Across the Arno River in Florence is the historical Ponte Vecchio – a medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge. On the other side of the river lies a strip of jewelry shops that grab the attention of tourists that cross the bridge. Among the tourist traps and the photographic view of the river, there lies an overlooked plaque dedicated to Gerhard Wolf – the Nazi who saved the Ponte Vecchio from destruction.
Other sources say that Hitler himself ordered the bridge, named “Old Bridge,” to not be destroyed. This leaves Wolf to be quite irrelevant in the story, but the plaque says it all.
The plaque reads: German consul, born at Dresden—subsequently twinned with the city of Florence—in played a decisive role in the salvation of the Ponte Vecchio (1944) from the barbarism of the Second World War and was instrumental in rescuing political prisoners and Jews from persecution at the height of the Nazi occupation. The comune places this plaque on 11 April 2007 in memory of the granting of honorary citizenship.
Born in 1886, Wolf grew up in Germany. He served honorably with the Imperial German Army during World War I.
After his time serving, he studied philosophy, art history and literature, and earned a doctorate in philosophy. Afterward, he joined the foreign ministry afterward in 1927.
The Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler, came to power in Germany in 1933. A German diplomat who served as consul in Florence during World War II, Wolf did not join the party right away, though he was invited to.
Though, he had considered leaving his career behind him to join the party, he was advised by the Consul of Florence at the time, David Tutaev, that “a man of his pure and decent character would find opportunities to work for goodness and justice, even under an evil system.”
(Consuls are officials appointed by a state to live in a foreign city and protect the state's citizens and interests there.)
Benito Mussolini, the leader of the National Fascist Party during World War II, invited Hitler to be his guest of honor to visit Florence and enjoy the view from the corridor built for the Grand Duke, according to documentarytube. Hitler accepted and arrived in Florence on 9 May 1938. Mussolini had created a gallery using three large windows of the bridge. Hitler was mesmerized by the view.
During the war, Hitler and his forces were destroying every bridge in Florence by this time, but he spared the Ponte Vecchio.
Where does Wolf come into this?
He didn’t join the Nazi Party until 1 March 1939 and officially became the German Consul in Florence on 7 November 1940. He began his first day at the consulate at Via del Bardi 20. Though he was still a Nazi official, he gained the friendship of many local Florentines and foreigners alike due to his “easygoing attitude.”
Then Italy entered the war in June of 1940. Wolf feared for the destruction of his new home as he had seen and heard of the other historical site being destroyed. He reached out for the help of Florence’s Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa, then the two began a campaign to make Florence an open city in the war.
Letters were drafted and sent to the British Embassy in the Vatican; to Wolf’s long-time friend and German Ambassador to Italy, Rudolf Rahn; and to Field Marshal Harold Alexander who was the field commander of Allied troops in Italy. The Embassy and Rahn both responded, but Alexander did not.
Rahn, however, brought up the idea to Hitler in a meeting, which reminded him of his visit to the bridge two years prior.
“Florence is too beautiful a city to be destroyed,” Hitler told Rahn in November of 1943. “Do what you can to protect it. You have my permission and assistance.”
Because of this quote, it is commonly believed that Hitler himself saved the bridge. But there are multiple truths to this piece of history.
Southern Italy was invaded by the Allies in the summer of 1944, Rome fell in June and was declared an open city. Plans to destroy bridges were still in place, but Wolf continued to insist that the Ponte Vecchio be spared because of its “cultural significance,” and it still was.
The challenge of saving the bridge and the history of Florence was successful, but Wolf was also in the process of saving something else: lives.
He used his diplomatic privilege and position as a Nazi to free political prisoners from the Italian authorities. His status gave him a say over the police. He also forged documents for Jews escaping the Nazis round-up of Florence’s population in autumn of 1943.
With the fear of the Nazi Party discovering his plans, he could not save as many people as he had wished to. He wrote in a journal “the most I could do was to complain, or at times, obstruct. But these were purely passive powers” about being against the local authorities.
Though he could not save everyone, or all of Florence’s history, Wolf was still able to save some artwork including the lives of some people and the bridge itself.
Because of his constant humanity during the Second World War, he became a “living symbol of human courage and fraternity,” according to former Florence mayor, Giorgio La Pira.
Because of this, Wolf was presented with honorary citizenship to Florence in 1955.