The Behaviour of Italian Troops in the USSR: Guerilla Warfare and Counterinsurgency, 1941-1943

The paper addresses the following issues: the reasons behind Mussolini’s decision to send troops to the Eastern Front; the nature of the Italian occupation; the extent to which the troops absorbed the Fascist ideological message; the relationship between the Italian soldiers and the Wehrmacht troops; the nature of the ties that Italians forged with the Soviet people; and the question of prisoners- of-war. In discussing these debated issues, the writings of well-known scholars who have recently written extensively on the subject will be analysed.