Piera Gatteschi Fondelli

Last updated
Piera Gatteschi Fondelli
Born(1902-08-22)22 August 1902
Poppi, Tuscany, Italy [1] [2]
Died7 September 1985(1985-09-07) (aged 83)
Rome, Italy
Buried
Allegiance Italian Social Republic
Service/branch Female Auxiliary Service
Years of service1944-1945
Rank Generale di brigata
Commands heldCommander of the Female Auxiliary Service (1944–45)
Battles/wars Second World War

Piera Fondelli Gatteschi (22 August 1902 - 7 September 1985) was the commander of the Female Auxiliary Service of the Italian Social Republic, a member of the National Fascist Party and a participant in the March on Rome.

Contents

Early life

Piera Fondelli was born in Poppi [1] [2] in Tuscany. Her father died before her birth and she moved to Rome with her mother before 1914. On March 23, 1921, she enrolled in the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento in Rome with Ines Donati with whom she attended the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma. [3] On 19 October 1922 she took part in the PNF congress held in Naples and on October 28, the twenty-year-old Piera was the head of a small group of twenty women who formed the "honor squad escorting the pennant" and with them participated in the March on Rome. [3]

She then became inspector of the Federation of the Urbe, taking care of the Opera nazionale maternità e infanzia  [ it ], of the Italian Red Cross. In 1936 she left her post to follow Count Mario Gatteschi in Italian East Africa, whom she married becoming the Countess Gatteschi Fondelli, an engineer who directed the works on the Assab-Addis Ababa road. When, three years later, she returned to Italy, Mussolini appointed her a Trustee of the Female Fasci of the City which had 150,000 members and in 1940 a national inspector for the party.

After the fall of fascism on 25 July 1943, she took refuge with her in-laws in the Casentino, [4] while her husband, who returned to Africa as a fighter, was imprisoned by the British in Kenya. Informed that Mussolini was freed and founded the Italian Social Republic in Northern Italy, Piera moved to Brescia and started a new collaboration with Alessandro Pavolini, the party secretary. Here, at the end of 1943, Piera wrote to the Mussolini the desire of fascist women to have a more incisive role in the defense of the country, a project supported by Pavolini and accepted by Rodolfo Graziani, since many men were needed for the war and women became necessary to assist them and to replace them in the many non-front-line roles.

On 18 April 1944, the Female Auxiliary Service was established under Fondelli's leadership. The auxiliaries initially provided only nursing assistance in military hospitals, work in offices and propaganda, and set up mobile refreshment places for the troops. In the space of twelve months 6,000 young women participate in six training courses, in Venice and Como; only then were they assigned to the Commands. After April 25, 1945, the Female Auxiliary Service was dissolved and Pavolini suggested destroying all documentation to avoid reprisals against members. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alessandra Mussolini</span> Italian politician

Alessandra Mussolini is an Italian politician, the granddaughter of Benito Mussolini, and a former actress, singer, and model. She currently serves as a Member of the European Parliament for Forza Italia. In 2004, she became the first woman to lead a political party in Italy. She was a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 2008 to 2013 and the Italian Senate from 2013 to 2014 where she was elected under The People of Freedom which is now part of Forza Italia. She was elected to the European Parliament in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Italian Social Republic</span> 1943–1945 German puppet state in northern Italy

The Italian Social Republic, known prior to December 1943 as the National Republican State of Italy, but more popularly known as the Republic of Salò, was a Nazi-German puppet state with limited diplomatic recognition that was created during the later part of World War II, which existed from the beginning of the German occupation of Italy in September 1943 until the surrender of German troops in Italy in May 1945. The German occupation triggered widespread national resistance against it and the Italian Social Republic, leading to the Italian Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alessandro Pavolini</span> Italian politician and writer (1903–1945)

Alessandro Pavolini was an Italian politician, journalist, and essayist. He was notable for his involvement in the Italian fascism government, during World War II, and also for his cruelty against the opponents of fascism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Italian resistance movement</span> Italian combatant organizations opposed to Nazi-Fascism

The Italian resistance movement is an umbrella term for the Italian resistance groups who fought the occupying forces of Nazi Germany and the fascist collaborationists of the Italian Social Republic during the Second World War in Italy from 1943 to 1945. As a diverse anti-fascist movement and organisation, the Resistenza opposed Nazi Germany, as well as Nazi Germany's Italian puppet state regime, the Italian Social Republic, which the Germans created following the Nazi German invasion and military occupation of Italy by the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS from 8 September 1943 until 25 April 1945.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Brigades</span> Auxiliary police unit of the Republican Fascist Party

