Pahl, Magnus Monte Cassino 1944. Der Kampf um Rom und seine Inszenierung

Magnus Pahl's book questions the myth of German combat power in the battles for Monte Cassino in 1944, but also looks at the multinational forces of the Allies, among which the New Zealand and Polish contingents played a special role. In its own way, Monte Cassino is also a European, even global, place of remembrance of the Second World War. In this sense, the volume is accompanied by a foreword by the Polish military historian Zbigniew Wawer.

On 18 May 1944, the battle for Monte Cassino was lost for the Wehrmacht. The Allies had taken the embattled "breakwater Cassino", as German propaganda called it, after almost half a year of heavy fighting and were advancing on Rome. Goebbels' propaganda, however, was so skilful and sustained that to this day many Germans associate the name "Monte Cassino" primarily with a last German defensive victory and not with a lost battle. In particular, the image of undefeated German paratroopers often shapes the cliché among those interested in military history. But even the scholarly literature adopted this propaganda content. A volume from the series "Battles - Stations of World History".