[Gamecock]

Because of his age, Priebke had served his life term under house arrest at the home of his lawyer, Paolo Giachini

What the heck?!?

Did he also have to serve as his lawyer's butler?

[pogo101]

"Some of the Germans officers involved in the massacre were horrified by the slaughter. One, who refused to shoot, was personally dragged to the execution site by Erich Priebke, who put his arm around the officer's waist and forced him to kill his victim."

From the Wikipedia entry on the massacre, FWIW.

[Jacquerie]

Don't think the likes of some of the confidants of Obama wouldn't do the same to conservatives.

If they could get away with it, Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett and others would happily march us off to the camps.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Here is a fictionalized movie about it.

MASSACRE IN ROME.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070592/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

[Gator113]

Obama’s U.S. Park Rangers should be saddened by their loss.

[SpaceBar]

In sixty years or so, oldsters suffering from dementia and under house arrest will talk of the dreaded “crackersweeps” by the obama regime in the early 20’s, yet few will notice because “that’s ancient history” and “we don’t need to relive the past”.

[lee martell]

I think the National Park Service employees gave us a tiny (not-so-lovin’)spoonful of what it’s like to have your countrymen take up arms against you for actions that have always been legal and proper. Their behavior has left many scared, angry and wanting vengeance. A lot of respect for the paid walkers of NPS was lost for good last week. I see this old man’s death and know that it is possible for people of today to behave in the same manner. A lot of insecure high authority people waiting for the right Puppeteer.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Some interesting twists to this one.

To start with, communist partisans had set off a bomb killing some 33 German soldiers during a road march. What today we would call an IED. Unusually, both Waffen (not General) SS and Wehrmacht (regular army) leaders called for reprisals.

Hitler wanted reprisals as well, the complete destruction of Rome (much like he later wanted to destroy Paris), but was persuaded that killing 10 Italians for every German killed would be acceptable. But things became odd:

“Most of the men were convicted prisoners under sentence of death, but there were not enough, so their ranks were swelled by petty criminals, political detainees and resistance fighters. Even then, to reach the number required, the Germans rounded up civilians on the streets. The oldest was in his seventies, the youngest 15. In fact, the Nazis found they had actually assembled 335 men and boys — five more than the number prescribed — but decided not to release the extra five so as not to compromise security.”

So, many in this massacre already had (legitimate?) death sentences. So the real crime was in murdering political detainees and partisans. However, at the time, killing partisans, non uniformed fighters without a chain of command, was more or less tolerated in the Geneva Convention.

So the bottom line was the murdering of the few who had been rounded up off the street to complete the designated number, was the clearest part of this as a war crime.