the marines of the "Folgore" Combat Group of the Royal Army, with whom there were also clashes with dead and wounded, and that of the "Cremona" Combat Group, whose Battalion I collided with the remains of the retreating Decima MAS "Barbarigo" Battalion, in Santa Maria in Punta in the Polesine.


title: Italian Civil War

text: In the south, a fascist resistance movement against the Anglo-Americans also developed, which nevertheless had neither the extension nor the popular support of the anti-fascist one in the north. The press of the RSI propandistically magnified its entity through the figure of O 'Scugnizzo, a second lieutenant who worked in the south behind enemy lines, also the protagonist of a comic strip by Guido Zamperoni. Despite the attempts by Alessandro Pavolini to create real military units that operated with partisan tactics behind the allied lines, by Mussolini's express will the activity of the fascist resistance movement in the south was limited to espionage, propaganda and sabotage against occupation troops. There were cases of murder, such as that of the consul general of the militia Gianni Cagnoni, killed - presumably by the fascists for his activity as a double agent in intelligence with the allied secret services - in Sardinia in 1944.


title: Italian Civil War

text: More articulated and problematic is the question of the secret relations between the Italian Social Republic and the Kingdom of Italy, in particular between elements of the two military navies (and - within the Republican National Navy - of the 10th MAS) in order to achieve a modus vivendi and to avoid direct clashes between the two Armed Forces, and - towards the end of the conflict - to try to plan a joint landing action in Istria, in order to avert the danger of the Yugoslav invasion. However, direct contacts between Borghese's emissaries and the ship's captain Agostino Calosi, as well as with Ivanoe Bonomi and Admiral De Courten, did not lead to any results, due to the opposition of Germany and United Kingdom, who for similar reasons did not like the Italian presence in Julian March. Different results were obtained instead in the involvement, after the war, of ex marines in anti-communist stay-behind organizations or in secret operations such as the sinking under British commission of ships loaded with weapons bound for the Zionists in Palestine.


title: Italian Civil War

text: Among the most significant bloody events that occurred in the phase immediately following the establishment of the Italian Social Republic was the killing of the federal Igino Ghisellini, which took place on 14 November 1943. During the Congress of Verona of the Republican Fascist Party, the news that Ghisellini had been killed provoked a mob reaction that resulted in retaliation on eleven anti-fascists unrelated to the assassination, a gesture defined as "stupid and bestial" by Mussolini himself. Such was the negative impression that this episode was raised as the "first murder of the civil war" and as the end of any hope "of reconciliation of the Italians".


title: Italian Civil War

text: Regardless of who physically fired "the first shot", Claudio Pavone dismisses the problem of the "first shot" as "not very productive" and starts from the conclusions of Giorgio Bocca ("It is obvious that the anti-fascists are the first to move and that the Communists move first "), considering them however not exhaustive and in need of integration through the analysis of the" desire for revenge "of the republican fascists. Renzo De Felice traces the origin of the civil war to the birth of the Italian Social Republic: according to the historian, the foundation of a fascist Italian state, a collaborationist with Nazi Germany, prevented the Resistance from assuming an exclusive national character of liberation from the Germans and transformed it into a movement of political and social struggle, in which the Communists played a part of great importance.


title: Italian Civil War

text: Some attempts to avoid the outbreak of a civil war made by various fascist exponents were soon set aside in the face of the developments of the events, the reality of the harsh German occupation, and the increasing violence of the partisan groups. Soon the intransigents of the newborn Republican Fascist Party had the upper hand. The Communists took the initiative to bring armed resistance against the new fascism, allied to the Germans, into the cities; after a series of attacks, the Gruppi di Azione Patriottica killed the head of the Turin Militia Domenico Giardina on 29 October and then the attacks spread to all cities: in Rome (an attack on the Adriano Theater where Marshal Graziani was speaking), in Florence, in Genoa, and in Ferrara.


title: Italian Civil War

text: Faced with this series of attacks, the intransigent fascists, Pavolini first of all, had the opportunity to assert their position and impose a crackdown on Mussolini too: at the end of November, Mezzasoma ordered the newspapers to cease all discussion about the possible "pacification".


