Italienische Historiographie zur italienischen Besatzung im Unabhängigen Staat Kroatien. Literaturbericht
Italian Literature about the Italian Occupation Policy in the Independent Croatian State

Summary/Abstract: In the last two decades various articles on the Italian occupation in Yugoslavia during World War II have been published. In Italy, the research on this topic is closely linked to the scholarly debate about the image of the “bravo Italiano”. Important aspects of this image were founded both on the different behavior of Italian and German soldiers in the occupied territories and on the different interpretations of anti-Semitism. Besides the works on Italian racial laws and the Italian wars in Africa, it was the research on the Italian occupation in the Balkans that was to lead to a revision of the picture of good Italians. This article sums up the newest Italian research on the Italian occupation in the “Independent State of Croatia” 1941-1943 under the following thematic aspects: Italian politics against Jews, Italian counterinsurgency and Italian relationship to Croats and Serbs. It shows that the historians’ aim to “correct” the image of the Italian army has fostered the research of long neglected aspects of Italian occupation, like the counterinsurgency or the politics against Jews. Yet, the concentration on the image of “bravo Italiano” has simultaneously led to the abandonment of other research topics like everyday life, soldiers’ mentalities or comparative research of German and Italian occupation in Croatia.

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