655 Italy Convicts Former SS Officers

[b]Italy convicts former SS officers[/b]

Italy has sentenced 10 German former Nazi officers to life imprisonment for their role in a World War II massacre of 560 civilians in an Italian village.

The defendants, all in their 80s, were tried in absentia in a military tribunal in the port town of La Spezia.

The court heard that the killings in the Tuscan village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema had been premeditated.

The jury took seven hours to reach a verdict on the August 1944 massacre, one of Italy's worst war crimes.

Premeditated

"These men were not novices. They had fought on the western front [..] These were not people, though they were young, who did not know they were doing," prosecutor Marco De Paolis told the court.

The massacre happened just days after British troops liberated Florence in 1944, when hundreds of SS troops surrounded the village near the town of Lucca.

The Germans' defence lawyer said the men, part of a group of about 300, had believed they were hunting for partisans when they travelled to the hill town.

Witnesses say they rounded up the villagers, mostly women and children, and shot them before burning bodies and houses.

Luigi Trucco, who represents two of the defendants, said that he was disappointed at the ruling.

He said it was likely that they would appeal.

The men are unlikely to be imprisoned as they are too old to serve sentences in Italy.

Hidden files

But survivors of the massacre welcomed the trial and its outcome.

"We had asked for two things," Enio Mancini, who was six at the time of the massacre, told Reuters, "Justice, as far as that is still possible, but also truth. The trial has already helped with that."

Italian authorities only began investigating the massacre 10 years ago when a journalist stumbled across a cupboard of witness statements.

Last year, the government set up a parliamentary commission to find out how these files remained hidden for six decades.

[i]Article from the BBC website at [url]www.bbc.co.uk[/url][/i]

Category

General chat about Italy

Hi Sano

Thanks for putting that on - I half caught it this morning on the news but didn't hear the full story. Sant'Anna di Stazzema is quite near to where I live and I've been meaning to go there for a while (hopefully that doesn't seem too ghoulish). In addition to what you've written I believe I heard that Germany may also be either having or considering having a trial and the youngest of them was 82.

a story that has appeared and will become part of the legend... i find it strange here much as when i lived in france how each country likes to make its roll appear something like an old fashioned robin hood story... of partisans and shooting germans... i visted one famous place in france where the whole village was placed in the church ...then they were shot and finally the place burnt...why because a partisan had taken a pot shot at a group of german soldiers....

often on television here there are depicted great scenes of heroism from the partisan side... especially via the rai channels... i dont know what it is... the same stories often appeared on french television.. but the war here... is still fresh in peoples minds.. and they do not seem to be able to get enough of young handsome actors fightings with brutal agressive looking nazis...

and yet we still have here in the north a section of the italian political scene which has recently suggested castration for a couple of moroccan as yet unconvicted rapists... who go around wearing green shirts instead of black.... who long for the greater italy... and are nothing much more than thugs... appealing to that baser side of human nature which appeared to the fore here many years ago...

i can remember....just about ... old films and war stories that were childrens books when i was young depicting the italians in not such a pleasant light... as i ve grown up i learnt that these things that people tell you are often not as simple as the childrens story depicted... its a shame the italian entetaiment industry cannot do something a bit more serious on the subject ... in a sense germany has come to terms with the truth of what happened and in general the teaching of truth now in that place is far removed from the denial ... italy it seems to me still likes a sort of distorted version...

i for one did not live through that period and happily so... but i think its time to place old stories in the history books and move on.... italian justice woulld be better served looking at modern day crimes... for example they do little about the scandal of illegal toxic dumping which is killing their own citizens today

... in reallity italy although generally regarded as not as brutal a master as the germans and not as complicit in the crimes commited in that period has a lot to do i think before calling any pots black... in the centre of the place we have an institution that did nothing throughout that period to defend the rights of any of the peoples who suffered and indeed some might say actively collaborated with the exterminations that took place... it would be nice here if the judiciary investigated that side of things ... we have the grand daughter of the leader of theat time still active in polotics... and above all there is still an extreme movement in the north of italy that still longs for that greter.. in their minds... past

its an institutional load of bull... which i think most italians would rather have their taxes spent in things of today...

I recommend the book by Roger Absalom "A Strange Alliance" for anyone interested in this period of Italian history.

Its a bit drily academic, but is a fascinating analysis of the aid given to escaped POWs by contandini

While sharing the concerns of John inAbruzzo that we must address current manifestations of intolerance in Italy (as elsewhere) rather than simply re-examining the past, I can't agree that "its time to place old stories in the history books and move on...."
The whole point of placing those SS soldiers on (proxy) trial reaffirms George Santayana warning that 'those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it'.
I do a lot of work with WW2 Allied veterans. They're rarely consumed with hatred, but they mainly want people to remember what happened so it won't happen again.
I think in many ways they'd find common cause with John in Abruzzo; except, their approach is tempered by a direct knowledge of what fascism did then, and why John is right to oppose it now.
rgds
Eddie B

"its an institutional load of bull... which i think most italians would rather have their taxes spent in things of today..."

hmm... not so sure about that. Are you referring to the trial itself? I agree with all points made about addressing Italy's current problems but I don't know that just because it's "history" it should be discarded. After all in a historic sense it's very very recent.

