History, Memory, Terror: The Strategy of Tension

The 'angel of history' in the Taviani's Night of San Lorenzo

Some context on the 'anni di piombo' (the 'lead years'):
John Foot, "The Strategy of Tension and Terrorism: Piazza Fontana and the 'Moro Case'"
from John Foot's Italy's Divided Memory

Millicent Marcus,"The Taviani Brothers's Night of the Shooting Stars: Fascism and War Reconsidered"

For a philosophical and critical reflection on history:
Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History"

The image above is Klee's Angelus Novus the inspiration for Benjamin's image of the 'angel of history': "There is a painting by Klee called Angelus Novus. An angel is depicted there who looks as though he were about to distance himself from something which he is staring at. His eyes are opened wide, his mouth stands open and his wings are outstretched. The Angel of History must look just so. His face is turned towards the past. Where we see the appearance of a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble and hurls it before his feet. He would like to pause for a moment so fair [verweilen: a reference to Goethe’s Faust], to awaken the dead and to piece together what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise, it has caught itself up in his wings and is so strong that the Angel can no longer close them. The storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the rubble-heap before him grows sky-high. That which we call progress, is this storm."

+ Theodor Adorno, "What Does Coming To Terms With the Past Mean?"