Josef Scheungraber

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Josef Scheungraber (also Joseph Scheungraber ) (born September 8, 1918 ; † July 22, 2015 in Ottobrunn ) was a German officer in the Wehrmacht and later entrepreneur . As a lieutenant in the mountain troops , he committed war crimes during World War II , for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2009.

Career in the Wehrmacht

Uses

In 1937 Scheungraber volunteered for the 1st Mountain Division in Mittenwald . During the Second World War he fought in Poland , France and Russia as well as on Crete . In 1942 he suffered severe head injuries in a mine detonation in the Caucasus ; After his recovery, the lieutenant, decorated with the Iron Cross I and II and a close combat clasp, went to Italy at his own request . There he was for a time the orderly officer of the Commander-in-Chief in Italy, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring . At the end of 1943, he said he was involved in clearing the Montecassino monastery . In 1944 he was appointed acting company commander ( "company commander") of the 1st Company of the mountain pioneer - Battalion 818th

Involvement in war crimes

Memorial against war and fascism in Mittenwald

The day after a partisan attack on June 26, 1944, in which two soldiers from Scheungraber's company were killed, his soldiers in Falzano di Cortona near Arezzo initially shot three men and a 74-year-old woman who were found by chance. They then arbitrarily picked up thirteen other civilians and locked eleven of them in a farmhouse. They blew up the building and shot machine guns into the rubble, only a fifteen-year-old boy survived seriously injured. Scheungraber gave the order. For the victims of this war crime was on 21 March 2010 in Mittenwald a memorial inaugurated. It is representative of the victims of all war crimes committed by the mountain troops of the German armed forces throughout Europe during World War II .

Civil life

Scheungraber learned the trade of carpenter before his military service . The carpenter's workshop founded by his father Josef senior in Munich in 1912 was completely destroyed in one of the bombing raids on the city in 1943 . In Ottobrunn near Munich, where Scheungraber's grandfather owned a goat barn, his father rebuilt the workshop. According to his own statements, Scheungraber came home from prisoner-of-war captivity in 1948 , joined his father's company and passed his master craftsman's examination . Scheungraber opened a furniture store in 1965, which the family now continues to run. Scheungraber sat from 1955 to 1972 for the party-free voter community (PWG) in the Ottobrunn municipal council, was holder of the citizen's medal and honorary commander of the volunteer fire brigade . In 2005 he was awarded the citizen's medal for “special merits”. After the verdict, the Ottobrunn fire brigade struck him off all lists and deprived him of the honorary commandant office associated with his honorary membership. Fire brigade commander Eduard Klas explained this to the Süddeutsche Zeitung: "If his previous history had been published earlier, he would not have been allowed to become a member of the fire brigade." In June 2008 - four months before the indictment - the mayor of Ottobrunn, Thomas Loderer (CSU), made a "declaration of honor" for Scheungraber of his own free will in order, as he said, to create a "counterweight to subtle prejudice". It was known in Ottobrunn that Scheungraber maintained regular contact over the years with the "old comrades" of the Mittenwald mountain troops, to whom he had belonged since 1937 - Scheungraber met his "old comrades" regularly in a restaurant in Thalkirchen and at the controversial annual veterans' party at the Hoher Brendten in Mittenwald.

Legal processing

Investigations into the war crimes in Falzano were only initiated by the German judiciary after an Italian military court in La Spezia sentenced Scheungraber to life imprisonment in absentia on September 28, 2006 and then handed the files over to the German authorities. He was indicted in October 2008 before the jury of the Munich District Court I. The only survivor from then, a now retired police officer, was questioned as a witness and incriminated the accused. In addition, a former employee of Scheungrabers testified that he bragged about the massacre at a company party in the 1970s . On August 11, 2009, he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Bavarian judiciary for ten murders committed for low motives . The appeal was rejected on November 11, 2010, and the ruling became final . However, there was no enforcement. In July 2012, the Munich Higher Regional Court granted Scheungraber indefinite reprieve after a psychiatric report had confirmed that the 93-year-old was incapable of imprisonment due to his poor physical and mental condition.

Web links

Press reports

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ official spelling actually Joseph according to document UrNr. 753/2007 of the notary Peter Schubert dated June 25, 2007, submitted to the freely accessible commercial register files of sheet HRA 40079 of the Munich Local Court
  2. ^ Commercial register of the Munich Local Court, sheet HRA 40079, entry of Scheungrabers as limited partner of Josef Scheungraber KG with date of birth
  3. ↑ MÜH: Ottobrunn war criminal is dead . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . July 30, 2015, p. R1 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed on July 30, 2015]).
  4. ↑ Sebastian Fischer: Our life is now cheerful and happy . Spiegel Online , August 11, 2009.
  5. ↑ a b c d e I have a clear conscience . ( Memento from January 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , Munich edition. Online edition, September 30, 2008.
  6. ↑ Martin Wittman: He let revenge on farmers . In: FAZ , August 11, 2009.
  7. ↑ Ottobrunn. From Otto to the present . Ottobrunn Municipality, Ottobrunn 1986, p. 158.
  8. ^ Website Scheungraber furniture store & carpentry workshops . Retrieved April 3, 2013.
  9. ↑ The verdict makes me sad. In: Münchner Merkur . Online edition, August 11, 2009.
  10. ^ War Criminals Trial: The Carnage in the Casa Cannicci. ( Memento from April 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. Online edition, May 17, 2010.
  11. ↑ Justice for Cortona. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. Online edition, August 12, 2009
  12. ↑ Revision rejected - war criminal Scheungraber has to be arrested. Online edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung ; Retrieved January 15, 2012.
  13. ↑ Online edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung from September 15, 2008: sueddeutsche.de - accessed on January 15, 2012. According to SZ, Loderer said at the time : “I am convinced of his personal integrity and his innocence.” Although he was aware that if he is taking a political risk, he sees it as his "personal duty of care" to help the more and more isolated man.
  14. ↑ On the problematic image of the Mittenwald mountain hunters, see the report in the online edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung from July 19, 2011: sueddeutsche.de accessed on January 15, 2012
  15. ↑ Online edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung from September 15, 2008: sueddeutsche.de - accessed on January 15, 2012
  16. ↑ We were just real guys. ( Memento from August 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. Online edition, July 17, 2009
  17. ^ Lifelong for Nazi war criminals ( memento from August 13, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: Süddeutsche Zeitung online edition, August 11, 2009, viewed on August 22, 2011
  18. ↑ Tenfold murder - verdict final . ( Memento from November 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) br-online.de, November 11, 2010.
  19. ↑ Scheungraber remains free. In: Münchner Merkur , July 20, 2012, p. 11.
personal data
SURNAME Scheungraber, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Scheungraber, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, entrepreneur, war criminal
DATE OF BIRTH September 8, 1918
DATE OF DEATH July 22, 2015
Place of death Ottobrunn