Like Iader, Gianni Rossi, the second-in-command of the Stella Rossa, also came from a background of anti-fascism. It is often forgotten that during the late 1920s and for much of the thirties both Mussolini and fascism were hugely popular in Italy. Even those who remained less convinced tended to sign up for their tessera, the Fascist Party membership card; it made life easier. Those who stuck their neck above the parapet and denounced the Fascists were comparatively few and far between. But Signor Rossi was one of the few, refusing the tessera and continually finding himself in trouble with the local Fascists. ‘If there was a Fascist dignitary due to be visiting the area,’ says Gianni, ‘my father would be picked up beforehand and put in jail for a few days.’ He had been put in prison and out of harm’s way before Hitler’s visit in 1937.
Despite this, the Rossi family lived in relative comfort in their family home in the village of Gardelletta, along the banks of the River Setta beneath the Monte Sole massif. Being self-employed was the only real option for those who refused to carry the tessera: when not in trouble with the Fascists, Gianni’s father, a decorated veteran of the First World War, managed to be a successful builder and property developer.
Gianni – or Giovanni as he had been christened – had been born in February 1923. At twelve, he had left school and had become an apprentice mechanic in Bologna. Soon after, he had moved there, living with an aunt until just before the war, when the whole family moved into a large apartment in the city. Although the family had kept the house in Gardelletta, Gianni’s father, Brazilian mother, and younger brother had continued living in Bologna throughout the war. In 1941, Gianni had been called up for military service and had joined the navy. Fortunately for him, he had been ill during the summer of 1943, and so at the time of the armistice had been at home in Bologna, convalescing. And it was during this time that he met up again with his old childhood friend, Mario Musolesi, always known to everyone as ‘Lupo’ – Wolf.
Like Gianni, Lupo came from a family that had always been firmly anti-Fascist. Several years older than Gianni, Lupo had also returned to Bologna, having successfully avoided capture following the armistice. It was during meetings with Gianni and a few others that the seeds of the Stella Rossa were sown. Lupo had in fact been approached by the local Fascist federale (party secretary) to become involved with the Repubblica Sociale Italiana. As a popular local figure who had served in North Africa, he was seen to be just the person they needed. But Lupo vehemently refused, believing that fascism was dead and that a German-controlled Italy had no future.
Two incidents, however, pushed him and Gianni towards active resistance. In October, anti-fascist posters had been put up around Vado, and Lupo was accused of being behind it. Finding out his denouncer, Lupo then beat him up and was promptly arrested. Although released soon after, he was seen as an anti-fascist agitator and was becoming a marked man.
The second incident occurred soon after while Lupo was at the Musolesi family home at Ca’ Veneziani. The house lay near a bend on the railway line that ran alongside the River Setta. Trains had to slow at the bend and Lupo and Gianni watched five POWs jump off in a bid for freedom. One was injured as he jumped; another was shot and killed, but three managed to get clear. Lupo ran to their aid and after taking them first to Ca’ Veneziani, hid them in the mountains as RSI and German patrols continued to hunt for the escaped men.
The die had effectively been cast. The POWs–aScotknown as Jock, and two South Africans, Steeve and Hermes – were kept hidden in the mountains, but along with his friend Gianni, and a few others, Lupo decided to go underground permanently. They began by raiding some of the army barracks that were still largely deserted. With arms, they could actively resist Germany and the new Fascist regime. ‘We didn’t have much of a plan,’ Gianni admits. ‘We borrowed a lorry, raided one of the barracks, and took a stash of rifles and ammunition.’ They then headed back to their homes in Gardelletta and Ca’ Veneziani and hid their cache.
The Stella Rossa was formally consecrated in the crypt of Vado’s church, overseen by the parish priest, Don Eolo Cattani, with Lupo elected as the band’s leader and Gianni as his second-in-command. Following this they recruited the three escaped POWs and put the word about to any draft-dodgers and to the mountain contadini. That first winter they did little, merely meeting up nightly, continuing to gather numbers and trying to carry on with their lives as best they could. The baptism of fire came at the end of November when they blew up a freight convoy that had halted on the railway. For Gianni, there had been no crisis of conscience. ‘I opened fire without emotion,’ he says. ‘It was just something I had to do.’ There were now about twenty of them in all. Each one had now crossed their own personal Rubicons, and with it came the usual hazards outlaws have faced throughout the ages: a price was on their heads; and they were forced to take to the mountains for good, living in the barns of sympathetic contadini, or in caves, never in one place for long. Following threats, even Gianni’s parents were forced to keep constantly on the move.
By the spring of 1944, their numbers had swelled to several hundred, as the first two deadlines for joining the New Republican Army passed and more and more young men avoiding the draft headed to the mountains instead. Most were frightened young men, but as the band grew so did the dangers – dangers that Lupo was initially slow to act upon.
At the end of the following January, Olindo Sammarchi – known as ‘Cagnone’ – one of the original members of the band, betrayed Lupo to the Fascists. On his information Amedeo Arcioni, a Republican spy, was sent to infiltrate the Stella Rossa. Although Arcioni’s real motives were soon discovered, Lupo dithered over what to do with him, refusing to accept his old friend Cagnone’s treachery. Instead, that night Arcioni was taken to a hide-out along with Gianni, Lupo and a third partisan called Fonso. Lupo was on watch while Gianni and Fonso slept. It was a cave they used regularly and to make it more habitable, they had lined it with wood. Lupo had stuck his dagger into the wood above them and was watching at the edge of the cave when Arcioni went out to relieve himself. On his return, he snatched the knife and lunged at Lupo, catching him in the arm. Lupo’s shouts for help woke Gianni instantly. Jumping up, he tried to pull off the traitor, but in the resulting tussle, Arcioni managed to get the better of him and was forcing the dagger ever closer to Gianni’s head until the point pierced the skin on his forehead. Just at the moment when Gianni thought his time had come, Lupo, together with Fonso, who had by now also woken, managed to come to his rescue and between them they were able to pin him down. After that there was no more hesitation. ‘We took him outside,’ says Gianni, ‘and we killed him.’
Another blow came on 6 May when Lupo’s brother, Guido Musolesi, was arrested. Since the previous autumn, he had been helping his brother’s fledgling band of partisans by working undercover with the local Fascist headquarters – the fascio – and feeding information back to the partisans. On the same day, a squad of GNR went to the Musolesi family home at Ca’ Veneziani, arrested Lupo’s parents and burnt the house to the ground. All were later sprung from jail, but these events had hardened the partisan leader. Unsurprisingly, he developed an often excessive distrust of others – one that on occasion led to a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ attitude, as Carlo Venturi discovered almost to his cost on his arrival on Monte Sole a fortnight later. The life of a partisan was brutal, and on Monte Sole there was now only one law and that was the say-so of the Stella Rossa and Lupo.
If the Stella Rossa gave the impression that they were making it up as they went along and somewhat preoccupied with fighting vendettas against local Fascists, then that was because that was precisely what was happening. Nor were they alone. Lots of groups of partisans had been emerging all over German-occupied Italy, learning as they went along and often paying for their mistakes with great casualties in the process – just as the 8th Garibaldi Brigade had done in April 1944. What was needed was guidance and a system of control and unified organisation. This was beginning to emerge, however, thanks in the first place to the undercover anti-fascist parties