| Padule di Fucecchio massacre | |
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| Part of War crimes of the Wehrmacht | |
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File:File:Ponte Buggianese - Memoriale Eccidio Padule di Fucecchio.jpg A memorial to the massacre at Ponte Buggianese | |
 <div style="position: absolute; top: Expression error: Missing operand for *.%; left: -83.1%; height: 0; width: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"> Padule di Fucecchio massacre (Northern Italy)
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| Location | Padule di Fucecchio, Tuscany, Italy |
| Coordinates | 43°48′N 10°48′E / 43.8°N 10.8°E |
| Date | 23 August 1944 |
| Target | Italian civilian population |
Attack type | Massacre |
| Weapons | Machine guns |
| Deaths | At least 174 |
| Assailants | Ernst Pistor, Fritz Jauss, Johan Robert Riss, Gerhard Deissmann |
| Motive | Reprisal for Italian partisan activity |
| Website | L'Eccidio del Padule di Fucecchio |
The Padule di Fucecchio massacre (Italian language: Eccidio del Padule di Fucecchio ) was the murder of at least 174 Italian civilians,[lower-alpha 1][1] carried out by the 26th Panzer Division at Padule di Fucecchio, a large wetland north of Fucecchio, Tuscany,[2] on 23 August 1944. After the war, the commander of the 26th Panzer Division was sentenced for war crimes, but the men who carried out the massacre were not convicted until 2011 and none served any jail time. The massacre has been described as "one of the worst Nazi atrocities in Italy".[3]
Massacre[]
The massacre was carried out as a reprisal for the wounding of two German soldiers by Italian partisans. An Italian military court was later told that the Germans had rounded up 94 men, 63 women and 27 children and murdered them with machine gun fire.[4] According to the prosecutor, the murders were committed "in cold blood, looking the innocent in the eyes".[3] An Italian historian described the massacre as "not a reprisal but an operation of total desertification".[3]
Prosecution[]
Initial investigation[]
British military police Sergeant Charles Edmondson investigated the massacre in 1945. He took statements from survivors. This evidence was used decades later, after Edmondson's death in 1985, in the prosecution of some of the perpetrators.[3][4]
Edmondson established that the massacre was carried out by soldiers of the 26th Panzer Division. The division was commanded by Eduard Crasemann at the time, who was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment for war crimes after the war and died in jail in West Germany in 1950.[5]
Trial[]
In 2011, a military court in Italy tried four of the suspected perpetrators and found three of them guilty while the fourth one died during the trial. Ernst Pistor (Captain), Fritz Jauss (Warrant officer), and Johan Robert Riss (Sergeant) were found guilty while Gerhard Deissmann died before the sentencing, aged 100. The three were unlikely to serve time in jail because Germany was not obliged to extradite them. None of the three showed any remorse for their action.[3][4]
Some of the perpetrators of the massacre were also accused of participating in the murder of the family of Robert Einstein.[6][7]
Only three Nazi war criminals have ever served jail sentences in Italy for war crimes, Erich Priebke, Karl Hass, and Michael Seifert.[3]
Compensation[]
Marco De Paolis, the military prosecutor in the case, asked Germany to pay €14 million in compensation to 32 relatives of the victims but Germany denied liability, citing immunity agreements with Italy in 1947 and 1961.[3][4]
Commemoration[]
In 2015, the Italian Foreign Minister, Paolo Gentiloni, together with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who would later serve as President of Germany, opened a Documentation Centre on the Padule di Fucecchio Massacre. The official press release by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation puts the number of victims in the massacre at 175.[8]
Notes[]
- ↑ Estimates for the number of victims vary. News articles about the 2011 trial state 184, the Italian government stated 175 in 2015, while the commemorative site and the Atlas of Nazi and Fascist Massacres in Italy state 174.
References[]
- ↑ "Padule di Fucecchio, 23.08.1944" (in it). Atlas of Nazi and Fascist Massacres in Italy. http://www.straginazifasciste.it/?page_id=38&id_strage=5787&lang=en.
- ↑ "History and nature in the Fucecchio Wetlands". Italian Ways. http://www.italianways.com/history-and-nature-in-the-fucecchio-wetlands/.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 "Three ex-Nazis get life for WWII massacre". Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata. 26 May 2011. http://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/rubriche/english/2011/05/26/visualizza_new.html_845086729.html.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Squires, Nick (26 May 2011). "Three former Nazi soldiers found guilty of Tuscan massacre". The Daily Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/8539997/Three-former-Nazi-soldiers-found-guilty-of-Tuscan-massacre.html.
- ↑ "The responsible". L'Eccidio del Padule di Fucecchio. http://www.eccidiopadulefucecchio.it/en/i-responsabili/.
- ↑ Kellerhoff, Sven Felix (21 February 2011). "Die ewige Suche nach dem Mörder der Einsteins" (in de). Die Welt. https://www.welt.de/vermischtes/weltgeschehen/article12601014/Die-ewige-Suche-nach-dem-Moerder-der-Einsteins.html.
- ↑ Dosch, Stefan (23 August 2017). "Einsteins Nichten: Die tragische Geschichte von zwei Schwestern" (in de). Augsburger Allgemeine. https://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/panorama/Einsteins-Nichten-Die-tragische-Geschichte-von-zwei-Schwestern-id42468146.html.
- ↑ "The Italian and German foreign ministers open the Documentation Centre on the Padule di Fucecchio Massacre". Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. 11 October 2015. https://www.esteri.it/mae/en/sala_stampa/archivionotizie/approfondimenti/i-ministri-degli-esteri-dei-due.html.
The original article can be found at Padule di Fucecchio massacre and the edit history here.