The Auxiliary Corps of the Black Shirts' Action Squads, most widely known as the Black Brigades, was one of the Fascist paramilitary groups, organized and run by the Republican Fascist Party operating in the Italian Social Republic, during the final years of World War II, and after the signing of the Italian Armistice in 1943. They were officially led by Alessandro Pavolini, former Minister of Culture of the fascist era during the last years of the Kingdom of Italy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Republican Fascist Party</span> Italian fascist political party

The Republican Fascist Party was a political party in Italy led by Benito Mussolini during the German occupation of Central and Northern Italy and was the sole legal representative party of the Italian Social Republic. The PFR was the successor to the National Fascist Party but was more influenced by pre-1922 early radical fascism and anti-monarchism, as its members considered King Victor Emmanuel III to be a traitor after his signing of the surrender to the Allies.

<i>Fasci Italiani di Combattimento</i> Political party in Italy (1919–1921)

The Fasci Italiani di Combattimento was an Italian fascist organisation created by Benito Mussolini in 1919. It was the successor of the Fascio d'Azione Rivoluzionaria, being notably further right than its predecessor. The Fasci Italiani di Combattimento was reorganised into the National Fascist Party in 1921.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ida Dalser</span> First wife of Benito Mussolini (1880–1937)

Ida Irene Dalser was the first wife of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Italian Civil War</span> Civil war fought between the Mussolini regime and Allied-aligned anti-fascists

The Italian Civil War was a civil war in the Kingdom of Italy fought during the Italian campaign of World War II between Italian fascists and Italian partisans and, to a lesser extent, the Italian Co-belligerent Army.

Women in Italy refers to females who are from Italy. The legal and social status of Italian women has undergone rapid transformations and changes during the past decades. This includes family laws, the enactment of anti-discrimination measures, and reforms to the penal code.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Accademia della Farnesina</span> Centre for sport and political education in Fascist Italy

The Academia della Farnesina, also known as the Accademia fascista maschile di educazione fisica or Accademia fascista della Farnesina, was a centre for sport and political education in Fascist Italy.

This is a list of words, terms, concepts, and slogans in the Italian language and Latin language which were specifically used in Fascist Italian monarchy and Italian Social Republic.

<i>Fasci dAzione Rivoluzionaria</i> Political party in Italy

The Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria was an Italian political movement founded in 1914 by Benito Mussolini, and active mainly in 1915. Sponsored by Alceste De Ambris, Mussolini, and Angelo Oliviero Olivetti, it was a pro-war movement aiming to promote Italian entry into World War I. It was connected to the world of revolutionary interventionists and inspired by the programmatic manifesto of the Fascio Rivoluzionario d'Azione Internazionalista, dated 5 October 1914.

Sansepolcrismo is a term used to refer to the movement led by Benito Mussolini that preceded Fascism. The Sansepolcrismo takes its name from the rally organized by Mussolini at Piazza San Sepolcro in Milan on March 23, 1919, where he proclaimed the principles of Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, and then published them in Il Popolo d'Italia, on June 6, 1919, the newspaper he co-founded in November 1914 after leaving Avanti!

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ines Donati</span>

Ines Donati was a political activist and a supporter of the first wave of Italy's Fascist movement.

The Sandro Italico Mussolini School of Fascist Mysticism was established in Milan, Italy in 1930 by Niccolò Giani. Its primary goal was to train the future leaders of Italy's National Fascist Party. The school curriculum promoted Fascist mysticism based on the philosophy of Fideism, the belief that faith and reason were incompatible; Fascist mythology was to be accepted as a "metareality". In 1932, Mussolini described Fascism as "a religious concept of life", saying that Fascists formed a "spiritual community".

The Female Voluntary Corps for Auxiliary Services of the Republican Armed Forces (Italian: Corpo Femminile Volontario per i Servizi Ausiliari delle Forze Armate Repubblicane, better known as the Female Auxiliary Service was a women's corps of the armed forces of the Italian Social Republic, whose components, all voluntary, were commonly referred to as auxiliaries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sabato Martelli Castaldi</span> Italian Air Force general

Sabato Martelli Castaldi was an Italian Air Force general and a member of the Italian Resistance during World War II. He was executed during the Ardeatine massacre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oreste Bonomi</span> Italian politician (1902–1983)

Oreste Bonomi was an Italian Fascist politician, who served as the last Minister for Exchanges and Currencies of the Mussolini Cabinet from February to July 1943.

References

Bibliography