The Battle for Rome : The Germans, the Allies, the Partisans, and the Pope, September 1943-June 1944 [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Robert Katz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 6, 2003

In September 1943, the German army marched into Rome, beginning an occupation that would last nine months until Allied forces liberated the ancient city. During those 270 days, clashing factions -- the occupying Germans, the Allies, the growing resistance movement, and the Pope -- contended for control over the destiny of the Eternal City. In The Battle for Rome, Robert Katz vividly recreates the drama of the occupation and offers new information from recently declassified documents to explain the intentions of the rival forces.

One of the enduring myths of World War II is the legend that Rome was an "open city," free from military activity. In fact the German occupation was brutal, beginning almost immediately with the first roundup of Jews in Italy. Rome was a strategic prize that the Germans and the Allies fought bitterly to win. The Allied advance up the Italian peninsula from Salerno and Anzio in some of the bloodiest fighting of the war was designed to capture the Italian capital.

Dominating the city in his own way was Pope Pius XII, who used his authority in a ceaseless effort to spare Rome, especially the Vatican and the papal properties, from destruction. But historical documents demonstrate that the Pope was as concerned about the Partisans as he was about the Nazis, regarding the Partisans as harbingers of Communism in the Eternal City. The Roman Resistance was a coalition of political parties that agreed on little beyond liberating Rome, but the Partisans, the organized military arm of the coalition, became increasingly active and effective as the occupation lengthened. Katz tells the story of two young Partisans, Elena and Paolo, who fought side by side, became lovers, and later played a central role in the most significant guerrilla action of the occupation. In retaliation for this action, the Germans committed the Ardeatine Caves Massacre, slaying hundreds of Roman men and boys. The Pope's decision not to intervene in that atrocity has been a source of controversy and debate among historians for decades, but drawing on Vatican documents, Katz authoritatively examines the matter.

Katz takes readers into the occupied city to witness the desperate efforts of the key actors: OSS undercover agent Peter Tompkins, struggling to forge an effective spy network among the Partisans; German diplomats, working against their own government to save Rome even as they condoned the Nazi repression of its citizens; Pope Pius XII, anxiously trying to protect the Vatican at the risk of depending on the occupying Germans, who maintained order by increasingly draconian measures; and the U.S. and British commanders, who disagreed about the best way to engage the enemy, turning the final advance into a race to be first to take Rome.

The Battle for Rome is a landmark work that draws on newly released documents and firsthand testimony gathered over decades to offer the finest account yet of one of the most dramatic episodes of World War II.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Expanding upon his classic account of the 1944 Ardeatine Caves massacre, Death in Rome, Katz presents a vivid, well-researched history of German-occupied Rome, from the fall of Mussolini in 1943 to the Allied Liberation 10 months later. Katz weaves several biographical histories into his narrative, devoting particular attention the experiences of five individuals: Herbert Kappler, an SS officer who began his tenure in Italy intending to save the Jews of Rome from Auschwitz but ended up presiding over the killing of 335 men and boys at the Ardeatine Caves; Peter Tompkins, the 24-year-old, bilingual OSS spy who, as the primary Allied representative in Rome, tried to make a useful network out of the brave individuals and quarreling factions residing in the Eternal City; Paolo and Elena, a partisan couple who orchestrated the most effective attack on German police troops; and Pope Pius XII, who, in Katz's telling, appears as a cold-hearted politico whose insistence on the Vatican's neutrality endangered thousands of lives in Rome. Combined with Katz's broad historical knowledge and his personal experiences living in Rome, these narratives create an engrossing portrait of a confused, tragic period of Italy's history.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

This narrative history describes the Eternal City at a key time of struggle--the dark year of German occupation between the overthrow of Mussolini in 1943 and liberation by the Allies in 1944. Four parties wrestle for Rome: the ruthless yet wary German occupiers, the Holy See in self-preservation mode, a gutsy band of patriotic students with homemade explosives, and the U.S. Fifth Army under Mark Clark, the first general since the sixth century to take Rome from the south. Its horrific climax is an account of the Via Ardeatina massacre, in which more than 300 Roman civilians were shot in reprisal against the resistance. Based overwhelmingly on U.S. intelligence files, Katz's history navigates the elaborate Roman underground of spies and counteragents, and even unearths a few surprises, like a key telegram about the Jewish genocide, addressed to Hitler, intercepted and sent in translation to Roosevelt. Curiously, one appendix also details Katz's legal difficulties regarding his last book. This is challenging research presented fluidly, and Katz's fascination with a key moment for a fascinating city shines through. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First edition. edition (August 6, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743216423
• ISBN-13: 978-0743216425
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,386,597 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert Katz

Robert Katz is the author of twelve books and eight screenplays, including three adaptations from his own works: Death in Rome, The Cassandra Crossing, and Days of Wrath.

