ITALY

Just before World War 11 started in Europe, Italy invaded the almost defenceless country of Ethiopia (Abyssinia) in October 1935. It was a brutal and ruthless invasion in which mustard gas was used for the first time since the Great War of 1914-1918. On February 19/20, 1937, Mussolini's Blackshirt Fascists committed a series of particularly senseless massacres on the Ethiopian people. In Addis Ababa, (which was captured in May, 1936 and liberated in April, 1941) a bomb was thrown towards a table around which General Graziani and number of Italian officers were seated. No one was killed but after a moments silence one of the officers fired his revolver into a group of Ethiopian civilians seated at a table nearby in the courtyard of the Palace. The Italian Carabinieri then followed suit and in the melee that followed over 300 Ethiopians lay dead in the courtyard and around the palace. The corpses were then robbed of all valuables and money. Houses nearby were set on fire and burned well into the night and next day.  Over the next three days at least three thousand Ethiopians were killed by rampaging gangs of fascist soldiers. During the Italian invasion around 275,000 Ethiopians were killed, 17,800 of whom were killed by bombing. According to Ethiopian sources a total of 670,000 Ethiopians lost their lives during the entire Italian occupation. For this and other atrocities committed by fascist troops in Africa and the Balkans, no Italian was ever prosecuted for war crimes. As one author states "There was no Nuremberg for Italian war criminals".

VIA RASELLA
(Rome. March 23, 1944)
The 11th Company of the German 3rd Battalion of the S.S. Polizei Regiment 'Bozen', consisting of 156 men, were on their regular daily march through the streets of Rome to the Macao Barracks, when they became the target of the Italian underground movement. On March 23 ( the 25th anniversary of the day Mussolini formed his Fascist Party) the police company were climbing the narrow Via Rasella when a bomb, placed in a road sweepers cart, exploded. Twenty six SS policemen were killed instantly and sixty others wounded, two more died later. Some civilians were also killed. The German Commandant of Rome, General Kurt Malzer, drunk and shrieking for revenge, ordered the arrest of all who lived on the street. Some 200 civilians were rounded up and turned over temporarily to the Italian authorities. Hitler, on hearing of the bombing, immediately ordered that 30 Italians were to be shot for every policeman killed. This number was later reduced to 10. Within twenty four hours, 335 people were loaded onto lorries and driven to a network of caves on the Via Ardeatina discovered by the Germans earlier and where the disbanded Italian army had hidden barrels of petrol and some vehicles. At 3.30pm the executions started, each victim ordered to kneel and was then shot in the back of the head. By 8pm it was all over. In 1947, SS Obersturmbannführer Herbert Kappler, who was in charge of the executions, was arrested and faced court in Rome. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1972, Kappler was allowed to marry his German nurse, Anneliese Wenger and in 1976, with her help, he escaped from the prison hospital. Seven months later, at her home in Soltau in northern Germany, Herbert Kappler died of cancer of the stomach. SS General Malzer was sentenced to life, later reduced to 21 years, but died in prison on March 24, 1952. The instigator of this attack on the 11th Company was Marxist medical student Rosario Bentivegna, helped by partisan member Carla Capponi whom he later married. Dr. Bentivegna was later decorated with the Golden Medal of the Italian Resistance and his wife Carla became a member of the Italian Parliament.
Today, the Ardeatina Caves is a Memorial. Nearby is the Mausoleum containing the stone  sarcophagi of the 335 victims.

SANT' ANNA MASSACRE
(August 12, 1944)
Just north of Pisa, between the towns of Lucca and Currara, lay the small village of S.Anna di Stazzema. On August 4, British troops had freed the city of Florence (Firenze) and the German armies were now retreating northwards through the mountainous region of Tuscany, ideal terrain for partisan activity. Many of the German troops were killed in ambushes and skirmishes with the Italian underground movement. On August 12, the 6th Panzergrenadieren 'Reichsführer-SS' Division reached the outskirts of Sant' Anna, their orders to shoot on sight all partisans found in the area. Believing that the inhabitants of the Sant'Anna were all partisans or partisan sympathisers, the SS started knocking on doors and shouting 'Heraus! Heraus!' ('out of here!'). Gathered together on the village square, the men, women and children, were then shot in cold blood. In all, 560 people were massacred including 110 children. The houses in the village were then burned to the ground, the church organ was riddled with machine-gun bullets and the christening font completely destroyed by a grenade. Many of the corpses were doused with petrol and then set alight before the SS unit departed.

