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Massacre in Rome (Italian: Rappresaglia) is a 1973 film directed by George Pan Cosmatos[1] about the Ardeatine massacre which occurred at the Ardeatine caves in Rome, 24 March 1944, committed by the Germans as a reprisal for a partisan attack.
Summary
The film stars Richard Burton as the Gestapo chief Herbert Kappler who carries out the killings of 330 mostly randomly and hurriedly selected victims as revenge for partisans killing 33 Germans: using a ratio of ten Italian victims for every one German. Meantime the Vatican stands by and issues no condemnation.
The film is based on the book Death in Rome (1973) by Robert Katz. The score was composed by Ennio Morricone
Differences between the film and actual events
A body lies in the via Rasella during the round up of civilians by German and Italian soldiers after the partisan bombing on 13th March, 1944.
Herbert Kappler is depicted in the film as being a tired worn out man, who is disillusioned with the Nazi cause and believes that the fall of Nazi Germany is imminent. In reality, Kappler was a zealous Nazi and was sent to Rome for exactly this reason. During his time as head of the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police) in Rome, Kappler organized the round-ups of thousands of innocent victims, oversaw raids on Jewish homes for looted valuables, and was a key figure in transporting Italian Jews to Nazi death camps.
Father Pietro Antonelli is a combination of several different Vatican officials who personally knew Kappler, the most significant of whom was Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty who appears in the film The Scarlet and the Black. There is also no evidence that a priest sneaked into the Ardeatine caves massacre site as is depicted in the final scene of the film.
The SS victims of the partisan attack are referred to throughout the film as "German soldiers", when in fact the company which was attacked was part of the "Battalion Bozen", which was composed of ethnic Germans from the German-speaking area of South Tyrol in northern Italy.
Kurt Mälzer is shown throughout the film giving direct orders to SS units and personally supervising the buildup to the massacre organized by Kappler. In reality, while several regular Wehrmacht officers did issue orders to the SS during this period, as well as Kappler and Mälzer personally discussing the operation, Kappler and his men were under the SS and Police Leader chain of command, and it was through these channels that most of the official orders concerning the massacre were issued.
Colonel Dollmann was never Kappler's direct superior, as is implied several times in the film. In reality, Kappler answered to the office of SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff, who also maintained his headquarters in Rome. Wolff is never seen or mentioned in the film.
At the time of the massacre, Herbert Kappler was 37 years old. Actor Richard Burton was just short of his 48th birthday when the film was produced, a full eleven years older than Kappler would have been at the time.
Cast
Richard Burton - Lt. Col. Herbert Kappler
Marcello Mastroianni - Father Pietro Antonelli
Leo McKern - Gen. Kurt Mälzer
John Steiner - Col. Dollmann
Anthony Steel - Maj. Domizlaf
Robert Harris - Father Pancrazio
Peter Vaughan - Gen. Albert Kesselring
Renzo Montagnani - Questore Pietro Caruso
Giancarlo Prete - Paolo
Renzo Palmer - Giorgio
Brook Williams - Capt.Erich Priebke
Dennis Burgess - Lt.Schultz
References
^ "NY Times: Massacre in Rome". NY Times.com. Retrieved 2009-03-28.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org"
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
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