A wartime association has decried a memorial for commemorating Italy's liberation fighters alongside Nazi paratroopers. More than 50,000 Allied soldiers are believed to have died in the Battle of Cassino.
City administrators on Sunday suspended a ceremony to unveil a memorial to soldiers killed during the Battle of Monte Cassino due to public outrage.
The memorial was to have the following words engraved in Italian, English and German: "In memory and recognition of the soldiers of all nations who fell in the bloody Battle of Cassino and all the civilian victims of the terrible war."
Historians estimate that 20,000 German soldiers were killed in the battle, while Allied powers lost more than 50,000 lives.
Days before the unveiling set for Sunday, the National Association of Italian Partisans (ANPI), an association founded in 1944 by members of the Italian resistance, called it disgraceful that the town of Monte Cassino would erect such a memorial.
"In all likelihood, [the memorial] equates the fighters for the liberation of Italy from occupation and slavery to Hitler's totalitarian atrocities with those who committed those atrocities to the detriment of Italians," said ANPI in a statement published on Facebook.
A mock-up of the memorial is shown in a screenshot from the Facebook page of the Battle of Cassino AssociationImage: Facebook/Associazione Battaglia di Cassino
'No intention of honoring murderers'
However, the Battle of Cassino Association's research center said critics had spread "disinformation" about the memorial, which was to be erected on a tourist trail that tells the story of the battle.
"This initiative has no intention of honoring murderers," the research center said. "I think that historical memory transmits, communicates and solicits dialogue, and memory is the basis for a reconciliation of the peoples who suffered and those that caused immense tragedy."
Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini led Italy into World War II as an ally of Nazi Germany in 1940. He was later deposed during the allied invasion of Italy in 1943 and executed in 1945.
German General Hans-Werner Fritz, who heads the German confederation of paratroopers, had been expected to attend the ceremony before it was cancelled.
The men who led Nazi Germany
The German National Socialist Workers' party profoundly affected the course of 20th-century world history with their ideology, propaganda and crimes. Who were the key leaders of the movement?
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945)
As Hitler's Propaganda Minister, the virulently anti-Semitic Goebbels was responsible for making sure a single, iron-clad Nazi message reached every citizen of the Third Reich. He strangled freedom of the press, controlled all media, arts, and information, and pushed Hitler to declare "Total War." He and his wife committed suicide in 1945, after poisoning their six children.
Image: picture-alliance/Everett Collection
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
The leader of the German National Socialist Workers' Party (Nazi) developed his anti-Semitic, anti-communist and racist ideology well before coming to power as Chancellor in 1933. He undermined political institutions to transform Germany into a totalitarian state. From 1939 to 1945, he led Germany in World War II while overseeing the Holocaust. He committed suicide in April 1945.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945)
As leader of the Nazi paramilitary SS ("Schutzstaffel"), Himmler was one of the Nazi party members most directly responsible for the Holocaust. He also served as Chief of Police and Minister of the Interior, thereby controlling all of the Third Reich's security forces. He oversaw the construction and operations of all extermination camps, in which more than 6 million Jews were murdered.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Rudolf Hess (1894-1987)
Hess joined the Nazi party in 1920 and took part in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, a failed Nazi attempt to gain power. While in prison, he helped Hitler write "Mein Kampf." Hess flew to Scotland in 1941 to attempt a peace negotiation, where he was arrested and held until the war's end. In 1946, he stood trial in Nuremberg and was sentenced to life in prison, where he died.
Image: Getty Images/Central Press
Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962)
Alongside Himmler, Eichmann was one of the chief organizers of the Holocaust. As an SS Lieutenant colonel, he managed the mass deportations of Jews to Nazi extermination camps in Eastern Europe. After Germany's defeat, Eichmann fled to Austria and then to Argentina, where he was captured by the Israeli Mossad in 1960. Tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity, he was executed in 1962.
Image: AP/dapd
Hermann Göring (1893-1946)
A participant in the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Göring became the second-most powerful man in Germany once the Nazis took power. He founded the Gestapo, the Secret State Police, and served as Luftwaffe commander until just before the war's end, though he increasingly lost favor with Hitler. Göring was sentenced to death at Nuremberg but committed suicide the night before it was enacted.