Death in Rome, which the Chicago Tribune called a "masterpiece of literature [and] a masterpiece of historical scholarship," was a worldwide bestseller published in twenty edi¬tions and ten languages. A study of the World War II Ardeatine Caves Massacre, it became an international cause célèbre culminating in a ten year freedom of speech court battle involving the Vatican. He has written extensively on this period and among his other publications are Black Sabbath: A Journey Through a Crime Against Humanity, a study of the roundup and deportation to Auschwitz of the Jews of Rome.

His most recent work, The Battle for Rome, a history of Nazi-occupied Rome, was praised by The New York Times as "a poignant, dramatic and definitive account..."

Days of Wrath is an investigative report on the terrorist kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, the Italian statesman. Reviewing Days of Wrath, the Washington Post wrote: "anyone who can be moved by the pity and terror of a modern tragedy will want to read this original and passionately heartfelt book." The book was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; the film version won a Golden Globe and represented Italy in the main competition of the 1987 Berlin Film Festival, where it received a Silver Bear award.

His articles, short stories, and book reviews have appeared in publications throughout the world. He has been a consultant to CBS's 60 Minutes, ABC's PrimeTime Live and Italian television's RAI network news magazine Mixer.

In 1991 he was inducted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Both as author and screenwriter, Mr. Katz has been a guest lecturer on many university campuses in the U.S. and abroad. Between 1986 and 1992, he was a frequent visiting professor in investigative journalism at the University of California at Santa Cruz. A Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, he is a former grantee of the American Council of Learned Societies and has twice been elected a Knight of Mark Twain. His official web site is www.theboot.it

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A much-needed examination of life under occupation, December 30, 2003

By 

David Roy (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Battle for Rome : The Germans, the Allies, the Partisans, and the Pope, September 1943-June 1944 (Hardcover)

The Italian campaign in World War II was a bloody (and that's not just a swear word, but also a description) waste of time, as the Allies followed Churchill's plan of hitting the "soft underbelly of Europe." Landings at Salerno in southern Italy and, in January 1944 at Anzio just south of Rome, resulted in a stalemate for a great many months, costing thousands of lives and not really gaining much. The ultimate objective was Rome, mainly for the propaganda coup that would benefit whichever army entered it first. When the Allies invaded, many Romans thought that they would be liberated in a matter of days. The Fascist government had been toppled and there's no way the Germans would try to hold Rome and fight in southern Italy.

Right?

The Battle for Rome, by Robert Katz, tells the story of a city that awaited that "matter of days" for 9 long months. Nine months of resistance activity, starvation, and oppression that battered the city's soul and resulted in the deaths of many, including almost the entire Jewish population. The sub-title of the book is "The Germans, The Allies, The Partisans, and the Pope." Katz examines all of these aspects of the Italian campaign, meshing them into a seamless narrative that's both provocative and fascinating to read. Well-researched and extensively documented, Katz makes use of many sources that have just come to light, including documents recently declassified by the CIA. He uses these to greatly criticize Pope Pius XII and his handling of the Roman situation. Katz doesn't examine the complete attitude of the Vatican toward Hitler's "Final Solution," but he does examine the attitude as it pertained to the round-up of Jews in Rome after the Germans occupied it, as well as its reaction to the massive reprisal that killed 335 Romans after a particularly effective Partisan attack. The Vatican (and especially the Pope) comes out of this wanting.

Not only was Pius silent in his criticism of the Holocaust, not only was he silent as the Germans systematically rounded up the Jews who were supposedly being protected by the Vatican, but he was silent as the Germans clamped down on the population of Rome, including one of the worst massacres in Italian history. Katz points out that, even if Papal silence in the face of the Holocaust facing Europe may have been "understandable" at times, what awaited his personal flock in Rome deserved some sort of outcry that never came. Instead, he sacrificed everything for a myth of an "open city" where no military presence was allowed. The Germans, while agreeing to this concept, ignored it when it came time to move troops to the front. Instead of protesting this, however, he criticized the Roman partisans for breaking the peace when they attacked. Instead of criticizing the Germans for cracking down on partisans, he instead blamed the partisans for it. The Vatican has been very reluctant to release documents from its archives pertaining to World War II, especially documents related to the Roman occupation.

Katz doesn't just tell the Vatican side of the story, though, and he doesn't just criticize Pius. He also tells of the Allied blundering in the Italian campaign, from the non-breakout of the Salerno beachheads that resulted in long months of fighting against Kesslering's various defensive lines, to the invasion at Anzio that, with a little bit of initiative, could have resulted in the fall of Rome in January, 1944. He uses the diary of General Mark Clark, the American general who eventually took Rome, very extensively, commenting on the relationship between him and his superior officer, General Alexander. Katz does not go into great detail on the fighting, though there is enough to understand what is going on. Instead, he concentrates on the politics of the Italian Campaign, the need to be the first to enter Rome and Churchill's attitude toward the whole thing.

