Bad German. Barbaric, bloody, soaked in racist ideology and ready to carry out orders with brutality. On the contrary, good Italian. Pacific, empathetic, anti-war, friendly and generous even when dressed the occupant role.
These two stereotypes have marked the Italian public memory and allowed the formation of a gray area: not to deal with aggressive and criminal aspects of the war fought by monarchist-fascist Italy together with the Third Reich. To distinguish between Italy and Germany was the first propaganda by the Allies: the responsibility for the war wasn't of the Italian people but of the Mussolini's dictatorship, that had put the country's fate in the hands of the bloodthirsty German comrade. Italians had no faults and the true enemy of the nation was the German. The topics were taken up and re-launched after September 8 by the king, Badoglio and all the forces of anti-fascism, first pledged to mobilize the nation against the 'oppressor and the German fascist traitor', and then to claim for the defeated country a not punitive peace. So, the right exaltation of the merits earned in the Liberation War obscured Italian responsibility and bore the burden of Axis' crimes exclusively on Germans, not without the interest and the active engagement of men and institutions that before had supported the tragic course of fascism.
