A new multi-episode podcast by veteran American journalist Joe Kirwin explores the legacy of the Allies' Gothic Line offensive during the liberation of Italy at the end of World War II.
The series looks at how the most multinational, multiracial army ever assembled, including soldiers from more than 17 countries with persons of color from North and South America, Africa, Asia and Oceania, drove the Nazis and Italian Fascists from their mountain strongholds in northern Italy. Kirwin says that this retrospective story, which is a blank page in many history books, especially in Italy, has important political significance today, as U.S. President Donald Trump throws the post-war transatlantic alliance into doubt, Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine rages and the European Union races to build an independent defense capacity and boost economic growth to finance it.
Kirwin, who spent the past year traveling coast to coast along the Apennine Mountains in northern Italy interviewing historians, academics, authors and museum curators from around the world, will present the podcast series with a press conference at the foreign press association in Rome (via del Plebiscito 102) on May 15 at 11am local time.
As a founding EU member with the bloc's third largest economy, Italy should be shoulder to shoulder with allies led by the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Nordic nations, Poland and others that understand Europe faces the same kinds of challenges the continent confronted in the 1930s before WWII, he argues.
He said that, while Italian President Sergio Mattarella stated in February there is no difference between Adolf Hitler and Putin, Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni is sitting on the sidelines.
She is not alone, he says, with opposition to new EU defense spending and military support for Ukraine widespread across much of the Italian political spectrum and in public opinion.
"This lack of solidarity with European allies and Ukraine has a lot to do with the ghosts of WWII that still haunt Italy because of the failure to reckon with its past,'' said Kirwin, In an effort to help Italy confront its WWII past, Guido Molinari is spearheading a new Allies Museum in Rome that will will open virtually in September.
''What is happening now brings home the importance of what we are doing,'' Molinari stated in a podcast panel discussion.
"In trying to explain how the people from all over the world of all racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds were able to come together and liberate Italy, we are very certain the story of history would be very different if those tens of thousands of young men and women had not paid the ultimate sacrifice.
"And so we need to do work, even in these challenging times, to honor their memory.'' For further information about the podcast and the May 15 press conference, contact Kirwin: Tel. 00 32 478 277802 or [email protected].
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
