Cavriglia massacre
Map with all coordinates: The Cavriglia massacre took place in Meleto Valdarno, Castelnuovo dei Sabbioni, Massa Sabbioni, San Martino and Cavriglia Valdarno in the municipality of Cavriglia ( ⊙ ), in the Italian province of Arezzo in Tuscany . This massacre committed units of the Parachute Panzer Division 1 Hermann Göring on June 4, 1944 and killed 173 people in the process.
prehistory
From June 4, 1944, the Wehrmacht withdrew via the Italian capital, which had been declared an “open city”, and into the Arezzo area . The Parachute Panzer Division 1 Hermann Göring (hereafter called Division Herman Göring ) was located between June and July 1944 in the area of the Cavriglia mining basin, in which lignite was mined, which lies north of the so-called Arezzo Line. The Arezzo area was crossed by four lines of defense . These were the main line, the Arezzo line, and the Fritz, Ferdinand and Franz lines.
Since June 1944, several partisan groups were active in the Cavriglia area . These were the partisan companies "Chiatti", "Castellani" and "Sinigallia", which operated in the Cavriglia area, and the "Fantasma", which also offered resistance in other areas. The partisans were successful in their attacks, hindered the movements of the German troops and shot several German soldiers in their attacks. However, through the confession of a prisoner, the German troops became aware of the names and addresses of partisans from Meleto and Castelnuovo dei Sabbioni.
As a result, the leadership of the guard company and units of the Hermann Göring division planned a so-called gang retaliation. The massacre hardly hit a partisan, but all the more civilians. Were involved in the operation of the Division Hermann Goering , the 4th Company of the pioneer battalion, the alarm companies "cymbal" and "Vesuvius" and the military police , further the guard company of the 76th Panzer Corps. The German troops split up into combat groups on June 4th and proceeded according to an agreed concept.
massacre
Castelnuovo dei Sabbioni
On July 4, 1944, at around 7:00 a.m., troops from Hermann Göring's German division entered Castelnuovo dei Sabbioni ( ⊙ ), a district of Cavriglia. They took men prisoner and escorted them to the church forecourt, which was guarded by soldiers. Priest Castelnuovos was among the men who had been detained and asked the officer on duty to give the men communion . He allowed this and then at 10:00 a.m. he had about 50 men put up against a wall of the village church. Some of them managed to escape during the constellation, two of them were shot while trying to escape. Immediately afterwards, the machine gun execution took place. A second group of around 30 men was brought into the square and shot. Furniture from neighboring houses was thrown on the corpses, fire accelerators were poured over them and fires were set. 74 men lost their lives, including a 17-year-old seminarian and numerous elderly people. Then the houses of Castelnuovo were looted.
Massa dei Sabbioni
The soldiers of Hermann Göring's division , who had already committed war crimes in Castelnuovo, drove on to Massa dei Sabbioni , ( ⊙ ) today a suburb of Cavriglia , at 12:00 noon . Once there, they drove the women out of the village. They told them that they only wanted to arrest three men, and they arrested the pastor and two young men. An Allied plane dropped bombs on the village because the pilot noticed the presence of German troops. A young man escaped in the confusion between the explosions. After the air strike, they killed the pastor and the captured young man and set the corpses on fire.
Meleto Valdarno
On July 4, 1944 between 6:00 and 6:45 a.m., other soldiers from Hermann Göring's division and some Italian soldiers penetrated the Meleto Valdarno ( ⊙ ) district of Cavriglia. This place is located about 11 kilometers from Cavriglia. They had previously surrounded the village. All male civilians who were there, including those who had fled from neighboring towns, were rounded up and accused of being partisans. The women and children from Meleto drove the soldiers out of the village. The men were gathered in the village square. The village priest, Don Giovanni Fondelli, who was also being held in the square, tried in vain to dissuade the Germans from their plan and offered his life in return. This was judged negative. He then gave communion to the men. After he did so, the men were divided into four groups, taken to four different farms and shot there. The corpses were burned and the farmhouses looted.
San Martino in Pianfranzese
Soldiers from Hermann Göring's division reached San Martino in Pianfranzese at 5:50 a.m. on July 4, 1944, and captured fourteen men, including a pastor. The soldiers suspected partisans nearby. When movement was detected in the neighboring forest, an officer ordered a machine gunner to fire. Later four men were taken hostage to the German command post in San Cipriano. The soldiers returned to the village around 11:00 a.m. and killed four civilians with their bayonets . Their bodies were set on fire, then the troops left the village and set houses on fire.
Investigations
After the German troops had to retreat from the Allies, an investigation was initiated. This was headed by Sergeant Major Crawley of the Special Investigation Branch (SIB) of the Royal Military Police . He interviewed numerous survivors and witnesses, created extensive files, recorded testimony and collected photographs and documents. At the end of the war, the British government gave the Italian government a copy of this documentation. In the 1990s, former British soldier Goran Nash photocopied the British investigation file and gave it to the Mayor of Cavriglia.
Commemoration
At the town hall of Cavriglia there are several plaques in memory of the victims and the resistance.
In Castelnuovo dei Sabbioni, near a sports field, there are several monuments commemorating the massacre. A concrete memorial was attached with bronze reliefs. Next to it is a plaque with the names of victims. A few meters away there is a sculpture created by the sculptor Venturino Venturi , which is dedicated to the fight of the Resistance . In the cemetery of Castelnuovo dei Sabbioni, a memorial honors the victims with names and portraits made of porcelain.
In Meleto Valdarno, a plaque in a memorial in a small park at the church reminds of the names of the victims. At the back of the church there is a fresco and memorial plaques on the church outer wall . A memorial stone with names and photos of the victims commemorates a cemetery on Strada Provinciale delle Miniere .
In Massa dei Sabbioni there is also a stone plaque commemorating the murdered pastor and young man.
See also
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.)
- Gerhard Schreiber : German war crimes in Italy - perpetrators, victims, prosecution. Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-39268-7 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Cavrigliari (04.07.19944) (Italian), on Straginazifasciste. Retrieved November 6, 2019
- ↑ Cavriglia , on Memorial Sites Europe 1939–1945. Retrieved November 7, 2019
- ↑ Castelnuovo dei Sabbioni , on Memorial Sites Europe 1939–1945. Retrieved November 7, 2019
- ↑ a b Meleto , on Memorial Sites Europe 1939–1945. Retrieved November 7, 2019