Why Italy wasnt punished after World War 2?

Answer 1

Italy changed sides, and declared war on Germany and the other Axis powers. Before doing that, Italy unilaterally surrendered to the Allies on September 8, 1943. There were already a large number of Germans in Italy, and they went right on fighting the Allies in Italy without Italian help. Much of Italy was devastated by the continuing battles there that went on until the end of the war in Europe. Many Italians were active in the Resistance to the Germans, and and many were summarily executed by the Germans. There were several massacres of Italians by the Germans, as at the Ardeatine Caves and at Monte Sole. Hitler tried to keep a puppet government under Mussolini alive. The Italians had imprisoned him, and Hitler's commandos staged a daring raid to rescue him and restore him to the head of this puppet government. At the end of the war Mussolini tried to flee with his mistress, but was caught and killed by a mob of Italians, along with his mistress. Then he was hung upside down by his heels in an Esso (Exxon) gas station in Milan, again alongside his mistress, Clara Petacci, to the delight of a cheering crowd of Italians. Hitler saw pictures of this scene and it probably helped him to decide to commit suicide.

Beyond all the grief the Italians suffered, and the help to the Allied cause rendered by the Italians, the Italians were not nearly so guilty of despicable crimes and extermination efforts against people such as the Jews. The Italian Army committed no wholesale atrocities as the Germans and Japanese did.

Plus, psychologically, the Italians had been a relatively weak foe. They had not caused a lot of trouble to the Allied military, had not caused many deaths of Allied troops, relatively speaking. So perhaps no one was as mad at the Italians as they were at the Germans, who were much better militarily, or the Japanese, who did not have sense enough to know when they were completely, utterly and hopelessly defeated.

Individual Italians were held to account for their actions. There were some SS men from the extreme north of Italy, in the Tyrol, which borders Austria, who participated in the Ardeatine Caves Massacre, for instance, who faced justice after the war.