During World War II (1944) Cassino was a key point in the German winter defensive line (Garigliano-Sangro) blocking the 🏧 Allied advance to Rome. At the beginning of January 1944 the U.S. 5th Army won a position facing Cassino across 🏧 the Garigliano River. Heroic fighting by Allied troops met heroic German resistance in three savage battles. On February 15 the 🏧 Allies bombed and demolished the Benedictine monastery, erroneously believing that the Germans had occupied and fortified it. Actually, the Germans 🏧 were able to remove both the monks and the treasures of the abbey; and, after the bombardment ceased, they in 🏧 fact occupied and fortified the ruins. A month later Allied aircraft dropped 1,400 tons of bombs on Cassino, leaving the 🏧 town so heaped with rubble that tanks could not operate until bulldozers cleared paths for them. Finally in mid-May the 🏧 Allies did break through German lines and, joined a few days later by forces bursting out of the Anzio beachhead, 🏧 were able to take Rome. German and Allied war cemeteries, still visited by thousands annually, mark the scenes of the 🏧 fighting.

After the war, both the town and the abbey were rebuilt on their previous sites, the town on a completely 🏧 new plan, the abbey following substantially the lines of its predecessor. Little or nothing of the abbey’s decorative detail was 🏧 recoverable, but the famous bronze doors, cast in Constantinople for the abbot Desiderius in 1066, were found and restored. The 🏧 archives, library, and some paintings were saved. Of ancient Casinum the only monuments of note are the amphitheatre, the theatre, 🏧 and the ruins of the Cappella del Crocifisso, a Roman mausoleum converted into a church in the 10th century. Of 🏧 the medieval town little more than the site of the upper town, clustered around the ruins of Rocca Ianula, can 🏧 be discerned.

An agricultural and commercial centre, Cassino manufactures toys. Pop. (2006 est.) mun., 32,603.