The 44 Heroes of Unterlüss

The “Heroes of Unterlüss” were 44 officers of the Italian Royal Army interned at Oflag 83 , an officers’ camp in Wietzendorf In February 1945 

Following the Armistice , the Germans disarmed and captured 1,007,000 Italian soldiers, out of a total of approximately 2,000,000 actually in the army. Of these, 196,000 managed to escape  before, during or after the deportations. Of the remaining approximately 810,000 (of which 58,000 were caught in France, 321,000 in Italy and 430,000 in Greece and the Balkans), More than 13,000 men  lost their lives when their transport ships were sunk by the British  between the Greek islands and the mainland  Around 94,000, including almost all the Blackshirts of the the Fascist Militia, MVSN, immediately accepted the offer to fight alongside the Germans. The remaining 710,000 Italian soldiers were deported into German prison camps with the status of IMI. By the spring of 1944, a further 103,000 had declared themselves ready to serve in Germany or the Italian Social Republic, as combatants or as auxiliary workers. Between 600,000 and 650,000 soldiers refused to continue the war alongside the Germans. Around 45,000 are estimated to have died.  33,000  from the harshness and danger of forced labor and from disease and malnutrition and around 4600 are estimated to have been executed. The allied bombings of facilities where they worked and escapes probably accounted for the rest

In August 1944, the Italian military internees were designed as "civilian workers" following an agreement signed between Hitler and Mussolini on 20 July. This transition did not actually improve their living conditions much, but it made their exploitation more efficient at a time when the Germans had a growing need for forced labor. Initially officers were excluded from the forced labour requirements, but by December 1944, they were included with the exception of generals, chaplains, doctors, the sick and the over-sixties, violating any rule of international law. The Italian Officers passed through a series of terrible cramps, firstly in Poland and then as the Soviet Army advanced into Poland, they were moved into Germany.  Among them was Stalag 307, the fortress of Deblin in Eastern Poland. The fortress had previously been used to house Soviet prisoners who were treated incredibly badly. Its role may have been to exterminate Soviet prisoners. Post war, the Soviet military authorities estimated that around 120,000 Soviet prisoners died there  From 1944 the camp was redesignated as Oflag 77 used for Italian officer  internees, it is an estimated around 16,000 may have passed through . At Czestochowa (Stalag 367) had also been used for Soviet prisoners, and after September 1943 was used for Italians. Stalag 333 at Benjaminów , Poland had also been used for Soviet prisoners  where thousands had died. After October 1943, it as repurposed to house around 2,100 interne Italian officers. . As the Germa front in the East collapsed, conditions worsened, disease – especially typhus was rife and around 6,000 Italians may have died at Deblin and in other Polish camps. As the Soviets advanced into Poland. Deblin, Benjaminów and Czestochowa  were evacuated and the prisoners moved westward.  Many ended up at Oflag VI and its sub camp of Wesurve, in North Western Germany. Another camp where Italian were concentrated was Stalag X B at Sandbostel in Lower Saxony .

Oflag 83 was at Wietzendorf , in Lower Saxony, approximately 14 km southeast of Soltau, and 50 km southwest of Lüneburg. The camp was initially used for Soviet prisoners from the Eastern Front; later it was partially evacuated because of the poor sanitary conditions and used to house other prisoners, including Italians. At Wietzendorf 214 Italian officers refused to work, remained in the barracks and for a few days did not show up for daily roll calls. On 16 February 1945, , they were transferred to the now disused Dedelsdorf airport which was a decoy field used  to attract Allied bombing, The Italian officers refused to collaborate with the Germans and after six consecutive days of opposition, on 24 February, perhaps knowingly following the Roman and Italian method of decimation the SS chose 21 prisoners at random threatening their immediate shooting, but 44 Italian officers stepped forward and volunteered to take the place of their comrades. The Germans, surprised and pehaps impressed by the heroic gesture of the Italian soldiers, decided to send them to the "re-education to work", arranging for the immediate transfer to the KZ-AEL at Unterlüss, one of the toughest in all of Germany, where the men were subjected until the following April to forced labor, torture, exploitation and a treatment of hardship in which they suffered from hunger. 

