San Pancrazio

The soldiers of the Hermann Göring Division arrived at San Pancrazio around 6 a.m. © Udo Gümpel

29 June 1944 , San Pancrazio, district of the Bucine municipality (Arezzo, Toscana)

The soldiers of the Feldgendarmerie of the "Hermann Göring" Division and the "Pauke" Alarm Company entered San Pancrazio at dawn. The reports also mention the presence of local Italian fascists who took part in the action in the village and the execution of the men.

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Involved Unit: Military Police Detachment b 1000; “Pauke” Alarm Company
Commander: Parachute Panzer Division “Hermann Göring”
Culprits: Captain Heinz Barz
Victims: 58
Armed forces: Wehrmacht

The attack on San Pancrazio

At around six in the morning on 29 June, numerous German soldiers entered the village. Investigations at the end of the 1990s revealed that they were men from the Feldgendarmerie of the "Hermann Göring" Division and the "Pauke" Alarm Company, which was made up of soldiers from the same division. Among them were also some Italian-speaking men, including, according to witnesses, local fascist collaborators.

The captured men were gathered together with the priest, Don Gianfranco Torello, in the churchyard. There they were guarded by the soldiers throughout the morning.

Detaining the men and setting the houses on fire

The soldiers surrounded the village and searched it house by house. Due to the early hour, many of the inhabitants were still in their beds and only a few were able to escape. The captured men were gathered together with the parish priest, Don Gianfranco Torello, in the church square. There they were guarded by the soldiers throughout the morning. Meanwhile, the women and children were free to move around the village and return to their homes. Some of the soldiers told them to eat in their kitchen.

After a while, the soldiers interrupted the shootings to interrogate the men: In return for their lives, the prisoners had to reveal information about the partisans.

The shootings in the Villa Pierangeli

Don Torello tried to intervene on behalf of his parishioners, but he was not listened to. After a short time, the men were lined up and led one by one into an adjoining room, where they were shot in the back of the head. After a while, the soldiers interrupted the shootings to interrogate the men: In return for their lives, the prisoners had to reveal information about the partisans. Six of them agreed to do so. After the other civilians had been killed, they were taken to Monte San Savino to the headquarters of the Feldgendarmerie. Here they were interrogated again and later transferred to a camp for forced labourers.

A total of 58 men were killed in San Pancrazio, most of them in the cellars of Villa Pierangeli, others in the houses during the combing operation.

Sources

The Civitella massacre is barely mentioned in the German military records. The only document in the military records that can be clearly traced back to this event is a map of the Ic detachment of the LXXVI Panzer Corps dated 30 June 1944 with information on the location of partisan groups. A large circle was drawn around the area of Civitella, Cornia and San Pancrazio, the label "Bandengebiet" (‘gang area’) and the reference to a "G[egen]M[aßnahme]" (counter measure) on 29 June 1944 were inserted: BArch, RH 24-76/13, Gen.Kdo. LXXVI. Pz.K., Ic-Bandenlagekarte vom 30. Juni 1944. The data on the losses suffered by the German troops in Civitella and the surrounding area before the massacre are kept in the PA-Department of the Federal Archives in Berlin.

The documents of the Allied investigation are kept at the National Archives in London: WO 204/11479, Atrocities committed by German Troops at Civitella, Cornia and San Pancrazio and WO 310/220. The materials of the trial of General Wilhelm Schmalz from 1948-1950 are partly kept in the archives of the Military Prosecutor's Office in Rome, as are the materials of the most recent investigations and proceedings. The investigations conducted by the Düsseldorf Public Prosecutor's Office between 1956 and 1958 are kept in the North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) State Archives: NW 377, No. 3786. The files of the investigation proceedings of the Dortmund Public Prosecutor's Office (45 Js 1/04) are kept in its archives.

Literature

Ida Balò-Valli, Giugno 1944. Civitella racconta, Cortona, L'Etruria, 1994.

Giovanni Contini, La memoria divisa, Milano, Rizzoli, 1997.

Carlo Gentile, Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS im Partisanenkrieg: Italien 1943-1945, Paderborn, Ferdinand Schöningh, 2012, pp. 320-326.

Carlo Gentile, Le stragi del 1944 in provincia di Arezzo ed i loro perpetratori (Relazione presentata in preparazione della richiesta di apertura di indagini da parte dei comuni di Bucine, Cavriglia, Civitella in Val di Chiana e Stia), Colonia, 1998, online: https://uni-koeln.academia.edu/CarloGentile

Michael Geyer, „Es muß daher mit schnellen und drakonischen Maßnahmen durchgegriffen werden“. Civitella Val di Chiana am 29. Juni 1944, in: Hannes Heer/Klaus Naumann (Hrsg.), Vernichtungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941-1944, Hamburg, Hamburger Edition, 1995, pp. 208-238.

Christiane Kohl, Villa Paradiso. Als der Krieg in die Toskana kam, München, Goldmann, 2002.

Authorship and translation

Author: Carlo Gentile

Translated from German by: Antonia Frinken

2023

Text: CC BY NC SA 4.

San Pancrazio

The attack on San Pancrazio

The captured men were gathered together with the priest, Don Gianfranco Torello, in the churchyard. There they were guarded by the soldiers throughout the morning.

Detaining the men and setting the houses on fire

After a while, the soldiers interrupted the shootings to interrogate the men: In return for their lives, the prisoners had to reveal information about the partisans.

The shootings in the Villa Pierangeli

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