The history of Aguishi

The island of Cefalonia is located in the Gulf of Corinth in western Greece, with a total area of ??only 350 square miles. It is now a beautiful tourist destination. And 69 years ago (1943), a massacre that is still unknown to the public took place here. The party massacred was naturally the German fascists who were listed as the invaders, and the party massacred was neither the Greek resistance fighter nor the Greek resistance fighters. Not ordinary civilians either, but Italian troops who had been allies of Germany. What is going on? Let us open up the dusty archives and learn about this unknown history.

After 1940, the Greek island of Kefalonia was occupied by Italy, which belonged to the Axis powers. On September 8, 1943, some Italian soldiers led by Marshal Badoglio launched a coup, imprisoned Mussolini, the leader of the Italian fascist party, and announced his surrender to the Allies. The same goes for Kefalonia. Stationed on the island at that time was the 33rd Infantry Division of the Italian Army, also known as the "Acqui Division" (Acqui Division), which was under the command of the 11th Army of the Italian Army stationed in Greece. The commander of the "Agui" division is 52-year-old General Antonio Gandin. He is a veteran of World War II and won the Iron Cross of Nazi Germany.

However, the German army regarded their former Italian companions as traitors. In order to prevent the Italian army from fully falling to the Allies, the German army stepped up its deployment of additional troops to Kefalonia Island in an attempt to eliminate this Italian army. force. On September 13, 1943, two more German reinforcements came to Kefalonia by boat. The situation was extremely serious. In order to protect himself, General Gandin decided to launch an attack on the Germans. The "Agui" Division shelled German transport ships and sank one of them. The German army immediately launched a frantic attack on the "Agui" division from land and air. A large number of German bombers concentrated on bombing Argostoli, the largest town on Kefalonia Island and its surroundings, where the "Agui" division was stationed. area. On September 21, the "Agui" Division was forced to surrender to the Germans after losing 1,300 people. The next day, a tragic massacre occurred. The German army began to shoot unarmed Italian prisoners in groups of 4 to 10. The massacre lasted for 4 hours, and 4,750 Italian soldiers, including General Gandin, were massacred.

At that time, this tragedy was almost unknown outside Italy and Greece, and it was long forgotten in the vast historical materials of World War II after the war. It was not until the beginning of this century that people began to seriously study this incident because of the search for the murderer at that time. As the investigation continues, some questions about the massacre continue to surface.

The first is why the "Agui" division was defeated in the face of the German army that was not numerically superior. According to archives, the history of the "Agui" division can be traced back to 1703. In 1831, the unit was officially named after this town in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, which is famous for its hot springs. The "Agui" division is a full-strength division with 11,500 soldiers and 500 officers. In addition to three entire regiments of combat troops, there are also artillery regiments, air defense battalions, machine gun battalions, reconnaissance companies, communications companies and medical units directly under the division. The team is not lacking in strength. The German army originally stationed only one garrison regiment and one artillery team on the island. After the Italian surrender, the German army gradually increased its troops. If the "Agui" division had acted quickly, it would not have caused such a tragedy. The reason is, on the one hand, that the Italian army is poorly equipped, especially lacks heavy weapons. There was a joke in World War II that the Italian M13 medium tank could not even defeat the American "Sherman" light tank. The "Agui" division did not have any armor protection facilities, and lacked air defense weapons. It was helpless in the face of bombing by German aircraft, resulting in a large number of casualties. On the other hand, after Italy surrendered to the Allies on September 8, according to the order of the commander of the 11th Army, the "Agui" Division was prepared to hand over its weapons to the German troops stationed in Kefalonia in exchange for peace. Guaranteed return to Italy. The "Agui" division is eager to return home, but has no intention of preparing for war. This may be the more important reason.

The second is the fate of the remaining personnel of the "Agui" division. According to archives, about 4,000 Holocaust survivors of the "Agui" division were shipped to mainland Greece and then transferred to Germany and forced to serve as wartime laborers. In the process, several ships hit mines and sank in the Ionian Sea near Malta, and about 3,000 soldiers were buried at the bottom of the sea.

What is even more tragic is that when the shipwreck occurred, the Italian navy, which had surrendered to the British and American Allies, was preparing to go to sea to rescue its compatriots, but was not approved by the Allies.

The third is the ending of the mass murderer. According to the archives, the main culprit in the Kefalonia Massacre was the 2nd Battalion of the 98th Regiment of the German 1st Mountain Division. The battalion commander was Major Harald von Hirschfeld. On January 18, 1945, Heichfeld, who was already the major general commander of the 78th People's Assault Division, was killed by a Soviet plane on the outskirts of Warsaw, Poland. After his death, he was posthumously promoted to lieutenant general by Nazi Germany. The commander of the 1st Mountain Division, General Hubert Lanz (later promoted to the German Mountain Forces General), was convicted by the Nuremberg Military Tribunal after the war for commanding the massacre and war crimes committed in Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Sentenced to 12 years in prison, he was released in 1951. In 2002, the investigation into the Kefalonia massacre was reopened in Germany, and 10 of the more than 300 survivors of the former 1st Mountain Division were investigated and potentially found guilty. At this time, the oldest of these people was 93 years old, and the youngest was 81 years old.

There are many mysteries surrounding the massacre in Kefalonia. As recorded in the archives, the "Agui" division was also equipped with three black shirt combat units (similar to the German SS troops). They are the 19th and 27th Blackshirt Battalions and the 367th Blackshirt Machine Gun Company. Although there is information that these black shirt troops returned to Italy in 1942, the specific circumstances are unknown. The role of these fanatical Nazis in the Holocaust remains a mystery. There are many such mysteries. For example, researchers on the Holocaust once believed that General Gandin, the commander of the "Agui" division, had been to the Soviet front line, but the latest research proves that he had never been to the Soviet Union. However, the "Agui" Division was not always stationed in Greece. In the early 1940s, they were stationed in Albania. The black-shirted troops were also attached to the "Agui" division at about that time.

According to the final statistics, 9,646 soldiers and 390 officers of the "Agui" Division died. The heroic behavior of this unit was respected by the Allies. They were the only defeated unit during World War II that was able to retain the military flag and return to the motherland. In the 1950s, the remains of more than 3,000 victims of the "Agui" division, including 189 officers, were transported back to their native Italy, and they were buried in the Italian War Cemetery in Bari. Unfortunately, Commander Gandin’s body could not be found. In 1975, "Agui" reappeared in the Italian army's sequence. This fully mechanized force is now based in Naples. In 2005, a film reflecting the massacre, "Cefalonia" (translated in Chinese as "The Tragic Aguishi"), was released. "Captain Clery's Mandolin" starring the famous American movie star Nicola Cage also reflects the story of the Italian troops stationed in Kefalonia. It's just that today, we no longer know whether the "Agui" division really has such a "Captain Clery", let alone verify his fate in the massacre.