Hello.
im searching for information on Italian forces in Albania, around the time of the Italian surrender.
if anyone knows any websites or books that would be great.
thanks.
Looking for info on Italian action in Albania.
Moderator: George Lepre
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andreruello
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Looking for info on Italian action in Albania.
+ ACHTUNG SIE BITTE! +
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George Lepre
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Hello andreruello,
One source you might try is the records of the German military command in Albania, the XXI Gebirgs Korps. The KTB of this unit survived the war and although the entries I've seen are terse, it might provide some information for you. It is available at the Militaerarchiv in Freiburg and was microfilmed by the U.S. National Archives. Also, the German plenipotentiary to Albania, Hermann Neubacher, wrote a memoir called Sonderauftrag Suedost.
I hope this information is useful.
Best regards,
George Lepre
One source you might try is the records of the German military command in Albania, the XXI Gebirgs Korps. The KTB of this unit survived the war and although the entries I've seen are terse, it might provide some information for you. It is available at the Militaerarchiv in Freiburg and was microfilmed by the U.S. National Archives. Also, the German plenipotentiary to Albania, Hermann Neubacher, wrote a memoir called Sonderauftrag Suedost.
I hope this information is useful.
Best regards,
George Lepre
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andreruello
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- Posts: 3
- Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2003 10:57 pm
- Location: Sydney
thanks,
dont know if i will be in freiburg anytime soon but its a start. My grandfather was an Italian soldier in Albania and after the surrender became a prsioner of war of the germans but he escaped. He wont talk about his experience and speaks very little english so im trying to find out where he was and what he did.
dont know if i will be in freiburg anytime soon but its a start. My grandfather was an Italian soldier in Albania and after the surrender became a prsioner of war of the germans but he escaped. He wont talk about his experience and speaks very little english so im trying to find out where he was and what he did.
+ ACHTUNG SIE BITTE! +
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George Lepre
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Hello -
Based on the additional information you provided, I would suggest that you contact the Italian army archives. This institution will have your relative's personnel file and the records of the unit(s) he was assigned to. They might also be able to recommend books on the subject. To get the necessary addresses and information on how to contact the archive, call or write the military attache at the Italian embassy.
Good luck!
George
Based on the additional information you provided, I would suggest that you contact the Italian army archives. This institution will have your relative's personnel file and the records of the unit(s) he was assigned to. They might also be able to recommend books on the subject. To get the necessary addresses and information on how to contact the archive, call or write the military attache at the Italian embassy.
Good luck!
George
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andreruello
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- Location: Sydney
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George Lepre
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Enrico Cernuschi
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Well Gentlemen,
on 8th Sept. 1943, the day of the declaration of the Italian armistice, Albania was ossupied by the IX Armata of the Regio Esercito.
This unnit was formed by the infantry divisions: Parma, Puglie, Firenze and Arezzo, There was a mobile "Raggruppamento unità Celeri" too formed by the mounted cavarly regiments Monferrato, Firenze, Milano and Guide and the armoured "Gruppi Squadroni" ones: II Giude, IV Nizza, IV Monferrato; is necessary to remember two Blackshirts battalions, a Bersaglieri battalion and two light tanks L3 companies.
The Albanian Army had two Regiments of Cacciatori d'Albania, mainly recruited in Kossovo, and 4 blanckshirts battalions.
On the Greek border line (Epiro and Tessaglia) there were the following XI Armata (Grecia) units, whose activity was directly infuenced by the Albanian command: Perugia - just coming from Montenegro - and Pinerolo Inf. Division, with the Aosta Cavarly (Mounted) Regiment and the II Raggruppamento Alpini Valle (three battalions).
The motorized Brennero Division had just arrived from Greece to Durazzo and was going to cross the Adriatic coming back in Italy to help the new, southern front against the British after the Calabria invasion.
North of Albania there was the Italian Montenegro XIV Corp (Div Taurinense (Alpine), Venezia, Ferrara and Emilia, not to mention many Chetnick and islamic bands on the Italian pay roll. This corp was dipendent by the II Armata (Jugoslavia) but acted in an autonomous way and his units too were involved in the Albanian situation.
