Posted on 06/04/2014 4:36:36 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Rome this week is celebrating the 70th anniversary since the city was liberated from the Nazis, on June 4th 1944, a moment described by Mayor Ignazio Marino as one of "uncontrollable joy" in the Italian capital.
Allied troops marched into Rome 70 years ago today, and were greeted by crowds of cheering citizens as Nazi forces retreated north. The long-awaited liberation came more than four months after the Allies landed on the banks of Anzio, south-west of Rome, where they battled against Nazi troops at a cost of thousands of lives. Speaking at a ceremony to mark the “fundamental date for the history of Rome and Italy”, Marino said images from the city’s liberation reflected citizens’ “uncontrollable joy”.
“From their faces, from their gestures you can perceive the extraordinary emotion: the recapturing of the city.
“The Romans retaking Rome; the buildings, the palaces, the streets, the squares that for centuries were part of their lives and which suddenly, with brutality, someone, the Nazi occupiers, took away,” Marino said.
To mark the occasion city hall, has organized a series of free events, including concerts, theatre performances and exhibitions across the Italian capital.
They include a projection of the occupation film Open City (Roma Città Aperta), by the late director Roberto Rossellini, held at the Roman forum on Saturday evening. An exhibition of life under the Nazis opened today at Rome’s Victor Emmanuel Monument.
Wasn’t Italy part of the Axis powers?
So they were liberated from their allies the NAZI’s?
At least they are better than the French who managed to lose WW2 twice, once as allies of the British and then the Vichy as defacto allies of the Germans. Only the French could manage that feat
Mussolini, who brought Italy into the Axis Pact, was ousted on July 25, 1943, and on September 8, the Italian government under King Victor Emmanual III and Premier Pietro Badoglio concluded an armistice with the Allies. The government fled to Allied-controlled territory as the Germans occupied most of the country and set up a puppet government under Mussolini. The Badoglio government then fought on the side of the Allies until the war's conclusion.
Huh?
Thanks for that concise piece of history.
.
Weren’t the Germans still holding parts of Northern Italy when they surrendered?
The Germans in Italy surrendered a few days before the German government surrendered. Allen Dulles, who would later serve as Director of Central Intelligence, played a major role in negotiating the surrender of the German forces in Italy.
They were liberated after they switched sides.
Thanks, that is interesting.
I had a NYC publick skool edumacashun, so I don’t remember if I learned that second bit of history or not.
It’s sad to think about all of those 200,000 plus members of the 8th Italian army who died out on the don steppe in 42 or froze to death in Siberian pow camps. Very few made it back to Italy.
It should be noted that the liberation of Rome wasn’t in the immediate plans. The Fifth Army was supposed to break out of Anzio to pursue and engage the German Tenth Army.
Gen Clark disobeyed orders, choosing instead to liberate Rome. The Tenth hooked up with the Fourteenth and subsequently meted out serious damage to Allied forces as we headed up the Italian peninsula.
As a measure of the esteem that Eisenhower held for Clark, Clark survived the insubordination and became Commander of all Allied ground troops in Italy, in charge of the 15th Army Group.
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