Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre

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Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre was a World War II atrocity in the village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema, Italy.

On August 12, 1944, retreating SS-men of the II Battallion of SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 35 of 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division Reichsführer-SS, commanded by SS-Hauptsturmführer Anton Galler, rounded up 560 villagers and refugees — mostly women, children and older men — shot them and then burned their bodies.

In the aftermath of the massacre the village was only partially rebuilt and stands today as a memorial.

[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 ten former SS officers and NCOs living in Germany. On June 22, 2005, the Italian military court found the ten former Waffen-SS members guilty of participation in the massacre. They were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment.

Werner Bruss, 1920, former SS-Unterscharführer
Alfred Concina, born 1919, former SS-Unterscharführer
Ludwig Goering, born 1923, former SS-Rottenführer
Karl Gropler, born 1923, former SS-Unterscharführer
Georg Rauch, born 1921, former SS-Untersturmführer
Horst Richter, born 1921, former SS-Unterscharführer
Alfred Schoneberg, born 1921, former SS-Unterscharführer
Heinrich Schendel, born 1922, former SS-Unterscharführer
Gerhard Sommer, born 1921, former SS-Untersturmführer
Ludwig Heinrich Sonntag, born 1924, former SS-Unterscharführer

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.

[edit] References

US NARA, Record Group 153, Judge Advocate General, War Crimes Branch, Cases filed 1944-1949, Location: 270/1/25/3-4, Entry 143, Box 527, Case 16-62 (Santa Anna).
US NARA, RG 238, Office of the Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, Location: 190/10/34/25, Entry 2, Box 10, Case 16-62 (Santa Anna).
Claudia Buratti/Giovanni Cipollini, Vite bruciate. La strage di Sant’Anna di Stazzema 1944-2005, Rome, 2006.
Carlo Gentile, Politische Soldaten. Die 16. SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Division „Reichsführer-SS“ in Italien 1944, in: „Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken“, 81, 2001, pp. 529-561.
Carlo Gentile, Sant’Anna di Stazzema, in: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.), Orte des Grauens. Verbrechen im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Darmstadt, 2003, pp. 231-236.
Carlo Gentile, Le SS di Sant’Anna di Stazzema: azioni, motivazioni e profilo di una unità nazista, in: Marco Palla (ed.), Tra storia e memoria. 12 agosto 1944: la strage di Sant’Anna di Stazzema, Rome, 2003, pp. 86-117.