Riccardo Fedel

Riccardo Fedel (23 August 1906 – 12 June 1944), also known by his nom de guerre Libero was an Italian anti-fascist, Communist political fighter, and partisan leader.

Riccardo Giovanni Battista Fedel was born in Gorizia, at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, on 23 August 1906, in an aristocratic family.

In 1912, his father Biagio died whilst journeying to Buenos Aires attempting to reach his wife’s brother Charles in South America.

In 1915 during World War I, the family received the status of ethnic Italian refugees from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and stayed in Milan, where Riccardo completed elementary school and attended the boys technical college in Tortona.

He was then arrested again in October 1926, under the recently introduced laws ‘fascistissime’ (capable of organizing attacks against Benito Mussolini), and sentenced to three years in prison.

He was in political exile at Pantelleria from November 1926 to March 1927 and then in Ustica until October 1927, when he was conditionally released on grounds of poor health, and extorted testimony against other fellow prisoners.

After prison he returned to the Veneto, where the family lived and was recruited as an agent by the Blackshirts Militia for National Security (MVSN) and sent into service in Gorizia.

However he continued to pretend to be an agent of the Militia, whilst printing and distributing subversive communist leaflets in Pordenone, calling for a strike of the textile workers.

The group included Arrigo Boldrini Mario Gordini, Gino Gatta, Giuseppe D’Alema, Ennio Cervellati, John Fusconi, Agis Samaritans, Rodolfo Salvagiani and Virginio Zoffoli.

In addition the presence of the German army in retreat, seeking escaping allied prisoners of war and taking revenge on partisan and civilian groups.

Then in early April the Fallschirm-Panzer Division 1 Hermann Göring together with departments of CSR began a comprehensive round-up of partisan groups in which they suffered heavy casualties.

In January, the head of the Military Committee Romagna, Antonio Carini (codenamed Bears) went up into the mountains to check on the situation of the brigade, as the reports seemed inconsistent with the provisions of the FN (Fronte Nazionale).

There appears to have been numerous petty disputes amongst themselves over political issues and so called Directives, for example, the arrangement that Libero had agreed to replace the ‘red star’ of the partisans’ caps with a ‘tricolour cockade’.

This came to a head in early April, when an order was made for Libero to make contact with a Tuscany partisan group that was eager to form a new brigade.

In May 1944, Angelo Giovanetti (codenamed the Moor), in a paper to the Military Committee of the Province of Ravenna, indicates that ‘Libero is kept isolated in area of Cervia, soon to be subjected to an interrogation, compelling and hard…’.

Late in 1943, SOE established a base at Bari in Southern Italy, in conjunction with the American OSS (Office of Strategic Services) from which they operated their intelligence networks and agents in the Balkans.

In the aftermath of the Italian collapse, SOE helped build a large resistance organisation in the cities of Northern Italy, and in the Alps.

When the German retreat beyond Rome began, instructions were given over SOE Wireless telegraphy (W/T) links and by BBC broadcast signals to the partisan groups in the Apennines to begin their attacks on 16 specified road and rail targets.