La caccia ai fascisti : un episodio della resa dei conti nell'aprile '45 in Lombardia

The Air Force Major of the Social Republic of Italy Adriano Visconti, who was a war hero celebrated by the fascist propaganda for his undertakings in the skies of the Mediterranean, was captured and killed by the partisans on April 29, 1945, during the final insurrection for the liberation of Northern Italy. A political speculation was fomented on this episode by the neo-fascists and revisionists to criminalize the experience of the 'Resistance' and the activity of the Italian Communist Party, whose partisan leaders were accused to have premeditated, with the complicity of the Party, various crimes, including the assassination of Major Visconti. The available reconstructions of the end of Major Visconti are based mainly on memorial sources and they have left many unanswered questions, providing different views on military history.

This article proposes a new reconstruction of this event by examining the documents of the partisan General Headquarters (Comando Generale delle Brigate Garibaldi) and those of the local organisation of Italian National Liberation Committee. The essay observes Visconti's death from the point of view of the partisans and sets it in the context of the so-called "total" war, characterized by the definition of the historian Claudio Pavone of World War II as a "civil war", "liberation war" and "class war". [Publisher's Text].