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Summary: A Fine Historical Work
Review: Robert Katz is to be congratulated and thanked for reminding us what happend when the Germans occupied Rome from late 1943 to Spring 1944. Hundreds of Italians, Jews and others lost their lives before the Allied armies were able to help, due to the Pope's unwillingness to take a stand in defense of the people, and because of his fear of Communism and concern for the safety of the Papal State. This book should be read by everyone interested in the history of World War II. It is so well written, it reads like fiction.Alex J. Rosenberg
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Summary: Who should read this book?
Review: Robert Katz is to be congratulated and thanked for reminding us what happened
when the Germans occupied Rome from late 1943 to Spring 1944. Hundreds of
Italians, Jews and others lost their lives before the Allied armies were able to
help because of the Pope's unwillingness to take a stand in defense of the
people and because of his fear of Communism and concern for the safety of the
Papal State. This book should be read by everyone interested in the history of
World War II. It is so well written that it reads like fiction. Alex J. Rosenberg
New York
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Summary: Excellent piece of history
Review: The Battle for Rome by Robert Katz is an engrossing, vivid telling of an often overlooked campaign in World War II. Most people tend to think of Rome as being on the sidelines of the European conflict but, as Katz masterfully shows, this is not at all the case. In The Battle of Rome, we see the Allies fighting to overtake the Germans and push them out of the city, the Italian patriots fighting to re-capture Rome from the Nazis and the Pope practically collaborating with the Germans to protect the Vatican at the expense of the Italians. There is so much going on in this book, so much detail and intrigue but Katz holds it all together and keeps the story moving forward at a breathtaking pace.This book is well-researched and masterfully written. Definitely recommended for any WWII buff or anyone who loves top-notch historical scholarship.
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Summary: A much-needed examination of life under occupation
Review: 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
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Summary: The sorrow and the pity of Rome
Review: This is an engaging, rich book about heroes and horror, about triumph and tragedy, about ego and humility, and about acting out and remaining silent. From July 1943, when the Italian army effectively exited the war, until the Allies -- Brits, French, American, Polish, African -- almost egomaniacally raced each other to enter Rome before D-Day in Normandy, Rome, the Vatican and the papacy suffered through their greatest threat since the Dark Ages, occupied by a sometimes charming, always cunning, and commonly cruel German force of occupation. The position Pope Pius appears to have assumed, especially as to the round up of Roman Jews and the horrific massacre in the Ardeatine caves, is the center of the controversy for this thorough, multi-faceted view of the occupation. Taking advantage of unique, timely if belated access to Vatican and other secret files, Katz weaves a story that captures the humanity and the terror of these twelve awful months in the history of the city. Katz's work involves a detailed cast of priests, diplomats, partisans, Romans, Allies, Nazis, with an especially helpful listing of them at the opening of the book. He closes with a summary of his legal battles with the niece of Pius XII (over Katz's accusations of the Pope's silence and implied complicity) and a nice, tight chronology of these troubled days. While the focus is on Rome itself, Katz describes the exhausting battles up from the south of Italy and the Allies' failure to grasp a major opportunity at Anzio in January 1944, when an American officer found that they could have probably driven straight into Rome on the day of the landings. Instead, the Germans regrouped and held out, the Americans hesitated and bled, and the citizens of Rome starved and waited four more months for the Allies to arrive. The partisans, expecting the imminent arrival of the Allies, worked to thwart the Nazis, yet faced terrible odds, gruesome torture, and little support or rest. And the partisans bickered among themselves; some even betrayed others for money. In the midst of the carnage and uncertainty, one partisan couple finds love and rebirth. And, in the aftermath, some (perhaps too few) are called to be accountable for their actions. Pope Pius appears to have favored a passive resistance and even a peaceful settlement between the Germans and the Allies, over the possibility of godless communism and the destruction of the Eternal City. It is hard to see how the Nazis could be accommodated and tolerated, or how they could be expected to treat Rome as an open city. Katz offers an illustration at the end of his work: After the siege of Rome in June 1944, Pius was not happy with the Allies parking a tank near one of the Bernini colonnades, so according to Katz, 'the Pope telephoned the Vatican secretariat three times to have the tank removed.' Katz wryly notes: 'Continual denunciations of Allied violations would get him nowhere now. They might have had a greater moral force had he begun with the Germans back in September [1943]'. As Eric Sevareid noted, the Pope, 'took credit for the fact that the city had been spared.' But could he, should he, did he do more to save lives? The calculus is almost too much to contemplate. While Pius remains a candidate for sainthood and admired by many, Katz raises troubling if not conclusive images of an all too human man.
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