ABSTRACT
For a few minutes on the morning of September 11, Ruggero Zangrandi and the other political prisoners at Rome’s Regina Coeli prison thought that their wildest hopes had been fulfilled. Newspapers and radio announced that the Germans were remaining at the gates of Rome except for those guarding their embassy, their telephone center and the radio, but they could be seen all over the city, shooting right and left, seizing private cars and bicycles, and rifling banks. Germans moved into public buildings and ministries, placing antitank guns out front. Posters, printed in German and Italian and signed by Kesselring, proclaimed that all Italian territory under his control was subject to martial law. Simple soldiers were astonished at the turn of events. The fact that the Germans were shooting at them led some to believe that the Germans had allied themselves with the Americans against Italy.
