page_title: Ardeatine massacre
section_title: Partisan attack in Via Rasella
hierarchical_section_title: Ardeatine massacre / Partisan attack in Via Rasella
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Rome, Italy, 23 March 1944. German and fascist republican soldiers in via Rasella after a deadly Partisan attack against the 11th Company, 3rd Battalion, German Police Battalion "Bozen", raised from ethnic Germans from the northern Italian province of South Tyrol, de facto annexed to the Third Reich since October 1943. All the Germans killed (33) and wounded (around 100) during the attack had been removed already from the scene at the time the picture was taken. The corpse under a blanket could be one of the civilians killed during the German reaction to the attack. All of the 12 attackers escaped capture unscathed. Information added by Wikimedia users.* Italiano: Roma, Italia, 23 marzo 1944: Soldati tedeschi, fascisti repubblicani (e un poliziotto) in via Rasella dopo l'attentato partigiano condotto contro l'11a compagnia del 3o battaglione "Bozen" della Polizia Tedesca, arruolato tra cittadini di etnia tedesca dell'Alto Adige, occupato dal Terzo Reich e amministrato come "Zona d'Operazioni" dall'ottobre 1943. Tutti i caduti (33) e feriti tedeschi (100) erano già stati evacuati al momento dello scatto. Il cadavere coperto da un lenzuolo potrebbe essere quello di uno dei civili rimasti uccisi dalla bomba gappista oppure durante la successiva, violenta reazione tedesca all'attacco. Tutti e 12 i partigiani che condussero l'attacco sfuggirono incolumi alla cattura.
context_page_description: The Ardeatine massacre, or Fosse Ardeatine massacre, was a mass killing carried out in Rome on 24 March 1944 by German occupation troops during the Second World War as a reprisal for the Via Rasella attack conducted on the previous day in central Rome against the SS Police Regiment Bozen.
  Subsequently, the Ardeatine Caves site was declared a Memorial Cemetery and National Monument open daily to visitors. Every year, on the anniversary of the slaughter and in the presence of the senior officials of the Italian Republic, a solemn state commemoration is held at the monument in honour of the fallen. Each year, 335 names are called out, a simple roll call of the dead, to reinforce that 335 discrete individuals symbolise a collective entity.
context_section_description: On 23 March 1944, a column of the German 11th Company, 3rd Battalion, SS Police Regiment 'Bozen', was attacked by an ambush of Partisans while marching and singing on a prescribed route that led through the Piazza di Spagna into the narrow street of Via Rasella. Organised by the Nazis to intimidate and suppress the Resistance, the battalion had been raised in October 1943 from ethnic German-speakers of the northern Italian province of South Tyrol, a territory that Hitler had annexed to the German Reich after the September "betrayal" by the Italian government. Many of its citizens had since opted for German citizenship. The soldiers of the battalion were veterans of the Royal Italian Army who had seen action on the Russian Front and had chosen service in the SS rather than face another tour in the East with the Wehrmacht.
  The attack was carried out by 16 partisans of the Communist-dominated resistance organisation Gruppo d'Azione Patriottica ("Patriotic Action Group") or GAP. An improvised explosive device was prepared consisting of 12 kilogrammes of TNT packed in a steel case. This was inserted into a bag containing an additional six kilograms of TNT and TNT filled iron tubing. Although reported as having been thrown from a building, the bomb had actually been hidden in a rubbish cart, pushed into position by a Partisan disguised as a street cleaner, while others acted as lookouts. The fuse was lit when the police were forty seconds from the bomb. The blast caused the immediate deaths of 28 SS policemen and may have killed two civilian bystanders, one of whom, Piero Zuccheretti, was an eleven-year-old boy, although he might have been killed by the Germans firing in response; it is unknown. More would die over the next few days. All sixteen Partisans—some of whom fired on the German column—succeeded in melting away into the crowd unscathed.
caption: A body lies in the Via Rasella during the roundup of civilians by Italian soldiers and German troops  after the partisan bombing on 23 March 1944.
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