South Yorkshire Times, October 9th 1943
Europe’s Ordeal
The sack of Naples by the retreating Germans is a horrid foretaste of what is in store not only for Italy, but for all those countries into which the German eagle has fastened its claws. A pall of smoke hanging for days over this once fair city, the apple of Italy’s eye, gave notice of what might be expected when the Allies eventually relieved Naples from its agony.
The reality was in fact much worse than the expectation. German ingenuity had attained new and fiendish heights in devastation and desecration. The sewerage system had been painstakingly connected to reservoirs in order to defile what water supply remained for the stricken populace. Hospitals were choked with wounded civilians, and in some cases, rooms were piled high with dead which the mortuaries could not hold.
Civilians had been driven into buildings which were then dynamited on top of them, and all premises which could be so treated had been destroyed by fire. Civilians had been forced to mask some movements of the Nazi withdrawal with their bodies.
No wonder the Neapolitans went wild with delight when the liberating forces of the Allies streamed into the town. It may be argued that Italy is getting no more than her deserts for throwing in her lot in the first place with such savages, but no one with a spark of feeling either for art or humanity will remain unmoved by the prospect which faces Italy in the course of a vengeful Nazi retreat. The investment of Rome, which cannot be far away, will bring the matter to a bitter climax. After doing all they can in an effort to force the Allies to injure the capital, and in particular the Vatican, the Germans will hardly have any scruples about touching up the picture of ruin, taking care at the same time to make over all liability to the other side.
Ostensibly Kesselring is pursuing a scorched earth policy on the Russian model, hut the thing goes deeper than that. This is not a land where soldiers must have a roof over their heads or die when winter grips the countryside, nor are the distances so vast, or the means of communication so primitive that the Anglo-American forces cannot readily bring up materials and supplies to make good the destruction. An ecstasy of spite stamps the whole Nazi campaign, and the woeful thought is that, when the Western Wall of Europe is driven in, the tale will be retold in fresh chapters of suffering, rapine and demolition.
The Nazi of to-day is not essentially different from the Boche or the Hun of 1918. He derives a sadistic satisfaction from this conduct, a berserk joy in laying waste the homeland of the foreigner. Europe will pay a heavy price before these vandals are herded back within their own boundaries, and, if the bill is not to be met again within a generation, the cities of the Reich must this time be made to feel something of the terrors of the sword, in addition to the castigation they have already received from British Bombers.