Farneta massacre

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The Carthusian monastery of Farneta

The Farneta massacre began on September 2, 1944 in the Carthusian monastery Farneta ( Italian: Certosa di Farneta) in the province of Lucca , about 10 kilometers west of Lucca in Tuscany in Italy . After numerous arrests had taken place in the monastery, the prisoners were transported to different places, where some of them were executed individually or in groups as part of retaliatory measures for partisan attacks by the SS . It is estimated that around 100 civilians were executed during the entire massacre. The inadequate legal processing is perceived as a scandal in Italy as well as in Germany and Austria.

prehistory

When the offensive of the Allied forces on the eastern Gothic position on the Italian Adriatic coast and in the eastern Apennines began in the Second World War towards the end of August 1944, the Allied advance also continued on the western section of the front. The advance of the Allies caused the 16th SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Reichsführer SS" to withdraw from the Lucca area, which led to numerous crimes in the area behind the Goths.

Carthusian monastery of Farneta

Later in the deposition of the front on the Arno on the night of September 2, 1944 SS troops of the 16th SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Reichsführer SS" conducted a raid in Charterhouse Farneta by that of sturmbannführer Looß Helmut planned and was carried out by Helmut Langer . The historian Carlo Gentile points out that Looß was not only active in the planning of the massacre in the monastery, but that his actions - on the occasion of this massacre - can be assumed to be related to the anti-church measures of his former office, the SD . Such a procedure in a monastery has no further equivalent in the usual anti-partisan fight in the Italian theater of war. Numerous Jews and civilians sought refuge in this monastery. The SS surrounded the monastery building and arrested dozens of civilians, monks and the police chief of Livorno . Those arrested were taken to a camp in Nocchi, where they were subjected to torture and ill-treatment. Numerous prisoners were transported to Germany for work. Those people who were no longer able to work were shot to deter partisan attacks in various locations (see below).

On September 4, 1944, partisans shot at a military vehicle in the village of Pioppetti di Camaiore , killing an SS doctor. As a result, 35 inmates were selected in the Nocchi camp, including Jews and civilians. They were brought to Camaiore and killed in the same cruel way as in Bardine di San Terenzo . They were tied to avenue trees with barbed wire and killed by gunfire. The SS hung the murdered people on the trees and put up signs.

Other civilians who had survived the Farneta massacre were taken to the prison in Massa with the disengagement movements of the SS troops . There they were shot by SS men of the 16th SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Reichsführer SS" in further massacres in Massa . Among them were 15 clergy, ten of whom came from the Farneta monastery, the mayor and the chief physician of the psychiatric clinic from Lucca as well as the police chief from Livorno were murdered in different places in the city of Massa.

Judgments

In 2005, Helmut Langer was sentenced - in absentia - to life imprisonment by an Italian military court in Rome . Despite a European arrest warrant , the judgment was not carried out .

Helmut Loos went into hiding after the end of the war and was never charged.

The SS-Unterscharfuhrer Eduard Florin , who was known in the monastery and was therefore able to have the monks of the monastery open the gates for the Waffen-SS men on that day, was brought to trial in La Spezia in September 1946 and acquitted.

Commemoration

In Certosa in Via della Chiesa Sesta , a plaque made of Carrara marble commemorates the victims of the massacre on September 2, 1944.

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: Political Soldiers. The 16th SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Reichsführer-SS" in Italy in 1944. In: Sources and research from Italian archives and libraries. 81, 2001, pp. 529-561.
  • 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.)

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Certosa di Farneta. Region Tuscany / Province Lucca , on memorials Europe 139-1945. Retrieved September 18, 2019.
  2. ^ Carlo Gentile: Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945 . Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 . Pp. 301/302.
  3. ^ Carlo Gentile: Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945 . Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 . P. 233.
  4. ^ Carlo Gentile: Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945 . Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 . Pp. 233/234.
  5. ^ Carlo Gentile: Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945 . Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 . P. 234.
  6. ^ Carlo Gentile: Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945 . Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 . Pp. 234/235.
  7. ↑ 61 years later. Life imprisonment for EX-SS officer for massacre in Italy , from November 25, 2005, on News Austria. Retrieved September 18, 2019.
  8. ↑ Ex SS della strage di Farneta libero nonostante l'ergastolo (Italian), from November 26, 2011, on Lanazione. Retrieved September 18, 2019.
  9. ↑ The attack by the SS on the Farneta Charterhouse , on persecution of the Catholic Church by Nazis. Retrieved October 12, 2019.
  10. ^ Carlo Gentile: Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945 . Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 . P. 284.

Coordinates: 43 ° 51 ′ 55.5 ″  N , 10 ° 25 ′ 3.3 ″  E