Centro Internazionale Documentazione "Linea Gotica"
Via dell'Aquila, 27  -  47900 Rimini (RN) - Italy    Tel./Fax  0039.0541.773373   e-mail: cidgotica@tin.it 

On Jan. 27, 1994 there was constituted in Rimini the Centro Internazionale Documentazione "Linea Gotica", a cultural, private, non-profit Association whose purpose is to promote the collection and custody of 2nd World War documents, particularly those concerning the Gothic Line offensive in 1944. The CID "Linea Gotica" will be available to scholars, students and other historical researchers who will benefit from the imposing archives collected by the President, the historian Amedeo Montemaggi, from sources in Italy, Great Britain, Canada, USA, Germany, Poland, India, New Zealand, South Africa and other countries. The Centre, with its thousands of books and documents, will encourage historical studies and publications, provide advice, promote exchanges of data and information, assist scholarly and cultural activities and actively collaborate with other Associations which have similar aims and objectives.

AMEDEO MONTEMAGGI, Riminese, president of the Centro Internazionale Documentazione "Linea Gotica", former collaborator of the best Italian dailies  and of the National RadioBroadcasting, antifascist during the 2nd World War, is author of many literary, geographic and historical/photographic works, dealing from the Italian writer Italo Svevo, to Ancient Egypt literature, to Jazz history, to the illustration of Finland and of the Marecchia Valley to Rimini's World of movie-director Federico Fellini. As historian of the 2nd World war in Italy he has studied particularly the Battle of Rimini (Alexander's Summer Offensive or Offensive of the Gothic Line) whose importance he has analysed inside the national and international outlines. His revision of the traditional military picture starts from the axiom that military Strategy is based on politics. He points out the great dependance of the war in Italy to the "important divergence" between UK and US Grand Strategies and to the Russian aims in connection with the Mediterranean control which means - according to Mr Churchill's words - the control of the Western World. The Gothic Line offensive, aimed at the Balkans and in the end at Greece, had consequences valid until now. 

Montemaggi has lectured about the Gothic Line at important  national and international meetings, in 1984 at Pesaro and Sestino (where he won the 1st National Prize),  in 1987 at Kassel and Milazzo, in 1990 at Bologna, in 1994 at Lucca, in 1995 at Florence, Medicina, San Marino Rep., Bologna. He has written many articles on the battle of Rimini in the best Italian papers and magazines ("Corriere della Sera", "Il Resto del Carlino", "Storia  Illustrata", "Storia Militare") and  described in local books the war events of many towns along the Gothic Line (Tavullia, Cattolica, Gemmano, Montecolombo, Riccione, S.Lorenzo in Corregiano, Corpolò, Verucchio, Santarcangelo, Savignano, Sarsina, Linaro, Cesena, Medicina, etc.).

His most important works are:

1980 - Offensiva della Linea Gotica.  ( Bologna ) A fundamental book to understand a new history of the genesis of the war Campaign in Italy and the most detailed account of the 135 days of battle of the Gothic Line offensive,  day by day, unit by unit.
1983 - Rimini-San Marino '44. La battaglia della Linea Gialla. ( R.S.M. ) The breaching of the Rimini (Yellow) Line in the most  bloody week of the Italian campaign.
1984 - San Marino nella bufera. 1943-1944 gli anni terribili. ( R.S.M. ) The political and military chronicle of the neutrality of the little Republic of Freedom.
1985 - Savignano '44. Dal Rubicone a Bologna. ( Rimini ) Settembre-ottobre1944. The reasons why the offensive became a failure in the central  sector of the Apennines, at Mount Battaglia
1985 - La Linea Gotica. (with an essay by Gerhard Schreiber) (Roma, Civitas, F.I.V.L.,1° ed. 1990, 4ª edition) Revision of 8th Army operations.
1990 - Monte Battaglia. Kesselring k.d. wins. (Bologna,Convegno Interregionale) Success or failure ? The decisive point of the battle of Rimini analysed through Anglo-American-German-Italian reports and memoirs
1993 - Linea Gotica avamposto dei Balcani (with essays by Strome Galloway, Raleigh Trevelyan, Gerhard Muhm and excerpts from Maurice Matloff) (Roma, Civitas, F.I.V.L., 1995, 3rd ed.) Definitive study of the political Anglo-Russian-American contrasts on the battlefields in Italy and in the Balkans (Yugoslavia and Greece). Revision of the US 5th Army operations.
1994 - La Croce e la Spada, Chronicle of the importance of the Catholic Church in the battle of  Rimini (serial)
1995 -16 Agosto 1944. Tre Martiri, (Rimini, ANPI). The capture and hanging of three Riminese partisans
1997 - A.M. & Bill McAndrew: "Linea Gotica. The Gothic Line" - Anglo-Italian (Tavullia) The new reality of the Canadian-English breaching of the Gothic Line n.1.
1998 - Gemmano. La Cassino dell'Adriatico. The Cassino of theAdriatic.-Anglo-Italian (Gemmano,2ª ed). The Allied stop at the Gothic Line n.2 and the 10days battle of Gemmano.
1999 - Leadership degli alleati e dei tedeschi sulla Linea Gotica (Accademia Militare, Modena) Technical study of the German (Auftragstaktik) and Allied tactics (Befehlstaktik) on the Gothic Line. 

