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Title: The Battle for Rome : The Germans, the Allies, the Partisans, and the Pope, September 1943-June 1944 by Robert Katz ISBN: 0-7432-1642-3 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 06 August, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.69 (13 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent piece of history
Comment: 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.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Fine Historical Work
Comment: 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
Rating: 4
Summary: ... and most of them got away
Comment: I have just finished reading Robert Katz's "The Battle for Rome: The Germans, the Allies, the Partisans, and the Pope," (New York, 2003, Simon & Schuster).
The book is primarily the story of how Rome was finally taken by the Allies on the day before D-Day in Normandy, long after the successful Anzio landing from which Gen. John Lucas did not break out while the roads to Rome were open.
It tells the horrible story of the German massacre of 355 Romans in the Ardeatine Caves and how the Germans responsible all escaped the death sentences pronounced over them for the greatest World War II atrocity committed in Italy and how ABC's Sam Donalson tracked down one of the killers, Capt. Erich Priebke, in South America, to which he had fled thanks to the U.S. Army's Rat Line for war criminals.
But throughout the book, there are glimpses of the OSS's Peter Tompkins who had to overcome the fact that two others claimed to be the chief OSS leader in Rome while various seedy types betrayed each other and Tompkins. Eventually, just before the 88th U.S. Infantry Division entered Rome on the eve of D-Day in Normandy, Tompkins had a radio for contact with OSS, but one of his seedy challengers had the crystals. So Tompkins had to leave Rome on the eve of liberation. (Katz omits mention of the 88th Blue Devils in his text, but does credit them in a cutline for a picture.)
To make the book readable, Katz keeps returning to the story of Paulo and Elena (conspiratorial names), two of the greatest Italian Resistance heroes, both of whom took part in the ambush of singing SS men in the Via Rasella that led to the Ardeatine Massacre.
Katz also does a great job in refuting the Vatican claim that Pope Pius XII did much to save the Jews of Italy and shows that the roundup of Rome's Jews (with only one survivor) took place under the Pope's balcony and with his silence.
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Title: Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda by JOHN KEEGAN ISBN: 0375400532 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 21 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea by ROBERT K. MASSIE ISBN: 0679456716 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 28 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: The Burma Road : The Epic Story of the China-Burma-India Theater in World War II by Donovan Webster ISBN: 0374117403 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 13 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans ISBN: 1594200041 Publisher: The Penguin Press Pub. Date: 05 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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Title: Washington's Crossing (Pivotal Moments in American History) by David Hackett Fischer ISBN: 0195170342 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: February, 2004 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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