Arrigo Boldrini RIP

Kyt · Feb 3, 2008

Italian partisan leader whose tactical vision made him one of the most effective in resisting the German occupation

Arrigo Boldrini obituary - Times Online

Even 60 years on, the size of the contribution made by the Italian Resistance to the defeat of Fascism remains uncertain, the subject in turn of patriotic and political myth, scholarly revisionism and ardent debate. What is undisputed is that, of the country’s partisan leaders, Arrigo Boldrini was the greatest tactician and probably the most militarily effective.

Boldrini had just turned 28 when the Italian forces laid down their arms in September 1943. Himself a former infantry officer, he immediately called from the steps of the statue of Garibaldi in his home town of Ravenna for a rising against the newly occupying Germans. Arming themselves with rifles seized from a police barracks, he and a handful of others then joined a band of anti-Fascists, led by a farmer, Mario Gordini, who had been sporadically harassing Mussolini’s forces throughout the war.

Hitherto, those bands fighting against Fascism — composed mostly of Communists, many of them intellectuals and Jews (such as Primo Levi) — had thought themselves safe only in the mountains. Indeed, Boldrini took at first to the Apennines, but was swiftly dislodged when the Germans brought in reinforcements. Unlike most of the partisan leaders, however, Boldrini had strategic vision, and bigger plans than hit-and-run raids by isolated groups. His native province of Romagna, to the north and east of Bologna, is conspicuously devoid of mountains, but its hilly terrain is scored with myriad streams, rivers and canals which, around Ravenna, drain into marshland.

Anticipating the guerrilla warfare of future decades, Boldrini proposed to move the partisans into this plain, hiding them in open sight in villages and farms. As he outlined his scheme, another partisan laughingly asked if he thought he was Bülow, the Prussian general whose tactics had defeated Napoleon’s armies. Boldrini adopted “Commandante Bülow” as his nom de guerre, and as his reputation grew the Germans believed the partisans were led by one of their deserters.

By June 1944, when the Allies reached Rome, Boldrini had united Romagna’s partisans under him in a battalion-strength unit named for Gordini, who had been shot by the Germans. Central to its effectiveness was its discipline and strong command structure, much influenced by that of the Communist Party to which Boldrini and many other partisan leaders belonged.

By and large, experience had given Allied commanders a low opinion of the partigiani, but this was to change in November when Boldrini, emboldened by contacts made with a British raiding force, Popski’s Private Army, took it upon himself to row down the Adriatic coast to Eighth Army headquarters. There he outlined plans for a surprise joint attack on the German garrison at Ravenna that so impressed General Sir Richard McCreery that he agreed to the operation.

At dawn on December 4, 2,000 partisans moved out of their hiding places in the marshes to surround German positions north of the city. These quickly surrendered. As Boldrini had anticipated, the rest of the garrison moved out of Ravenna to counter-attack — enabling Canadian troops to enter unopposed from the south, and Popski’s men from the east. Ravenna was liberated with hardly a shot fired, and its historic art treasures undamaged.

Despite being wounded, Boldrini kept up the pursuit of the Germans as far as Ferrara. McCreery subsequently agreed to his 28th Garibaldi Brigade fighting alongside the Eighth Army and, in early 1945, as part of the reconstituted Italian Army, they played a leading part in the push into the Veneto. In February, McCreery decorated Boldrini in the piazza in Ravenna with Italy’s highest military decoration, the Gold Medal for Martial Valour.

Arrigo Boldrini was born in 1915. The son of a cabman, Boldrini studied land management before in 1936 volunteering (as many Italians did at the time) for the Fascist militia. He later called it “a wrong choice”. When war came, he served as a lieutenant with the 120th Regiment in Yugoslavia, where his sergeant converted him to communism.

After the war Boldrini was a member of the assembly that devised Italy’s new constitution. Then he entered politics, serving from 1953 until 1994 as first a Communist Party MP and then as a senator. He was also for decades, the leader of the partisan veterans association.

For much of that time, Boldrini was subject to repeated accusations that in May 1945 he had sanctioned at Codevigo, near Padua, the massacre of dozens of troops and civilians loyal to the RSI, Mussolini’s rump regime based at Salò. Boldrini consistently denied this, while admitting that his men had been hard to control in a climate of near civil war. A mooted prosecution of those responsible was eventually shelved.

A short, lively man, who commanded attention more by his presence than any oratorical gifts, Boldrini remained a committed Communist but was always open to dialogue with those of other persuasions. These included his boyhood friend and fellow partisan leader Benigno Zaccagnini, who became head of the Christian Democrats. Latterly Boldrini had even taken to attending Mass — when he could spare time from playing beccaccino, a Romagnolo variation of whist. He also wrote or co-authored 25 books, mainly on politics or the war, including Il diario di Bülow (1985).

He is survived by a son.

Arrigo Boldrini, partisan leader and politician, was born on September 6, 1915. He died on January 22, 2008, aged 92
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Antipodean Andy · Feb 3, 2008

An influential man. I wonder what he thought of the constantly changing political scene in Italy after the war. Would be interesting to see what he wrote on the subject.

Don't see this too often these days from any party:
Boldrini remained a committed Communist but was always open to dialogue with those of other persuasions.

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Arrigo Boldrini RIP

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