Finally, Katz uses his contacts with some primary figures (OSS spy Peter Tompkins and Rosario Bentivegna) to detail life inside Rome, the partisan activity that took place there, and the endless political struggles between the various partisan groups that almost destroyed the Resistance from within. He uses personal stories in this case, including the diary of a Vatican nun and testimony from the trials of the various German figures within the city. Sometimes, Katz does make too much of an aside about the personal lives (especially Rosario and the woman who later became his wife) which distracts from the historical narrative, though it does add a bit of tension to the whole story which is kind of nice.

Katz weaves all this together into a narrative that is, at times, disjointed. He bounces around from the Vatican to the partisans, then takes a breather and talks about the Allied armies advancing (or, more often, not advancing) on Rome. This is a really effective way to tell the tale, especially all of the relationships between the various parties and the events in Rome, but it does grate at times.

The Battle for Rome is compelling, thought-provoking, and chilling at times. Katz spends a whole chapter on the reprisal for the partisan attack on the Via Rasella, telling in great detail about the round-up of the prisoners, taking them to the caves, and then shooting them five at a time. He details this from the German side, and it presents a picture of men who are revolted by what they are being ordered to do, but do it anyway rather than speak out. It really is quite intense, and the description may not be for the squeamish.

The Battle for Rome is a fascinating book that should be read by anybody interested in the subject. It's well-written and keeps your attention while you read some things that you may not have wanted to know. But you should.

David Roy

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Circus Maximus, August 11, 2003

By 

Bruce Loveitt (Ogdensburg, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Battle for Rome : The Germans, the Allies, the Partisans, and the Pope, September 1943-June 1944 (Hardcover)

Don't let the title of this book confuse you. Mr. Katz uses the word "battle" in its broad sense- this is not a work primarily concerned with the nuts-and-bolts of the Allies attempt to wrestle Rome away from the Germans. There is some military history- the landing at Anzio and the "lost opportunity" to move quickly up the underdefended route to Rome are neatly summarized. But Mr. Katz is mainly concerned with personalities, diplomacy and morality. He focuses on a few of the partisans, so that we come to know them intimately. We go along on several of their "missions" and learn about both fear and bravery. One key mission, setting off a bomb on a street known to be part of the daily route followed by some German policemen, results in the deaths of 32 Germans- and results in the infamous reprisal known as the Ardeatine Caves massacre. Hitler was so angered by the attack on the policemen that he wanted 30-50 Italians, per each German killed, to be executed. "Cooler heads" prevailed and managed to get the ratio down to 10-to-1. Lists were drawn up to figure out who the unlucky 320 people would be- they were largely made up of Italians already in jail awaiting execution or life imprisonment for previous "crimes." As you might expect, when these numbers proved insufficient the Germans became less selective- they also wound up miscounting and wound up executing 5 extra people. A thread running throughout the book is the behind-the-scenes maneuvers by the Vatican and Pope Pius XII to remain neutral- so that Rome would not be devastated and also so that Vatican City and its inhabitants would be left alone. Mr. Katz fairly presents the Pope's position. He also clearly condemns the Pope and the Vatican hierarchy for a failure to provide moral leadership. A consistent failure to "speak up" allowed the Germans to act with impunity- to kill Roman Jews and non-Jews alike. Would "speaking up" have made any difference? We'll never know the answer to that question- but Mr. Katz is persuasive when he argues that the Pope had an obligation to condemn brutality and inhumanity- and he failed to do so in any forceful manner. Another interesting aspect of the book is the military politics that were played in the final push to Rome. American General Mark Clark was determined that the Americans would liberate Rome. He felt that our troops had earned that right after the casualties suffered at Anzio. Clark felt that British General Alexander was trying to manipulate strategy so that the British could get to Rome first. In the end, Clark prevailed. Mr. Katz manages to juggle all of the storylines without losing sight of the big picture. He also drops a bombshell in the epilogue- but I can't give that away. Suffice it to say that it involves some more unsavory behavior by Vatican officials.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Eternal City in the Crosshairs, September 8, 2003

By 

Frank J. Konopka (Shamokin, PA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Battle for Rome : The Germans, the Allies, the Partisans, and the Pope, September 1943-June 1944 (Hardcover)

My father was one of the soldiers who captured Rome in June 1944, so when I saw this book I knew that I wanted to read it. I found it very well-written, and it covered quite a bit of the history of the Nazi occupation of the Italian capital in 1943 & 1944. The emphasis was mainly on the partisan activity within the city itself, and the Allied military planning and actions take somewhat of a back seat, but it is important to note that the inside activity was extremely important to the eventual safe delivery of the city without the potential wholesale destruction that many people feared. Puis XII is shown to have attempted to steer a middle course between the occupiers and the Allies, to the point of compromising his moral authority as Pope. There were many things he could have, and probably should have, done, but he didn't, and it's difficult at this remove in time to attempot to stand in his shoes and judge his actions. In my humble opinion, he was found wanting, but that's an entirely different issue. The book is excellent, and worth reading!