ATROCITY AT BARDINE SAN TERENZO

(August 20, 1944)    In the area around the village of Bardine San Terenzo, the SS 16 Reichsführer Division was deployed to counteract partisan activity against German troops. Seventeen German soldiers had been ambushed and their truck set on fire. All seventeen were killed. A search of various villages was undertaken where the SS looted and burned a number of houses. Fifty-three villagers were taken to the burned out truck and tied to the chassis of the vehicle and to field posts nearby. Next day a local priest, Padre Lino Piane, discovered the fifty-three bodies. All had been shot. Most of the victims were from the village of Mezzana Castello, those from Bardine were taken to Valla and there, shot. There were 107 persons in all. Only five were men, the rest, women and children. In the four days that the search continued, a total of 369 hostages were brutally massacred and 454 houses destroyed by fire. In overall charge of the SS troops in this incident was Major Walter Reder, the one-armed SS officer responsible for the massacres on the Monte Sole. 

SLAUGHTER ON MONTE SOLE
(Sept.29 to Oct.1st, 1944)
About twenty kilometres south of Bologna is the massif of Monte Sole, part of the Apennine range. Around this area are dozens of small villages and towns, Marzabotto, Sperticano, Cerpiano, San Martino, Creda and Casaglia to name but a few. When Italy surrendered to the Allies on Sept. 8, 1943, Fascist and German troops continued their harassment of these poor mountain people. Forming themselves into small partisan groups, augmented by deserters from the Italian and German armies (ex Russian POWs) their strength grew to around 1,200 men. Calling themselves the Stella Rossa (Red Star) they confined their activities to sniping, derailing freight trains and the occasional ambush. In their efforts to subdue the Stella Rossa, the German SS often raided small villages and shot hostages. This only increased the determination of the partisans to commit more attacks on the enemy and for the Germans to shoot more hostages. As the British and Americans fought their way north, the SS formed up for a mass attack on Monte Sole. At dawn on Friday, 29th Sept. 1944, the SS attacked. At Creda, the SS surrounded a barn where a group of partisans were hiding. All the men, women and children of Creda, were assembled in the barn and after their valuables and money was confiscated they were machine-gunned, grenades and incendiary bombs were thrown in and the group, about ninety, were left to burn. This scene was repeated at every tiny village and farmlet as the SS units continued their march. Soon, hundreds of fires could be seen on and around Monte Sole, each one a funeral pyre. During the three days of the rastrellamento (Sept.29 to Oct 1st) a total of around 1,830 men, women and children, were brutally murdered by the SS and 420 houses burned. When the SS murder squads moved on, the killing continued as relatives of the victims, searching for the bodies of their loved ones, stepped on the deadly mines laid by the SS. Their commander, one-armed SS Major Walter Reder, an Austrian national, was later arrested by the Americans in Salzburg and handed over to the British who in turn passed him over to the Italians. In 1951, in an Italian military court in Bologna, Walter Reder was sentenced to strict life imprisonment in the military prison at Gaeta. He was released in 1985 and died six years later in 1991.

THE BOVES ATROCITY
(Sept 17th, 1944)
A few kilometres north of Cuneo in Italy, lies the town of Boves. After September 8th, 1943, it became an active centre of the Italian underground because of the stationing of many stragglers from the now disbanded Regio Esercito (Royal Italian Army). These partisans were led by Bartolomeo Giuliano, Ezio Aceto and Ignazio Vian. After repeated requests to surrender, the partisans refused in spite of leaflets being dropped by the SS. On the 17th of September the German commander, SS Major Joachim Peiper, ordered two gun crews to shell the town. The partisans again refused to surrender. Two German soldiers were then sent forward (as decoys) to be captured by the partisans. Hoping they would be killed, it would give Peiper the pretext for a slaughter. The parish priest, Father Giuseppe Bernardi and the industrialist, Alessandro Vassallo, were ordered to meet with the partisans and to persuade them to release the two soldiers. The priest asked Peiper 'Will you spare the town?'. Peiper gave his word and the two prisoners were released. But the bloodthirsty SS then proceeded to burn all the houses in the town after which Father Bernardi and Vassallo were put into a car to do an inspection of the devastated town. 'They must admire the spectacle' said Peiper. After the inspection, Father Bernardi and his companion, Vassallo, were sprinkled with petrol and set alight. Both were burned to death. Forty-three other inhabitants of Boves were killed that day and 350 houses destroyed. Next day, a column of armoured vehicles went up the road that led to the partisan base. A lucky shot from their only 75 mm gun destroyed the leading armoured car. After an intense fire-fight the SS retreated with heavy losses. One of the partisan leaders, Ignazio Vian, was later captured by the SS and hanged in Turin. On the wall of his cell he had written in his own blood the words "Better Die Rather Than Betray".
(SS Major Peiper was later brought to trial. See 'The Malmedy Massacre' in the Belgian section below)

