Anarchists bombed the Piazza Fontana bank in 1969
| Anarchists bombed the Piazza Fontana bank in 1969 | |
|---|---|
| FALSE | |
| "Anarchists carried out the December 1969 bombing of a bank in Piazza Fontana, Milan." | |
| Domain | Crime & Public Safety |
| Tactic | Fabrication Propaganda Technique |
| Era | Historical |
| First seen | 1969 |
| Origin | Italian police and official statements immediately after the bombing |
| Last reviewed | 2026-10-30 |
| Further reading: books on Crime & Public Safety | |
On December 12, 1969, a bomb exploded in the Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana, Milan, killing 17 people and injuring 88. Police immediately blamed anarchists. Railway worker Giuseppe Pinelli, an anarchist, died after falling from a window of Milan police headquarters during questioning on December 15. Dancer Pietro Valpreda was arrested and held for years.
Decades of trials pointed instead to neo-fascist militants. The bombing opened Italy's "strategy of tension," in which right-wing violence was blamed on the left to justify a crackdown.
What the evidence shows
- Anarchists cleared. Valpreda was eventually acquitted. The investigation's focus on anarchists was later seen as a deliberate misdirection.
- Neo-fascist network. Investigations led to members of the neo-fascist group Ordine Nuovo. In 2005, Italy's Court of Cassation said the bombing had been carried out by a subversive group based in Padua, led by Franco Freda and Giovanni Ventura, but they could not be retried because they had been acquitted earlier.
- Intelligence links. Investigations and parliamentary inquiries found that some members of Italian intelligence services protected suspects and obstructed the case.
Why it matters
Piazza Fontana became a lasting symbol in Italy of how an attack can be blamed on political enemies, and of how long it can take for the truth to come out.
Gaslighting Blaming anarchists for a neo-fascist bombing, while some officials protected the real suspects, is an Italian case of state gaslighting. The word comes from Patrick Hamilton's 1938 play Gas Light and the 1944 film Gaslight, in which a husband dims the gas lamps and insists his wife is imagining it. Where the word comes from · More gaslighting cases
Sources
- Italian Court of Cassation, judgment on the Piazza Fontana bombing, May 2005.
- Italian Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry on Terrorism and Massacres, reports, 1990s–2001.
- The Guardian, coverage of Italy's "strategy of tension" and the Piazza Fontana bombing.