I didn't grow up in that period either but my gran was a young girl growing up in an Italian hilltop town during WW2. When I was young she used to tell me about the village being occupied by the SS and then liberated by the Allies (one of whom went on to be her husband!). Hearing the trial made me think about her and basically if that had been her village then I wouldn't be here today. It also made me think about the people that have lived their lives over the last 60 years deprived of their families and friends.

There is a romanticised view of the war and the partisans etc but it doesn't mean this wasn't a very real and horrific incident that, even 60 years on, shouldn't be treated with the same gravity as any other modern war crimes.

... italy was only occupied by the allies not the germans.....it was never liberated

allied bombings and battles caused the deaths of more italian civilians than any of the deaths caused by italies allies the germans... i know people that are still terrified by the thought of the mass bombings of some italian cities

.. however it must be acknowledged that a lot of help was given by ordinary local people to allied soldiers

also like the moment italy was a divided country in its own opinion of whose side it was on... the north south divide is often talked about and is still a factor in peoples perspective on life....

in general you will find most of the neo fascist groups that operate here represented in the area to the north of rome...there are some geographical anomalies to this... eg the marche... basically the east side of italy is cut off by the appenines and so while that area is central north its attitudes are more central south... and in that time 60 years ago a large part of italy and its people were dragged into something especially in the centre south that they did not want to be...

so i agree best not to forget... but not that any lessons have been learnt... and that history over time changes... all that we heard and read say thirty years ago is already regarded as mostly propaganda ... so what use history books... and what use history if the past can keep getting re written... eg i reently watched a documentary on italian tv about the bombing of japan... and it was not the same story i had been taught at school at all....

I would suggest that those of you who doubt the impact of WWII on Italy read 'The Other Italy' by Maria de Blasio-Wilhelm. It describes the activities of the resistance movement in Italy and is very informative.

My grandparents fought in that war, and my mothers uncle was a POW in Italy, again, one of the woman in the village they were held in later became his wife.

I sometimes think that our history teachers have done our youth a disservice by not teaching the full truth of the world wars.

It seems the softly softy academic approach has created a generation (or two) of people who seem to be very ignorant of what happened during the war, and that lack of knowledge is very dangerous.

[QUOTE=adriatica]... italy was only occupied by the allies not the germans.....it was never liberated

I stand corrected. If I'd actually thought about it I did know that. I was thinking more along the lines of what my gran actually used to say to me - which I think proves your point about many Italians being dragged into something they did not want to be involved in ie she considered that the Germans (their allies) were "occupying" and the allies were liberating them.

As an aside my great aunt worked in Rome as a young girl pre-war and said that she'd seen Mussolini on various occasions. When I asked what he was like her reply was "funny little man" - not a phrase I think that's been used in any history books!

nicola... really it was just a small dig... in reallity italy had already switched sides and in a sense you are more right than wrong....

as regards history and its teachings... a few generations ago.. not that many we were taught to despise germans and italians for their part in that war.... were also not very keen on south africans as they were known to be on the same side.....

in reality and some of that has come out now we all know that masses of people can be led into things that in reallity the majority do not agree with... but how do we go about changing it.....

there is still no real truth that has come out about the supportive role of the catholic church in the mass extermination of the gypsey/jewish races.... that would be a more than interesting backward look into history...

but each side has its story to tell and way of telling it and it wasnt that long ago that the view of native americans and the geramns in general were based on john wayne movies.....

we might have seen the recent hollywood draft of films on various historic events...some of them much to do with england/scotland ... england/ireland... and i think there was one on a beach in france.... i wonder what the chinese and japanese history books have to say about the whole thing.... or what the koreans outlook on the world is... they all have their history books as we do... but i bet their history is different from ours... yet it all happened ... and there must be very few of us that didnt have parents...grandparents... who did not have some story to tell.... on relatives sacrificing i had two uncles killed in that war ... if that makes any difference...

luckily now our history teachers question beyond the obvious andd our youth the same and i would think a better world for it

My mother’s brother was Italy’s youngest fighter pilot during WW2. Today, he still becomes quite nervous whenever he hears fireworks, which remind him of the war. But he doesn’t bear any grudges against the American bomber crew who shot him down. What upsets him most is to see events that continue to divide the universe in which we live.

I too have worked closely with WW2 RAF Veterans from Bomber Command. Having read read the stories as a schoolboy, I feel privileged in that I have heard their accounts of what really went on. Not once have I heard them complain or reason with any hatred. What strikes me the most is their sense of pride and honour and their conviction in getting their message across. They want people, as EddieB says, to remember what happened so it won't happen again.

I believe it is the nature of history to change shape and to keep adding to itself. During the last five hundred years history has changed its shape almost beyond recognition. Amazing advances in technology have brought the world closer together, yet humankind has not been united politically and nations (and regions within nations) are still strangers to one another. The situation remains a volatile one; the two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and the present global frustrations, tensions and violence prove this.

Differences of opinion will always exist. So too will accounts of historic events. These are shaped by what was known at the time; views that may and can change the body of knowledge in light of more recent discoveries. Nevertheless, I don’t believe we can live just in the immediate present. If we are to look forward, either in hope or in fear, to a different future, we cannot, whether it is wrong, outdated or based on myth or fact, ignore the past.