Originally posted by Naso
It's 2003 mister, wake up, it's time to understand the things with cold blood, and stop the emotional crap.
Oh, I'm "over it" as you speak, but lest we forget history, we're doomed to repeat it.
Don't forget the SS, Naso.
VIA RASELLA
(Rome. March 23, 1944)
The 11th Company of the German 3rd Battalion of the S.S. Polizei Regiment 'Bozen', consisting of 156 men, were on their regular daily march through the streets of Rome to the Macao Barracks, when they became the target of the Italian underground movement. On March 23 ( the 25th anniversary of the day Mussolini formed his Fascist Party) the police company were climbing the narrow Via Rasella when a bomb, placed in a road sweepers cart, exploded. Twenty six SS policemen were killed instantly and sixty others wounded, two more died later. Some civilians were also killed. The German Commandant of Rome, General Kurt Malzer, drunk and shrieking for revenge, ordered the arrest of all who lived on the street. Some 200 civilians were rounded up and turned over temporarily to the Italian authorities. Hitler, on hearing of the bombing, immediately ordered that 30 Italians were to be shot for every policeman killed. This number was later reduced to 10. Within twenty four hours, 335 people were loaded onto lorries and driven to a network of caves on the Via Ardeatina discovered by the Germans earlier and where the disbanded Italian army had hidden barrels of petrol and some vehicles. At 3.30pm the executions started, each victim ordered to kneel and was then shot in the back of the head. By 8pm it was all over. In 1947, SS Obersturmbannführer Herbert Kappler, who was in charge of the executions, was arrested and faced court in Rome. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1972, Kappler was allowed to marry his German nurse, Anneliese Wenger and in 1976, with her help, he escaped from the prison hospital. Seven months later, at her home in Soltau in northern Germany, Herbert Kappler died of cancer of the stomach. SS General Malzer was sentenced to life, later reduced to 21 years, but died in prison on March 24, 1952. The instigator of this attack on the 11th Company was Marxist medical student Rosario Bentivegna, helped by partisan member Carla Capponi whom he later married. Dr. Bentivegna was later decorated with the Golden Medal of the Italian Resistance and his wife Carla became a member of the Italian Parliament.
Today, the Ardeatina Caves is a Memorial. Nearby is the Mausoleum containing the stone sarcophagi of the 335 victims.
SANT' ANNA MASSACRE
(August 12, 1944)
Just north of Pisa, between the towns of Lucca and Currara, lay the small village of S.Anna di Stazzema. On August 4, British troops had freed the city of Florence (Firenze) and the German armies were now retreating northwards through the mountainous region of Tuscany, ideal terrain for partisan activity. Many of the German troops were killed in ambushes and skirmishes with the Italian underground movement. On August 12, the 6th Panzergrenadieren 'Reichsführer-SS' Division reached the outskirts of Sant' Anna, their orders to shoot on sight all partisans found in the area. Believing that the inhabitants of the Sant'Anna were all partisans or partisan sympathizers, the SS started knocking on doors and shouting 'Heraus! Heraus!' ('out of here!'). Gathered together on the village square, the men, women and children, were then shot in cold blood. In all, 560 people were massacred including 110 children. The houses in the village were then burned to the ground, the church organ was riddled with machine-gun bullets and the christening font completely destroyed by a grenade. Many of the corpses were doused with petrol and then set alight before the SS unit departed.
ATROCITY AT BARDINE SAN TERENZO
(August 20, 1944) In the area around the village of Bardine San Terenzo, the SS 16 Reichsführer Division was deployed to counteract partisan activity against German troops. Seventeen German soldiers had been ambushed and their truck set on fire. All seventeen were killed. A search of various villages was undertaken where the SS looted and burned a number of houses. Fifty-three villagers were taken to the burned out truck and tied to the chassis of the vehicle and to field posts nearby. Next day a local priest, Padre Lino Piane, discovered the fifty-three bodies. All had been shot. Most of the victims were from the village of Mezzana Castello, those from Bardine were taken to Valla and there, shot. There were 107 persons in all. Only five were men, the rest, women and children. In the four days that the search continued, a total of 369 hostages were brutally massacred and 454 houses destroyed by fire. In overall charge of the SS troops in this incident was Major Walter Reder, the one-armed SS officer responsible for the massacres on the Monte Sole.
