Luftwaffe Leutnant Fallmeyer and Mussolini

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carolwmahs
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Luftwaffe Leutnant Fallmeyer and Mussolini

#1

Post by carolwmahs » 29 Dec 2005, 23:57

As Mussolini was trying to make his escape to Switzerland in 1945, he joined up with a retreating Luftwaffe Flak column under the command of Leutnant Fallmeyer. Fallmeyer did what he could to protect Mussolini from vengeful Italian partisans, even though his presence represented a threat to his men, the war was nearly over, and Mussolini's Fascist troops had deserted him. It must have been a heavy and unwanted responsibility for the young officer. What a strange convergence of the two men's lives. Ultimately of course, partisans found Mussolini hiding disguised as a drunk German noncom in one of Fallmeyer's trucks and hanged him, his mistress and some of his top aides. Does anyone know what happened to Fallmeyer and his men? Did they make it to safety? What unit were they with?

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Davide Pastore
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Re: Luftwaffe Leutnant Fallmeyer and Mussolini

#2

Post by Davide Pastore » 30 Dec 2005, 06:55

carolwmahs wrote:Ultimately of course, partisans found Mussolini hiding disguised as a drunk German noncom in one of Fallmeyer's trucks and hanged him, his mistress and some of his top aides.
Negative: they shot them. According to my sources, the SMG (a French MAS) used to shot Mussolini and Claretta Petacci is (used to be ?) preserved in a Moscow museum. Other 15 men of various rank were later shot together by a firing platoon.

The corpses were hanged later, in Milano.

Davide


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#3

Post by FB » 30 Dec 2005, 10:29

And Mussolini was not trying to escape to Switzerland.

As far as Fallmeyer and his coloumn are concerned they ultimately surrendered to the partizans in Colico (right on the north top of Como Lake). They were stopped near the Ponte del Passo (it's a short bridge that crosses the north top of the lake) by the partizans who shot at them 5 rather off target rounds from the WWI old guns of the Montecchio Fort in Colico.

They were granted a free passage to wherever they wanted to go, be it Switzerland or Austria. Fallmeyer chose to try to get home and subscribed the agreement. The went on with their complete armament untill the town of Morbegno, in Valtellina, where, as agreed, they disarmed themselves in the square before the schools of the town, and went on with only their unarmed trucks. They probably reached the Stelvio pass and then Austria.

There's an old discussion here that goes in great detail into this matter.

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Re: Luftwaffe Leutnant Fallmeyer and Mussolini

#4

Post by FB » 30 Dec 2005, 10:36

Davide Pastore wrote:
carolwmahs wrote:Ultimately of course, partisans found Mussolini hiding disguised as a drunk German noncom in one of Fallmeyer's trucks and hanged him, his mistress and some of his top aides.
Negative: they shot them. According to my sources, the SMG (a French MAS) used to shot Mussolini and Claretta Petacci is (used to be ?) preserved in a Moscow museum. Other 15 men of various rank were later shot together by a firing platoon.

The corpses were hanged later, in Milano.

Davide
AFAIK "Col. Valerio", who is the self appointed "shooter" (and whose version af the facts is higly doubted upon today) of Mussolini and Claretta, donated the MAS to the "comunist brothers" of Albania. I think to remeber that this was in the late '40s or first '50s, when investigations were being held in order to try to understand what really happened. This "Valerio" move was indeed a very smart one on his part: shipping the MAS to Albania was the equivalent of subtrating the weapon to each and every eventual investigation because of the bad relationships existing between Italy and Albania in those days.

Best regards

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#5

Post by Lupo Solitario » 30 Dec 2005, 11:00

AFAIK the german column was left gone free after "taking away" the italian fascist leaders group.

There are more stories on mussolini death than bad programs on italian TV, could avoid a debate about it for one time? :wink:

[edited by moderator]

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#6

Post by FB » 30 Dec 2005, 11:05

Lupo Solitario wrote:AFAIK the german column was left gone free after "taking away" the italian fascist leaders group.

There are more stories on mussolini death than bad programs on italian TV, could avoid a debate about it for one time? :wink:
:lol:

Right!

The column was set free to leave from Dongo, but was later on stopped at Ponte del Passo by Colico partizans as I said before.

Ciao

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Thanks

#7

Post by carolwmahs » 30 Dec 2005, 21:11

FB wrote:And Mussolini was not trying to escape to Switzerland.

As far as Fallmeyer and his coloumn are concerned they ultimately surrendered to the partizans in Colico (right on the north top of Como Lake). They were stopped near the Ponte del Passo (it's a short bridge that crosses the north top of the lake) by the partizans who shot at them 5 rather off target rounds from the WWI old guns of the Montecchio Fort in Colico.

They were granted a free passage to wherever they wanted to go, be it Switzerland or Austria. Fallmeyer chose to try to get home and subscribed the agreement. The went on with their complete armament untill the town of Morbegno, in Valtellina, where, as agreed, they disarmed themselves in the square before the schools of the town, and went on with only their unarmed trucks. They probably reached the Stelvio pass and then Austria.

