16th SS was the PanzerGrenadier Division Reichsfuhrer-SS
Posted on 01/13/2007 12:50:53 PM PST by NormsRevenge
ROME - A military tribunal on Saturday convicted 10 former members of the Nazi SS in the 1944 slaughter of more than 700 people near Bologna — the worst civilian massacre in Italy during World War II, news reports said.
The 10 received life sentences for murder, while seven others were acquitted, the Italian news agency ANSA and state-run RAI television said. But none of the men was in custody. They were tried in absentia, and all are believed to be living in Germany.
The defendants, one former officer and 16 enlisted personnel of the 16th SS Division, were tried in a military court in the northern port town of La Spezia. Court officials in La Spezia could not be reached to comment on the reports.
The 10 convicted men also were ordered to pay about $130 million in damages to the few survivors and relatives of the victims, the news reports said.
"I would have preferred to see all of them convicted. But justice is done — at least a little bit," Ferruccio Laffi, a survivor, told ANSA.
The massacre occurred around Marzabotto, a mountain town south of Bologna, during a retreat by German troops. From Sept. 29, 1944, to Oct. 5, 1944, SS soldiers slaughtered more than 700 people — mostly children, women and elderly — in what was ostensibly a hunt for resistance fighters.
Nazi troops lobbed grenades at civilians locked in a house and sprayed machine-gun fire to hit a row of children, among other atrocities.
Two leaders of the SS division were convicted after the war in Italy for the killings, but investigations of lower-ranking soldiers by German and Italian prosecutors languished for decades.
In 2002, then-German President Johannes Rau traveled to Marzabotto during a visit to Italy and expressed "sadness, mourning and shame" at the massacre.
I'm surprised they were able to identify in any meaningful way which men were responsbile for this.
Was this the incident in the Richard Burton movie "Massacre in Rome"?
And yes, I know it said Bologna, but filmmakers do take license with the facts...
Good question, most would be well into their 80s or so..
This is good news but it seems an empty gesture if we are only going after Germans from 60 years ago.
Without going after communists, then this whole exercise seems kind of bizarre.
NO.
Two entirely separate incidents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marzabotto_massacre
http://www.zchor.org/italy/caves.htm
16th SS was the PanzerGrenadier Division Reichsfuhrer-SS
I thought our courts were slow.
"Nazi troops lobbed grenades at civilians locked in a house and sprayed machine-gun fire to hit a row of children, among other atrocities."
huh?
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