XX0020 – Grüne Teufel German fallschirmjäger in Cassino, WWII

Fallschirmjäger at Cassino, 1944

The 1st Fallschirmjäger Division held the town and monastery hill of Cassino from February to May 1944, through four Allied offensives. The Fallschirmjäger were German airborne troops, but after the losses of the Crete operation in 1941 they were no longer used for parachute assault: they fought the rest of the war as elite ground infantry, and Cassino is the engagement for which they are best known.

The Position

Cassino sat where Highway 6 entered the Liri valley, the only practical route for an army moving on Rome. The monastery on the hill above dominated the approaches. It was destroyed by Allied bombing on 15 February 1944 on the belief that it was occupied — it was not, at that point — and the ruins then provided the defenders with far better cover than the intact building had offered. That sequence has been argued over ever since.

Four Battles

The successive assaults were made by American, New Zealand, Indian, British, Polish and French colonial troops, in winter conditions, against prepared positions in rubble and rock. The Rapido crossings failed at heavy cost, the bombing of the town on 15 March turned the streets into craters that stopped Allied armour, and the final assault in May succeeded only when the position was outflanked through the Aurunci mountains by the French Expeditionary Corps. The Polish II Corps took the monastery ruins on 18 May.

The Cost

Allied casualties across the four battles are usually put at around 55,000, German losses at some 20,000. The abbey was rebuilt after the war on its original plan. The Polish cemetery lies on the slope below it.

Giuseppe Rava’s Original Work

Giuseppe Rava reconstructs the German paratrooper of 1944 from the documentary record: the rimless jump helmet, the splinter-pattern smock, the FG42 and MG42, in the rubble terrain that defined the fighting at Cassino.

This is a limited edition fine art print, hand-signed by the artist, produced in SRA3 format on fine art paper. Ships worldwide.