German Special Police and RSI soldiers round up civilians in the aftermath of the Via Rasella attack.  The "Police Eagle" emblem on the German helmets can just be made out under magnification.

The laws of war at the time allowed an occuping army to exact "collective punishment" (that is to say, random reprisals) against a civilian population supposed to have assisted the enemy in attacks on the occupier.  Having gotten over the "wild action" impulse, the German security authorities (that which was headed by Obergruppenfuhrer Karl Wolff, with Obersturmbannfuhrer Herbert Kappler as local Roman chief) indulged in a debate, in effect, as to what was "proportionate".  This went all the way to Hitler.  The final determination was that the killing of 10 Italians for every dead German was "proportionate".  JR.



Roundup in Rome (2)

German and Italian (RSI) troops round up local civilians in the aftermath of the Via Rasella attack on Polizei Regiment "Bozen".  The immediate reaction of some German officials seems to have been to indulge in a large scale "wild action", in which Italian civilians would have been killed more or less indiscriminately as an act of revenge.  This was suppressed by the more sensible elements of the German security apparatus.  What actually happened was little less obscene.  JR.

Roundup in Rome.

The opening to the Adeatine caves, part of a disused quarry near Rome - early postwar photo.  

On 24 March, 1944, 335 people (5 in excess of the requirement - an error) and shot to death by SS security personnel in the Areatine caves.  When deciding the "quantum of damages", the SS appear to have assumed that there would be a sufficient number of prisoners in Rome's prisons under sentence of death to supply the number of victims required.  Surprisingly or unsurprisingly (depending on one's point of view), the number of the condemned fell well, well short of requirements.  In the end, the cadre of victims came to include persons merely accused of serious crimes, Italian government officials (Carabineri, Army officers) hostile to the RSI/Germans, perfectly unconnected civilians, Jews, and at least one Roman Catholic priest.  The SS personnel involved seem to have required a lot of alcohol to steel themselves to their task, resulting in a fair degree of "inefficiency" in the later stages of the day-long operation.  At its end, the entrance of the caves was sealed by explosion executed by German Army engineers.

In spite of the Germans' efforts to conceal it, an incident of this sort could not be kept secret following Rome's liberation.  Obersturmbannfuhrer Kappler, Obersturmbannfuhrer Karl Hass and Hauptsturmfuhrer Erich Priebke, the leading SS officers with direct responsibility for the Ardeatine caves massacre, were subsequently convicted by Italian courts of the crime.  Best regards, JR.
