Mario Roatta

Mario Roatta (2 February 1887 – 7 January 1968) was an Italian general. After serving in World War I he rose to command the Corpo Truppe Volontarie which assisted Francisco Franco's nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War. He was the deputy chief of staff of the Italian Army from October 1939 to March 1941 and from March 1941 to January 1942 its chief of staff and helped in preparing for the invasion of Yugoslavia. Roatta would gain the nickname "Black Beast of Yugoslavia” due to his brutal methods of repression.

He is best known for his role as the commander of the Italian Second Army in its repression against civilians, in the Slovene- and Croatian-inhabited areas of Italian-occupied and annexed Yugoslavia during World War II. He constructed a policy in which he attempted to eliminate the Yugoslav Partisans, helped manage relations with the authorities of the puppet Independent State of Croatia, and "greatly advanced and systematized" collaboration with the Chetniks. As a "manifesto for repression in the Yugoslav territories", Roatta issued Circular 3C which urged "ethnic clearance" be carried out and stressed the need for "complete cleansing" of Slovene-inhabited areas. In line with Circular 3C's objectives Roatta ordered summary executions, hostage taking, reprisals, internments, burning of houses and whole villages, and the deportation of 25,000 people, who were placed in Italian concentration camps at Rab, Gonars, Monigo (Treviso), Renicci d'Anghiari, Chiesanuova and elsewhere. The survivors received no compensation from the Italian state after the war. The deportees had formed about 7.5 percent of the total population of the Italian-annexed Province of Ljubljana.

Early life Mario Roatta was born 2 February 1887 in Modena, Kingdom of Italy to Marie Antoinette Richard, a French native of Savoy and Giovan Battista Roatta, who was a native of the province of Cuneo. His father was a captain in the Royal Italian Army.

Early military career In 1904, he entered a military school in Modena. When he was nineteen Roatta became an active soldier in the army and was promoted in 1906 to the rank of second lieutenant in the 26th infantry regiment stationed in Turin. Executions, hostage-taking and killing, reprisals, internments into the Rab and Gonars concentration camps, and the burning of houses and villages were ordered. According to historians James Walston and Carlo Spartaco Capogeco, the annual mortality rate in the Rab concentration camp was higher than the average mortality rate in Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald (which was 15%), at least 18 percent. Monsignor Joze Srebnic, Bishop of Veglia (Krk island), reported to Pope Pius XII that "witnesses, who took part in the burials, state unequivocally that the number of the dead totals at least 3,500".

With the Chetniks, however, Roatta was free to create his own policy and collaboration between the two was "greatly advanced and systematized" under his supervision and carried out by all Italian commanders in the Italian annexed or occupied areas of Yugoslavia.

On 1 March 1942, Roatta issued the Circular 3C which was distributed to ranks up to battalion command in areas occupied and annexed by the Italians. It was a "manifesto for repression in the Yugoslav territories" that urged mass internment and a scorched earth strategy in order for "de-Balkanization" and "ethnic clearance". There was no resistance from the High Command of the Second Army for the "evacuation of entire regions." In "abnormal" (areas where military action was taking place) occupied districts, Roatta demanded that all families that, without good reason, lacked their able-bodied male members between the ages of sixteen and sixty years, be interned and deported. He justified this mass internment with the intense danger that the rebels posed. Suspicious groups were to be identified, taken as hostage, and kept in custody. When attacks were carried out against the Italians and perpetrators weren't identified within forty-eight hours the hostage were to be executed. Residents near railway lines, roads, telephone lines, and military depots were to be implicated in sabotage acts and if information that led to an arrest within forty-eight hours was not provided, they would be interned, their cattle confiscated, and their houses destroyed. Roatta also declared that all males, able-bodied or wounded, near rebel groups were to be regarded as insurgents if they wore military uniforms, had band badges, or carried military equipment.

In addition there were "ten commandments" stipulating that:

On 6 March 1942, in a report to the General Staff of the Army, he created a policy towards the Chetniks with four points:

Roatta later explained his policy in more detail in his postwar memoirs:

On 23 May 1942, Roatta met with Mussolini who told him that "the best situation is when the enemy is dead. So we must take numerous hostages and shoot them whenever necessary." To implement this in Province of Ljubljana, Roatta suggested the closure of the Province of Fiume and Croatia, the evacuation of people in the east of the former frontiers to a distance of three to four kilometers inland, the organization of border patrols to kill anyone attempting to cross, the mass internment of "twenty to thirty thousand persons" to Italian concentration camps, burning down houses, and the confiscation of property from villagers suspected of having contact with Slovene Partisans for families of Italian soldiers. He also mentioned the need to extend the plan to Dalmatia and for the construction of concentration camps. Roatta insisted, "If necessary don't shy away from using cruelty. It must be a complete cleansing. We need to intern all the inhabitants and put Italian families in their place."

