At the same time in another area of Naples, completely independently, a group of improvised militants had attacked a handful of German sabateurs trying to occupy the headquarters of the telephone company, and had scared them off. The German platoon had avenged itself further on, capturing and shooting two carabinieri on patrol duty. Not long after, an entire German company of stormtroopers had arrived in front of the telephone building and had quickly overcome the insurgents who were guarding it.
Yet, contrary to the intentions of the Nazis, the anger of the humiliated Neapolitans had grown even stronger and the following day, at the foot of the hill of Pizzofalcone between Piazza del Plebiscito and the gardens below, there had been a real battle, ignited by some sailors with their '91 muskets and hand grenades, and stoked by numerous civilians armed with MP80 machine guns and model 24 grenades, stolen from the occupiers the previous day, and improvised Molotov cocktails. The rebels had prevented the passage of an entire column of German trucks and jeeps. Six people had died, three Italian sailors who had fought in the front line and as many German soldiers, with many wounded on both sides.
Heavy measures and serious reprisals by the Germans followed, ordered by the new commander of the city Colonel Walter Scholl who, on the 12th, had officially assumed absolute power. One of his proclamations had dictated that weapons were to be turned in, except for public security forces, a 9.00 pm curfew and a state of siege for the entire city, while not only had the soldiers and civilians taken prisoner been shot, but also several citizens deliberately rounded up.
After the 12th the Germans had gone completely wild, looting, destroying and burning. The university was the first to be set on fire, after shooting a defenseless Italian sailor in front of it, forcing the citizens present not only to assist at the execution, but to applaud it. Up until September 25, even though the city had no longer acted openly against the occupiers after the first few days, the German patrols had apprehended anyone not a policeman, who had been caught in the street in Italian uniform or, if in civilian dress, simply seemed suspicious.
Naples had kept quiet but was sizzling and preparing for the insurgence. In particular, soldiers who had deserted had been picked up one by one by members of the anti-nazifascist parties and hidden and trained in guerrilla warfare, many inside the underground rooms of the Sannazaro high school, the main headquarters of the newborn Neapolitan resistance.
On September 25, the same day on which Italy had been subjected to two very serious bombings on Bologna and Florence by the Americans, an ordinance had been issued in Naples which stipulated that all citizens of working age were obliged to perform tasks of hard labor for the Germans. It was the fuse for the insurgency that would take place a few days later, in perfect antithesis to the intimidating intentions of the Germans. The posters of the decree had already been affixed to the walls in the early morning of Sunday 26, the day before the one that would see the first flashes of the rebellion.
If the substantial order of recruitment had come from Colonel Scholl, the formal one had been signed for Italy by the prefect Domenico Soprano who in August, appointed by the Badoglio Government, had taken the place of the dismissed fascist prefect Vaccari. Soprano was a man of order, anti-communist and anti-socialist and opponent of conceivable violent actions by the population, even if he was not fascist but liberal: certainly not a demoliberal Gobetti-style, but an old-fashioned aristocrat. More because of his hatred towards the popular masses than because he was in awe of the Germans, he had signed the decree of conscription to work: playing for time had been his immediate goal to maintain calm.
A few days before that September 26, after there had been contacts between US Army intelligence and the leaders of the Neapolitan anti-fascist parties, precisely in view of a hoped-for uprising in Naples, the prefect Soprano had been approached by representatives of the newborn National Liberation Front later the National Liberation Committee which had recently been founded with headquarters in Rome. It was composed of the Action Party, the Liberal Party, the Christian Democratic Centre, Labor Democracy, the Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity and the Communist Party. They had put pressure on him to cooperate with the nascent opposition through the police forces he directed, offering him all possible support. The prefect, however, had preferred the path of prudence because, as always, he opposed social communism and feared any revolutionary movement; thus he had limited himself to converse politically, in secret, with the moderate liberal leaders Enrico De Nicola and Benedetto Croce: without exposing himself.
Both Domenico Soprano and Walter Scholl had miscalculated. Since only one hundred and fifty people had presented themselves to the Germans before the date indicated in the notice, during the afternoon of Sunday September 26 and the early hours of the evening the Germans had started brutally combing Naples and had rounded up 8000 helpless citizens, including elderly men and thirteen-year-old boys. The Germans had fanned the flame of the rebellion igniting the souls of family members and relatives of those rounded up, who were eager to release them. In the early morning of Monday, September 27, there had been the first clashes, started not only by Italian soldiers who had remained in hiding until then in the basement of the Sannazaro high school and in private homes, but also by a number of civilians, although the real popular uprising in Naples would explode the following day, as droves of armed Neapolitans of all social classes spread through the streets and squares, from ultra-commoners to intellectuals, as well as twelve-year-old boys and young women.