Date/Time
Date(s) - 10/06/2025
12:30 - 13:30
Location
Press Club Brussels Europe
Categories
Italy’s Gothic Line: past meets present – 80 years ago Italy on the wrong side of WW II history
With Europe at a crossroads, will the lessons of WWII help or haunt Italy and the EU’s future?
New multi-episode podcast retraces how the largest multinational, multi-racial army in modern times
finally ended Nazi, Italian Fascist tryanny in Italy
Agenda :
12:30 Podcast launch
13:30 Light Lunch served
Summary
Eighty years ago, Italy was on the wrong side of World War II history. As Europe stands at another crossroads, can the lessons of WWII guide or hinder Italy and the EU’s future?
This new podcast explores how the world’s largest multinational and multiracial army ultimately led to the end of Nazi and Italian Fascist tyranny in Italy. The final nine months of World War II in northern Italy are frequently overlooked in history books. Yet, they embody lessons relevant to today’s geopolitical, economic, and security challenges.
The podcast examines how the past still resonates in Europe today, where a rise in intolerant, anti-immigrant, and anti-science far-right political parties, coupled with a growing complacency regarding the threat posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, echoes the atmosphere of the 1930s. As support for far-right political figures grows, figures who seek to undermine or even dismantle the European Union, the rule of law, and fundamental Western democratic values, including an independent judiciary and a free press, this situation becomes increasingly concerning.
The launch of this podcast will explore the similarities between WWII-era Italy and the current tensions in Europe and discuss possible responses to these challenges.
Background
Rome, Washington, Brussels
Italy was on the wrong side of World War II history more than 80 years ago and as the tide turned in the bloody struggle, Allied Forces – desperate for troops – deployed the most multinational, multi-racial army ever assembled to finally end Nazi and Italian Fascist tyranny. The story of the last nine months of WW II in northern Italy is a mere footnote in most history books but it is a parable that holds lessons in the face of today’s geopolitical, economic and security challenges.
Known as the Gothic Line offensive it was waged by an Allied Force that included soldiers from more than 17 countries, including persons of different races, ethnicity and religions from North and South America, Africa, Asia and Oceania to achieve a feat no less daunting than invading the Normandy beaches. Instead of disembarking from boats more than 600,000 Allied soldiers had to scale treeless Apennine mountains in the face of German mountain-top mortar, artillery and machine gun bunkers. As more than a few military historians have summarized, the Allied troops fighting on the Gothic Line were “bait” dangled to keep the more than 400,00 German soldiers pinned down in Italy to prevent them from retreating to halt Allied troops marching through northwest Europe towards Berlin.
In Italy the Gothic Line story has been buried for much of the past 80 years because it took place amidst a bloody civil war. Tens of thousands of innocent Italian men, women and children were murdered in northern Italy between June 1944 and April of 1945 by the Nazi and Italians Fascists soldiers as well as their paramilitary thugs fighting to retain power in what known as the Italian Social Republic. Unlike in Germany there was no war crime tribunal in Italy similar to the German Nuremberg Trials so few if any perpetrators of the civilian massacres in Italy were held accountable – a festering wound that still poisons contemporary Italian politics and society and has left many families still searching for answers.
The collective amnesia in Italy about much of WW II and especially the battle on the Gothic Line – a coast-to-coast mountaintop fortification Hitler had built in the last year and half of WW II – also goes a long way to explain why the majority of Italians oppose military arms and coalition-of-the-willing cease-fire soldier support to help Ukraine. This lack of solidarity remains steadfast despite a strident speech by Italian President Sergio Mattarella in February warning Italians and others in Europe that what Putin is doing in Ukraine is no different to what Hitler did in Italy or other parts of Europe in WW II.
Trump Administration of U.S. racism on Gothic Line
But Italy is not the only country with Gothic line stains in its past that were covered up for decades. United States President Donald Trump’s Defense Department ordered earlier this year books removed from U.S. Armed Forces libraries that tell how segregated U.S. Army African American infantry troops – the first to face combat in WW II – fought two wars on the Gothic Line: one against the Nazis and another against white racist U.S. commanders. The podcast includes interviews with authors of recent publications who detail how the story of U.S. military racism on the front lines in Italy was finally exposed after 50 years and the shame of Trump trying to censor it again.
History Repeats: Europe’s modern parallels with the 1930s
In this 80th year anniversary of the WW II armistice the podcast also examines how the past is present in Europe as the rise of the intolerant, anti-immigrant, anti-science far right political parties combined with complacency about the threat of Russian President Vladimir Putin mimics the 1930s.
Europe is facing basically the same challenges of a dictatorship bent on changing the international order and testing the limits of European institutions and European tolerances,” said Russian émigré Sergei Medvedev, an author and history professor at the University of Charles in Prague in a podcast episode titled the Past is Present Chapter 1. Noting that Vladimir Putin has been bent on a war of agression to restore the Soviet empire since Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, Medvedev said the Russian leader’s goal is driven by the same kind of post-imperial resentment that motivated Hitler to restore the glory of Weimar Germany.
And the frightening similarity is that Europe once again does not seem to be mentally prepared to face the aggression to declare Russia an existential threat to its own security,” Medvedev said.
Of course the major difference between now and 80 years ago is that the transatlantic alliance between the European Union and and the United States is collapsing. U.S. President Donald Trump and his MAGA acolytes including Elon Musk are rapidly making alliances with European Putin appeasers who want to cripple if not crush the European Union, the rule of law and the core western democractic values, including an independent judiciary and a free press.
The United States under Donald Trump has turned into an autocracy that has befuddled the world because the break with Europe and NATO alliance can bring us really close to the danger line,” said British historian and author Andrew Sangster stated in a podcast episode. “It is a serious, serious problem.”
Italy on the Sidelines
As a founding EU member with the bloc’s third largest economy Italy should be shoulder to shoulder with allies led by the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Nordic nations, Poland and others that understand Europe faces the same kinds of challenges the continent confronted in the 1930s before WW II.
However Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, whose political party’s roots trace back to Italian Fascist Dictator Benito Mussolini, is sitting on the sidelines. She is not alone. Across much of the Italian political spectrum and among the public , there is widespread opposition to arms and troop support for Ukraine. The same goes for new EU initiatives to increase defense spending.
This lack of solidarity raises the profound question: is Italy again destined for the wrong side of history again as the EU confronts existential threats from Putin’s war machine and Trump’s hostility towards the transatlantic economic and defense alliance that has been the anchor of western democratic peace, prosperity and the rule of law for the last 80 years?
Podcast for the present and future
Titled 80 years on, WW II Gothic Line ghosts haunt modern day Italy, the podcast is a non-profit project and any revenue generated will be donated to the Save Ukraine charity. It features more than 18 episodes with interviews with authors, historians and other experts from Europe, North and South America, Africa and Asia. The podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music.
The podcast can also be obtained for educational purposes by contacting Joe Kirwin: Tel. 00 32 478 277802 or joekirwin@compuserve.com