Borgo a Mozzano is an Italian municipality located in the Serchio Valley, about 20km from Lucca. After the armistice with the Anglo-American forces on 8 September 1943, the German forces took control of the town. They set up their command at Villa Morante and established the administrative and technical headquarters of the Organisation Todt (civil and military engineering organisation of Nazi Germany) at Palazzo Santini and Palazzo Giorgi. The area soon became a key site for the extensive construction of the Gothic Line, a fortified defensive system stretching across Italy from the province of Massa-Carrara to Pesaro-Urbino, intended to slow the Allied advance. 

The construction work was managed by the Organisation Todt, which used local labour, both conscripted and voluntary. Labour from the internment camp at Socciglia was also employed, where today a memorial marker stands. Many remnants of this period remain visible, including bunkers, anti-aircraft positions, communication trenches, and anti-tank ditches. 

During this time, a partisan group called the Borgo a Mozzano Patriotic Action Squad was formed, led by Mario Amaducci and Mario Tonelli. Its purpose was to slow German operations through vital intelligence gathering and coordination with other resistance groups. On behalf of the Lucca section of the National Liberation Committee, surveyor Silvano Minucci conducted a detailed topographical survey of the defensive works and German minefields. The resulting maps were first delivered to the Lucca Military Committee and then to the command of the Allied Fifth Army. 

In the summer of 1944, German commanders decided to move the front line about 20km north to the Apuan Alps, rendering the defensive works in Borgo a Mozzano completely obsolete. The town was liberated at the end of September 1944 by the Brazilian Expeditionary Force. 

On the tenth anniversary of the Liberation of Borgo a Mozzano, 27 September 1954, a plaque was placed on the Town Hall in memory of the event and the town’s martyrs.