25th December 1943
Stalag 367
POW letter sheet mail sent by Colonel Romano Altomani to Guastalla, Italy, from Stalag 367 at Tschenstochau (General Government). With grey pencil strike-through of the words 'Kriegsgefangenenpost/ des prisonniers de guerre', which has been over-stamped with 'Militär-Internierte'. The inmate status changing from prisoner of war to military internee. From Autumn 1943 Italian prisoners were sent to the camp. Ref: 25.12.1943
Stalag 367
'To tell how the Germans treated them, just go to page 125 of the latter and as always tasty book by Alfio Caruso ( Save the Italians, Neri Pozza), where it is said that in Stalag 367 in Poland one day when the temperature was below zero, the German police rounded up the Italian prisoners and subjected them to a search that lasted five and a half hours. Two Italian officers whose appearance had not been deemed up to par had their trousers stripped away, leaving them in their underwear. So much so that to the protests of some of those who were at the top of the CSR, who complained that the condition of Italian prisoners was that of "semi-slaves", Adolf Hitler had replied: "Everything we do, we do for the Duce, because the German people cannot love those who have betrayed them". Said in other words:the Italian prisoners were waste, rubbish, people who deserved nothing at all. Not even of being enlisted in the formations that fought alongside the Germans, and this was because the Italians had shown that they were worthless on the battlefield. Caruso, whose books must be read line by line since each line indicates a fact or marks a character, writes that Mussolini himself read with satisfaction of a military episode in which the "Badogliani" soldiers had behaved valiantly against the Germans. Besides, he knew that he himself was an exceptional prisoner of the Germans.' Text translated from www.ilfoglio.it
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