title: Italian Civil War

text: The first partisan formations - almost all of a military nature, because they were mainly made up of disbanded soldiers of the Royal Army or former prisoners of war who fled the concentration camps - were hit by the German reaction and destroyed because they used tactics of territorial garrison and maintenance of cornerstones through a rigid and concentrated defense, rather than adopting guerrilla warfare; an example was the fate of the "Cinque giornate" group, which was besieged in the fort of San Martino above Varese by the Germans and forced to surrender. Consequently, the partisan movement achieved better results with the creation of teams and groups of minimum dimensions - cells - with which to carry out attacks.


title: Italian Civil War

text: However, it was with the "Bando Graziani" of 19 February 1944 that the Resistance acquired a mass of men sufficient to be able to create a real clandestine army behind the German lines. In fact, until February 1944, according to Ferruccio Parri, the partisan armed forces amounted to a total of 9,000. With the proclamation of the mass draft, at least seventy thousand young people joined the partisans so as not to have to submit to enlistment, and a good part of them went to swell the resistance units. To these it was then necessary to add the units of the plain and the cities, the "patriots" and the supporters, who during the period of maximum partisan activity reached 200,000 men and women. In the spring-summer of 1944, the strength of the partisan movement was such as to allow the creation of ephemeral partisan republics, which managed to survive until the autumn-winter of the same year, when they were destroyed by Italian-German counter-offensives. In particular, Mussolini defined the operations against the Piedmontese partisan republics as a "march of the Social Republic against the Vendée", referring to the episode of the French civil wars where the revolutionary armies crushed the Vendean legitimist uprisings.


title: Italian Civil War

text: With regard to the partisans, who were ever more daring in their enterprises, the Germans decided to use the forces of the Italian Social Republic to an ever greater extent, also relying on the most intransigent personalities, and linking the "repression of rebellion" to an internal Italian problem with which Italians should occupy themselves. In this way, in addition to delegating the "dirty work" to others, they also managed to keep the RSI forces busy, which otherwise - if employed at the front - would have created problems of a military and political nature.


title: Italian Civil War

text: Following the breakthrough of the front on the Gustav Line and the allied advance into central Italy, many of the National Republican Guard garrisons disbanded. In contrast, especially in Tuscany, the armed elements directly dependent on the Party managed to some extent to organize themselves and to offer a last resistance to the enemy advance and to the partisan attacks. The snipers of Florence kept numerous allied and partisan units in check for several days. These episodes gave Alessandro Pavolini the possibility of obtaining the militarization of the Party from Mussolini through the establishment of the Black Brigades, founded with the declared intention of fighting first of all against the partisans even before the Allies: their creation represented the point of no return of the civil war, defined by Pavolini as a "war of religion", so much so that their creation is identified as "the culminating point of the fascist commitment in the civil war". The brigades were eminently used in anti-partisan operations, but also, although this was contrary to their original intent, in police tasks, such as arrests and requisitions, also aimed at capturing Jews; only sporadically did they participate in war clashes, which involved those units that found themselves having to face the allied units on the offensive or that remained in the northern cities after the evacuation of regular troops, forming resistance groups and snipers.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The Black Brigades and the National Republican Guard distinguished themselves by their lack of discipline and the extreme harshness used in the repression, to the point that on several occasions the German commands themselves and sometimes the Italian Quaestors protested the gratuitous violence, summary executions and their spectacularization through the display of corpses in the streets. For example, at the end of 1944, General Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin worried about the maintenance of public order, contested the methods of Franz Pagliani's brigade against the fascist authorities of Bologna, and then determined his expulsion from the city at the beginning of 1945.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The most important military operation in which the brigades took part was the action, successfully carried out in concert with the National Republican Guard and German units, of the reconquest of the Ossola Valley and the destruction of the homonymous partisan republic. The need for the Italian Social Republic to maintain order and reassert sovereignty over the territory was also imperative to be able to manage relations with the Germans, in order to try to regain positions and at the same time prevent the German authorities - with the excuse of having to secure the rear to their armies - from bypassing the fascist authorities. Despite all efforts, this objective was missed, and the increasingly harsh outbreak of the civil war, combined with the inability of the fascists to independently maintain public order and oppose the partisans, allowed the Germans to erode even the little power that the RSI had managed to get.


