Editing Eberhard von Mackensen (section)

===== Involvement in the [[Ardeatine massacre]] =====
While the bitter battle in the Anzio bridgehead continued, the Roman resistance on 23rd March 1944 struck a company of the "Bozen" Polizeiregiment present in the capital with a bloody attack in via Rasella. The reaction of the German authorities in Rome was immediate and brutal. When General Mälzer arrived at the scene of the attack, he showed great excitement and evoked the need for immediate retaliatory measures. From the supreme headquarters in Rastenburg, Hitler was informed of the attack and demanded a bloody retaliation. According to some officers present in Rastenburg, there was explicit talk of killing "thirty to fifty Italians" for each of the German soldiers who died in via Rasella. Von Mackensen, in addition to directing the troops of the 14th Army engaged in Anzio, was also the supreme authority of the entire war zone which also included Rome. He was informed by Rastenburg in the afternoon of the Führer's violent reaction. The general considered the proportion of the reprisal mentioned at headquarters too high and made contact by telephone with General Mälzer and [[SS]] Lieutenant Colonel [[Herbert Kappler]], the commander of the [[Gestapo]] in Rome.

Von Mackensen discussed above all with Lieutenant Colonel [[Herbert Kappler|Kappler]] and asked for his opinion on the possible retaliation. The general considered the proportion of victims evoked in Rastenburg to be excessive, furthermore von Mackensen accepted the proposal of the head of the [[Gestapo]] to carry out retaliation by killing the so-called Todeskandidaten, the Italian prisoners held in Roman prisons already sentenced to death or life imprisonment or accused of crimes in which the death sentence was foreseeable. Von Mackensen then made the first executive decisions: he established that a proportion of ten Italians killed would be adequate for each German soldier killed in via Rasella and stated that all available todeskandidaten would be eliminated in retaliation up to the established number. The general later stated that he believed that the todeskandidaten were only those already sentenced to death; he also allegedly proposed not to extend the search for victims even in the event of an insufficient number of prisoners being held. After these first operational discussions, it was the task of Field Marshal Kesselring, who arrived in the evening at his headquarters in the Soratte bunker and informed of the attack and the request for retaliation, to make the final decisions. He spoke by telephone with General Alfred Jodl. The field marshal agreed with von Mackensen's assessments and proposals, while General Jodl did not object and left the decisions to the commander in Italy. Kesselring then gave orders for "immediate execution" of the retaliation at the ten to one ratio.

Although, von Mackensen didn't actively partecipate in the massacre.