“Unraveling the Mystery: Why Italy Escaped a Post-War Reckoning for Its Atrocities”
The case of Marshal Graziani was not an isolated one, with plenty of mass murdering officers to keep him company. One such gentleman was General Mario Roatta, known as ‘the Black Beast’ to his own soldiers. As the head of the Italian Second Army stationed in Yugoslavia from early 1942, he established a reign of terror in Croatia and Slovenia, responsible for the death of more than 13,000 individuals, variously killed by firing squad, beatings, arson, torture, as well as simple malnutrition and disease due to mistreatment in concentration camps.
Climbing down the ranks, we can also find cases of privates and non-commissioned officers who displayed levels of cold-blooded violence on par with the worst of serial killers. A particularly chilling example is that of sergeant Luciano Luberti, known as ‘the executioner of Albenga’.
After serving in an artillery regiment, Luberti enrolled in the Italian SS. This happened in the confusing aftermath of the Italian armistice of September 1943, a military-political mess which we shall cover in detail later. But at the time, Luberti was stationed in Albenga, not far from Genoa, and put in charge of interrogating captured anti-Fascist partisans.
In his new role, he was in charge of countless tortures, beatings, sexual abuses, executions and occasional straight-out murder, thus earning his nickname. After the war, his personal death toll was estimated at around 200, an accusation which he staunchly contested. You see, by his own estimate, he claims it was more like 300.