Cronistoria di Rimini e della Linea Gotica dal 1942-1944. Collection of 142 articles printed on "Il Resto del Carlino" and "Il Corriere della Sera" from 1942 to 1997..
2000 - 2001. Adviser on the Gothic Line battlefields to the Accademia Militare (Modena), Canadian Land Force Command & Staff College (Kingston) and to the Land Warfare Training Centre (Warminster).  In progress two books, the first political-military on the whole battle of Rimini and the war in Italy until May 1945, the second militarily detailed on the Breaching of the Gothic Line n.2.
2002 - LINEA GOTICA 1944. La battaglia di Rimini e lo sbarco in Grecia decisivi per l'Europa sud-orientale e il Mediterraneo". - Foreword Gen. Luigi Caligaris - (Ed. Museo dell'Aviazione, via S. Aquilina 58, 47900 Rimini).

The book, officially presented on Sept. 21, 2002, on the 58^th anniversary of the liberation of Rimini, is the conclusion of the whole historiography work of the Author about the offensive of the Gothic Line, "the biggest battle ever fought in Italy". In 344 pages of great size 21x30 cm, with 190 photos and 26 maps, it gives a detailed account of the Italian Campaign from the offensive of the Gothic Line, enlarged to the Greece landing, until Spring 1945, showing its political and military interdependence with the Balkan events and the world policy through the reservation of the divergent and controversial decision of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, until never revealed with such a brutal sincerity.

In 1994 A.M. has been decorated with the Cross Pro Meritis by the Supremus Magister Ordinis Teutonici  (OTC)
In 1997 the President of the Italian Republic has conferred him the decoration of Grande Ufficiale for cultural merits

Since 2001 he is Honorary Presidente of Aries (Ass. Ricerche Iconografiche E Storiche)

Since 2002 he is member of Comitato Nazionale for the Armerd Forces in the War of Liberation

ABOUT AMEDEO MONTEMAGGI:

USA - Trevor N. Dupuy, President HERO-TNDA Publishers & Researchers Inc., historian (A Genius for War)
I have long maintained that Mr.Churchill and the British Chiefs of Staff were correct in their strategic assessment of the desirability of an Allied offensive to the Danube Valley through Italy or through the Balkans and that the American Chiefs of Staff were strategically short-sighted in opposing that concept. I have argued the matter with the late Gen.A.C.Wedemeyer, who was the Army Planner.I am sympathetic to the thesis of your book.
 

CANADA - Dominick Graham, historian (Tug of war - La battaglia di Italia 1943-45)  Montemaggi, the Riminese guru of the Gothic Line. 

Bill McAndrew, historian, Canadian Directorate of History, (Canadians and the Italian Campaign) You are a special source of knowledge and know the military operations of the Gothic L. better than any other historian. 

David Pentley, Commander Canadian Land Force & Staff College, Kingston Montemaggi is the only historian who knows the offensive of the Gothic Line from three points of view, the Allied, the German and the Italian. Gen. Henri Tellier, R.22.R., combatant, protagonist  of the Battle of Rimini. You are, without doubt, the most knowledgeable, prolific and, it seems to me, objective and understanding historian on this subject and its impact on the war itself.
 

GRAN BRETAGNA - James Lucas, combatant and historian (World War Two through German Eyes)  You are the recognized authority on the war in Italy. 

Douglas Orgill, combatant and historian (The Gothic Line - Ital. La Linea Gotica) For professor Amedeo Montemaggi, friendship, respect and admiration Brig. 

