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Cassino book for sale at abbey

NZPA staff correspondent London A controversial book on the World War II destruction of Monte Cassino involving New Zealand forces under General Freyberg will not be withdrawn from sale at the restored Italian abbey, says its author.

The author. Professor Herbert Bloch, a historian and professor emeritus at Harvard University, said in a letter to "The Times” that he was outraged at outside attempts to suppress the sale and reprinting of the book at Monte Cassino.

The Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, told Parliament last year that Professor Bloch’s book was “an unbalanced and distorted account of the bombardment of Monte Cassino and all-in-all is a nasty little piece of work.”

He was answering a question by Mr M. K. Moore (Lab., Papanui), who asked if Mr Muldoon would take steps to ensure that a vita] matter of New Zealand his-

tory was corrected. This followed up publication of an NZPA report from London that an English author, John Canning, had written to “The Times” complaining that visitors to the abbey were being sold an “overwhelmingly proGerman account” of its 1944 bombardment that disparaged General Freyberg and the New Zealand troops. “It is a really disgraceful thing,” Mr Canning told NZPA..

“Thousands of people visiting the abbey are getting an entirely one-sided account.” Professor Bloch said in his letter to “The Times”: “I am especially outraged at the outside attempts to suppress the sale and reprinting of my booklet at Monte Cassino (the proceeds of which go to the abbey) by rallying the English Catholic hierarchy to bring pressure on the abbot of Monte Cassino. - “The Most Rev. D. Martino Matronola, the present abbot of Monte Cassino, personally contributed to my booklet an

eye-witness account of conditions in the monastery before and during the. bombardment, which he miraculously survived. “Last October I visited Monte Cassino. I talked at length with his excellency the abbot who assured me that he had no intention of withdrawing my booklet from sale.” Professor Bloch said he had been born ,in Germany but left after Hitler came to power. He emigrated to Italy and was expelled in 1939 under Mussolini.

“My brother was murdered at an unknown date in Auschwitz,” he said.

“These facts hardly support what Mr Canning calls ‘my overwhelmingly proGerman bias.’

“As an objective historian, my only concern was to establish the truth about the causes and responsibilities for the bombing of the abbey and about the political and military effects of its destruction.

“My sources, amply cited

in the booklet ... were largely official reports on the Italian campaign on the part of the allied forces involved in the bombardment.” Professor Bloch said he had ascribed to the German High Command its share of responsibility. But the question was whether there were German troops in the monastery.

(The reason given for the bombing was that the Germans were thought to be occupying the abbey, although this turned out to be wrong.) Professor Bloch said United States General Mark Clark, in charge of the Fifth Army and in command at Cassino, had strongly resisted demands by MajorGeneral Francis Tuker, command of the 4th Indian Division, that his division’s attack on Monastery Hill should be preceded by saturation bombing. He had finally yielded to General Sir Harold Alexander. his superior.

General Clark had . subsequently said publicly that the bombardment of the abbey was “a tactical mistake of the first magnitude.”

Professor Bloch said in his book that General Freyberg had “enthusiastically” accepted Major-General Tuker’s advice to bomb the monastery. Mr Muldoon told Parliament that approaches had been made to the Government over the book by concerned New Zealand historians and interested groups.

He said that direct Government intervention would “serve only to give notoriety and hence business” to the book.

According to the New Zealand Embassy in Rome, the book was "far from being a best seller and may indeed be allowed to go out of print.”

That would be the best result for all concerned, Mr Muldoon said.

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19830110.2.56

Bibliographic details

Press, 10 January 1983, Page 6

Word Count
670

Cassino book for sale at abbey Press, 10 January 1983, Page 6

Cassino book for sale at abbey Press, 10 January 1983, Page 6