The five-pointed star, a mimeographed sheet with "slight tears at the edges, central folds" but "in very good condition". One of the most dramatic documents in post-war Italian history, the communiqué with which the Red Brigades claimed the kidnapping of the then president of the DC, Aldo Moro, and the massacre of his escort, ends up at auction in an online auction.
"Lot 43", base price 600 euros: this is how on the Bertolani Fine Art web page that put the flyer up for auction.
At the moment 12 offers have been received, of which the highest reached 1,700 euros, but the sale ends in 13 days. The online page provides a description of the lot which falls under the section "Autographs & Memorabilia": "This was the first of a series of press releases that followed until the epilogue - we read - with the final solution of the Moro affair. Dramatic propaganda text, drawn up and sent to journalistic organizations to divulge the reasons for the kidnapping, and the political reasons for the class struggle that pushed the Red Brigade revolution in the 1970s to be so violent ".
THE DOCUMENT - The Red Brigades communiqué opens with words that have actually gone down in history. "On Thursday 16 March an armed group of the Red Brigades captured and locked up Aldo Moro, president of the Christian Democrats in a prison of the people. His armed escort, made up of five agents of the notorious Special Corps, was completely annihilated". At the bottom the date of March 16, 1978 and the signature: "Red Brigades for Communism".
The document put up for sale 44 years after those dramatic days, was found by the BR (who had previously claimed the action with a phone call to Ansa), 48 hours after the kidnapping on the roof of an ID photo machine in an underpass between Largo Arenula and Largo di Torre Argentina. Also attached is the photo of Moro, a polaroid.
In the 55 days of imprisonment there were a total of 9 communications that the terrorist organization spread until the tragic end.
THE PROTESTS - Many protest reactions at the news of the sale, and there are those who still hope that the auction will not be held and the document will be handed over to history and not to some buyer. "These pages - wrote Mario Calabresi on Twitter - drip blood, cannot be bought and sold, become a collector's item. The only place they can be is in the houses of Memory to remind us of the barbarism that was terrorism". And for Filippo Sensi it is "all very sad. To sell it, to buy it. I hope for a leap of pity to steal such a painful memory from the market of dignity".
The initiative on the Red Brigade communiqué is not, in reality, unprecedented. In fact, the collecting of memorabilia dating back to the dark periods of the last century and in particular to those linked to Nazi-Fascism is very flourishing, especially abroad. In the 1990s some autographed manuscripts by Benito Mussolini were sold at auction, while in 2005, again at the auction, some telegrams with which the Duce and Aldolf Hitler exchanged messages of congratulation and of mutual fidelity. More recently, in 2019, some memorabilia ended up at auction in Munich including the Fuehrer's hat and a copy of the Mein Kampf, sparking the indignant reaction of the Jewish community.
(Unioneonline / vl)
