It was during the second week of February that the paratroopers were engaged at Cassino. They arrived at the right time, for "Cavalry Hill" had already changed hands twice.
But, on February 10, the 3rd Bn. of the Regt. Para, on Commander Kratzert's orders, again expelled the Americans, and this time this key point remained in German power until May.
As soon as they arrived from Anzio, the Schulz group was stuck like sealing bread on the steep slopes descending towards the Liri. The deployment of Schulz's men (let Bn. of parachute machine gunners) had no depth and lacked prepared positions, but, to make matters worse, following an order from Kesselring in December 1943, they had been forbidden to occupy the ground. within a radius of four hundred meters from the walls of Monte Cassino Abbey located on the top of the hill.
However, they held the lower slopes and foiled all attempts by the Americans and Indians to clear the heights and descend into the Liri Valley. In the meantime, the exhausted 44' Div. had been relieved by the 90th Panzegrenadier Division and by the 1st Div. Para whose groups of Schulz and Kratzert, already in position, had constituted the vanguard.
The sudden stiffening of German resistance at Cassino, due to the arrival of paratroopers, had fatal consequences for the abbey.
He seemed to confirm the Allied leaders in their totally erroneous belief that the Germans had occupied it and that they had made this point - the most advantageous of the whole sector - the cornerstone of the defence. Lieutenant-General Sir Bernard Freyberg of the New Zealand Corps flatly refused to attack Mount Cassino before the abbey had been bombarded, and the result was the brutal and senseless destruction, on February 15, of the monastery, which allowed the Germans to impose a bloody stampede on the Allies, at the same time as their front came out deeply cut