Massacres of Monte Morello and Vallucciole

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The Monte Morello and Vallucciole massacres took place in April 1944 in the Florence area , Italy . The commanding general of the LXXXVII. Army Corps Gustav-Adolf von Zangen gave Colonel Georg-Henning von Heydebreck , the commander of the Panzer Regiment "Hermann Göring", two orders to fight gangs . The tank regiment "Hermann Göring" was part of the parachute tank division 1 Hermann Göring .

The Wehrmacht used partisan attacks as the occasion for the massacres . However, it was not about taking direct action against the partisans, but about intimidating the civilian population through killings, mistreatment and pillage . According to the Wehrmacht report, 186 people were murdered in these massacres from April 10 to 11 and on April 13, 1944.

military

The operational area in which the massacres in the area of ​​Vallucciole and Monte Falterona took place was divided into two militarily. In the western area it was LXXY. Army corps with the division "Hermann Göring" and in the east the general command of General Joachim Witthöft responsible. Colonel Georg-Henning von Heydebreck was in charge of the entire operation. In the east, Major Gerhard Freyer led a German-Italian combat group, including Italian men from the RSI , secret police and GNR units . It is noteworthy that under the command of Major Freyer there were no violent attacks on the civilian population.

To the west of Monte Falterona around Stia , the reconnaissance department and between the Mandrioli Pass and Bibbiena the tank regiment of the "Herman Göring" division were deployed. The Transport Car Department 611 and members of the Todt Organization were also involved there .

Before the massacres, the entire area was extensively cleared up by the military, on April 11, 1944, a reconnaissance group of soldiers was attacked by partisans and a lieutenant and sergeant were killed, a third Wehrmacht member was able to flee injured and inform his superiors. In retaliation for the partisan attack, several houses near the incident were set on fire.

Course of the massacre

Fragheto massacre

Before the massacres of Monte Morello and Vallucciola, a war crime occurred in Fragheto ( ⊙ ), a district of the municipality of Casteldelci, on April 7, 1944. 30 civilians were shot dead in the settlement in the Montefeltro region . The reason for this has not yet been clarified. The soldiers who carried out the massacre probably belonged to a small force of the storm battalion "OB Südwest".

Monte Falterona massacre

On the north side of the 1,654 meter high Monte Falterona is Castagno d'Andrea ( ⊙ ), a district of the municipality of San Godenzo . In this place soldiers of the reconnaissance department set fire to the houses on April 13, 1944 and shot three men and women who had fled. There was looting and rape. The village pastor was locked in a house half-naked with other people. Seventeen partisans were captured and shot, the only ones to be found in the entire operation. The Panzer Regiment carried out further shootings: 29 men in Partina ( ⊙ ), eight in Marciano ( ⊙ ) (all in the district of Bibbiena ), four in Badia Prataglia ( ⊙ ) in the district of Poppi , and at Rufina ( ⊙ ) 13 People.

Monte Morello massacre

Monte Morello is a mountain range that is very close to Florence. The "Hermann Göring" tank regiment with its reconnaissance department and two anti-aircraft batteries were directly involved in the massacre, while the gendarmerie and RSI men performed barrier services on the fringes of the operation. The operation took place on April 10 and 11, 1944, and the Wehrmacht killed seven men in Cercina ( ⊙ ), six in Cerreto Maggio ( ⊙ ) and four men in Morlione ( ⊙ ). A farmer was murdered in front of his family on a Sitriano farm. Looting and theft also took place.

Massacres in Vallucciole, Giuncheto, Serelli, Monte di Gianni, Moiano

Vallucciole ( ⊙ ) is located in the Arno Valley about 30 kilometers northeast of Florence. In this place, the actions of the tank reconnaissance department were extremely brutal. It seemed that they wanted to wipe out all residents, regardless of age and village.

On the morning of April 13, 1944, the march towards the village of Vallucciole began . When the soldiers reached the village of Giuncheto ( ⊙ ), they forced four men to carry their ammunition boxes, ransacked the buildings and set them on fire. Another group reached the Casa Trenti farm ( ⊙ ) and killed five men and five women and two children aged seven months and four years. On reaching the Bucchio mill ( ⊙ ), the men living there were forced to provide carrying aids to the military and the mill was used as a collection point for prisoners. When the place Serelli was reached, the soldiers separated women and men. About 12 women with children or adolescents were shot.

