In the 1990s, a number of traumatic issues related to the Nazi occupation of Italy (1943–1945) resurfaced in Italian public debate. In 1995, Erich Priebke, an SS officer responsible for the Fosse Ardeatine massacre in Rome, was extradited to Italy from Argentina. The Priebke trial ended in 1998 with a life sentence and reopened a new phase of prosecutions in Italy against German war criminals. More than twenty trials were held in Italian military courts, resulting in numerous convictions against dozens of defendants. In the same period, a new wave of historical research shed light on the Nazi massacres in Italy. The Germany's failure to compensate Italian military internees (IMIs) was also revisited, as more than 600,000 Italian soldiers were taken prisoner after the Italian armistice in September 1943 and forced to work in the Third Reich's war economy, in violation of international law. Some of the IMIs filed and won lawsuits in Italian courts against Germany, which was ordered to pay compensation. However, Germany contested the rulings on the grounds of state immunity. In 2012, the Hague Court ruled in Germany's favour, prompting strong reactions from Italian IMI associations. In 2012, a bilateral (Italian – German) historical commission concluded its work by proposing a series of memorial initiatives to the Italian and German governments, including staging exhibitions, creating memorial sites for the IMIs and an atlas of Nazi massacres in Italy. Since then, the Bundestag has financed numerous memorial activities proposed by Italian local authorities, associations of deportees, research institutes, universities and schools through the Italian-German Fund for the Future.
This panel aims to discuss and analyse the memory policies implemented for Italian-German reconciliation, examining the main projects and the actions promoted by the institutions (governments and parliaments), national and international courts, and above-mentioned social actors.
Lutz Klinkammer, German historical Institute in Rome, "A “common memory culture”? The work of the Italian-German Historical Commission"
Since 2022, hundreds of relatives of victims of Nazi massacres committed in Italy between 1943 and 1945 have been suing the Federal Republic of Germany in Italian courts for compensation for the war crimes committed by the Wehrmacht. Legal action was only taken after Italian victims were excluded from German forced labour compensation in 2000. When the state immunity of the Federal Republic of Germany was violated, Germany sued Italy before the International Court of Justice in The Hague in 2009. Parallel to this process, a German-Italian commission of historians was set up to submit proposals for promoting a culture of remembrance in both countries that would take into account the complexity of the historical events before and during Nazi occupation of Italy.
Since the creation of a ‘Future Fund’ by the German Parliament in 2014, the commission's recommendations have been implemented in many individual projects. Exhibitions, museums, databases, conferences and anthologies have been created.
However, the discrepancy between legal resolution and historical reappraisal of the Nazi and wartime past remains striking. This discrepancy is currently being cushioned by forms of remembrance culture. Behind this lies a very profound problem that also affects German-Polish and German-Greek relations and interpretation of World War II. The rulings in The Hague and before national courts and the forms of German-Italian reconciliation will probably influence future compensation claims by civilian victims who suffered damage as a result of the military occupation of other states.
My paper will reconstruct the events that led to the establishment of the German-Italian Historical Commission, as well as the consequences of the recommendations given in the Commission's report.
Andrea Di Michele, Libera Università Bolzano e Istituto nazionale F.Parri, Isabella Insolvibile, Mercatorum University - The Ferruccio Parri National Institute's contribution to reconciliation: The "Atlas of Nazi and Fascist Massacres in Italy" and the exhibition "Another Journey to Italy".
