The OWC proudly presents:
Lying film “Monte Cassino”
The awe-inspiring structure of the Monte Cassino Abbey, which, as reported in the military bulletin, was attacked by the enemy air force, although there were no German soldiers in the buildings or in the immediate vicinity, has been largely destroyed. The ruins are now part of the German defensive front. Instead of the old church founded by the order‘s founders and later destroyed multiple times, a magnificent Renaissance church was also built in the 17th century. It took 100 years to construct. It was considered one of the most beautiful Renaissance churches in the world. A glimpse of the interior of this church, which has now been destroyed. – 28-2-44
Goebbels, the great director
For the propaganda cinema,
Recently made a new film
Titled: Monte Cassino.
He showed the destruction rage
Of the Yankees and the Brits,
Destroyers of all culture,
Despisers of all customs,
Who now rose to the pinnacle
Of wickedness,
And reduced Monte Cassino‘s abbey
To rubble and ashes.
The venerable mother house
Of the Benedictine brothers,
Is completely devastated,
One no longer recognizes it.
And in the newsreel film, they show us
Ruins, broken columns,
And for those who love antiquities,
It‘s heart-wrenching.
“That this heap of debris is smoking,
The shame and stains of the enemy,
This monastery was not used
For strategic purposes.
The fact is that there were no German soldiers, machine gun or artillery positions, or German artillery observers in the old venerable Monte Cassino Abbey or in its immediate vicinity. Furthermore, the German command explicitly rejected, with gratitude, the generous offer from the abbot to admit and care for heavily wounded individuals in the monastery to avert any conceivable danger to the building, in order to avoid even the slightest appearance of using the structure for German military purposes. To remove the enemy‘s final pretext for destroying the cultural monument, a German gendarmerie post was stationed at the entrance to the monastery, with orders to ensure that the monastery would not even be entered by individual German soldiers unfamiliar with the situation. – 17/2
It would have been of great use
To us to get it as a bulwark,
But we left it unused
And completely peaceful.
There is now an attempt to blame the Germans, who have once again demonstrated that they prioritize cultural responsibility over their military interests, for their own crime against culture in order to gain propaganda advantage from a shameful act. – 17/2
We are the friends of culture
And we save monuments
And our sole aim was only
How to preserve them.
Not a single German soldier
Entered the abbey,
We let the abbot and monks pray silently
In complete peace.
And this sacred monastery
Was destroyed by our enemy,
They claimed German troops were there,
Which is not true.
Yes, they raised a cry,
Saying there were weapons in the monastery,
We had turned Benedict‘s abbey
Into a fortress.
What they claim is not true
No! It is a brazen lie!”
And Goebbels makes it clear to the people,
Understandably enough.
That Germany, as so often before,
Has been wronged here,
But this film is fatally filled
With much directed scenes.
Eight days before, with delight,
One read in the “Express”
What is now denied with outrage
For one‘s own benefit and advantage.
The military correspondent of the D.N.B. also writes about Italy, but concerning this front area, one can also listen to the English. An American lieutenant who entered Cassino with his group reportedly told in another report in the Daily Express: “We managed to occupy some buildings in Cassino late in the evening. However, we were immediately attacked by enemy machine gun fire and had to fall back. Subsequently, our ranks were hit by enemy artillery fire and we couldn’t escape. In the past two years, while following our troops, I have seen many battlefields, as told by the war correspondent of the Daily Herald in the Cassino sector. But I cannot recall a battlefield that conveys the impression of such desperate fighting as that of Cassino. I saw and heard how hell broke loose there. The German casemates are so skillfully constructed that two soldiers with a machine gun can repel any attacker. We still don‘t have the Cassino monastery. It is impossible to even approximate how many Americans have been killed in the battles for possession of this monastery. The Germans are fighting like madmen.” – 9-2-44.
English Voices on the Italian Setback.
The English newspaper quote
Showed the difficulties
That German troops cause their enemy
In Cassino.
Satisfied, they record
Tremendous losses
That an attacked enemy
Had to endure.
They return the enemy’s compliment,
How they defended the monastery
With pride, and they confess
In that way what they now offended
Deny and claim that never existed
Casemates in the monastery,
And shortly before they admitted,
that they indeed had some.
The other claims that the abbey and the surrounding area were used or set up for other military facilities, machine gun positions, and artillery observation posts, etc., are based on fantasy. – 18/2
And when one sees this lie,
Then one can well understand,
That this will not go unpunished,
Such a fortress must be razed.
And Goebbels sings full of sorrow,
About the abbot of ninety years,
Who – tone of minor –
Had to experience much terror.
Of twenty monks, it was a circle,
And one hundred and fifty citizens,
Who sought refuge with the old man,
From the horrors and oppressors of war.
For at the moment of the bombing, only the nearly 90-year-old abbot with his approximately 20 monks and about 150 Italian civilians seeking refuge were present in the monastery. – 17/2.
But on the very next day,
Of those twenty brothers,
In newspaper columns, a hundred dead,
There‘s nothing to refute.
100 Benedictine monks killed.
Under the ruins of the Abbey of Monte Cassino destroyed by the Anglo-Americans, about 100 killed Benedictine monks have been found, as reported by Rome. – 18/2
And in the newspaper, the number of those who fled
Kept growing and swelling,
Yes, a few thousand are already accounted for
According to what‘s reported.
The monks and the crowd of thousands of refugees did not believe in an attack as there were no German soldiers present in the monastery.
They constantly adjust
The screws of propaganda,
And lie here and there and everywhere,
And some people believe.
In Germany’s unblemished shield,
In Germany’s weapon‘s honor,
They are convinced and so filled
With Goebbels’ doctrine of lies,
That in their minds, it will never,
Ever dawn,
The madness of their fantasies
Must be hammered out of their brains.
Post-Editing: Sylvia Stawski, Ernst Sittig
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