We can remeber, among the neighbour Italian commands around Albania, the Inf. Division Aqui too, which garrisoned the Ionian Islands and that was at the order of the XI Army at Athens but finshed to act in an indipendent way.
According the Italian Army plan in front of the armistice circumstances Albania was considered, like Italy, national land and had to be defended within the 1941 new borders in Jugoslavia and Greece (these last ones not officially recognized by no one, Germany and Greece included) against any German initiative to penetrate inside her territory. The Italians were yet leaving France (except for the Nizza County and Corsica), Jugoslavia (Except Dalmazia, Slovenia and Montenegro) and were ready to give up Greece too to the Germans. They conceived to loose, if necessary under German pressure and, anyway, in good order, Slovenia - with the Lubiana pass - , Dalmazia (except for Zara, which was an Italian town since 1918), Montenegro and the Alto Adige (Sud Tyrol) but Albania had to be defended as this country was considered the necessary base for all the Balkan economic penetration projects planned by Italy since 1912.
As all the Italian divisions in the Balkans were under strenght since 1942 the Regio Esercito force of the IX Army was a mere 130.000 men, 10% of them Albanians, divide in more than 250 local, little garrisons.
The Germans were allowed, after 25 July 1943 by the too much weak, new Badoglio Government, to enter in Albania to create some Luftwaffe flack and little anti-parachitist groups near all the most importants airports anr to estabilish a coastal artillery group at Durazzo. These small parties were followed, late Aug.1943, by the 100 Jaeger Division.
Partisan activity was a modest one; nationalist in the north and communist in the south, both only some hundreds of men.
Fight with the Germans in Albania began on 11 Sept. 1943 when the German Luftwaffe General Gnam arrested suddenly, by a coup de main made by a Feldgendarmerie unit, the Italian Balkan Comander Gen. Rosi during an Italian-German meeting.
After this middle age enterprise the IX Army commander Gen. Dalmazzo ordered to accept the Germans promises to grant the Italian divisions an honourable retourn in Italy with their light weapons (rifles and machine guns) with the final, delacred purpose, explainded in his order to the troops, to employ his divisions to control Norther Italy against any possible communist revolt menace waiting, like the old Vichy Army de l'armistice, the final arrive of the Allies or, better, the general end of the war which most believed was still just behind the corner.
The situation became soon more and more difficoult as the Albanians Regiments mutined at once and begin to attack the smaller Italian garrisons obtaining soon the help of the germans or, better, of a number of Austrian elements at Staff level too which believed, since winter 1942-43, it would be possible to realize, at least, their old fashioned late Absburg dream of a Balkan German dominion from Slovenia until the Ionian Islands and Salonicco. The Albanian partisans attacked they too the Italians with more a plunder than a fighter spirit and some local Italian comanders of Division level too refused at once to obey at Gen. Dalmazzo orders; some German units acted then in a too much brutale way asking for the heavy weapons to some old Cavarly regiments of very ancient tradiction (more than 200 hundred years) obtaining so a noble and tragic "No" by those single and always too much weak or small units doomed anyway in front of the stronger and united German force.
The final consquence was a confused mass of fights which lasted until 21 Sept. (Reg. Monferrato), 24 Sept. (Div. Firenze), 28 Sept. (Nizza), 30 Sept. (Div. Perugia), 14 Oct. 1943 (Div. Pinerolo and Cavarly Regiment Aosta, both victim of a trancherous attack by the Communist partisans of the ELAS who disarmed the Italians killing at least a British officier of the local SOE mission beginning so the new phase of the future red Greek Civil War fought according the new orders just arrived from Moscow against the British and the Ellenic monarchists). It'necessary to remeber, anyway, that since 28 Sept. 1943 the Italian new "Comando Truppe Italiane della Montagna" of Gen. Azzi was able to collect a total of about 25.000 Italian troops who fought, with the red Albainan partisans, against the Germans until late 1944. The (not many) surviviors were able to come back in Italy in 1945.
