Acquafredda di Badia Prataglia
13/04/1944
Rounding-up operation for control of territory
During the second week of April 1944 the road over the Mandrioli Pass (SS71) was subjected sporadically to the actions of partisan squads, not locals but linked to the Romagna Resistance. The testimony of some Casentino partisans tells of the existence of a shelter used as a small field hospital near the Pass, this too linked to Romagna formations. Fascist documentation records an attack on a German car near the Pass on April 10th, with no casualties on either side. On April 12th, some partisans (most likely linked to the Grande Brigata Romagnola retreating after the battle of Biserno) attacked a car transiting State Road 71 near the cemetery: an officer and a sergeant lost their lives, while another NCO was wounded but survived. On the morning of April 13th, a unit of the 1st Armoured Parachute Division Hermann Göring, linked to the troops operating at the same time in Partina and reinforced by fascist soldiers, broke off and set out for Badia Prataglia along the Mandrioli Pass road. In Acquafredda, the unit spotted Guido Ciampelli, who happened to be leaving Badia Prataglia on his way to buy a cot for his daughter who was about to be born. Perhaps mistaking him for a partisan, they immediately executed him. A few hundred metres from the village, the unit captured three young labourers from the Todt Organisation who were leaving Badia to go to work on the construction in nearby Pian del Ponte. They were taken in a truck to the bridge over the river at Isola and shot in front of a wall. In the meantime other armoured paratroopers set fire to the Hotel Belvedere and rounded up about fifty men, intending to shoot them by the wall of the village primary school. What seemed an inevitable outcome was averted by the arrival of Mario Battisti, an officer of the Milizia Nazionale Forestale (National Forestry Militia) and Commander of the Badia Prataglia station since 1936. Although urged by his wife and children not to take risks, he came out of the barracks and, addressing the Göring officers in perfect German, after an hour of negotiations obtained the release of all the hostages. The episode was undoubtedly linked to the operation launched against Monte Falterona together with Vallucciole, Partina, Moscaio and Lonnano.