Six of them died, Lieutenant Alberto Pepe, and Lieutenant Giuliano Nicolini, were killed by the beatings of the Ukrainian guards. Second Lieutenant Giorgio Tagliente was beaten to death and finished with a shot to the back of the head. The release of the 41 survivors took place on 9 April 1945. unfortunately, s.ten. Giorgio Balboni, s.ten. Giovanni Anelli s.ten. Michele Rinaudo were in extremely poor condition, hospitalized by the British they were died after the liberation. The 44 Heroes of Unterlüss, present a cross section of Italian officers. They came from all over the peninsula and islands; From Sicily, Puglia , Rome, Milan and Turin, some had been captured in Italy, others in Greece , Slovenia, ,Albania, and Croatia 

1. Capt. Fernardo Abbatecola - Caprarola (Viterbo)
2. Capt. Pietro Ferraro – Menfi (Agrigento)
3. Lieutenant Giovanni Sorge – Milan
4. Lt. Pasquale Campanella – Serro (Messina)
5. Lt. Antonio Palieri – Milan
6. Lt. Giorgio Corigliano – Cosenza
7. Lt. Antonio Rossi – Canosa di Puglia -  From 11 June 1940, he fought with the 232nd Infantry Battalion in the western Alps, then from December he participated in the Italian campaign in Greece. Taken prisoner in Volos , in October he was interned in the Stalag 333 at Beniaminowo , then Stalag XB and finally Oflager 83
8. Lt. Mario De Benedittis[5] – Lucera (Foggia)
9. Lt. Stefano De Matteis – Gorizia
10. Lt. Gino Di Domenica – Gambatesa (Campobasso)
11. Lt. Gaetano Garretti di Ferrere – Turin
12. Lt. Settimo Leanza – Adrano (Catania)
13. Lt. Evandro Luzi – Pesaro. A radio operator in the Albanian war, then in charge of restoring radio links on the Yugoslav front, he found himself straddling enemy lines, risking his life several times. After September 8, 1943, like many Italian soldiers, he was deported to a prison camp in Germany, where he did not give in to the small compromises that could have made his life easier, but which would have involved collaboration with the Nazis. Unbearable marches, lack of food, conditions at the limit of survival were the backdrop to a story of "ordinary resistance". With the defeat of Germany, after almost two years of imprisonment, Evander was freed, but he still had to face two demanding challenges: the return home through a destroyed Europe and the difficult reintegration into civilian life.
14. Lt. Giuliano Nicolini[9] – Stresa, Born and raised in Stresa . Graduated as an Agricultural Expert - Wine Technician at the Royal School of Viticulture and Oenology in Alba, he collaborated in the family business "Enotria" which traded and imported wines. A lieutenant of infantry, deployed in the Balkans with the 114 Btg. Machine gunners of the Border Guard, in 1942 he fought in Albania and Montenegro. At the armistice he was interned in), Wesuwe, Oberlangen, Sandbostel, and finally Wietzendorf, . Physically exhausted and malnourished due to the lack of food and the constant beatings he received, he was beaten to death by Ivan, a Ukrainian overseer, and died on April 6, 1945. He was promoted to captain and awarded the Silver Medal for Military Valor in memory on 1 July 1953^. . During 2022, Giuliano Nicolini was remembered in a memorial erected in the locality of by some local scholars with the financial contribution of Rheinmetall..
15. Lt. Alberto Pepe– Born in Teramo on 6 September 1910, he comes from a military family. He graduated from the V. Comi Technical Institute in Teramo and became an employee of the Provincial Association of Farmers and at the same time was a goalkeeper for the local football team. A very gifted sportsman, he is one of the pioneers of mountaineering and skiing on the Gran Sasso. On 8 September 1943 he was on leave in Teramo for the birth of his daughter Luisa, he chose to return to Croatia to Dubrovnik where the soldiers he was responsible for as lieutenant of the 6th Artillery specialist department had remained. On 15 September he was captured and deported to Deblin, Lathen, Wesurve, Wietzendorf and finally Unterlüss where he was killed on 4 April 1945. On 1 July 1953 he was awarded the Silver Medal for Military Valour. On January 12, 2016, a stumbling stone was laid in Teramo in Teramo by the artist Gunter emnig
