Naples 1944: The Devil's Paradise at War

Summary

Keith Lowe has chronicled the end of WWII in Europe in Savage Continent and the war's aftermath in The Fear and the Freedom. In Naples 1944, he brings listeners another chronicle of the terrible and often unexpected consequences of war. Even before the fall of Mussolini, Naples was a place of great contrasts filled with palaces and slums, beloved cuisine and widespread hunger. After the Allied liberation, these contrasts made the city notorious. Compared to the starving population, Allied soldiers were staggeringly wealthy. For a packet of cigarettes, even the lowest ranks could buy themselves a watch, a new suit, or a woman for the night. As the biggest port in Allied hands, Naples became the center of Italy's black market. Within a few months the Camorra began to re-establish itself. Behind the chaos and the corruption, there was the threat of violence. Army guns were looted and traded. Gangs of street kids fought battles with the military police. Public buildings, booby-trapped by departing Germans, began to explode.

Then in March 1944, Vesuvius erupted. Naples was the first major European city to be liberated by the Allies. What they found there would set a template for the whole of the rest of Europe in the years to come. Naples 1944 is about a city on the brink of chaos and glimpse into the dark heart of postwar Italy.