Italian withdrawal and Chetnik collaboration On 19 June 1942, an Italian-Croatian agreement was formalized in Zagreb regarding the withdrawal of around half the Italian forces present in Zones II and III, leaving the Croatian government to maintain the Chetnik militias established there by the Italians – provided that the Chetniks recognized the sovereignty of the Independent State of Croatia.

Since September 1942, the Chetniks attempted to persuade the Italians into carrying out a "large operation" within their occupation zone. Roatta met with Chetnik leader Ilija Trifunović-Birčanin on September 10 and 21. Trifunović-Birčanin urged him to take action "as soon as possible" in a large operation against the Yugoslav Partisans in the Prozor-Livno area and offered aid in the form of 7,500 Chetniks on the condition that they be provided the necessary arms and supplies. In the meeting on September 10, Trifunović-Birčanin told Roatta that he was not under the command of Draža Mihailović, but that he had seen him on July 21 in Avtovac and had his approval in collaborating with the Italians. In late September or early October, Mihailović, responding to a letter from Trifunović-Birčanin dated September 20, congratulated him on his conduct and "high comprehension of the national line" in these talks.

On 16 September 1942, Roatta reported to the Italian Supreme Command (Comando Supremo) that he had a total of 12,320 Chetniks under his command and the possibility of arming 6,000 more. By February 1943 there were 20,514 Chetniks under the command of the Italian Second Army.

In early October the Italian-Chetnik offensive Operation Alfa was launched and targeted Partisans northwest of the middle part of the Neretva. Between 3,000 and 5,500 Chetniks took part in the operation and were under the command of Petar Baćović and Dobroslav Jevđević. On 14–15 October 1942, while in progress of the operation, the Chetniks massacred 543 Catholic and Muslim civilians on the pretense that they harbored and aided the Partisans. Roatta objected to these "massive slaughters" of noncombatant civilians and threatened to halt Italian aid to the Chetniks if they did not end and stated that "I request that Commander Trifunović be apprised that if the Chetnik violence against the Croatian and Muslim population is not immediately stopped, we will stop supplying food and daily wages to those formations whose members are perpetrators of the violence. If this criminal situation continues, more severe measures will be undertaken."

On 10 October 1942, Mladen Lorković, Croatian minister of foreign affairs, wrote a letter and memorandum concerning the increase in Chetnik anti-Croatian activity and terror that occurred between August and September, especially in Herzegovina, central Dalmatia, and Lika. He repeated three demands: the removal of Chetniks from areas in which Catholics and Muslims resided; the removal of Serbian and Montenegrin Chetnik commanders from their posts; and the severe punishment of Chetniks that did not obey "the life, property, and honor of Croatian citizens and against the dignity of the Croatian state." A few days later on 15 October, Roatta held talks with Pavelić in Zagreb and primarily discussed the Chetniks and the handover of Jews to German or Croatian authorities. Roatta did not directly address the transfer of Jews and ultimately few were sent. In regard to the Chetniks, he promised to fulfill previous Croatian requests. On 31 October 1942, in response to the letter of protest by Lorković, Roatta claimed that the acts were not of "mass character" and that they were carried out by individuals and small groups uncontrolled by the MVAC or carried out by the Communists. He denied that the Italians supported any terrorist activity against the Croats and that intervention urging peace was undertaken when they had witnessed them.

On 16 December 1942, Adolf Hitler ordered the Armed Forces Commander in South-East Europe, Generaloberst Alexander Löhr to crush the resistance in Yugoslavia and on 8 January 1943, Roatta and Löhr met in Zagreb where they devised a detailed plan for Case White. Near the end of February 1943, Roatta was replaced by General Mario Robotti, commander of Italian troops in Slovenia, as commander of the Second Army. Robotti vigorously implemented Roatta's Circular 3C while in power and in September work on a permanent barricade that would encircle Ljubljana was begun.

Sicily After leaving Yugoslavia, Roatta took over command of Sixth Army in Sicily on 11 February 1943. They cite the forgiveness of Roatta, and the jailing of two Italian filmmakers who depicted the Italian invasion of Greece, as examples of historical revisionism.

Roatta was put on trial in Italy, but on 5 March 1945, he escaped from the Virgilio Army Hospital in Rome. A reward of one million lire ($10,000) was offered for his capture. The following day, a "mild mass meeting" took place at the Italian royal palace in protest of his escape and escalated into a riot ending with one person dead. On 4 April, Sergeant Stuart W. Mathes put up a personal reward of $20,000 for Roatta's capture. Roatta fled to Spain, where he lived under the protection of dictator Francisco Franco. Roatta was subsequently convicted and sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment plus one year of solitary confinement. His sentence was overturned by the Italian High Court of Appeal in 1948. Beginning in 1964, a number of Roatta's works were published. He returned to Rome in 1966, and lived there until his death on 7 January 1968.

Personal life Roatta married Ines Mancini on 14 January 1922. The couple had a child, Sergio, who was born in 1928.