THE BRETTO ATROCITY
(March 23, 1945)
The power station at Bretto, near Udine, in Northern Italy, was guarded by a unit of the Italian Carabinieri consisting if twelve men commanded by Sergeant Dino Perpignano. While returning to his barracks, Sgt. Perpignano was captured by a gang of Italian Communist partisans under the orders of the 1X Yugoslav Corps. At this time the Yugoslav partisans were being supplied by airdrop by the British who had transferred their support from the Cetniks (who were fighting for the restoration of the monarchy) to Tito's Communists because they were killing more Germans than the Cetniks. Threatened with torture, Sgt. Perpignano was forced to reveal the unit's password, thus allowing the partisan gang to enter the barracks and overpower the Carabinieri, some of whom were already asleep. After having ransacked the barracks, the partisans herded their prisoners into an upstairs room and after a while were given food which contained a mixture of caustic soda and black salt. As they started feeling sick they realised they had been poisoned. In severe pain, crying and begging for their lives, they were forced marched to a alpine refuge in the mountains, there to face a terrible death. The Carabineri were then stripped, tied up and brutally murdered by pickaxes and kicks to the body. Some had their genitalia amputated and stuck in their mouths, eyes were gouged out. One had a photo of his five sons stuck into his heart. The corpses were eventually found and interred in a medieval tower at Tarviso. The remains of the twelve Carabinieri, Sgt. Perpignano, Pasquale Ruggiero, Lino Bertogli, Domenico Del Vecchio, Antonio Ferro, Adelmino Zilio, Fernando Ferretti, Ridolfo Calzi, Pietro Tognazzo, Michele Castallano, Primo Amenici and Attilio Franzon, lie forgotten by their countrymen and by history, under the merciful care of some nuns, living in a nearby convent.

OVARO and AVANZIS KILLINGS

(May 2, 1945)   The atrocities here were committed not by the SS but by a Russian Cossack regiment attached to the German army. At Qvaro, a village in the Butt Valley near Udine the Cossacks, commanded by General Krasnoff, were retreating northwards toward the Plöcken Pass and into Austria with the intention of surrendering to the British occupation forces.  Italian partisans, hidden in the steep cliffs and  woods around Qvaro, decided to attack the retreating Cossacks. The Partisans inflicted heavy casualties on the column of Russians. As a cease fire had been signed earlier in the day, anger flared up in the breast of Commander Major Nausikof who, in cold blood, shot the parish priest and twenty one innocent civilians. The surviving villagers, furious at both the Cossacks and the partisans, started shouting 'Death to the partisans' when the victims were buried three days later. At the village of Avanzis another atrocity was committed, this time by German troops from the garrisons at Trieste and Istria who were snipped at by partisans and causing between 70 and 80 casualties. In reprisal, 51 defenceless civilians were killed and 25 wounded. Responsibility for this atrocity was SS Colonel Wagner of the Prince Eugene Division. These senseless attacks by partisans, after a cease fire agreement was signed, was responsible for the needless deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians.

ATROCITIES IN SICILY
(1943)
Many massacres of prisoners of war were committed by the American 45th (Thunderbird) Division during the invasion of Sicily in 1943. At Comise airfield, a truck load of German prisoners were machine-gunned as they climbed down on to the tarmac, prior to be airlifted out. Later the same day, 60 Italian prisoners were cut down the same way. On July 14, thirty six prisoners were gunned down near Gela by their guard, US Sergeant Barry West. At Buttera airfield, US Captain Jerry Compton, lined up his 43 prisoners against a wall and machine-gunned them to death. West and Compton were both arrested and convicted of murder. They were sent to the front where both were later killed in action. On April 29, 1945, units of the 45th. liberated the concentration camp of Dachau where more atrocities were committed.

Click here for Belgium and Holland atrocities

Source: http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres.html