A curious episode was the adventure of the Brennero Division which was able to sail, on 25 Sept. 1943, from Durazzo to southern Italy with the German blessing and under the escort of the Regia Marina. The Division, under her old First World War name of Avellino, was ready again in 1945 to fight against the Germans along the Gothic line.
The Perugia division was able to obtain the same truce agreement but only some elements of the unit could cross the Adriatic as the British forbidden, on 28 sept. 1943, to the Badoglio Government to send the ships back to recover these men too. They feared that these troops, still loyal to King Victor, could improve his position in the new southern Italy political order against the much more useful Badoglio who was, viceversa, very prone to obey at any UK request.
32 officiers of this Division were then shoot by the Germans at Kucj on 7 Oct. 1943. Gen. Ernest Chimiello, the Perugia Division commander, was beheaded (the Germans shoot him too, their Albanian cronies recovered the body, which had fallen, after the plotoon fire, from a cliff into the sea, and cut the head, exposing it at Porto Edda, as a proof of their voctory and liberation fight against the 1939 invaders). Many others officiers and some NCO too of the IX Army were killed bt the Germans in Sept. and Oct. 1943 as they were considered mutineers.
What a bloody mess. EC
on 8th Sept. 1943, the day of the declaration of the Italian armistice, Albania was ossupied by the IX Armata of the Regio Esercito.
This unnit was formed by the infantry divisions: Parma, Puglie, Firenze and Arezzo, There was a mobile "Raggruppamento unità Celeri" too formed by the mounted cavarly regiments Monferrato, Firenze, Milano and Guide and the armoured "Gruppi Squadroni" ones: II Giude, IV Nizza, IV Monferrato; is necessary to remember two Blackshirts battalions, a Bersaglieri battalion and two light tanks L3 companies.
The Albanian Army had two Regiments of Cacciatori d'Albania, mainly recruited in Kossovo, and 4 blanckshirts battalions.
On the Greek border line (Epiro and Tessaglia) there were the following XI Armata (Grecia) units, whose activity was directly infuenced by the Albanian command: Perugia - just coming from Montenegro - and Pinerolo Inf. Division, with the Aosta Cavarly (Mounted) Regiment and the II Raggruppamento Alpini Valle (three battalions).
The motorized Brennero Division had just arrived from Greece to Durazzo and was going to cross the Adriatic coming back in Italy to help the new, southern front against the British after the Calabria invasion.
North of Albania there was the Italian Montenegro XIV Corp (Div Taurinense (Alpine), Venezia, Ferrara and Emilia, not to mention many Chetnick and islamic bands on the Italian pay roll. This corp was dipendent by the II Armata (Jugoslavia) but acted in an autonomous way and his units too were involved in the Albanian situation.
We can remeber, among the neighbour Italian commands around Albania, the Inf. Division Aqui too, which garrisoned the Ionian Islands and that was at the order of the XI Army at Athens but finshed to act in an indipendent way.
According the Italian Army plan in front of the armistice circumstances Albania was considered, like Italy, national land and had to be defended within the 1941 new borders in Jugoslavia and Greece (these last ones not officially recognized by no one, Germany and Greece included) against any German initiative to penetrate inside her territory. The Italians were yet leaving France (except for the Nizza County and Corsica), Jugoslavia (Except Dalmazia, Slovenia and Montenegro) and were ready to give up Greece too to the Germans. They conceived to loose, if necessary under German pressure and, anyway, in good order, Slovenia - with the Lubiana pass - , Dalmazia (except for Zara, which was an Italian town since 1918), Montenegro and the Alto Adige (Sud Tyrol) but Albania had to be defended as this country was considered the necessary base for all the Balkan economic penetration projects planned by Italy since 1912.
As all the Italian divisions in the Balkans were under strenght since 1942 the Regio Esercito force of the IX Army was a mere 130.000 men, 10% of them Albanians, divide in more than 250 local, little garrisons.
