Creda

A small farmstead stands on a wooded hilltop. Mountains can be seen in the background.
A few families of settlers and some people displaced from bombed-out areas lived in Creda. On 29 September 1944, 69 people were killed here. © Udo Gümpel

29 September 1944 , Creda, district in the Grizzana Morandi commune (Bologna, Emilia Romagna)

On 29 Sept., a large column of SS-soldiers rounded up around ninety persons on the Case Creda farm and locked them in the barn. Upon a signal, the soldiers opened fire on the civilians and threw hand grenades at them. Sixty-nine people were murdered.

Involved Unit

A detachment that consisted of members of the Ic-battalion, supply troops, and Divisions-Begleit-Kompanie 16 led by SS Hauptsturmführer Franz Schmidt.

Victims

69

Armed forces
Waffen-SS
The two buildings of the farmstead from the front: on the right the residential house and on the left the barn.
Houses in Creda. © Udo Gümpel
According to statements of Max Simon and Walter Reder at their trials, the column deployed in Creda stood under the command of SS Hauptsturmführer Franz Schmidt, at the time assistant to SS Sturmbannführer and Ic-officer Helmut Looß.
Close-up of the stone memorial plaque for the victims.
Memorial plaque for those killed in the Creda massacre. © Udo Gümpel

Literature

Luca Baldissara, Paolo Pezzino, ll massacro. Guerra ai civili a Monte Sole, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2009, pp. 187-208, 584-585.

Dario Zanini, Marzabotto e dintorni, 1944, Bologna, Ponte Nuovo, 1996, pp. 293ff., 356-375.

Authorship and translation

Author: Carlo Gentile

Translated from German by: Joel Golb

© Project ‘The Massacres in Occupied Italy (1943-1945): Integrating the Perpetrators’ Memories’

2023

Text: CC BY NC SA 4.0

Seitenanfang