Along with carrying out a complete renewal of the Albanian state and political structures, the Italians showed great commitment to excluding from every area of public life all those who were considered hostile to the new regime. Between 1939 and 1943 the Italians extended to Albania their legislation on police confinement and founded in Tirana a confinement committee on the Italian model. Several Albanians, among them a great number of intellectuals, teachers, students were confined to small towns in Northern and Central Italy; just few of them were sent to camps or towns in Albania and only the most dangerous individuals were sent to the colonies on the Italian islands. However, calculating the actual number of the Albanians who were sentenced for political reasons seems very difficult, especially from the end of 1941, because of the fragmented nature of the relevant documents and the different kinds of coercive measure that were taken.

This essay analyses the way in which the Italian occupation of Albania was conducted between 1939 and 1943 and the consequent generation of several Resistance groups which made the Italian control of the State more and more unstable, until the tragic conclusion of the 8th September 1943. The union between Italy and Albania was only formally equal, but in fact Albania was subordinate to the Italian political and economical interests of Fascism. This element helped to cool any enthusiasm which eventually aroused when the Royal Army landed in Durres. At the beginning of the Albanian occupation it sufficed to Italy to employ the same means used at home to keep dissent under control (imprisonment, confinement, epuration), but when the Italy- Greece conflict cast a shadow on the Fascist fighting ability and the military fortunes of the Axis turned for the worse, the several Resistance groups which had spread in Albania became stronger, thus forcing the occupant to recur to a massive use of violence. The entire country was ultimately declared zone of military operations. This marked the failure of the Italian attempt to pacifically export Fascism.