John Paley, combatant, 4th Hussars "Gemmano, the Cassino of the Adriatic".This is war." 

Maj. F.V.Sheppard, combatant Queen's Royal Regiment   "Gemmano" is the best historic report on the battles of the Gothic Line. 

Maj.Gen. John Strawson, later C.O. 4th Hussars and Chief of Staff  Land Forces U.K. historian (The Italian Campaign ) Your knowledge of the battles of the Gothic Line is unequalled and you - thing most unusual -  have looked at those fights from every point of view. 

Raleigh Trevelyan, combatant and historian (Rome '44) You have given the most precious contribution to the history of Italy and of the war.
Maj. Gen. Robert Ward, Honorary Colonel Queen's Bays (2nd  Dragoon Guards) Amedeo Montemaggi is the greatest military expert of the Gothic LIne.

GERMANIA - Gen. Franz S. J. Uhle-Wettler, Com.te NATO Defense College, storico (Deutsche Militär Geschichte)  Montemaggi presents the point of view of the "other side of the hill" with such a commendable loyalty... 

Gerhard Schreiber, historian (Revisionismus und Weltmachtstreben) Montemaggi fills up many blank spaces in the historiography of the Italian campaign.

GRECIA - Panteleimos Fostini, Metropolite of Chios, historian (Proschinima sto Rimini)  Many thanks to the Riminese historian Montemaggi who let me know the '"Offensiva della Linea Gotica", "Rimini - S.Marino '44", "Savignano '44" and "La Linea Gotica" (1990).

SVIZZERA - Capt.J-François Richon, Ecole Polytechnique Federale, Séminaire d'Histoire Militaire  Montemaggi not only analyses the military events on the whole Gothic Line but inserts the offensive in the world politics and strategy... His work is the first global synthesis of the various national histories.

ITALIA - Life Senator Paolo Emilio Taviani, historian, president F.I.V.L.(Feder. It. Volontari Libertà). Montemaggi is known as the greatest expert in our Country and one of the best ones in the world as regards to historiography of the war campaign in Italy. 

Giovanni Spadolini, Italian Premier and Defence Minister Your work  has a remarkable importance.. I have informed the Chiefs of Staff.

Gen. Sq. Aerea Francesco Cavalera, former Chief of the Italian Defence You put a landmark in the history of that passage of Armies.

Gen. Sq. Duilio Fanali, C.O: Raggruppamento Caccia regia Aeronautica Italiana 1943-45

I have appreciated your work, fruit of commendable and thorough synthesis, objective and and authoritative, of events that have moulded our present with an unequivocal mark.. and an undeniable, incisive influence on our future.

Gen. Luigi Caligaris, Member of European Parliament, international political and military expert (Paura di vincere)  It looks as in Italy only Montemaggi has dealt with the Auftragstaktik. 

Gen. Salvatore Scotto Di Carlo, (Italian Aeronautica) It has the chrism of a work of high historical level conferred by the impressive documents, by the profound and well-balanced rationality, by the harmonious richness and variety of details, by the narrative validity.

Franco Bandini, historian, (Storia Illustrata, Occhio polemico, 1981) The volume is much more than a simple description because it contains the demonstration - impeccable - of a theory to which historians have turned a deaf ear.that the offensive was fought only apparently against Kesselring but in reality against Stalin and above all against the Roosevelt-Marshall-Hopkins triad.

Renzo De Felice, historian, (Mussolini, l'alleato)  In the last ten days of September Kesselring would have asked Hitler to withdraw behind the Po (A.M. Linea Gotica).

Raimondo Luraghi, historian, (Storia della guerra civile americana) Montemaggi, the greatest scholar and expert of the historical problem "Linea Gotica".

Arrigo Petacco historian (Storia del fascismo)  Montemaggi, the most alert reconstructer of the battles of the Gothic LIne.

Giorgio Pini, fascist historian and former Under-Secretary  of the Interior in the Mussolini's Republic R.S.I. Exact and very well-documented chronicle of the Gothic Line offensive. 

Filippo Frassati, marxist historian (La Resistenza e gli Alleati) His much effective work gives a careful and detailed rec onstruction of the military operations in Autumn 1944. 

Mino Martelli, catholic historian (Una guerra, due Resistenze) Montemaggi graduates as the greatest world expert on this matter.

Gemmano 1944