SLAUGHTER ON MONTE SOLE
(Sept.29 to Oct.1st, 1944)
About twenty kilometres south of Bologna is the massif of Monte Sole, part of the Apennine range. Around this area are dozens of small villages and towns, Marzabotto, Sperticano, Cerpiano, San Martino, Creda and Casaglia to name but a few. When Italy surrendered to the Allies on Sept. 8, 1943, Fascist and German troops continued their harassment of these poor mountain people. Forming themselves into small partisan groups, augmented by deserters from the Italian and German armies (ex Russian POWs) their strength grew to around 1,200 men. Calling themselves the Stella Rossa (Red Star) they confined their activities to sniping, derailing freight trains and the occasional ambush. In their efforts to subdue the Stella Rossa, the German SS often raided small villages and shot hostages. This only increased the determination of the partisans to commit more attacks on the enemy and for the Germans to shoot more hostages. As the British and Americans fought their way north, the SS formed up for a mass attack on Monte Sole. At dawn on Friday, 29th Sept. 1944, the SS attacked. At Creda, the SS surrounded a barn where a group of partisans were hiding. All the men, women and children of Creda, were assembled in the barn and after their valuables and money was confiscated they were machine-gunned, grenades and incendiary bombs were thrown in and the group, about ninety, were left to burn. This scene was repeated at every tiny village and farmlet as the SS units continued their march. Soon, hundreds of fires could be seen on and around Monte Sole, each one a funeral pyre. During the three days of the rastrellamento (Sept.29 to Oct 1st) a total of around 1,830 men, women and children, were brutally murdered by the SS and 420 houses burned. When the SS murder squads moved on, the killing continued as relatives of the victims, searching for the bodies of their loved ones, stepped on the deadly mines laid by the SS. Their commander, one-armed SS Major Walter Reder, an Austrian national, was later arrested by the Americans in Salzburg and handed over to the British who in turn passed him over to the Italians. In 1951, in an Italian military court in Bologna, Walter Reder was sentenced to strict life imprisonment in the military prison at Gaeta. He was released in 1985 and died six years later in 1991.
THE BOVES ATROCITY
(Sept 17th, 1944)
A few kilometres north of Cuneo in Italy, lies the town of Boves. After September 8th, 1943, it became an active center of the Italian underground because of the stationing of many stragglers from the now disbanded Regio Esercito (Royal Italian Army). These partisans were led by Bartolomeo Giuliano, Ezio Aceto and Ignazio Vian. After repeated requests to surrender, the partisans refused in spite of leaflets being dropped by the SS. On the 17th of September the German commander, SS Major Joachim Peiper, ordered two gun crews to shell the town. The partisans again refused to surrender. Two German soldiers were then sent forward (as decoys) to be captured by the partisans. Hoping they would be killed, it would give Peiper the pretext for a slaughter. The parish priest, Father Giuseppe Bernardi and the industrialist, Alessandro Vassallo, were ordered to meet with the partisans and to persuade them to release the two soldiers. The priest asked Peiper 'Will you spare the town?'. Peiper gave his word and the two prisoners were released. But the blood-thirsty SS then proceeded to burn all the houses in the town after which Father Bernardi and Vassallo were put into a car to do an inspection of the devastated town. 'They must admire the spectacle' said Peiper. After the inspection, Father Bernardi and his companion, Vassallo, were sprinkled with petrol and set alight. Both were burned to death. Forty-three other inhabitants of Boves were killed that day and 350 houses destroyed. Next day, a column of armoured vehicles went up the road that led to the partisan base. A lucky shot from their only 75 mm gun destroyed the leading armoured car. After an intense fire-fight the SS retreated with heavy losses. One of the partisan leaders, Ignazio Vian, was later captured by the SS and hanged in Turin. On the wall of his cell he had written in his own blood the words "Better Die Rather Than Betray".
(SS Major Peiper was later brought to trial. See 'The Malmedy Massacre' in the Belgian section below)