The Wehrmacht soldiers reached Vallucciole and murdered 13 women, eight men and four children, whose bodies were later found. Several porters were shot on the way to Monte di Gianni ( ⊙ ), and another 23 people were murdered in the hamlet itself. Three women were supposed to be forced to step into a burning house when they refused to be shot. In Moiano di Sopra ( ⊙ ) five men, a woman and an 11-year-old girl, and in Moiano di Sotto ( ⊙ ) two men and three women were killed. Rapes are also said to have taken place.

On the march back to the Bucchio mill, two porters and two young people who had to carry the radio equipment were shot there. The troops shot 14 other people on their way back in Guinchetto.

examination

The full extent of these war crimes could not be hidden. The result of the German investigation was that the looting by the intelligence department was too condemnable. The mass shootings were not mentioned, and the rapes were dropped. The division responded to the allegation of looting that it had been gifts from fascists. The only punitive measure taken by the Wehrmacht was the transfer of Colonel Georg-Henning von Heydebreck and Richard Heimann and Walter Hartwig, both with the rank of captains , to other units. Richard Heimann was in command during the Cervarolo and Monchio massacre . According to Carlo Gentile , the investigation served the sole purpose of calming Benito Mussolini and the German ambassador Rudolf Rahn in Rome.

Prosecution

As early as the end of 1945, a British commission prepared a report on this war crime based on eyewitness testimony. For decades these crimes were not investigated. Only when the cupboard of shame appeared again, which was filled with files and documents on war crimes, charges were brought against soldiers of the "Hermann Göring" tank regiment. Seven defendants were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by the Verona Military Court on July 6, 2011.

The defendant

The convicts were soldiers in various units of the parachute tank division "Hermann Göring" . Karl Wilke and Karl Friedrich Mess were acquitted. The convicts appealed against the verdict. In the second instance, three life sentences were overturned. The public prosecutor appealed against this and the court of cassation overturned the judgment on December 2, 2014 in the third instance and the life imprisonment from the first instance of the convicted was irrevocably confirmed. The defendant Ferdinand Osterhaus died in 2014. The defendants did not appear at the trials and were neither extradited nor charged by Germany.

Commemoration

In the village cemetery of Vallucciole, an information board with names and portraits in a chapel and individual sacrificial graves remind of the massacre.

In Stia a plaque at the town hall entrance commemorates the Vallucciole massacre. The victims are remembered on a plaque in the cemetery near the town hall. The 17 killed partisans are also buried there in individual graves. In contrast, Colonel Georg-Henning von Heydebreck reported 405 dead or captured partisans at the end of the operation.

There is a memorial at the Bucchino mill.

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.)
  • Lutz Klinkhammer : Stragi naziste in Italia. Donzelli, Roma 1997, ISBN 88-7989-339-4 .
  • Gerhard Schreiber : German war crimes in Italy - perpetrators, victims, prosecution. Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-39268-7 .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Carlo Gentile : Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945 . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 . P. 312/313
  2. ^ Carlo Gentile: Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945 . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 . P. 313 and 314
  3. ^ Carlo Gentile: Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945 . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 . Pp. 314/315
  4. ^ Carlo Gentile: Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945 . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 , p. 314
  5. ^ Carlo Gentile: Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945 . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 . P. 318
  6. ^ Carlo Gentile: Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945 . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 . P. 313
  7. ^ Carlo Gentile: Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945 . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 . P. 317
  8. ^ Carlo Gentile: Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945 . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 . P. 315/318
  9. ^ Judgment in the war crimes trial in Verona , on resistance. Retrieved October 21, 2019
  10. ^ Judgments on soldiers of the "Hermann Göring" division passed on July 9, 2006, on AKAB. Retrieved October 22, 2019
  11. ↑ Vallucciole / Stia , on memorial sites 1939 - 1945. Retrieved October 24, 2019
  12. ^ Gerhard Schreiber : German war crimes in Italy. Perpetrator, victim, prosecution (= Beck'sche series. 1168). Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-39268-7 . P. 161
  13. ↑ Molino di Bucchio on memorials 1939-1945. Retrieved October 25, 2019