Werner Bruß

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Werner Bruß (born April 7, 1920 in St. Barbara ), also spelled Bruss on various occasions , was an SS-Unterscharfuhrer of the Waffen-SS and a war criminal convicted in Italy . He was involved in the Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre in April 1944, in which around 560 people were murdered.

Life

Military career

Werner Bruß served in the Waffen SS from July 1940 . In 1942 he was assigned to the Motorized SS Infantry Regiment 8 of the 1st SS Infantry Brigade. He then served in the substitute position of the 1st SS Infantry Brigade in the Breslau SS Substitute Battalion "East". Bruß was wounded and then assigned to the Reichsführer SS escort battalion. Then he was transferred to the 16th SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Reichsführer SS" in the SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment 35 in the 5th Company. Regiment 35 was led by Anton Galler , who was later convicted of the war crimes committed by the regiment in Italy.

Legal proceedings in Italy

In 2004, the military prosecutor in La Spezia opened a case against alleged perpetrators of the massacre of Sant'Anna di Stazzema. Bruß was sentenced to life imprisonment with other defendants in absentia . These judgments were upheld in 2006 by the Court of Appeal in Rome in the second instance and in 2007 by the Supreme Court of Cassation in the third and last instance.

Werner Bruß was the only one who took responsibility for his actions in the course of the massacre of Sant'Anna di Stazzema and made a written statement about the proceedings in Italy. His last known place of residence was Reinbek .

Investigations in Germany

Since 2002, the Stuttgart public prosecutor's office has been investigating nine of the people convicted in Italy, plus another five who were not indicted in La Spezia . The proceedings were discontinued in 2012. A reopening of the investigation was rejected by the Stuttgart public prosecutor.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Massacre in Sant'Anna di Stazzema , on Tenhumberg. Retrieved October 3, 2019
  2. ^ Carlo Gentile : Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945 . Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 . P. 280
  3. ↑ Silvia Buzzelli, Marco De Paolis, Andrea Speranzoni: La ricostruzione giudiziale dei crimini nazifascisti in Italia. Questioni preliminari. Giappichelli, Turin 2012 ISBN 978-88-348-2619-5 . Pp. 145-146
  4. ↑ The Nazi murderers are still with us on Linksnet. Retrieved October 2, 2019
  5. ↑ Nazi war crimes: proceedings on SS massacre in Italy discontinued October 10, 2012, on Spiegel Online . Retrieved October 3, 2019
  6. ↑ Felix Bohr: German Justice rejects the reopening of the investigation , from May 21, 2013, on Spiegel Online . Retrieved October 3, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Bruß, Werner
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bruss, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German SS officer and convicted war criminal
DATE OF BIRTH April 7, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Saarlouis