title: Italian Civil War

text: In this "three-way" war, the Germans maintained an ambiguous attitude, not hesitating to sacrifice the Fascists in the name of quiet living with the partisans. In several cases, the Germans offered the partisan commands with whom they had come in contact "carte blanche" in their actions against the fascists, provided that the Germanic units were spared. Although many of the partisan commanders rejected similar agreements, the climate of "hatred against the fascists over that against the Germans" seems to prevail in the context of the motivations that pushed the partisans to fight. This kind of motivation was prevalent among the partisans of the shareholder area, while some Communist commissioners nonetheless viewed with concern the possibility of a "clouding of the national character of the struggle". In other cases, local agreements were sometimes reached, especially with non-shareholder or communist partisan elements, for example the Green Flames, with tactical purposes or to achieve a patriotic modus vivendi or even with temporary alliances "for the struggle extremist gangs and common criminals" present in large areas of the country.


title: Italian Civil War

text: These contacts obtained the result of provoking bitter contrasts within both sides: the partisan formations accused each other of intelligence with the enemy, and of exploiting temporary truces with the Nazi-fascists to the detriment of partisan units of different ideological alignments, or of wanting to keep leaving the bulk of the losses to others, waiting for the right moment for a showdown. In particular, shareholders and communists in their complaints show the fear of close ties behind them between "center and right" partisans with the Nazi-fascists. Furthermore, the communists believed that the autonomous partisans, due to the anti-communism of their commanders, could become the Italian equivalents of the Chetniks, monarchical Yugoslav partisans in sharp contrast with the communist partisans of Tito.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The Porzûs massacre saw communist partisans of the "Natisone" division (of the SAP brigade "13 martiri di Feletto"), attached to the Yugoslavian XI Corpus by orders of Palmiro Togliatti, massacre 20 partisans and a woman at the HQ of one of the many Catholic Osoppo Brigades, claiming that they were German spies. Among the dead were commander Francesco De Gregori (uncle of the singer Francesco De Gregori) and brigade commissioner Gastone Valente.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The problem of the civil war between Italians was deeply felt by both warring factions: many had strong conscientious objections to this type of war, but many were also intransigent. Furthermore, although the Anglo-American military commands did not at all want an oversized growth of the partisan movement and its military commitment beyond the allied needs (essentially: espionage and information gathering; sabotage; rescue of agents, downed pilots, and allied fugitives), the allied propaganda radios (Radio Algeri, Radio Londra, Radio Milano Libertà, Radio Bari) openly incited the murder of exponents of republican fascism, issuing intimidating warnings and disseminating news about their domiciles, habits, acquaintances, and any coverings of these, so that they would feel perennially hunted down.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The forces of the Italian Social Republic struggled to keep the insurgency under wraps, resulting in a heavy toll on the German occupation forces stationed to buttress them. Field Marshall Albert Kesselring estimated that from June to August 1944 alone, Italian partisans inflicted a minimum of 20,000 casualties on the Germans (5,000 killed, 7,000 to 8,000 captured/missing, and the same number wounded), while suffering far lower casualties themselves. Kesselring's intelligence officer supplied a higher figure of 30,000 - 35,000 casualties from partisan activity in those three months (which Kesselring considered too high): 5,000 killed and 25,000-30,000 missing or wounded.


title: Italian Civil War

text: In addition to the regular units of the Italian Social Republic Army and the Black Brigades, various special fascist units operated, often initially formed spontaneously and then framed in the armed forces of Salò. These formations, made up largely of common criminals, often adopted brutal methods during operations of counter-insurgency, repression, retaliation and counter-intelligence.


