WAR, OCCUPATION AND RESISTANCE
German Occupation Of Rome
Once the Germans were able to successfully subdue Rome for the most part, then began the long 9 months of German occupation. This period of Italian history constituted widespread fear, hunger, and forced labor under the Nazis. While the partisans were still working underground on movements of resistance, the regular Italian had to now be concerned with fulfilling basic needs to stay alive, and to stay out of the line of fighting. Italians were purely surviving for nine months until the Allies came and forced the Germans out of Rome.
Coping with Food Shortages
One of the gravest situations working-class Italians faced was the food shortages. Sergio Fenoaltea, a writer, estimated that grain production had dropped 50 percent, oil by 25 percent, and sugar production was down by 90 percent. Italians were provided with ration cards in order to be given their ration of pasta, but many times there was no food for citizens to cash in on. This shortage of food, along with the chaos and confusion of a fallen Roman government, set the stage for lawlessness and theft. Jane Scrivener, an American nun living in Rome at the time of occupation who kept a diary of the Italian experience during those none months, recalls the events of looting and the shortage of food. The Germans had already been raiding and looting houses and stores without restraint. However, in the lawlessness and confusion desperately hungry Italians even began to partake in taking what they could, with the Germans using the spectacle of “the poor creatures carrying away cheeses and parcels of pasta” for propaganda.
Nazi Recruitment
Italians also had to be wary of labor or army recruitment. The Nazis published a set of signs declaring that any Italians who volunteered themselves in service to the Germans would be paid according to German wages. Whether these workers were actually paid or not is uncertain, but Italian workers were commonly sent into forced labor on work camps, or were forced to join the Nazi army and were made to go to the Russian front. The message was clear; lay down your arms, work for us, or you will be subdued by any means necessary.
Class Divisions
As for upper-class and middle-class Italians, many of them under Mussolini were either die-hard fascists or at the very least fascist sympathizers. A lot of them took it upon themselves to help the Germans with arrests of partisans and political enemies, causing further trouble for Italians. The German SS headquarters was established on Via Veneto in the Excelsior Hotel, right in the so called “dark heart of fascism”, in a very elitist part of Rome. The hotel’s main floor was transformed into a stock room for machine guns, and held, “drunken parties” while stealing anything they could and essentially sacking the hotel. Italians that were considered to be enemies to the Nazi regime of the Fascists had to fear not only the Nazi police, but Italian police as well. But while some stayed to work along with the Germans, others were more concerned of getting out of the city. A New York Times article reported that members of the new Fascist Republican militia had been slain, and fascist leaders were attempting to leave the city because “of fear of public reprisals and imminent Allied occupation.”
Life for working-class Italians under the Nazis was harsh and terrifying. Everything they did was monitored. The Nazis set curfews that they expected to be followed. Food was scarce, and the partisans made Rome a volatile and dangerous place for the rest of the populaces, with bombs and gunfire echoing in the distance day and night.
PHOTO, ABOVE: The building which once held the German Headquarters in Rome. Photo by Avery Enderle Wagner, 2014.
PHOTO, LEFT: The entrace to Cell No. 10 of the SS headquarters in Via Tasso, Rome. Captured resistance fighters and other prisoners were held in the cells of the SS headquarters, where they were tortured or interrogated. In many cells, the inscriptions of prisoners scratched into the walls can still be seen. Photo by MU Students, 2014.