"NAPLES 1938-1943. The Nazi-Fascist Alliance, the War, the Four Days."

On the occasion of the commemoration of the Four Days of Naples, at the Church of San Severo al Pendino, there is, from Sept. 29 to Oct. 10, 2025, the photographic-documentary exhibition, "NAPLES 1938-1943.The Nazi-Fascist Alliance, the War, the Four Days."

The exhibition, created and first exhibited in 2023, traces, a little more than eight decades after the Neapolitan uprising (Sept. 27-30, 1943), from an Italian-German perspective and from an interdisciplinary perspective, the relations between Italy and Germany during the two dictatorships, from the Rome-Berlin Axis alliance to the Nazi occupation of Italy after the armistice of Sept. 8, 1943 , through the privileged gaze on Naples and Campania .

The exhibition is conceived by Andrea D'Onofrio, professor of contemporary history and coordinator of the Course of Study in History at the Department of Humanistic Studies at the University Federico II, Lutz Klinkhammer, deputy director of the German Historical Institute in Rome, Gabriella Gribaudi honorary professor of contemporary history at the University Federico II and Maria Carmen Morese, director Goethe-Institut of Naples. Its staging is sponsored by the Department of Education and Families of the City of Naples and has among its promoters the Istituto Campano per la Storia della Resistenza, dell'Antifascismo e dell'Età contemporanea "Vera Lombardi."

The exhibition, organized thanks to the support of the Department of Humanities of the Federico II University, was financed by the "Fund for the Future" of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Federico II University.

Photographs, films and diaries, some previously unpublished, illustrate the visits of Hitler and Nazi hierarchs to Naples, the presence of German soldiers and their relationship with the population, until the dramatic change of perspective on September 8, 1943.

The period of severe violence by the Nazi occupiers, which opened at this stage, and the reaction of the Neapolitans led to the revolt of the Four Days of Naples (September 27-30).

Images of daily life under Allied bombardment and testimonies of Neapolitan and German protagonists of the Four Days, as well as survivors of Nazi massacres in Campania, represent the total war dimension.

The often unpublished photographic, audiovisual and documentary paper sources presented in the exhibition come from various public and private, local, national and international archives, such as: the Parisio-Troncone Archives, the Istituto Campano per la Storia della Resistenza, dell'Antifascismo e dell'Età contemporanea "Vera Lombardi," the Carbone Archives, the State Archives of Naples, the Historical Archives of the Istituto Luce, the Teche RAI archives, the Archvio Storico del Banco di Napoli, the Tucci newspaper library of Naples, the German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv), the Military Archives of Freiburg, the Public Record Office of London, the Imperial War Museum of London, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Washington, the Air Force Historical Research Agency of Alabama (AFHRA), the UNRRA holdings of the United Nations Archives in New York, the SZ-Photo Archive, private archives such as that of Hilmar Landwehr, a Wehrmacht soldier, whose photos were acquired courtesy of Nikolaus Merkel.

"An attempt will be made to analyze," Andrea D'Onofrioexplains, " the role played by some aspects of the collective imagination of Germans on Italy and, vice versa, of Italians on Germany, in the mutual relations and perceptions between Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany before and during the war and in the Resistance phase. And to bring into dialogue and comparison a history "from above" with a history "from below," with precise reference to the paths of memorial construction and reconstruction that characterized post-World War II Italy and Germany in reference to the events covered."

The scientific-organizational committee of the photographic-documentary exhibition sees alongside the director of the Goethe-Institut of Naples, Maria Carmen Morese, the coordinator of the Course of Study in History and professor of Contemporary History at the Department of Humanistic Studies of the University of Naples Federico II Andrea D'Onofrio, scientific-organizational head of the project, to the scholar of Italian-German relations concerning Naples during the Axis period Fabio Romano, to the expert on the history of Nazi-Fascist occupations in the Balkans and professor of Contemporary History at the University Federico II Paolo Fonzi, some of the leading specialists in the history of the last wartime period concerning Italy and, specifically, Campania and Naples, with particular reference to the Allied and German bombings and the Nazi occupation of Italy, and thus to the Four Days of Naples, such as Gabriella Gribaudi, honorary professor of Contemporary History at the University of Naples Federico II, Lutz Klinkhammer, deputy director of the German Historical Institute in Rome, and Carlo Gentile of the University of Cologne.

In particular, the exhibition is divided into 8 thematic cores:

• 1. Hitler's visit to Naples (May 1938)
• 2. The official visits of Nazi hierarchs and German tourism to Naples (1937-1939)
• 3. Italy's entry into the war and Naples in the common Italian-German war effort:the outbreak of war, the coexistence of German soldiers with Neapolitans, the bombing of Naples, its effects and life under the bombing.
• 4. A Wehrmacht military photographer: Hilmar Landwehr
• 5. Armistice, end of the Italian-German alliance, Allied landings at Salerno
• Nazi occupation and the Four Days of Naples 6.
• 7. German reprisals and massacres in Campania
• 8. Trial-historical reworking and German-Italian dialogue after World War II.

The Exhibition, with free admission, will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.