title: Italian Civil War

text: Among the first to form, there was the gang of the federals Guido Bardi and Guglielmo Pollastrini in Rome, whose crude and vulgar methods scandalized even the Germans. Subsequently, the Koch Band was very active in Rome and contributed to dismantling the structure of the Action Party in the capital. The so-called "Banda Koch", led by Pietro Koch, a controversial personality initially connected with Bardi and Pollastrini, later under the protection of General Kurt Mälzer, military commander of the square, was distinguished by violent methods also based on torture against partisans and anti-fascists. After the fall of Rome, Koch moved to Milan and became the trusted man of the Minister of the Interior Guido Buffarini Guidi, continuing his repressive action and participating in the internal struggles between the various powers and various police forces of the Republic. The "Banda Carità" was active in Tuscany and Veneto, established as a Special Services Department within the 92nd Black Shirt Legion, which became the protagonist of gestures such as the Massacre of Piazza Tasso.


title: Italian Civil War

text: In Milan, on the other hand, the Ettore Muti Action Squad (later the Mobile Autonomous Legion Ettore Muti) operated under the orders of the former army corporal Francesco Colombo, already expelled from the PNF during the twenty years for embezzlement. Considering him dangerous for public order, in November 1943 the federal Aldo Resega wanted to dismiss him, but he was killed by a Gruppi di Azione Patriottica attack; Columbus remained in his post, despite various complaints and inquiries. It was the Muti squads together with National Republican Guard soldiers who carried out the Piazzale Loreto massacre on 10 August 1944, in which fifteen anti-fascist detainees were victims, in retaliation for an assault on a German truck. Following the massacre, the same mayor and head of the province of Milan, Piero Parini, resigned in an attempt to strengthen the cohesion of the moderate forces, undermined by the harshness of the German repression and the various militias of the Social Republic.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The chain of command of the National Republican Army, firstly in the person of Marshal Rodolfo Graziani and subordinately by his deputies, Mischi and Montagna, contributed to the anti-partisan repression by coordinating the actions of the regular troops, the National Republican Guard, the Black Brigades and the various semi-official police forces. concert with the Germans, who were also often given information on people and groups of resisters who were then used for reprisals; moreover, it certainly contributed to making this Army a truly operational instrument, thanks to the famous and draconian Bando Graziani. However, it must be said that Graziani at least nominally ensured that the armed forces of Italian Social Republic were unitary and apolitical, therefore dependent not on the Republican Fascist Party but on the supreme command of the armed forces.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The collapse of the central authority, the subsequent difficult resumption of the royal government in the south and the republican fascist government in the north caused a power vacuum from which individuals and gangs dedicated to banditry and delinquency took control. Throughout the country, there was a resurgence of criminal activity, often favored also by the murky political climate of the period, with adherence from time to time to this or that political faction or belligerent power.


title: Italian Civil War

text: The impact on the populations was very severe. In many areas of the Italian Social Republic, the authorities were unable to cope with the spread of banditry, due to the crisis in the control of the territory caused by the internment of numerous carabinieri (due to their monarchical loyalty) and by the incomplete or inadequate replacement of the carabinieri with the soldiers of the Republican National Guard. In some areas, the inaction of all state powers and the presence of banditry and delinquency pushed the local populations to organize their own armed patrols to defend their properties.


title: Italian Civil War

text: In some cases, the fascist or partisan elements themselves (even openly) were committing acts of banditry; there were episodes in which men disguised in fake uniforms carried out robberies, both to make use of the awe that the sight of a uniform caused in the people, and to create a real "damage to image" to the enemy, causing the enemy to fall on them. Furthermore, by their very nature, the partisan guerrillas needed "self-financing" and consequently "the robberies of banks, company coffers and to the detriment of wealthy owners and entrepreneurs [...] became almost a necessity to which all or almost all formations ended up resorting to abandoning themselves (especially Garibaldi's ones) very often to abuses, impositions, robberies and indiscriminate violence ... ".


