Pietro Caruso

Who was Pietro Caruso?

Pietro Caruso was an Italian Fascist and head of the Italian police during the final part of World War II.

Together with Herbert Kappler, the German Gestapo chief in Rome, Caruso organised the massacre in Fosse Ardeatine on 24 March 1944 as revenge for an attack the day before by Italian partisans on a column of German soldiers in Rome. 335 people, many of them belonging to a Communist military resistance group, were shot during the massacre.

After Italy's liberation from the German occupation, Caruso was tried for his numerous crimes, sentenced to death and executed by firing squad by the Carabinieri in the courtyard of the Fort Bravetta in Rome.