Inigo Campioni

Inigo Campioni (14 November 1878 – 24 May 1944) was an Italian naval officer during most of the first half of the 20th century. He served in four wars, and is best known as an admiral in the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina) during World War II. He was later executed by the Italian Social Republic for refusing to collaborate.

Birth and early career Campioni was born in Viareggio, Province of Lucca, Italy, on 14 November 1878. He entered the Italian Naval Academy at Leghorn (Livorno) in 1893. He graduated in 1896 and then to tenente di vascello (ship-of-the-line lieutenant) in 1905.

Campioni participated in the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–1912, serving as an officer aboard the armored cruiser Amalfi.

On 15 July 1941, Campioni was appointed governor of the Italian Aegean Islands (or Italian Dodecanese) and made commander of all Axis armed forces operating in that area. In November 1941, he reached retirement age and was transferred to the naval auxiliary, although he remained on active duty as governor and commander in the Aegean.

Imprisonment and execution The Germans placed Campioni in a prisoner-of-war camp at Schokken (now Skoki) in Poland. In January 1944, they transported him to the northern portion of Italy administered by the Italian Social Republic, a German client regime led by Benito Mussolini, which took custody of him and jailed him at Verona. the tribunal sentenced Campioni and Mascherpi after very brief deliberations to death by firing squad. The tribunal downgraded the charge from high treason to "harming the interests of the state", allowing the two admirals to face the more honorable death of being shot in the chest rather than in the back.

The Italian Social Republic offered Campioni a pardon on the condition that he recognize it as Italys legitimate government, but he rejected the pardon and he and Mascherpa were executed by a firing squad composed of youths aged 17 and 18 in the city square at Parma on 24 May 1944. The Italian Republic posthumously awarded Campioni the Gold Medal of Military Valor in November 1947.

"As governor and commander of the Armed Forces of the Italian Aegean islands found himself, in the crucial period of the armistice, at the head of one of the most difficult, distant, and vulnerable areas. Having fallen into the hands of the enemy following the occupation of his command headquarters, he repeatedly refused to collaborate with them or in any case to join an illegal government. Tried and condemned by an extraordinary tribunal for having carried out the orders received from the legitimate authorities and for having kept faith with his soldier's oath, he maintained a proud and firm demeanor, refusing to sign the request for mercy and to give even formal membership to the Italian Social Republic, up to the supreme sacrifice of life. He fell while commanding the firing squad himself, after having declared that 'one must know how to offer one's life to one's country at any moment, because there is nothing higher and more sacred than the homeland.' Aegean-Northern Italy, 1941–1944. " —9 November 1947