title: Italian Civil War

text: For the partisans, therefore, the problem of distinguishing themselves from common bandits soon arose, since the uncertainty of the "demarcation line" between partisan and banditry seriously damaged the image of the Resistance among the population. On this problem, Nuto Revelli wrote:


title: Italian Civil War

text: In addition to collaborating with the carabinieri in the service of the Italian Social Republic, the partisan commands adopted rigorous measures to suppress crime. In the first place, the formations that did not recognize the authority of the National Liberation Committee and the Volunteer Corps of Freedom were marginalized and denied any legitimacy. It was also decreed that anyone who used National Liberation Committee collection vouchers and usurped its name would be tried by a popular court, while anyone who did so without even using the name would be shot. The severity of these measures, evidenced by the numerous death sentences inflicted on the partisans who were guilty of robbery and theft, was required - as Claudio Pavone points out - by the "need for self-legitimation without shadows of the resistance movement" .


title: Italian Civil War

text: A mirror image of the situation was created by the abuses and robberies committed by Germans and fascists, which were often uncontrollable despite every effort and stigmatization by the central power. Crazed splinters of both sides behaved in a bandit-like manner. Among the Germans, moreover, those departments formed by "ost" elements (Tartars, White Russians and, to a lesser extent, Cossacks, etc.) were particularly noteworthy. They often committed violence and rape, and not infrequently had to be held at bay with real counter-terrorism by the military authorities of the Italian Social Republic.


title: Italian Civil War

text: It is difficult to study the problem of common crime in the context of the civil war, since the primary sources of the fascist or German side (news and reports from the police headquarters, the GNR commands and the Ministry of the Interior) and the reports (war diaries, memorials) are vitiated from a political point of view, which tends to indiscriminately confuse partisans, brigands, fascist soldiers and common robbers. Furthermore, the nature of the internal war created adhesions, role exchanges, intelligences between factions, such as to make it sometimes impossible to distinguish between political fighters and simple criminals or even between fighters of one or the other side. An example is the case of the so-called "Battalion Davide", a partisan formation dedicated to banditry common in the Canelli area, severely opposed by the fascist roundups, which suddenly made itself available to the authorities, even proposing itself as a "bersaglieri battalion". After violent disagreements both with the fascists of the National Guard ("Davide" - aka Giovanni Ferrero - publicly defined himself as "anti-fascist" and "pro-German" and his men provocatively shouted "death to the Duce") and with other partisan gangs of the surroundings, arbitrariness taken en bloc by the Nazis to be employed in the Schutzstaffel and as a guard in the Risiera di San Sabba in Trieste. In Turin, the GNR captured a gang of juvenile offenders who robbed tobacconists and other commercial businesses by issuing "promissory notes" with a false "Garibaldi Brigade" stamp.


title: Italian Civil War

text: In the territory of the Kingdom during this period, there was the birth of the phenomenon of the bandit Salvatore Giuliano, on whose criminal or political role, adherence with American occupiers or even with fringes of the fascist-republican secret services the historiographic debate is still open. In the Kingdom, the allied occupation and the dramatic social and economic situation favored the rebirth of the Camorra phenomenon, especially in Naples and Bari, where the presence of allied logistic bases was fertile ground for traffic of the black market and for prostitution, including child prostitution. Even in the South, there was a resurgence of banditry (also of a social nature and driven by the traditional reasons of hunger, desperation and the collapse of every state reference), of common and organized crime, corruption, due to the lack of authority exercised by the Royal Government.


title: Italian Civil War

text: In early 1945, realizing that the war was lost, the commander of the SS and German police forces in Italy ("Höhere SS und Polizeiführer", HSSPF), SS-"Obergruppenführer" Karl Wolff, made contact with allied secret agents in Switzerland. In an attempt to win the Allies' sympathies, he ordered several releases of captured partisans (first of all, Ferruccio Parri) and then on 12 March 1945 he imposed the cessation of anti-partisan operations on the troops under him, except for self-defense and the minimum necessary to save the "necessary appearance". This order was reiterated on 26 April, the day following the insurrection.


title: Italian Civil War

text: On 9 April 1945, the Allies launched the final offensive on the Gothic Line. On 10 April, the PCI sent a letter to the Communist partisan commands to be ready for an insurrection in any case. On 19 April, the entire National Liberation Committee for Northern Italy agreed on the insurrection.