This contribution present two projects proposed by the Ferruccio Parri National Institute and supported by the German Italian Fund for the Future. The first is the Atlas of Nazi and Fascist Massacres in Italy, which was developed in collaboration with the National Association of Italian Partisans. More than 140 researchers worked on the project, which was made available to the general public as an easy to use online database. It documents nearly 6,000 massacres that occurred in Italy or former Italian territories between summer 1943 and spring 1945. Alongside the names and personal details of around 24,000 victims, the Atlas identifies the details of the perpetrators, German Nazis and Italian Fascists. Conceived and constructed as both a memorial and a scientific tool, the Atlas is therefore a fundamental resource for anyone wishing to delve deeper into one of the darkest chapters in Italian history and trace events in individual territories. The online database is one of the Parri Institute's most widely used tools, and forms the basis of an exhibition “Despite the long time that has passed…” commissioned by the Ministry of Defence. The second project is an exhibition called Another Journey to Italy, which takes its title from Goethe's work Italian Journey. Parri Institute adopted this idea to offer the Italian and European public an alternative journey through the geography and history of the Second World War in Italy, as experienced by two young protagonists: a German visitor and his Italian counterpart. The result is a dialogue aimed at overcoming mutual prejudices and building a 'bridge' between the memories and
Eloisa Betti and Filippo Focardi, University of Padua -Italian Victims of National Socialism and the Memories of Survivors: Research, Education and Public Engagement
This contribution presents a research and public engagement project funded by the Italian German Fund for the Future. The first phase of the project involved collecting over one hundred video interviews with Italian citizens who survived Nazi violence. The interviewees belonged to various categories of victims, including civilian and military survivors of massacres; victims of racial and political deportation; forced labourers; military internees; and partisans who were arrested, tortured and subjected to violence. The first phase of the project prompted renewed reflection on the theme of memory stratification, while in depth interviews with testimonies who had never previously been interviewed revealed their experiences before, during and after the war, when some of them became “guardians of memory”. These interviews were stored in an online digital archive at the base of the project's second phase. The latter aimed to enhance the website containing the digital archive of video interviews, transforming it into a public history tool for educational and awareness raising purposes, accessible to teachers, students and interested citizens. To this end, three documentaries were made using the previously collected video interviews: one on anti Semitic persecution and the Shoah in Italy; one on the survivors of Nazi Fascist massacres; and one on the history of Italian military internees. This second phase was carried out by an interdisciplinary team involving historians, educators, archivists and digital communication experts. The documentaries were the pillar of educational activities carried out in three different geographical areas (Bologna, Rome and Padua), reaching approximately 600 secondary school students. After viewing the documentaries, these students visited places of memory in the various cities involved.
Amedeo Osti Guerrazzi, University of Padua - Not only German perpetrators. Studying and teaching the Holocaust in Italy. The experience of the Shoah Museum Foundation.
The Shoah Museum Foundation was established in 2008 with the aim of promoting the creation of a historical museum that recounts the persecution of Jews in Europe. Although the museum is still under construction, the Foundation has developed a long series of projects and initiatives to study the Shoah scientifically and to disseminate knowledge about it, with particular attention to the Italian case.
The Foundation has carried out important research, which has resulted in international conferences and scientific publications. It conducts intensive training for teachers and students in middle and high schools through training courses and the publication of dedicated manuals and websites. It disseminates knowledge about the Shoah through exhibitions, documentaries, theatre performances, and public meetings with witnesses and survivors. In many initiatives, the Foundation has had the support of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany through the Italian-German Fund for the Future. With a view to preserving memory and reconciliation, the Fund has financed, for example, a virtual photographic exhibition on the effects of the Second World War on civilians in Italy and an international conference entitled “The Shoah in Italy: research perspectives and memory policies”, held in Rome in October 2023 with the participation of the Goethe Institut. Many of the Foundation's public initiatives have also seen the participation of Embassy staff and the Ambassador himself. The report describes these projects carried out by the Foundation, which have focused attention on the role played in the Shoah not only by the German perpetrators but also by Italian collaborators.
Marco De Nicolò (University of Cassino); Monica Fioravanzo (University of Padua) as discussant
20260729T173020260729T1900America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires4.11. Politics of Memory and Reconciliation between Italy and Germany: Coming to Terms with the Past of German OccupationSV106MSA Buenos Aires 2026buenosairesconference@memorystudiesassociation.org
