The massacre at Monte Sole was just one of many brutal reprisals against insurgents and civilians carried out by German occupying armies and their Italian Fascist allies during the Second World War. One of the most notorious examples of reprisals against civilians in Italy took place in the Ardeatine Caves, near Rome, in the spring of 1944.
After partisans had ambushed police in the Via Rasella in Rome the German High Command decided to execute 10 Italians for every victim of the ambush. A total of 335 Italians were rounded up and taken to the caves for execution.
Similar massacres occurred in other occupied countries. The massacres at Oradour-sur-Glane in France and Lidice in Czechoslovakia were mentioned earlier. The strategy employed in Northern Italy in 1944-45 was similar to the one employed by the SS along the eastern front.