Liberation Day (Italian: Festa della Liberazione [ˈfɛsta della liberatˈtsjoːne]), also known as the Anniversary of Italy's Liberation (Anniversario della liberazione d'Italia), Anniversary of the Resistance (Anniversario della Resistenza), or simply 25 April (25 aprile [ˌventiˈtʃiŋkwe aˈpriːle]) is a national holiday in Italy that commemorates the liberation of Italy from Nazi German occupation and from the collaborationist puppet state of the Italian Social Republic, during the final phase of World War II. That is distinct from Republic Day (Italy) (Festa della Repubblica), which takes place on 2 June and commemorates the 1946 Italian institutional referendum.
In Italy, Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime used the term anti-fascist to describe its opponents. Mussolini's secret police was officially known as the Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism. During the 1920s in the Kingdom of Italy, Anti-fascists, many of them from the labor movement, fought against the violent Blackshirts and against the rise of the fascist leader Benito Mussolini. After the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) signed a pacification pact with Mussolini and his Fasces of Combat on 3 August 1921, and trade unions adopted a legalist and conciliatory strategy, members of the workers’ movement who opposed this approach formed the Arditi del Popolo.
The Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGL) and the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) refused to officially recognize the Anti-fascist militia and instead maintained a non-violent, legalist strategy, while the Communist Party of Italy (PCd'I) ordered its members to quit the organization. The PCd'I organized several militant groups, though their actions were relatively limited.
The Italian anarchist Severino Di Giovanni, who exiled himself to Argentina following the 1922 March on Rome, organized several bombings against the Italian fascist community. The Italian liberal anti-fascist Benedetto Croce wrote his Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals, which was published in 1925. Other notable Italian liberal anti-fascists around that time were Piero Gobetti and Carlo Rosselli.
Concentrazione Antifascista Italiana (English: Italian Anti-Fascist Concentration), officially known as Concentrazione d'Azione Antifascista (Anti-Fascist Action Concentration), was an Italian coalition of Anti-Fascist groups which existed from 1927 to 1934. Founded in Nérac, France, by expatriate Italians, the CAI was an alliance of non-communist Anti-fascist groups (including republican, socialist, and nationalist) seeking to promote and coordinate expatriate actions to fight fascism in Italy; they published a propaganda paper entitled La Libertà.
Giustizia e Libertà (English: Justice and Freedom) was an Italian anti-fascist resistance movement, active from 1929 to 1945. The movement was co-founded by Carlo Rosselli, Ferruccio Parri, who later became Prime Minister of Italy, and Sandro Pertini, who became President of Italy, were among the movement's leaders. Members of the movement held diverse political beliefs but shared a belief in active, effective opposition to fascism, in contrast to the more cautious approach of older Italian anti-fascist parties. Giustizia e Libertà also made the international community aware of the realities of fascism in Italy, thanks to the work of Gaetano Salvemini.
Many Italian anti-fascists participated in the Spanish Civil War with the hope of setting an example of armed resistance to Franco's dictatorship against Mussolini's regime; hence their motto: "Today in Spain, tomorrow in Italy".
Between 1920 and 1943, several anti-fascist movements were active among the Slovenes and Croats in the territories annexed to Italy after World War I, known as the Julian March. The most influential was the militant insurgent organization TIGR, which carried out numerous acts of sabotages, as well as attacks on representatives of the National Fascist Party and the military. Most of the underground structure of the organization was discovered and dismantled by the Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism (OVRA) in 1940 and 1941, and after June 194, most of its former activists joined the Slovene Partisans.
During World War II, many members of the Italian resistance left their homes and went to live in the mountains, fighting against Italian fascists and German Nazi soldiers during the Italian Civil War. Many cities in Italy, including Turin, Naples and Milan, were freed by anti-fascist uprisings.
April 25 was chosen because it marked the day in 1945 when the National Liberation Committee for Northern Italy (CLNAI) proclaimed a general insurrection in territories still occupied by Nazi-fascist forces. The Committee was based in Milan and was chaired by Alfredo Pizzoni, Luigi Longo, Emilio Sereni, Sandro Pertini, and Leo Valiani (present among others the designated president Rodolfo Morandi, Giustino Arpesani, and Achille Marazza). The proclamation directed the partisan forces active in Northern Italy that were part of the Volunteer Corps of Freedom to attack the Nazi and Fascist garrisons by imposing the surrender, days before the arrival of the Allied troops; at the same time, the National Liberation Committee for Northern Italy personally issued legislative decrees, assuming power "in the name of the Italian people and as a delegate of the Italian Government", establishing among other things the death sentence for all fascist hierarchs and other collaborators of the Nazi occupiers, including Benito Mussolini, who would be killed three days later. "Surrender or die!" was the rallying call of the partisans that day and those immediately following.
The war ends in Italy on 2 May 1945, with the complete surrender of German and RSI forces to the Allied forces, as formally established during the so-called Surrender at Caserta on 29 April 1945, marks the definitive defeat of Nazism and Fascism in Italy. By 1st May, all of northern Italy was liberated from occupation, including Bologna (21 April), Genoa (23 April), Milan (25 April), Turin and Venice (28 April). The liberation put an end to two and a half years of German occupation, five years of war, and twenty-three years of fascist dictatorship. The aftermath of World War II left Italy bitter toward the monarchy for endorsing the Fascist regime for over 20-plus years. These frustrations contributed to a revival of the Italian republican movement.
The liberation symbolically represents the beginning of the historical journey which led to the referendum of 2 June 1946, when Italians opted for the end of the monarchy and the creation of the Italian Republic. This was followed by the adoption of the 1948 Constitution of the Republic, created by the Constituent Assembly and representatives from the anti-fascist forces that defeated the Nazis and the Fascists during the liberation of Italy and the Italian Civil War.
Although other European countries such as Norway, the Netherlands, and France also had partisan movements and collaborationist governments with Nazi Germany during World War II, armed confrontation between compatriots was most intense in Italy, making the Italian case unique. The use of the term "civil war" was frequent by fighters and during the war itself, for example in literary works by Beppe Fenoglio. In the post-war era the definition was generally avoided and used mainly by the right as by fascist politician and historian Giorgio Pisanò. Claudio Pavone's book Una guerra civile. Saggio storico sulla moralità della Resistenza (A Civil War. Historical Essay On the Morality Of the Resistance), published in 1991, led the term "Italian Civil War" to become a widespread term used in Italian and international historiography.
The current date was chosen in 1946. On the proposal of the Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi, King Umberto II of Italy, then prince and lieutenant of the Kingdom of Italy, on 22 April 1946 issued the lieutenant legislative decree n. 185 "Disposizioni in materia di ricorrenze festive" ("Provisions on festive occasions"). The bill states that: