On June 22, 2005, after
a year-long trial, Italian judges convicted
10 former members of the Nazi SS accused
of taking part in the 1944 massacre
of more than 500 villagers in Sant’Anna
di Stazzema in northern Italy and
sentenced them to life in prison. The defendants,
who are all now in their eighties, were tried
in absentia in the Italian town of La Spezia.
The men are still in Germany due to a German
policy of not extraditing its own citizens.
A court in Stuttgart is still researching
the event in preparation for a possible trial
in Germany.
In 1944, SS officers were
given orders to round up partisans in the
Tuscan region, but most men were away fighting
with the Italian resistance. On August 12,
about 300 SS troops from 16. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division
Reichsführer-SS surrounded the village
of Sant’Anna di Stazzema, which had
been flooded with refugees, and rounded up
and shot villagers. Some people were herded
into basements and other enclosed spaces
and killed with hand grenades. Before burning
the village to the ground, the SS murdered
hundreds of women and elderly and 116 children,
the youngest of which was just 20 days old.
The precise number killed is uncertain, but
the most commonly cited number is 560 people.
The massacre, perhaps the most egregious war
crime committed by the Nazis on Italian
soil – took place as the Germans were
retreating up the Italian peninsula. Some
historians say the killings were in retaliation
against Italian partisans resisting German
occupation; others maintain it was an unwarranted
act of intimidation.
Italian authorities have
been accused of losing vital documents and
burying many trials in the 1950s and 60s
to to prevent post-war Italy from confronting
its Fascist past, and to avoid damaging relations
with Germany. In fact, the Sant’Anna
di Stazzema massacre was not publicly known
until 1994, when nearly 700 reports about
it were accidentally found in a metal cabinet
(named “cupboard
of shame” by Italian media) in the
basement of the Rome military court.
The men convicted for their role in the
massacre were:
- Karl Gropler
- Georg Rauch
- Gerard Sommer
- Alfred Schoneberg
- Ludwig Heinrich Sonntag
- Alfred Concina
- Horst Richter
- Werner Bruss
- Heinrich Schendel
- Ludwig Goering
Sources: Deutsche
Welle (August 12, 2004); Wikipedia ;
Spiegel
Online, (June 23, 2005); Reuters,
(April 21, 2004); Haaretz,
(June 23, 2005), AP, (June 22, 2005)