Gerhard Sommer

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Gerhard Sommer (b. 24 June 1921, Rudolstadt, Germany) is a former SS-Untersturmführer of the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division Reichsführer-SS who was involved in the massacre of 560 civilians on 12 August 1944 in the Italian village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema.

In July 1933 when he was 12 years old Gerhard Sommer became a member of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) where he got the rank of an Jungzugführer in the Deutsche Jungvolk. On 1 September 1939, then aged 18, he joined the NSDAP (NSDAP-Nr.: 7111565) and in October of the same year the Waffen-SS (SS-Nr.: 474378).

Sommer fought in the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler at the front in the West on the Balkan and Ukraine. There he was injured two times and was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class. He left the Lutheran Evangelical church in November 1942. In 1943 Sommer applied for the rank of an SS-Reserve-Führer. After training in Proschnitz he was appointed as an SS-Untersturmführer on 30 January 1944.

He then served as an Zugführer, later as Kompanieführer in the 7. Kompanie des II. Bataillons/SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 35. On 19 August 1944 he received the Iron Cross 1st class. Towards the end of the war Sommer served in the 4th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Brigade Netherlands. ^[1].

On 22 June 2005 Sommer and nine of his comrades were convicted by an Italian military court in La Spezia for "continued murder with special cruelty" of 560 villagers of Sant'Anna di Stazzema. All ten were sentenced to life imprisonment and compensation payments. ^[2] Sommer and four of his comrades appealed, but the sentences were confirmed in 2006 by a military court in Rome. ^[3]

In 2002 investigations against Sommer were initiated in Germany but no criminal charges have been brought to this day. Gabriela Heinecke, a lawyer from Hamburg in charge of the "Nebenklage" of the Italian survivors of the massacre continues to be denied access to the records by the German public prosecution department.^[4]

As of 2007 Sommer lives in a nursing home in Hamburg-Volksdorf, Germany.

[edit] External links

• „Die NS-Mörder sind noch unter uns. SS-Kriegsverbrecher Gerhard Sommer lebt bis heute unbehelligt in Hamburg.“ Aus: analyse+kritik Nr. 500 vom 18. November 2005
• Rechtspolitische Initiative zum Fall Gerhard Sommer aus dem Forschungsansatz „Systemkritik: Deutsche Justizverbrechen“
• Das Massaker von Sant’Anna di Stazzema am 12. August 1944 - Materialiensammlung 1 für eine bundesweite Kampagne zur Anklageerhebung in Deutschland Mai 2006, (Pdf 880 KB)

[edit] References