There's an old discussion here that goes in great detail into this matter.
Thank you, that was very informative. I'm glad that at least in this particular instance, there was no further bloodshed in the merciless German/Fascist vs Italian partisan war in the north. I guess he and his men faded into obscurity afterwards. Strange that Cassinellli's text describes him as a Captain, rather than a Lieutenant. It sounds like he was part of a strong unit - maybe even up to battalion strength. Guess they could have prevailed if they had fought it out, but what would have been the point

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Re: Thanks

#8

Post by FB » 31 Dec 2005, 18:46

carolwmahs wrote:
FB wrote:And Mussolini was not trying to escape to Switzerland.

As far as Fallmeyer and his coloumn are concerned they ultimately surrendered to the partizans in Colico (right on the north top of Como Lake). They were stopped near the Ponte del Passo (it's a short bridge that crosses the north top of the lake) by the partizans who shot at them 5 rather off target rounds from the WWI old guns of the Montecchio Fort in Colico.

They were granted a free passage to wherever they wanted to go, be it Switzerland or Austria. Fallmeyer chose to try to get home and subscribed the agreement. The went on with their complete armament untill the town of Morbegno, in Valtellina, where, as agreed, they disarmed themselves in the square before the schools of the town, and went on with only their unarmed trucks. They probably reached the Stelvio pass and then Austria.

There's an old discussion here that goes in great detail into this matter.
Thank you, that was very informative. I'm glad that at least in this particular instance, there was no further bloodshed in the merciless German/Fascist vs Italian partisan war in the north. I guess he and his men faded into obscurity afterwards. Strange that Cassinellli's text describes him as a Captain, rather than a Lieutenant. It sounds like he was part of a strong unit - maybe even up to battalion strength. Guess they could have prevailed if they had fought it out, but what would have been the point
From what I understood if they would have fought it out, the Germans would have crushed the partizans in Colico. But, as you said, what for? If you look at a map of the area, the road that they had to take after Colico runs in a valley (Valtellina), and the valley itself was at that point completely in partizans' hands. I doubt that they could have made it through all the about 100 Kms that are between Colico and the Stelvio Pass. And Switzerland, through the Bernina Pass, the Maloja Pass or even the Spluga Pass (by far the worst of the three), wasn't an option because the Swiss were not so eager, so to say, to open the borders to let the Germans in. In Como (Ponte Chiasso customs house), for instance, they did not let them in, quite the opposite: the Swiss Officer commanding the area, went in Como and made agreements with the Americans, who had just reached the town, and brought them to the border in order to have the Germans surrender in Americans hands (an option that the Germans themselves accepted, after having threatened the Swiss of fighting their way into their Country).

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Reference?

#9

Post by carolwmahs » 01 Jan 2006, 20:14

Can you recommend any text (unfortunately in English) on the '43-'45 RSI/German vs Italian partisan war?

From the little that I know, it was very savage. Were there any lingering postwar resentments, feuds resulting from it? It seems almost like a civil war to me. Did it center around any particular regional rivalries? Any repercussions that are still evident today in the Italian political environment?

thanks!

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Re: Reference?

#10

Post by Lupo Solitario » 02 Jan 2006, 11:21

carolwmahs wrote:Can you recommend any text (unfortunately in English) on the '43-'45 RSI/German vs Italian partisan war?
I'd start with the classical F. Deakin "The brutal alliance" also if it's a political more than military study. There's also a book which title in english should be "Love and war on Apennines" but I ignore the author
From the little that I know, it was very savage.
It was. It costed something as 100000 italian lives between the two parts (there are also worsten numbers, but I consider them unaccurate and politically biased)
Were there any lingering postwar resentments, feuds resulting from it? It seems almost like a civil war to me. Did it center around any particular regional rivalries?
Hiiii, a lot of! A series of political murders continued til 1948 and a deep hate found his way into italian hearts. But it had not "regional" qualities. It was a pure political struggle between "fascist" and "antifascist" in every italian region (and a lot of sub-divisions too, overall between "marxist" antifascists and "liberal" antifascists). Really complicated, but I can assure you that there are no divisions between Veneto and Emilia (for example) or between Lazio and Toscana for causes dued to 1943-45 period :)


Correction: in some way we can call the civil war for some local political allegiance...For example, as a great italian song writer told years ago:
"Some was communist cause he was born in Emilia" (G. Gaber)... :)
Any repercussions that are still evident today in the Italian political environment?
if you consider that a week ago, the italian premier had found no better topic against opposition than showing the first page of a communist newspaper announcing Stalin's death...(and that's only an example...) Again, the right government wants to give to RSI soldiers the status of "regular fighters" and the left opposition has announced a parlamentary battle on it...

etc.etc.

thanks![/quote]

it's a pleasure...

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Re: Reference?

#11

Post by Davide Pastore » 02 Jan 2006, 12:25

Lupo Solitario wrote: Again, the right government wants to give to RSI soldiers the status of "regular fighters" and the left opposition has announced a parlamentary battle on it...
Being a student of ACW, I'm often amazed by the parallelism between postwar Southerners [former C.S.A.] and postwar former R.S.I. Italians.

