Sant'Anna di Stazzema

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Sant'Anna di Stazzema is a village in Tuscany, an Italian region, now part of the comune of Stazzema (province of Lucca). It was the site of a World War II massacre.

[edit] Massacre

On August 12, 1944, SS of the 16th SS-Panzer-Aufklärungsabteilung of 16. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Reichsführer SS, commanded by Walter Reder, rounded up 560 villagers and refugees — men, women, children, shooting and then burning them. The village was never rebuilt, and stands as a memorial.

In Italy, the 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.

[edit] Trial

Until 2004, no one had ever been prosecuted for the massacre. In July 2004, a trial commenced before a military court in La Spezia against 10 former SS officers living in Germany. On June 22, 2005 an Italian military found the ten former Nazi officers guilty of participation in the massacre. They were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment.

The names of the convicted war criminals are:

Karl Gropler
Georg Rauch
Gerhard Sommer
Alfred Schoneberg
Ludwig Heinrich Sonntag
Alfred Concina
Horst Richter
Werner Bruss
Heinrich Schendel
Ludwig Goering

There have been several other trials since 2002, each concerning German war crimes in Italy, e.g. on October 10, 2006, Max Josef Milde was convicted for his role in the Civitella massacre.