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13-08-2009, 00:08
Former Nazi Officer Convicted of Murdering Italian Civilians
Joerg Koch/DDP, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/08/11/world/11nazi-600.jpg
Josef Scheungraber, a 90-year-old former Nazi officer, was sentenced on Tuesday to life in prison for murdering Italian civilians as a reprisal for the killing of two Nazi soldiers.
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By JUDY DEMPSEY
Published: August 11, 2009
BERLIN — A court in Munich on Tuesday sentenced a 90-year-old former Nazi officer to life in prison for murdering Italian civilians in retaliation for the killing of two Nazi soldiers.
In what may have been one of Germany’s last Nazi trials, the former officer, Josef Scheungraber, was convicted on 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.
He had denied allegations that he ordered the killings in June 1944 in Falzano di Cortona, near the Tuscan town of Arezzo, when he was a 25-year-old army lieutenant in command of a company of engineers. The trial began last September after the presiding judge, Manfred Götz, said Mr. Scheungraber was fit to stand trial.
Prosecutors said that after Italian partisans had killed two German soldiers, Mr. Scheungraber commanded his soldiers to shoot three Italian men and one woman. The prosecutors said he then ordered 11 more civilians herded into a barn that was then blown up.
Mr. Scheungraber’s defense team said there was no evidence of Mr. Scheungraber’s connection to the crimes. He had already been convicted of the same crimes by an Italian military court in 2006 and sentenced in absentia to life in prison. But he served no time.
Prosecutors said there were no known living witnesses who had heard Mr. Scheungraber give the order to kill the civilians. They said, however, that he had been seen in photographs at the burial of the two German soldiers for whose deaths the reprisals were carried out.
During hearings last month, a former employee testified that he recalled Mr. Scheungraber’s saying to him in the 1970s that he could not visit Italy because of what had happened during the war, which had to do with “shooting a dozen men and blowing them into the air.”
The witness, whose name was given as Eugen S., testified that he did not remember Mr. Scheungraber’s saying he had given the order, though he added that the defendant told the story “as if it were his decision.”
Gino Massetti, the sole survivor of the killings, told the court in testimony last October that he was 15 when he was rounded up by German troops and put into the barn before it was blown up. “I heard a scream, and that was it,” he said. “Then they were dead.”
Just before the barn was blown up, Mr. Massetti said, he saw an officer drive up on a motorcycle, but he could not describe the officer nor understand what the officer said because he did not understand German. He said he had been partly shielded from the blast after a heavy beam and a man fell on top of him.
The trial has not yet begun in another case, that of John Demjanjuk, 89, who is accused of being a guard at a Nazi death camp and was extradited to Germany from the United States in May. He has been charged with 27,900 counts of accessory to murder.
In a third case, a court ruled last month that Heinrich Boere, 88, a former German soldier who has confessed to killing three Dutch civilians during World War II, was fit to stand trial.
Jessica Donati contributed reporting from Rome.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/world/europe/12nazi.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
Joerg Koch/DDP, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/08/11/world/11nazi-600.jpg
Josef Scheungraber, a 90-year-old former Nazi officer, was sentenced on Tuesday to life in prison for murdering Italian civilians as a reprisal for the killing of two Nazi soldiers.
Sign In to E-Mail
Reprints
Share
By JUDY DEMPSEY
Published: August 11, 2009
BERLIN — A court in Munich on Tuesday sentenced a 90-year-old former Nazi officer to life in prison for murdering Italian civilians in retaliation for the killing of two Nazi soldiers.
In what may have been one of Germany’s last Nazi trials, the former officer, Josef Scheungraber, was convicted on 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.
He had denied allegations that he ordered the killings in June 1944 in Falzano di Cortona, near the Tuscan town of Arezzo, when he was a 25-year-old army lieutenant in command of a company of engineers. The trial began last September after the presiding judge, Manfred Götz, said Mr. Scheungraber was fit to stand trial.
Prosecutors said that after Italian partisans had killed two German soldiers, Mr. Scheungraber commanded his soldiers to shoot three Italian men and one woman. The prosecutors said he then ordered 11 more civilians herded into a barn that was then blown up.
Mr. Scheungraber’s defense team said there was no evidence of Mr. Scheungraber’s connection to the crimes. He had already been convicted of the same crimes by an Italian military court in 2006 and sentenced in absentia to life in prison. But he served no time.
Prosecutors said there were no known living witnesses who had heard Mr. Scheungraber give the order to kill the civilians. They said, however, that he had been seen in photographs at the burial of the two German soldiers for whose deaths the reprisals were carried out.
During hearings last month, a former employee testified that he recalled Mr. Scheungraber’s saying to him in the 1970s that he could not visit Italy because of what had happened during the war, which had to do with “shooting a dozen men and blowing them into the air.”
The witness, whose name was given as Eugen S., testified that he did not remember Mr. Scheungraber’s saying he had given the order, though he added that the defendant told the story “as if it were his decision.”
Gino Massetti, the sole survivor of the killings, told the court in testimony last October that he was 15 when he was rounded up by German troops and put into the barn before it was blown up. “I heard a scream, and that was it,” he said. “Then they were dead.”
Just before the barn was blown up, Mr. Massetti said, he saw an officer drive up on a motorcycle, but he could not describe the officer nor understand what the officer said because he did not understand German. He said he had been partly shielded from the blast after a heavy beam and a man fell on top of him.
The trial has not yet begun in another case, that of John Demjanjuk, 89, who is accused of being a guard at a Nazi death camp and was extradited to Germany from the United States in May. He has been charged with 27,900 counts of accessory to murder.
In a third case, a court ruled last month that Heinrich Boere, 88, a former German soldier who has confessed to killing three Dutch civilians during World War II, was fit to stand trial.
Jessica Donati contributed reporting from Rome.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/world/europe/12nazi.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss