29 April 1945 - The liberation of Venice

A few days ago, I came across an article in the UK’s The Telegraph,dated 17 May 2013 and written by the late Annabel Freyberg. 

 

Her grandfather, Lt-General Bernard Freyberg (March 1889 – July 1963), as commander of the 2^nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force (part of the British Eighth Army) arrived in Venice on 29 April 1945, the first of the Allied forces to reach the city.

 

As Thomas F. Madden describes in his 2012 book, Venice – A New History, Nazi troops had arrived in Venice on 8 September 1943. 

 

The US forces under General Eisenhower captured Rome on 5 June 1944, and soon after the German armies began to retreat from Italy.  By April 1945, the US Fifth Army and British Eighth Army had captured the Po Valley and Italian partisans had captured Padua. 

 

In Venice, Jan Morris describes how Venetian partisans seized the city from the last of the Germans, gave some safe conduct to the mainland and awaited the arrival of the Allied forces. 

On 28 April 1945, Mussolini was executed, and the next day, Venice was liberated when Freyberg’s two New Zealand tanks were the first to arrive across the causeway.  The British infantry were not far behind, and soon almost all of the boats were requisitioned, and luxury hotels, the Danieli, the Excelsior and the Luna were turned into officers’ clubs

 

Earlier on in Rome, Freyberg and his men had been billeted to the luxurious Excelsior Hotel, only to find that the Americans had reached the hotel first, and claimed it as their lodging and club, telling the New Zealanders to ‘buzz off’.  Freyberg had visited Venice in the 1920s & 1930s, staying the Hotel Danieli, and after the privations of war, he was determined that his men would reach Venice first to settle into the Hotel Danieli. 

 

It’s well worth viewing the link to Annabel Freyberg’s article to see fascinating images of the New Zealanders crowded around the reception desk of the Danieli, views of the Basilica di San Marco boarded up and troops enjoying a gondola ride in Venice.

 

 

 

 

Giggles at the Hotel Danieli

On our last day in Venice, my best friend, Anth, flew in from London to spend the day (and our final evening) with us. 

During my first stay in Venice (when I was working as a student intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection), Anth literally sent me a big, fat, newsy letter every day for the entire two years that I was away.  He was my constant link to home, and I've still got every one of those letters that he sent me.  So after all these years of friendship, it was incredibly special to finally get to share Venice with Anth on this trip. 

We met him in the middle of the Calatrava bridge on a wet Saturday morning, and then caught a vaporetto to his hotel, the Danieli.  When he checked in, he was told that his room wasn't quite ready but that it would be worth the wait - with views of the lagoon and located in the Palazzo Dandolo, the oldest part of the hotel.  So we left his bag at the hotel and toddled off for coffee followed by tramezzini and glasses of prosecco at Da Gino's and then to the Guggenheim Collection before returning a few hours later.

This was the view looking down into the hotel from the hallway of his room.

I enjoyed the outline of the gothic windows behind the shutters:

This was the view looking out to the left:

and this was the view looking to the right:

It was pouring with rain by then, so we opened a bottle of wine and giggled a lot as we caught up on each other's news, listened to the gondoliers below and watched the scenery outside.