Particularly about the way both categories tried (are trying, will forever try) to rewrite their own history, conveniently pretending the more unpleasant parts had never happened, and strongly accusing the enemy of worse crimes.

Today, after a century and half of unremitting effort on part of the apologists, many people believe that CSA was right.
In year 2100 very probably many people will believe the same about R.S.I.

Davide

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#12

Post by Lupo Solitario » 05 Jan 2006, 00:21

slightly connected with the topic...

Italian partisan Urbano Lazzaro, nickname "Bill", has dead yesterday.
Member of 52nd Garibaldi brigade, he was the man who identify and arrested Mussolini dressed in german uniform at Dongo, April 27, 1945.

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RSI status as soldiers

#13

Post by carolwmahs » 12 Jan 2006, 20:08

Repercussions from the savage RSI vs Partisan war continue to resonate in Italy.... Comments?

--------------------------------------------------------------

Row over Mussolini's Nazi army opens old wounds
http://www.guardian.co.uk/secondworldwa ... e_continue

· Berlusconi pushes for war veteran status for soldiers
· Former partisans petition to block legislation

John Hooper in Rome
Wednesday January 11, 2006
The Guardian

The soldiers of Benito Mussolini's Nazi puppet republic should be accorded the same status as wartime resistance fighters and regular combatants, the Italian government will argue in a bill to be placed before parliament today.
The bill would recognise the 200,000 soldiers of the Italian Social Republic as "military combatants", but would make no difference to the state benefits enjoyed by several thousand of the former members still alive.

But the controversial move by Silvio Berlusconi's government will reopen old wounds, raising painful questions about the Italians' view of their past and which side they feel they were really on in the second world war. After Italy capitulated to the allies in 1943 the Germans withdrew to the north and installed the country's ousted fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, at the head of a so-called Italian Social Republic.


With its capital at Salo, on the shores of Lake Garda, his dictatorship enjoyed an increasingly tenuous existence from November 1943 until April 1945. Harassed by the growing partisan movement, the Germans and their diehard fascist allies hit back with ferocious reprisals, often carried out by irregulars whose former members would also be covered by the law.
The lawlessness of Mussolini's beleaguered state provided the historical background for Pier Paolo Pasolini's savagely brutal 1976 movie Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom, which is banned in many parts of the world.

Green MP Paolo Cento called the move "a disgrace with which an attempt is being made to rewrite history". But supporters of the bill have depicted it as a contribution to national reconciliation and, since Mr Berlusconi's allies have an outright majority in both houses of parliament, it is expected to become law before the general election on April 9.

The proposed law has the backing of the National Alliance, the second-biggest party in government, which is largely composed of former neo-fascists. Riccardo Pedrizzi, the National Alliance senator who sponsored the bill, said those who joined up with Mussolini had "remained faithful to the fatherland even though they knew the war was lost". But critics have argued that they were in revolt against the country's legitimate government in Rome.

Vasco Errani, governor of the Emilia-Romagna region which saw some of the worst atrocities, called the proposed law "a nonsense based on questionable juridical and constitutional foundations".

Former partisans have expressed outrage over the measure and submitted a petition to the speaker of the senate in an attempt to block it. Veteran journalist Giorgio Bocca, a former partisan, said the only units that could lay claim to military status were the Republic of Salo's regular forces, made up of conscripts trained in Germany. But, in an article published last year, he said, "on their return they were halved in number by desertions and then deployed either in the rearguard or in the Alps, on the frontier with France, where not a shot was fired".

What has enraged the left is the inclusion in the bill of what a British historian, Denis Mack Smith, termed "semi-autonomous hooligan squads - some with their own private prisons and torture chambers". One such group called itself the Italian SS and wore a German uniform.

Although Mr Berlusconi persistently describes his government as "moderate" and "centre-right", the plan to honour the veterans of these units is regarded as a reminder of just how rightwing it is.

Backstory

The final days of the man who invented fascism were shot through with drama. In July 1943, after the Anglo-American landings on Sicily, most of Mussolini's key supporters deserted him. He was stripped of his powers and confined to a mountain hotel but later rescued by German special forces so that Hitler could set him up as the figurehead leader of a state in northern Italy. As the allies edged up the peninsula over the next year and a half Mussolini became increasingly detached from reality. In April 1945 German resistance collapsed and Mussolini attempted to flee in a German troop lorry. He was discovered by partisan guerrillas and he and his mistress, Clara Petacci, were executed and their bodies hung upside down in a square in Milan.

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#14

Post by Lupo Solitario » 12 Jan 2006, 20:31

see this way...which official awards had received Confederate soldiers from Union government in last 140 years?

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Re: Luftwaffe Leutnant Fallmeyer and Mussolini

#15

Post by Joda » 01 Jan 2021, 16:25

Sorry guys, Did anyone got real documents regarding Fallmeyer? Are we sure he really existed?

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