MALCOLM TUDOR
New Member
ON THIS DAY IN ITALY IN1943 ~The 8th of September ~ terms of Armistice and Surrender signed in secret five days earlier by the Italians in Sicily were made public. The Allies had landed on the coast of Calabria. The Germans occupied the rest of the country and soon installed the deposed dictator Benito Mussolini as head of a puppet Fascist republic on Lake Garda. Meanwhile, a royalist government was created in liberated territory at Brindisi.
The announcement of the armistice was followed by mass breakouts from prisoner of war camps across Italy. Allied servicemen flooded into the countryside and threw themselves on the mercy of ordinary Italian citizens and members of the resistance. The Germans immediately threatened anyone giving food, shelter, or civilian clothes to escaped prisoners with the severest penalties. In practice, the penalties included the burning of helpers’ houses, deportation, or execution by firing squad. In addition, a reward of 1,800 Lire, or twenty pounds, was soon offered for handing over a prisoner. The first military decree of the new Fascist republic on 10 October also made aiding and abetting the enemy a capital offence.
The response of many Italians ~ including my own family~ to threats and bribes from Germans and Fascists was to redouble their efforts to help the escaped prisoners of war in every way possible … These dramatic events have inspired my research and writing on WW2 Italy for almost twenty-five years now.
The announcement of the armistice was followed by mass breakouts from prisoner of war camps across Italy. Allied servicemen flooded into the countryside and threw themselves on the mercy of ordinary Italian citizens and members of the resistance. The Germans immediately threatened anyone giving food, shelter, or civilian clothes to escaped prisoners with the severest penalties. In practice, the penalties included the burning of helpers’ houses, deportation, or execution by firing squad. In addition, a reward of 1,800 Lire, or twenty pounds, was soon offered for handing over a prisoner. The first military decree of the new Fascist republic on 10 October also made aiding and abetting the enemy a capital offence.
The response of many Italians ~ including my own family~ to threats and bribes from Germans and Fascists was to redouble their efforts to help the escaped prisoners of war in every way possible … These dramatic events have inspired my research and writing on WW2 Italy for almost twenty-five years now.
Four different books are available in paperback and two in hard cover from Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Malcolm-Edward-Tudor/author/B001KCHTWO and Emilia Publishing www.emiliapublishing.com
Three of the titles are also available in Kindle from Amazon.
Best wishes,
Malcolm Tudor
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British POW Italy COVER(6).jpg