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.
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.
