Fosse Ardeatine Massacre

24 March 1944 , Fosse Ardeatine, caves at the Via Ardeatina (Rome, Lazio)
On 24 March 1944, 335 persons were shot to death in the caves of the Via Ardeatina near Rome. The operation was a reprisal for an attack by the GAP partisan brigade in which 34 soldiers of the III. Battalion of the SS Police Regiment ‘Bozen’ were killed. The Commander-in-Chief of German forces in Italy, Albert Kesselring, or possibly Hitler himself, then ordered the killing of ten Italians for every German death. The Security Police of the Außenkommando in Rome, under the command of Herbert Kappler, selected victims from the Regina Coeli prison as well as the subsequent executions.
- Involved Unit
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14th Army headquarters; Außenkommando of the Security Police and SD, Rome
- Culprits
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SS Obersturmbannführer Herbert Kappler,SS Hauptsturmführer Erich Priebke, and others - Victims
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335
- Investigations and processes
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1944: Rome Chief of Police Pietro Caruso and his colleague Roberto Occhetto stand trial. Caruso is sentenced to death, Occhetto to 30 years in prison.
1946: Trial of Kurt Mälzer, Military Commander of Rome, and Eberhard von Mackensen, Commander-in-Chief of the 14th Army. Both men sentenced to death; later commutation to life in prison.
1947: The Allied Military Court in Venice sentences Albert Kesselring to life in prison, on account of responsibility, as Commander-in-Chief of German forces in Italy, for the massacres perpetrated by the German Army. These include the Ardeatine Massacre.
1948-1953: Trial of Herbert Kappler, head of the Rome Außenkommando; sentenced to life in prison.
1995-1998: Erich Priebke is discovered living in Argentina and extradited to Italy. He stands trial and is sentenced to life in prison.
- Armed forces
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SD
Security Police
![[Translate to English:] Der Eingang zu den Tuffstein-Höhlen mit Gedenktafeln. The light-coloured rock wall is supported by a wall at the bottom. In the wall is the entrance to the memorial for the massacre in the Ardeatine Caves. There are several memorial plaques for the victims on the wall.](/fileadmin/_processed_/1/9/csm_Fosse_Ardeatine_ingresso_a040d90072.jpg 320w, /fileadmin/_processed_/1/9/csm_Fosse_Ardeatine_ingresso_9c5537d324.jpg 400w, /fileadmin/_processed_/1/9/csm_Fosse_Ardeatine_ingresso_80094e99ee.jpg 480w, /fileadmin/_processed_/1/9/csm_Fosse_Ardeatine_ingresso_7eeed0ade7.jpg 560w, /fileadmin/_processed_/1/9/csm_Fosse_Ardeatine_ingresso_00059e2294.jpg 640w, /fileadmin/_processed_/1/9/csm_Fosse_Ardeatine_ingresso_1d45fd2377.jpg 800w, /fileadmin/_processed_/1/9/csm_Fosse_Ardeatine_ingresso_ef832c0239.jpg 960w, /fileadmin/_processed_/1/9/csm_Fosse_Ardeatine_ingresso_6e74d0f73b.jpg 1120w, /fileadmin/_processed_/1/9/csm_Fosse_Ardeatine_ingresso_0cd8bcd537.jpg 1280w)
The massacre
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Military presence and police forces in occupied Rome
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The Judenaktion in Oct. 1943
The transfer of German troops to Anzio after the Allied landing diminished the German military presence in Rome. But German authorities maintained control of the capital and now began to react more severely to attacks by the GAP partisan brigade.
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Allied landing in Anzio and first fighting
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The attack in the Via Rasella
Die Fotografien
Via Rasella: PK war correspondent Lutz Koch walks down to Via del Boccaccio, where the bomb had exploded shortly before. In the street, the men of the Bolzano police battalion point their rifles at the upper floors of the houses because they still fear that members of the GAP could be hiding there. Police officers and soldiers stand in the street with weapons in their hands; next to them is the body of a man, possibly a victim of the explosion, covered with a white sheet. The photographer also captured the hectic scenes during the arrest of passers-by and residents of the houses around the site of the attack.
Kesselring had ordered that within 24 hours, ten Italians be shot to death for every killed German soldier. Kappler contacted General Field Marshall Kesselring’s headquarters; Kesselring told him that the decision came from a higher authority.
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The German reaction
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Selection of the victims
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The mass execution
Via delle Quattro Fontane, in front of the gates of Palazzo Barberini, immediately after the attack. Men from the IIIrd Battalion of the SS Bolzano Police Regiment and the Barbarigo Battalion of the fascist 10th MAS Flotilla guard the civilians who have been taken from the buildings in Via Rasella.
Investigations and trials
Over roughly half a century, a number of trials were held against those responsible for the murders in the Ardeatine caves.
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The trial of Police chief Caruso in September 1944
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The trial of Mälzer and von Mackensen 1946
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The Trial of Kesselring 1947
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The trial of Kappler (1948-1953)
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The trial of Priebke (1995-1998)
Memory
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Criticism of the partisan action
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Founding of ANFIM
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The mausoleum in the Ardeatine Caves
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The museum in the Via Tasso
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Visit of German Presidents
Sources
In the absence of contemporary German documents, the most important sources for reconstructing the facts are of a legal nature. Many of the relevant documents are kept in the archives of the Rome military court. The state archives in Rieti contain the private documents of Euclide Fantoni, chairman of the military court that sentenced Kappler in 1948. The files for the proceedings against Mälzer, von Mackensen, and Kesselring before the British military court in 1946 and 1947 are kept in the British National Archives, London (Kew) (WO 235/438, trial of Mälzer and von Mackensen; WO 236/366-376, trial of Kesselring). Documents tied to the Allied investigation of the massacre are also kept here (WO 204/11469, Ardeatine Caves case; WO 204/12798,
Literature
Felix Bohr, Die Kriegsverbrecher Lobby. Bundesdeutsche Hilfe für im Ausland inhaftierte NS-Täter, Berlin, Suhrkamp, 2018.
Lutz Klinkhammer, Stragi naziste in Italia. La guerra contro i civili (1943-1944), Rome, Donzelli, 1997, pp. 3-15.
Alessandro Portelli, L'ordine è già stato eseguito, Rome, Donzelli, 1999.
Steffen Prauser, Mord in Rom? Der Anschlag in der Via Rasella und die deutsche Vergeltung in den Fosse Ardeatine im März 1944, in Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, vol. 50 (2002), 2, De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin, pp. 269-301
Daniele Scopigno, Il processo Kappler nelle carte dell'archivio di Stato di Rieti, Foligno, Il Formichiere, 2020.
Joachim Staron, Fosse Ardeatine und Marzabotto. Deutsche Kriegsverbrechen und Resistenza. Geschichte und nationale Mythenbildung in Deutschland und Italien (1944-1999), Paderborn etc., Schöningh, 2002, pp. 32-74, 103 ff., 111-115, 132-184, 285-308.
Authorship and translation
Autor: Carlo Gentile
Translated from German by: Joel Golb
© Project ‘The Massacres in Occupied Italy (1943-1945): Integrating the Perpetrators’ Memories’
2023