16. Lt. Alberto Calabrese – Rome
17. Lt. Tullio Cosentino – Turin
18. Second Lieutenant Anacleto Tosti – Salcito (Campobasso)
19. s.ten Cornelio Zanetti – Brescia
20. s.ten. Michele Rinaudo – Trapani on 20.5.1918 died in the hospital of Celle due to illness on 7.5.1945
21. s.ten. Stefano Santoro – Fratte (Salerno)
22. s.ten. Olindo Sartori – Venice
23. s.ten. Fausto Soncini – Parma
24. s.ten. Giorgio Tagliente – Taranto 16.6.1918 - killed in Unterlüss with a pistol shot on 19.4.1945
25. s.ten. Domenico Martella – Pescara
26. s.ten. Michele Montagano[13][14]– Casacalenda (Campobasso. On 8 settembre 1943, he was in l XXII settore GAF di Idria, in Slovenia . Captured by the germans on 10 Sepember  he pase through  Thorn, Czestochowa, Tarnopol, Sieldce, Sandbostel and Wietzendorf..
27. s.ten. Anselmo Rizzo– Paternò (Catania) After graduating in Literature, he had been called to arms.  Sent to Greece in October 1942, as an officer of Art. di C. d'A. he remained there until his capture by the Germans, in Corfu, on 25 September 1943. In October he was sent to Stalag 307, then  Oflag VI  and  Stalag XB; from the second half of December 1944 to Wietzendorf camp
28.  s.ten. Giorgio Fanti – Rome
29. s.ten. Mario Forcella – Foggia[18]
30. s.ten. Ferruccio Gallinari – Padua
31. s.ten. Carlo Grieco (Trani, 8 August 1921 - Avigliana, 21 June 1980). After studying at the University of Bari (Faculty of Letters) he was called up to the military at the Telegraph Company of Casale Monferrato where he became a second lieutenant. During the war he was deployed in Yugoslavia, between Mostar in Bosnia and Dalmatia, where he was captured. Until 12 January 1944 he was interned in some Stalags in Poland (Szczecinski, Deblin-Irena, Biala Podlaska Siedlee/Siedlce); from March 1944 to January 1945 he was at Sandbostel and from 9 January 1945 at Oflag 83 in Wietzendorf..
32. s.ten. Marco Giacovella – Bari
33. s.ten. Fiorentino D'Amico – Sezze (Latina)
34. s.ten. Vito De Vita – Messina
35. s.ten. Natale Ferrara- Messina
36. s.ten. Marcello Arcuri – Naples
37. s.ten. Giuseppe Basile – Palermo
38. s.ten. Giorgio Balboni – Carrara 18.10.1917 - died of congestion 15.4.1945 Silver Medal for Military Valor - buried in Hamburg in the Italian Military Cemetery of Honour - Grave Position: Box 1 - Row K - Grave 22
39. s.ten. Vittorio Bellini – Monza (MB). He was in the barracks in Verona, when the city was occupied by the Germans. Rather than going  home, he stayed with a few others to save what could be saved: postal packages sent to the military by families, documents and office equipment. He also slashed the vehicle tires to render them unusable by the Germans.
40. s.ten. Giorgio Benedetti – Rome
41. s.ten. Bruno Calabresi - Genoa
42. s.ten. Ettore Ceriani – Uboldo (Varese)
43. s.ten. Vittorio Boccabella – Teramo- a student at the Faculty of Foreign Languages of the Oriental Institute of Naples, he interrupted his studies to respond to the call to arms and was conscripted in 01.01.1941. Later he obtained the rank of second lieutenant at the Officers' School of L'Aquila and was sent to Greece and assigned to the 11th Casale Infantry Regiment. For about 3 years his unit operated on the Greek-Albanian front Captured  Missolonghi (Greece) on 9 September 1943.
44. s.ten. Giovanni Anelli – Turin 15.2.1914 - died of pneumonia on 6.5.1945 and buried in the cemetery of Lahde.