14-01-07, 19:02
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10 Ex 16th SS members convicted
Hello,
I just read this article in Canoe News headlines about these current convictions for atrocities done in 1944 by the 16th SS. It's good to know that some do not give up in trying to bring some kind of justice, even 63 years after the deeds.
Karmen
Quote:
January 13, 2007
Italian court convicts 10 ex-SS members
ROME (AP) - 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 the Second World War, a news report said.
The 10 received life sentences for murder, while seven others were acquitted, the Italian news agency ANSA said. But none of the men was in custody. They were tried in absentia, and all were 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 could not be reached to comment on the report.
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 travelled to Marzabotto during a visit to Italy and expressed "sadness, mourning and shame" at the massacre.
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