The Germans were allowed, after 25 July 1943 by the too much weak, new Badoglio Government, to enter in Albania to create some Luftwaffe flack and little anti-parachitist groups near all the most importants airports anr to estabilish a coastal artillery group at Durazzo. These small parties were followed, late Aug.1943, by the 100 Jaeger Division.
Partisan activity was a modest one; nationalist in the north and communist in the south, both only some hundreds of men.
Fight with the Germans in Albania began on 11 Sept. 1943 when the German Luftwaffe General Gnam arrested suddenly, by a coup de main made by a Feldgendarmerie unit, the Italian Balkan Comander Gen. Rosi during an Italian-German meeting.
After this middle age enterprise the IX Army commander Gen. Dalmazzo ordered to accept the Germans promises to grant the Italian divisions an honourable retourn in Italy with their light weapons (rifles and machine guns) with the final, delacred purpose, explainded in his order to the troops, to employ his divisions to control Norther Italy against any possible communist revolt menace waiting, like the old Vichy Army de l'armistice, the final arrive of the Allies or, better, the general end of the war which most believed was still just behind the corner.
The situation became soon more and more difficoult as the Albanians Regiments mutined at once and begin to attack the smaller Italian garrisons obtaining soon the help of the germans or, better, of a number of Austrian elements at Staff level too which believed, since winter 1942-43, it would be possible to realize, at least, their old fashioned late Absburg dream of a Balkan German dominion from Slovenia until the Ionian Islands and Salonicco. The Albanian partisans attacked they too the Italians with more a plunder than a fighter spirit and some local Italian comanders of Division level too refused at once to obey at Gen. Dalmazzo orders; some German units acted then in a too much brutale way asking for the heavy weapons to some old Cavarly regiments of very ancient tradiction (more than 200 hundred years) obtaining so a noble and tragic "No" by those single and always too much weak or small units doomed anyway in front of the stronger and united German force.
The final consquence was a confused mass of fights which lasted until 21 Sept. (Reg. Monferrato), 24 Sept. (Div. Firenze), 28 Sept. (Nizza), 30 Sept. (Div. Perugia), 14 Oct. 1943 (Div. Pinerolo and Cavarly Regiment Aosta, both victim of a trancherous attack by the Communist partisans of the ELAS who disarmed the Italians killing at least a British officier of the local SOE mission beginning so the new phase of the future red Greek Civil War fought according the new orders just arrived from Moscow against the British and the Ellenic monarchists). It'necessary to remeber, anyway, that since 28 Sept. 1943 the Italian new "Comando Truppe Italiane della Montagna" of Gen. Azzi was able to collect a total of about 25.000 Italian troops who fought, with the red Albainan partisans, against the Germans until late 1944. The (not many) surviviors were able to come back in Italy in 1945.
A curious episode was the adventure of the Brennero Division which was able to sail, on 25 Sept. 1943, from Durazzo to southern Italy with the German blessing and under the escort of the Regia Marina. The Division, under her old First World War name of Avellino, was ready again in 1945 to fight against the Germans along the Gothic line.
The Perugia division was able to obtain the same truce agreement but only some elements of the unit could cross the Adriatic as the British forbidden, on 28 sept. 1943, to the Badoglio Government to send the ships back to recover these men too. They feared that these troops, still loyal to King Victor, could improve his position in the new southern Italy political order against the much more useful Badoglio who was, viceversa, very prone to obey at any UK request.
32 officiers of this Division were then shoot by the Germans at Kucj on 7 Oct. 1943. Gen. Ernest Chimiello, the Perugia Division commander, was beheaded (the Germans shoot him too, their Albanian cronies recovered the body, which had fallen, after the plotoon fire, from a cliff into the sea, and cut the head, exposing it at Porto Edda, as a proof of their voctory and liberation fight against the 1939 invaders). Many others officiers and some NCO too of the IX Army were killed bt the Germans in Sept. and Oct. 1943 as they were considered mutineers.
