Italian war crimes in the Soviet Union

[RedRight]

I know some Italian soldiers were sentenced by Soviet courts for war crimes. Have they in fact committed them and what proofs do we have?

[Carlus]

Hi, it is actually a good debate but it seems there is not much on the topic.
It should be stressed Italian armed forces didn't commit relevant war crimes on the Russian front (the worst they did was in the territories of Yugoslavia under their rules). There was certainly some excess even in Russia and some troops were convinced by official both fascist and catholic propaganda they had to fight a fierce fight against Bolshevic atheist Russia.
There is indeed a case of a military chaplain - Giovanni Brevi - who after his capture was convicted into a Gulag as war criminal because of his del strongest anti Communist feelings (he was releases only in 1954).

However historians like Thomas Schlemmer wrote a good book on this argument ("Italiener an der Ostfront 1942/43", 2005), he quotes a case of military struggle in February 1943 into the Ukrainian town of Pavlograd, were Italian troops gunned down those inhabitants who had tried to rise up against the Axis during the Winter Soviet counter offensive.

Giorgio Scotoni also wrote something about it. But I fear his books have been translated only in Italian and Russian.

[Anatol]

There is indeed a case of a military chaplain - Giovanni Brevi - who after his capture was convicted into a Gulag as war criminal because of his del strongest anti Communist feelings.
Military chaplain - Giovanni Brevi sentenced to prison for refusing to go to work in the camp.
On July 1, 1947, 28 convicted Italians were held in the USSR, including three generals, 11 officers and 14 privates.