He was born in
Chieti on 15 July 1892, the son of Vincenzo Ferrero, and after attending the
Royal Military Academy of Infantry and Cavalry in
Modena he graduated on 17 September 1911 with the rank of infantry
second lieutenant. He was then immediately sent to
Libya where he participated in the
Italian-Turkish war. He took part in the
First World War with the ranks of
captain and
major, obtaining a
War Cross for Military Valor for his behaviour during the fighting on
Monte Grappa during the
battle of Vittorio Veneto, while attached to the 22nd Division. Having become
lieutenant colonel from 16 November 1927, he was
military attaché at the Italian embassy in the
Weimar Republic and, in 1934, he became a teacher of
German at the Royal Academy of Infantry and Cavalry in Modena, where he remained until 31 December 1935, when he was discharged from active service. He was married to Miss Francesca Intonti. With the outbreak of the
Second World War, he was recalled into service as a
colonel of the reserve, and was promoted to
brigadier general of the reserve on 1 January 1942, being then given command of a special assessment course for
non-commissioned officers who signed up for training as
officer cadets, hosted at the
Ducal Palace of Sassuolo. On 9 September 1943, after the proclamation of the
armistice of Cassibile, a
SS unit attacked the Ducal Palace, and Ferrero opened to open fire on the attackers; after two hours of fighting, in which two men and been killed and two dozen wounded, he ordered to cease resistance. He was then imprisoned in
Oflag 64/Z in
Schokken,
Poland, where he fell seriously ill with
tuberculosis; in spite of his condition, he refused to an offer to be repatriated and cured in exchange for swearing allegiance to the
Italian Social Republic. In late January 1945, with the
Red Army approaching, the Germans decided to evacuate the prisoners westward with a
forced march on the snow; during the march, on 28 January, Ferrero was murdered by the SS for being unable to keep pace with the group, along with generals
Carlo Spatocco,
Alberto Trionfi,
Emanuele Balbo Bertone,
Giuseppe Andreoli and
Alessandro Vaccaneo. Ferrero was the last to be killed; General Ettore De Blasio later recounted his last words before collapsing and being shot had been "I can no longer walk, my foot is swollen, my legs cannot hold me. I know the fate that awaits me; tell my wife how I died". Unlike the other generals, his body was never recovered; in May 1945 his family was wrongly informed by the
Italian Embassy in Moscow that he was alive and well, but one month later they were notified of his death. ==References==