Italian Resistance and Partisan Movements.

There is a wealth of information starting to appear on the Resistenza Italiana
- The movement is also known as the Italian resistance and the Italian partisans.

The brutal conflict they took part in is referred to as the Italian Liberation War (when referring to the part they took in the Italian Campaign against the Axis)
- or as the Italian Civil War (when referring specifically to the conflict with the Fascists.)

Main operational groups organized in September 1943 included:
1. Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale (Committee of National Liberation, or CLN) created by the Italian Communist Party, the Italian Socialist Party, the Partito d'Azione (a republican liberal socialist party), Democrazia Cristiana and other minor parties,
2. The communist Garibaldi Brigades
3. The Giustizia e Libertà (Justice and Freedom) Brigades related to the Partito d'Azione; and
4. The socialist Matteotti Brigades

Smaller groups included Christian democrats and monarchists, such as the Brigate Fiamme Verdi (Green Flame Brigades), 1 Gruppo Divisioni Alpine founded by Enrico Martini, and Organizzazione Franchi founded by Edgardo Sogno, as well as anarchist and apolitical groups.

Rodolfo Graziani estimated the partisan strength at around 70,000-80,000 by May 1944.
Resistenza Italiana losses amounted to 16,000 killed, wounded or captured between September 1943 and May 1944.
According to one estimate, the resistance lost some 50,000 fighters through the entire conflict.

A good place to start reading is here: http://www.desertwar.net/italian-resistance-movement.html

And: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/spring98/OSS.html

and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_resistance_movement

I will have to wait to add more on this stimulating topic at a later date. Something just came up.

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Posted here because, to this day, we still do not have a Secret War Forum here... sigh.