June 12




GERMANY:

German Court Opens Case on Nazi Massacre in Greece


Germany's highest court began hearing claims on Thursday for compensation
by inhabitants of a Greek village destroyed by SS troops almost 60 years
ago during Nazi Germany's brutal wartime occupation.

The German government has rejected the claims, which have been turned down
by lower courts as well as the European Court of Human Rights, on the
grounds that the Federal Republic of Germany has state immunity from war
crimes prosecution by private citizens.

A day before a visit to Germany by Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis,
the German government expressed its regret to the victims and their
descendants but stuck by its rejection of the claims, which, if granted,
could open the door to payouts totaling billions of euros.

In a statement to the court, the government said the massacre at the
village of Distomo on June 10, 1944, by elite SS troops who killed some
300 civilians in revenge for a partisan attack was ``a particularly brutal
but unfortunately not unique action by German soldiers.''

``The Federal government deeply regrets the great damage done to lives,
health, freedom and property,'' the statement said. The Federal Court is
due to announce its decision on June 26 but would have to refer the case
to the Federal Constitutional Court if it thought the government might be
open to the claims.

A separate investigation into a massacre by German troops of thousands of
Italian prisoners on the Greek island of Cephalonia in September 1943 was
highlighted this week by an annual meeting of veterans of the mountain
warfare units held responsible for the killings.

``It's certainly one of the biggest war crimes ever committed by the
Wehrmacht,'' said Ulrich Maass, the Dortmund state prosecutor who has been
investigating the massacre since 2001.

The killing of Italian troops who refused to hand over their weapons to
the German army following the overthrow of Benito Mussolini's Fascist
regime in 1943 provided the backdrop to the successful novel and film
``Captain Corelli's Mandolin.''

The first investigations by German prosecutors were initiated in 1964 but
the case was subsequently dropped and, Maass said, only a few hundred
German soldiers who served on the island at the time were still alive.

Maass, who has interviewed witnesses across Europe and gathered evidence
from as far afield as the United States and Canada, said only five to 10
people may still be tried for murder as most of the ordinary soldiers
involved would have been guilty of manslaughter, a crime which has now
expired.

(source: Reuters)