“Unraveling the Mystery: Why Italy Escaped a Post-War Reckoning for Its Atrocities”
Unsurprisingly, General Roatta was at the very top of the list of criminals compiled by Yugoslavia. And in fact he had been under Allied custody since early 1945.
However, he ultimately got off very lightly thanks to an old entry in his CV ⦠You see, back in the 1930s, Roatta had been the chief of the Italian Military Information Service. As such, he had access to information proving that former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had attempted to keep Mussolini out of the war by offering him some French colonies. Moreover, Roatta had later acquired intelligence about Marshal Badoglioâs conduct after the September 1943 armistice. Badoglio had failed to issue clear orders to his troops stationed in Rome, thus allowing for the capital to fall into German hands.
For both reasons, both British and Italian governments agreed that Roatta was likely to reveal embarrassing secrets should he be tried. Thus, as early as March 1945, Roatta was able to escape custody, with the collaboration of Italian police and British intelligence. The former general thus escaped to Francoist Spain, and after benefitting from the âTogliatti amnestyâ of 1946, he lived on as a free man, dying in Rome in 1968.
So, Roatta got away with it ⦠what about the other 763 criminals in the list?
The matter was complicated by the fact that the Italians themselves had been victim to Yugoslav atrocities. In April 1946, new Italian Prime Minister, Christian Democrat Alcide De Gasperi, denounced these crimes to the Allies, especially the massacres perpetrated at the âFoibeâ – natural sinkholes in the Karst region. In the last stages of the war, between 3,000 and 20,000 Italians, including civilians, were thrown alive in the âFoibeâ by Yugoslav partisans.
