Brigate Osoppo


The Brigate Osoppo-Friuli or Osoppo-Friuli Brigades were autonomous partisan formations founded in the headquarter of the Archbishop Seminary of Udine on 24 December 1943 by partisan volunteers of mixed ideologies, already active in Carnia and Friuli before the Badoglio Proclamation of 8 September. The partisans in this brigade adhered to various and often conflicting ideologies, including both secularism and Catholicism, as well as socialism and liberalism.
The Osoppo aimed to cooperate independently with the communist Garibaldi Brigades and to contribute to the antifascist fight against the occupying German forces. The latter had in fact established the Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral, subtracting the whole territory of Friuli-Venezia Giulia from the authority of the Italian Social Republic and establishing an harsh regime of repression and dispossession, availing of the Waffen-SS formations, cossacks and fascist republican forces.
This autonomous partisan group was led by Candido Grassi, Manlio Cencig, two captains of the Royal Italian Army and Don Ascanio De Luca.
Because of the complex political-military situation of the Friulian territory and Julian March, at the middle of opposite nationalisms and secular ethnic and territorial conflicts, the Osoppo Brigades had often conflictual relationships with Garibaldi formations and they were in contrast with Slovenian-Yugoslav partisan forces.
The name "Osoppo" was a symbolic reference with the history of the region during the Italian unification, when in 1848 the city of Osoppo resisted for seven months against the Austrian troops.

Eastern regions after the 8 September

Dissolution of the Italian state

After the 8 September, the Italian divisions of the 2ª Armata, already involved in an harsh repression and anti-guerrilla struggle in Slovenia against the Yugoslav partisan units and the indigenous population, broke up. In Trieste and Gorizia, general Alberto Ferrero left the command without any order. In Fiume general Gastone Gambara waited until 11 September, when he was reached by the first German divisions who were quickly occupying Istria and he gave them the command. The same happened in Pula. The dissolution of many divisions and the lack of orders led to the deliver of more than 100,000 Italian soldiers deployed in the area to the Germans without any chance to draft a resistance plan. The German occupation did not extended immediately to the whole region and, after the dissolution of the Italian administration, the Yugoslav formations, already located and active in the lands on the border since 1941, took initiative.
The situation was particularly confused: beside the Italian disbanded troops left alone without orders and the coming German divisions, the 9th Corps of the 4th Yugoslav Army penetrated in the area shortly after the 8 September with more than 50,000 soldiers who crossed the Julian Alps and advanced through Karst Plateau and Istria, pointing towards Gorizia, Trieste, Pula and Fiume. Moreover, since the second half of 1941, in the provinces of Gorizia, Pula, Fiume and Trieste there was already an increasing partisan activity of guerrilla-warfare and sabotage by Slovenian resistance groups. The Yugoslav formations, kindled by a strong nationalism and by a spirit of vengeance after the occupation and the harsh repression and the Italianization on the eastern border and in Yugoslavia, did violent retaliations against the Italian minority and those considered as nationalists or fascists.
The merciless attitude of Italian troops and commands during the two years of occupation in Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro, characterized by harsh repressive measures and a high number of killings, devastations and deportations, provoked a violent Slav nationalist reaction at the arrival of the partisans in the Italian territory. Yugoslav formations, often supported by the local Slav population, began to arrest many Italian citizens on the charge of being fascists, but actually there was no distinction among the Italians who were generally considered as "enemies of the people". Arrests were concentrated in Pisino and, after a brief trial, prisoners were shot and threw into the Karst carves. This event, known as Foibe massacres, occurred in September 1943 and led to the death of more than a thousand of Italians, before the conclusion of a precarious agreement of antifascist collaboration between Italian Garibaldi Brigades and Yugoslav partisans.

Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral and repression

According to the Operation Achse as wanted by Hitler and German commanders, the province of Udine and the whole Venezia Giulia were immediately included into the Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral, with the original name used during the domination of the Habsburg monarchy and the clear cancellation of what Italy obtained after the World War I. Those regions were put under the leadership of Carinthian Friedrich Rainer, appointed as High Commissar with full powers, in anticipation of the formal annexation of the region into the Third Reich. In his diaries, Joseph Goebbels talks about annexation project not only for the Adriatic Littoral but even also for the whole Veneto, in order to exploit it as a "tourist attraction area" for the German "master race". On 10 September 1943, provinces of Bolzano, Belluno and Trento were unified into the "Voralpenland" while the territory comprising Udine, Gorizia, Trieste, Pola, Fiume and Ljubljiana was officially established as Adriatisches Kustenland in October, after the completion of the territorial occupation by the German armed forces between 9 September and 12 October.
On 2 October 1943, German troops went to the offensive and launched the Operation Wolkenbruch with three SS divisions and two infantry divisions that repelled the 9th Corps and destroyed the houses used by Yugoslavs as support bases; the operation ended with the German victory on 15 October 1943. On 1 October 1943, Germans established the Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral, administrated by Supreme Commissar Friedrich Rainer to whom was flanked for the repression by SSGruppenführer Odilo Globočnik, previously the coordinator of German extermination camps in Poland.
On 9 October 1943, the Julian provinces, as well as Friuli, were merged into the OZAL and subordinated to the German military administration, subtracting them from the Italian Social Republic.
The policy of German authorities in the Adriatisches Kustenland, ruled by Rainer with dictatorial powers, included the ouster of the political-administrative influence of the RSI, the planning and actuation of measures for a subsequent annexation to the Reich, the economic exploitation, the repression of dissent and anti-fascist partisan struggle. In Carnia, German authorities established even the Cossacks of Don and Kuban led by general Krasnov and prince Zulikize, who created commands in Verzegnis and Paluzza and organized wide plunders and devastations, collaborating into the massive repression of partisans.
Political authorities and military divisions of RSI participated to the repression and the fight against the Resistance formations: divisions of X MAS initially manifested unrealistic anti-Slavic defence purposes on the borderlands but then they ended to dedicate themselves in the repression of Garibaldi and Osoppo Brigades, while some members of the republican police, like Gaetano Collotti and Giuseppe Gueli, organized in Trieste violent and aggressive police apparatus against partisans and their supporters.

Resistance forces and creation of Osoppo Brigades

Born of the Resistance in Friuli and Julian March

In this tough and intricate situation, characterized by inter-ethnic hatreds, spirit of vengeance, opposite nationalisms and ideological extremes, repressions, internments and roundups, the first partisan formations were formed near Udine against the Nazi Germany and collaborationist RSI, with the autonomists of Mario Cencigh, communists of Giacinto Calligaris and Mario Lizzero, militants of the Action Party led by Fermo Solari. In Venezia Giulia there were the Brigata Proletaria and other communist formations were created in Tarnova, Trieste and Istria.
The two main groups of Resistance in those regions were the communists, from the working class of Eastern Veneto, and the rural populations and bourgeois, firmly anchored to the Catholic Church, both united by the anti-German hate but divided by ideologies, while the socialist and Action formations were particularly weak. On November–December 1943, the Osoppo Brigades were formed with the merger between the socialist and Action formations with the catholic ones.

Organization

The purpose of Osoppo Brigades, in which converged also the Giustizia e Libertà formations located in the region, was to fight against Germans and fascists for a democratic state within the Resistance, trying to keep an active collaboration with the Garibaldi communist units and protecting moreover the interests of the Italian population of Friuli and Venezia Giulia facing Yugoslav partisan forces. The Cappello Alpino and a green handkerchief were chosen as recognition signs.
The brigade was named after the small town of Osoppo which resisted to an Austrian siege lasted 168 days in 1848.
The group decided to be autonomous on the operative field, as requested by the non-communist members during the NLC session of 25 November 1943. The Osoppo accepted instead the political direction of NLC of Udine, refused by the Garibaldi Brigades.

1944 and the Republic of Carnia

In the spring of 1944, the Brigata Osoppo, with the command headquartered in the Castello Ceconi of Pielungo, was formed by seven battalions led by Candido Grassi with Don Ascanio De Luca as political commissar. Battalions were dislocated as follows:
On 19 July 1944, the headquarter of Pielungo was put on fire by Germans and a situation of instability occurred in the command after divergences between militants of Giustizia e Libertà and the other Osoppo members.
On 21 August 1944, the Osoppo Brigade was reformed into five brigades between Carnia, Carnic and Julian Prealps and the plain.