Le Querce Di Monte Sole Vita e Morte Delle Communita Martiri Fra Setta e Reno 1898-1944

Il Mulino, 1986 First Italian. Fine as new in large cloth Hardcover with illustrated sutjacket. Text in Italian. Extensive photosection printed on brownish paper in the middle of the textblock. The story and backgrou nd of the massacre of Monte Sole is an overwhelming account of an outrage that has remained buried among the forgotten atrocities of World War II: the coldblooded murder by German soldiers of more tha n 1,800 Italian civilians, men, women, and children in the fall of 1944. Monte Sole (ironically Mountain of the Sun) had the bad luck to lie on the main route of withdrawal of the retreating German ar mies -- a route vitally important to Field Marshal Albert Kesselring. Under the fierce command of Il Lupo (The Wolf), the partisans of the Stella Rossa, headquartered in the hills of Monte Sole, haras sed the Germans by attacking convoys, derailing trains, even capturing the top-secret plans of the German Gothic Line. As the Allied advance stormed up Italy to the very shadow of Monte Sole, Axis fru stration reached its peak. With full authorization of Kesselring, and with an infusion of dread SS reinforcements, the Germans deliberately set out to neutralize Monte Sole.. Fine.