Benedicta massacre
The military operation, known as the Benedicta massacre , was carried out by units of the Wehrmacht , Security Police (SiPo) and the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana of the RSI . It was a so-called anti - gang fight that ended with the murder of civilians and a few partisans. The massacre occurred from April 3 to 11, 1944 near Bosio in the province of Alessandria in Piedmont on the border with Liguria in northern Italy. In the course of this military operation around the former Benedictine monastery Benedicta , 147 people were murdered.
units
The LXXV were involved in the massacre. Army Corps of pliers with the 356th Infantry Division with the infantry regiments 869 and 871, the SiPo external command-Genoa Northern Italy-West with the Sonderkommando Andorfer , the SS Police Regiment Bozen and two Italian companies of the National Republican Guard from Genoa and Alexandria .
prehistory
After the Allies landed in Sicily in Operation Husky in June 1943, they continued to advance towards northern Italy . The partisan movement in Italy also strengthened through the successful advance in the Italian campaign . In the area around Monte Tobbio in Piedmont, the 356th Infantry Division was deployed to defend the Goths . In the rear area of this division in the Ligurian part of the Apennines between Genoa and Alexandria two partisan brigades , the autonomous brigade Alessandria and the 3rd Brigade Garibaldi Liguria, fought against the German occupation of Italy .
In occupied Genoa had the SiPo led by sturmbannführer Siegfried Engel , after the Second World War in the foreign press as the Butcher of Genoa ( Butcher of Genoa called), especially with the strikes of workers and prevent attacks on German Soldiers do. Engel had systematically received information about the work of the partisans because he formed small SiPo squads that interrogated captured partisans. If the SiPo recognized a partisan, he was shot immediately, less incriminated people were either shipped to Germany for forced labor or thrown into Genoa prison.
The Wehrmacht used isolated partisan attacks in spring 1944 as an external reason for the massacres, which were to be repaid. However, it was not about taking direct action against the partisans, but about intimidating the civilian population through killings, mistreatment and pillage.
massacre
April 3 to 6, 1944
From April 3 to 6, 1944, the SS Police Regiment Bolzano and two companies each from the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana from Genoa and Alexandria combed the area in the Apennines and surrounded it. On April 6th, armed fighting broke out in the area around Monte Tobbio. The 3rd Brigade Garibaldi Liguria tried to break through the encirclement by forming small combat groups and the Brigade Alessandria defended the Benedicta and Pian degli Eremiti monastery .
The partisan brigades are said to have hardly been involved in combat and were poorly armed. According to survivors, there were armed and unarmed men in the Benedicta monastery. The Italian-German troops managed to capture the monastery and the outbuildings on April 6, arresting 75 men. Then the monastery building, which was used as a dairy , was blown up and thus completely destroyed. The 75 prisoners were brought to Gorzente and shot by an Italian execution squad on the orders of a German officer. Their bodies were placed in a mass grave with 22 young men who had been murdered in the forest area in the Apennines. With this, 97 people were murdered from April 3 to 6, 1944.
April 7-11, 1944
The killing then continued until April 11th, with around 48 and 50 other people reportedly killed and farms destroyed. During the military operation further 400 people were captured and then many of them were for forced labor in the concentration camp at Mauthausen transported. The massacre in Benedicta had survived 17 partisans who were thrown into the Marassi prison in Genoa and then murdered on May 19, 1944 with other prisoners on the orders of Engel in the massacre at the Turchino Pass .
Casualty numbers
There are different information on the number of victims. The Atlante delle Stragi website lists 97 victims, including 22 young men shot in the area of Monte Tobbio and the victims who lost their lives in the battle for the Benedicta monastery between April 3 and 6, 1944. The data on 145 and 147 murdered people cover the entire period of the so-called "fight against gangs" from April 3 to 11.
Prosecution
On January 28, 1995, the Turin Military Public Prosecutor's Office initiated an investigation against Siegfried Engel, Otto Kaess and Josef Peters who were instrumental in the massacre. The murder charges were brought on January 28, 1995 and the proceedings were opened in 1996. Otto Kaess had died before the start of the trial and the address of Josef Peter or Peters could not be determined. Engel was sentenced to life imprisonment on November 15, 1999 by the military tribunal, among other things for his involvement in the Benedicta massacre and other war crimes.
In 2002 the federal government rejected an Italian extradition request from Engel. On June 5, 2002, Engel was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment by the Hamburg Higher Regional Court. The judgment was overturned on June 17, 2004 by the Federal Court of Justice. This happened because the murder trait of the cruelty of his acts had not been sufficiently proven in the judgment. However, the case was not referred back to the Hamburg District Court , but because of Engels' old age, the entire proceedings were dropped. Engel died in 2006 at the age of 97.
Remembrance and aftermath
In 2003 the association Memoria della Benedicta was founded, which commemorates the massacre and the trial of Siegfried Engels by publishing literature. Commemorations have been held for years on the anniversary of the April 7 massacre.
In addition to the ruins of the monastery, a chapel, a memorial stone with a stone cross, a metal cross of fallen partisans, two bronze reliefs, information panels and stone panels with the names of the victims remind of the event.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c d 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.) p. 394
- ↑ a b c d e f Benedicta Bosio 04/06/1944 (Italian), on Straginazifasciste. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
- ↑ a b c d IL CASO ENGEL: LA SENTENZA DI CONDANNA ALL'ERGASTOLO (Italian), at the Turin Military Court.
- ↑ Breve storia dell'eccidio on Benedicta. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
- ↑ Benedicta , on Memorial Sites Europe 1939–1945. Retrieved November 24, 2019
- ↑ a b Visita virtuale alla zona monumentale della Benedicta - I monumenti storici del sito della Benedicta (Italian), in Benedicta. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
- ↑ Friedrich Engel of April 15, 2009, on Süddeutsche Zeitung . Retrieved November 22, 2019.
Coordinates: 44 ° 33 ′ 53.9 " N , 8 ° 46 ′ 41.1" E