Feb. 15



ITALY:

ITALY TO TRY THREE FORMER NAZIS


A cupboard found in Rome containing 600 witness statements will provide
key evidence as ex-SS are tried for the massacre of 560 in Tuscany.
Wednesday January 14, 2004

The surprise discovery of what has become known as the "cupboard of shame"
has led an Italian court to put three German ex-SS officers on trial for
their part in the massacre of 560 Italians in a Tuscan village in August
1944.

For decades the killings which took place as the Germans retreated from
advancing allied forces were not investigated. But in 1994 a journalist
stumbled across a cupboard in the basement of the headquarters of the
military prosecutor's office in Rome.

It was sealed and turned towards the wall. There were more than 600 files
inside, including reports and witness statements collected by British and
American troops as they advanced through Italy in 1944, discovering piles
of dead people in scores of villages.

Bureaucracy and the lengthy process of investigating crimes committed two
generations earlier have meant it has taken almost a decade for the first
cases to come to court. "They just buried the evidence like ostriches
putting their heads in the sand," said a source close to the trial.

"The files were hidden during the cold war. You can imagine why. Germany
was an ally of Nato. It was decided to keep these things secret."

The three suspects are all living in Germany and it is not yet clear if
they can be extradited for the trial. Reports said yesterday that
continuing investigations in Germany might mean the men cannot be
extradited.

Investigators said that Gerhard Sommer, 83, Alfred Schonenberg, 83, and
Ludwig Sonntag, 80, all face charges of massacring the civilians at
Sant'Anna di Stazzema on August 12 1944 at the trial to take place in La
Spezia, northern Italy, on April 20.

As British troops liberated Florence some 300 of Hitler's elite and most
fanatical SS troops surrounded Sant'Anna di Stazzema, in northern Tuscany,
which was crowded with refugees. They claimed to be hunting for partisans
but instead rounded up all the villagers they could find - 80% of whom
were women, children and elderly people - and began shooting them,
according to witnesses.

"What happened in Stazzema was a calculated massacre," said Marco De
Paolis, military prosecutor in charge of the case.

"Those who ordered it knew they were giving criminal orders," he told the
newspaper La Repubblica.

The trial is a landmark for Italian justice which for decades failed to
investigate the death of around 15,000 civilians, killed in around 400
separate slaughters throughout Italy by German troops as the allies
advanced.

The Sant'Anna di Stazzema is one of the biggest single massacres recorded
in northern Italy, as German troops retreated along the so-called Gothic
line, which crossed Italy from La Spezia on the Tyrrhenian coast to Pesaro
on the Adriatic sea. Some 800 people are thought to have also been killed
at Marzabotto, in the province of Bologna.

"This is not a witch hunt," said Gianpiero Lorenzoni, mayor of Sant'Anna.
"60 years softens your need for revenge. But the search for the truth
never stops, even if you get tired. Families will get some satisfaction if
the men who ordered this are finally brought to justice."

"We have suffered over the years because no one has been brought to
justice for this," said Enio Mancini, who escaped the massacre but lost
his entire family.

Mr Sommer is reportedly among 12 former members of the SS Panzergrenadier
Division being investigated in Germany. Two other ex-SS officers, Werner
Bruss and Georg Rauch, were found not to have a case to answer in court,
the investigator said. A sixth suspect, Heinrich Schendel, would be
subject to further inquiries.

Italy was spurred to reopen investigations of Nazi crimes in 1996, when a
military court found former SS captain Erich Priebke guilty of involvement
in the slaughter of 335 men and boys at the Ardeatine caves south of Rome.
But he was released under the statute of limitations. After public outrage
Italy's highest court of appeal ordered a retrial. Priebke was sentenced
to life imprisonment in 1998, and he is serving out his sentence under
house arrest.

A parliamentary commission was set up last year to investigate how the
Italian government hid the massacre files for half a century.

(source: The Guardian)