Hide & Seek by Stephen Walker

Author:Stephen Walker
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780762785711
Publisher: Lyons Press
Published: 2017-02-15T16:00:00+00:00

Romans first read the German communiqué at midday on Saturday, March 25, around sixteen hours after the massacre ended. It was published on the front page of the Messaggero newspaper. The most chilling words were the concluding ones, which detailed that the order had already been executed. Now the city knew what had happened, but still didn’t know who the victims were and where they had been killed, although strong rumors persisted that the shootings had been carried out at the caves in Via Ardeatina.

Hours after the Messaggero broke the news, the communiqué appeared in the Vatican newspaper the Osservatore Romano. The only legal non-fascist newspaper in Rome, the Osservatore Romano had appealed the day before to the city’s inhabitants to refrain from acts of violence after the Via Rasella attack, for fear that the Germans would retaliate. In Saturday’s edition the newspaper returned to that theme. Part of the editorial read: “In the face of such deeds every honest heart is left profoundly grieved in the name of humanity and Christian sentiment. Thirty-three victims on the one hand; and on the other, 335 persons sacrificed for the guilty parties who escaped arrest.”

The wording is worthy of examination. Who were the “guilty parties”? Were they the Nazis who rounded up over three hundred people and then butchered them, or the small gang of Resistance fighters who planted the bomb in Via Rasella? What is clear is that those behind the editorial, viewed by many as the authentic voice of the Vatican, felt they could draw a distinction between the two acts of violence. The statement was also seen by many as another warning that further acts of resistance could lead to more German reprisals.

The questions raised about the behavior of the Resistance prompted a debate across the city. It is an argument that still dramatically divides opinion in Italy. Was the Resistance right to attack the Germans? Was the Resistance responsible for the Ardeatine retaliation? Had the Resistance members who carried out the bombing given themselves up, would the revenge attack have been avoided? Was the taking of thirty-three German lives worth 335 Italian lives?

These questions now consumed the Resistance movement. The Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale (CLN) met in emergency session to discuss the Via Rasella attack and the Ardeatine Massacre. The CLN was an odd mix of six anti-fascist groups united by the common cause of defeating the Nazis. The groups included Socialists, Communists, Christian Democrats, and Liberals, and each was represented on the Military Command. Inevitably the political dynamic meant infighting, which meant that arguments slowed the decision-making process. The Christian Democrats argued that any future military operations must be cleared in advance. The Liberals argued that the CLN should take full responsibility for the Via Rasella attack. The Patriotic Action Group, known as the gappisti, the organization that actually carried out the bombing, took matters into their own hands and issued a statement saying they had been behind the attack and would continue to fight the Nazis until they left Italy.

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