What a bloody mess. EC
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George Lepre
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Enrico Cernuschi
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George Lepre
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Hi EC -
Do you have any additional advice for Andre regarding possible contact with the Italian military archives" I've done research in Germany and France but never in Italy. Is the staff at the archive accomodating to new researchers? Can documents be ordered by mail? (Andre lives in Australia).
Best regards,
George
Do you have any additional advice for Andre regarding possible contact with the Italian military archives" I've done research in Germany and France but never in Italy. Is the staff at the archive accomodating to new researchers? Can documents be ordered by mail? (Andre lives in Australia).
Best regards,
George
-
Enrico Cernuschi
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- Location: Pavia
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Enrico Cernuschi
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- Joined: Sun Dec 15, 2002 2:05 am
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gentlemen, I beg your pardon, I did a mistake.
Div. Brennero (or, better, the Command, 231° Reggimento Fanteria and most of the 9° Reggimento d'artiglieria and the divisional pioneer unit)sailed on 25 Sept. 1943 for Trieste, not bound for the south.
The division commander, Gen. Aldo Princivalle, had decided, in fact, some days after the armistice, not to fight against the Germans but to try to mantein unite and in order his division with the purpose to deploy it in Northern Italy to grant order and law there. The new Repubblica Sociale government made, after this original decision, things easier.
The division (actualli 5.000 men) sailed on five Italian freighters and arrived safely at Trieste. A torpedo boat of the escort (Pilo) and a tug (Porto Conte), however, defected the first night and went to southern Italy.
This episode (I have yet described in a previous letter of mine, some weeks ago) is at the origin of the subsequent mistake recorded by many books and articles according which the Brennero arrived, at least, in the South of Italy.
When the 5.000 men of the Brennero landed at Trieste some were considered prisoniers of war (or, better, Internati) by the Germans, most (born in Milan) went to Germany and become the new 3° Reggimento Granatieri Littorio of the new Littorio Division of the RSI coming back in Italy the next year after training and some went directly home as they were coming from Merano, a little town in Alto Adige (Sud Tyrol) and were of German origin.
The 231° Avellino Regiment (ex Brennero) was so reconstructed only in 1950.
Sorry again for the error, EC
PS. "When I do a mistake I do a giant one" Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York.
Div. Brennero (or, better, the Command, 231° Reggimento Fanteria and most of the 9° Reggimento d'artiglieria and the divisional pioneer unit)sailed on 25 Sept. 1943 for Trieste, not bound for the south.
The division commander, Gen. Aldo Princivalle, had decided, in fact, some days after the armistice, not to fight against the Germans but to try to mantein unite and in order his division with the purpose to deploy it in Northern Italy to grant order and law there. The new Repubblica Sociale government made, after this original decision, things easier.
The division (actualli 5.000 men) sailed on five Italian freighters and arrived safely at Trieste. A torpedo boat of the escort (Pilo) and a tug (Porto Conte), however, defected the first night and went to southern Italy.
This episode (I have yet described in a previous letter of mine, some weeks ago) is at the origin of the subsequent mistake recorded by many books and articles according which the Brennero arrived, at least, in the South of Italy.
When the 5.000 men of the Brennero landed at Trieste some were considered prisoniers of war (or, better, Internati) by the Germans, most (born in Milan) went to Germany and become the new 3° Reggimento Granatieri Littorio of the new Littorio Division of the RSI coming back in Italy the next year after training and some went directly home as they were coming from Merano, a little town in Alto Adige (Sud Tyrol) and were of German origin.
The 231° Avellino Regiment (ex Brennero) was so reconstructed only in 1950.
Sorry again for the error, EC
PS. "When I do a mistake I do a giant one" Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York.
Re: Looking for info on Italian action in Albania.
I made a research on the 151 Infantry Division in the south of the Albany. If someone is interested it can be found here
http://www.kuc.altervista.org
I did it in memory of the 32 Italian Officers killed by germans at Kuç (Albania) on 7 October 1943
One of them was my grandfather.
http://www.kuc.altervista.org
I did it in memory of the 32 Italian Officers killed by germans at Kuç (Albania) on 7 October 1943
One of them was my grandfather.