Georg Rauch (SS member)

Georg Rauch (* 31 May 1921 in Hohndorf ; † 10. August 2008 ) was an officer in the Waffen-SS and was massacre of Sant'Anna di Stazzema involved, in which about 560 civilians were killed.

Early life

Georg Rauch was the son of a miner from the Ore Mountains and when he was nine years old he joined the Bundische Deutsche Freischar . At the age of 12 he was a youth train leader in the German Young People , when the Freischar was transferred to the Hitler Youth at that time . After completing his training as a baker and pastry chef , he joined the SS as a volunteer in 1940.

Military career

After joining the Waffen-SS, Rauch was assigned to one of the SS death's head associations . His first war deployment took place in the Soviet Union and lasted from June 23 to September 26, 1941. He then trained as an officer at the SS Junk School in Braunschweig . As SS- Unterscharführer and Gruppenführer he returned to the SS Totenkopf Division on March 20, 1942 and was wounded in early April. After his wound was healed, he was transferred to the Warsaw Skull Replacement Battalion as an instructor. On September 13, 1943, Rauch was transferred with 59 other officers from the Totenkopf Replacement Battalion to the SS escort battalion of the 16th SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Reichsführer SS" . In this SS division he was deployed in the summer of 1944 in the rank of SS-Untersturmführer as adjutant to battalion commander Anton Galler in the SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment 35.

In Italy the 16th SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Reichsführer SS" was deployed to defend the position of the Goths . As the Allies advanced, partisans intensified their activities and the SS carried out “retaliatory measures” against the “gang system”, which consisted of terrorist measures against civilians. In the massacre of Sant'Anna di Stazzema on April 12, 1944, in which the SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 35 was deployed, around 560 people were murdered, mainly children, women and the elderly.

Late legal work-up

Condemnation in Italy

Rauch was sentenced to life imprisonment and damages to three family members appearing as co-plaintiffs of 10,000 euros each in absentia on June 22, 2005 in a trial before a military court in La Spezia together with nine other former SS members involved for "continued murder with particular cruelty" sentenced. In addition to Rauch, Alfred Schöneberg , Gerhard Sommer , Karl Gropler , Werner Bruß , Heinrich Schendel , Ludwig Heinrich Sonntag , Ludwig Göring , Alfred Mathias Concina and Horst Richter received life imprisonment in their absence.

Rauch also denied any involvement in the massacre, alleging that he was wounded in an air raid immediately after arriving in Italy and was admitted to the military hospital in Pavia . He therefore against the judgment revision inserted.

On November 8, 2007, the Italian Court of Cassation in Rome confirmed the life sentences for Georg Rauch and his two comrades Gerhard Sommer and Karl Gropler . According to a report by the Ansa News Agency, the court denied the military prosecutor's motion to overturn the previous verdict on a procedural error and reschedule. The judgments could be carried out in Italy or in Germany. If the German authorities followed an extradition request from Italy, the convicts would have to serve their sentence as " house arrest " because of their age . Germany does not extradite its own citizens against their will for the purpose of executing a sentence, and German law does not allow the execution of a sentence in absentia for life imprisonment.

In a German translation of the (first instance) Italian judgment, it says: One must therefore assume that Rauch at least participated in the planning and organization, if not in the actual execution of the massacre. This emerges on the one hand from the tasks of an adjutant, but on the other hand also from specific elements that prove that Rauch actively supported his commanding officer. [...] Since the planning of the massacre of Sant'Anna was directly part of his area of ​​responsibility, and since no real evidence could be provided that he was not there at the time, one must assume that he was at least involved in the planning was involved. […] One can therefore assume that he was in service on August 12, 1944 and that he was at least involved in the planning, but probably also - based on other elements - in the execution of the massacre. There is evidence that the entire battalion, including the commander and his closest employees, took part in the action.

Investigations in Germany

The Stuttgart district court stopped a case against Rauch before the Italian judgment because the evidence available about Rauch's wounding or non-wounding at the time in question (thus for his involvement in the crime) appeared inadequate and an important witness had died in the meantime. The La Spezia court, however, did not share this view. Since October 2002, the Stuttgart public prosecutor has been investigating Rauch again, but no charges have been brought. At the end of September 2012, the investigation was discontinued by the Stuttgart Public Prosecutor's Office due to insufficient suspicion in accordance with Section 170 (2) StPO.

In May 2006 there was a nationwide day of action by anti-fascists in places where known convicted perpetrators of the massacre of Sant'Anna di Stazzema lived. Rauch's house in Rümmingen was visited and several hundred leaflets were distributed in the neighborhood. After it was reported in the local media, many of the residents of Rümmingen only became aware that Rauch had a National Socialist past.

See also

• Closet of shame

literature

• Friedrich Andrae: Also against women and children: the war of the German armed forces against the civilian population in Italy 1943 - 1945 . Piper, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-492-03698-8 .
• Carlo Gentile : Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945. Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 . Cologne, Univ., Diss., 2008.
• Carlo Gentile: Sant'Anna di Stazzema. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (Ed.): Places of horror. Crimes in World War II. Primus, Darmstadt 2003, ISBN 978-3-896782328 , pp. 231-236.
• Gerhard Schreiber : German war crimes in Italy - perpetrators, victims, prosecution. Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-39268-7 .
• Marco De Paolis: Sant'Anna di Stazzema. Il processo, la storia, i documenti. Viella, Rome 2016 ISBN 978-88-6728-641-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Carlo Gentile: Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945. Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 . P. 279
2. ↑ Historical report in the preliminary investigation of the Stuttgart public prosecutor's office against members of the 16th SS-Pz.Gren.Div. "Reichsführer-SS" for murder in Sant'Anna di Stazzema on August 12, 1944, written by Dr. Carlo Gentile (PDF; 1 MB). Retrieved October 2, 2019. pp. 46/47
3. ↑ Court of Cassation confirms life imprisonment for three Nazi criminals  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   Yahoo News November 8, 2007
4. ^ Proceedings regarding SS massacre in Italy discontinued , October 10, 2012, on Spiegel Online . Retrieved October 2, 2019
5. ^ Action by anti-fascists in front of the Rauch house