Sant'Anna di Stazzema

Sant'Anna di Stazzema, a village in the Apuan Alps where soldiers belonging to the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division massacred civilians on 12 August 1944. © Udo Gümpel

8 August 1944 – 12 August 1944 , Sant’Anna di Stazzema, part of the Stazzema commune (Lucca, Toscana) Valdicastello in the Apuan Alps, part of the Pietrasanta commune (Lucca, Tuscany)

With 394 identified victims, the massacre at Sant’Anna di Stazzema between 8 and 12 August 1944 was the second most extensive massacre by German troops in occupied Italy. Those responsible were mainly soldiers of SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 35 and SS Field Reserve Battalion 16; the murders were perpetrated in the course of a ‘counter-bandit operation’. It was only possible to fully reconstruct what happened and eventually bring those responsible to trial during the investigation by the La Spezia military prosecutor in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

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Involved Unit

According to archival material and direct witness testimony:

2nd battalion, SS Panzergrenadier Regiments 35 (Battalion ‘Galler’); SS Field Reserve Battalion 16; parts of High-Mountain Infantry Battalion 3

Probably, based on evidence:

SS Panzer Battalion 16; 4th company, SS Panzer Reconnaissance battalion 16; SS Feldgendarmerie Company 16

Commander

LXXV Army Corps/XIV Panzer Corps, 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division ‘Reichsführer-SS’, Sicherungskommandant

Culprits

Max Simon, Helmut Looß, Anton Galler, and their soldiers (including the men accused in the La Spezia trial)

Victims

394 identified victims

Investigations and processes

1944-1946: Investigation by the US 5^th Army.

1946: Proceedings before extraordinary assize court in Lucca against three Italians on account of collaboration. Proceedings already terminated in the preliminary investigation phase.

1946-1960: Investigation by Italian military justice and temporary cessation.

1947: Death sentence (later commuted to a prison sentence) pronounced by British military court against SS Gruppenführer Max Simon.

1951: Trial of former SS Sturmbannführer Walter Reder, who would be pronounced not guilty in respect to the massacre at Sant’Anna.

1994-2002: Resumption of the investigation by La Spezia military prosecutor’s office.

2002-2007: La Spezia investigation receives new impetus. 2005: La Spezia military court pronounces ten life sentences; the sentences are confirmed by the Rome appeals court in 2006 and the court of cassation in 2007.

2002-2012: Investigation by Stuttgart prosecutor’s office; investigation terminated after 10 years

2012-2014: Application for complaint-enforcement proceedings filed in Germany by Enrico Pieri, chairman of the Associazione Martiri di Sant'Anna di Stazzema, and his German lawyer Gabriele Heinecke, against termination of the Stuttgart investigation.

2014-2015: Termination of proceedings against Gerhard Sommer by the Hamburg prosecutor’s office on account of lasting incapacity to stand trial.

Additional crime scenes

Sagrato della chiesa (the churchyard of Sant’Anna)

I Coletti

I Franchi

Il Colle

La Vaccareccia

Le Case

Armed forces

Waffen-SS

The eastern part of Sant'Anna between Monte Lieto and Monte Gabberi. On the left, along the path, the hamlets of il Colle, Fabiani, Sennari, and Case di Berna can be seen. Only the latter was spared destruction. © US NARA - Record Group 373 - Aerial Photography

The massacre

Sant'Anna, a mining village in the Apuan Alps

The mountain village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema is a collection of small settlements and individual buildings in the Apuan Alps between Monte Ornato and Monte Gabberi, located at a height of 750 meters. As late as the mid-1960s, from the coast the village could only be reached via mule tracks and steep paths. The area is traversed from north to south by the gorge of a stream. To the west are the church, a school, a store, the cemetery, and some of the most important districts: Chiesa, Vaccareccia, Argentiera, Franchi, le Case, Merli and i Coletti; to the east are Moco, Colle, Fabiani, Sennari and Case di Berna.

Before the war, some 350 persons lived in the village. Most of the men worked in agriculture and in the iron mines of Monte Arsiccio. Until the summer of 1944, work in the mines was considered important for the war effort; emergency regulations protected the villagers from conscription and evacuation.
Civilians, fascists and partisans in Sant'Anna

The German occupation profoundly changed the region. There was a great need of labourers for the coastal fortifications and those in the Apuan Alps. Because of the grave crisis in local industry and tourism, working for the German troops was one of the few possibilities to earn money without having to leave the region.

The region’s fascists had become increasingly radical and the fight with the anti-fascists increasingly bloody. Fascist troops of the Italian Social Republic actively participated in the German razzias, including especially brutal operations such as in Mommio in May 1944 and Forno on 13 June.

In the summer of 1944, the different partisan groups in the mountains around Sant'Anna constituted a strong brigade with between 300 and 350 well-armed and well-supplied men. This was a communistically stamped formation that also had Christian Democratic and liberal members. In the first days of August, the brigade broke up because of commanders’ differences of opinion concerning the formation’s political leadership. Around 150 men remained in the Monte Gabberi area southwest of Sant'Anna.

In the weeks before the massacre, relations between the partisans and the civilian populace were tense. The reason for this was access to scarce food resources and the dangers facing the communes due to partisan operations. In July, anticipating imminent liberation, in the coastal urban areas, the partisans had begun to abduct members of local fascist groups to the mountains, killing them and hastily burying them there.

In local memory, the partisans were seen as sharing considerable responsibility for the massacre. They were reproached with recklessness and lack of scruples. Furthermore, the feeling went, they had pressed the Sant’Anna populace to disobey orders of the German military commanders to evacuate and promised protection they could not offer. After the war, individual partisans were accused of common crimes such as plundering the victims’ goods after the massacre and desecrating the corpses.

Given the disorganization of the local authorities, the evident disinterest of the occupation troops, and the putative imminent arrival of the Allies, in the eyes of the populace forced settlement north of the Alps was a greater risk than waiting out the course of events on the front.

Disregarding the evacuation order

The partisans asked the Sant'Anna villagers to disregard the German evacuation order. For a long time in local memory, this was considered a main factor leading to the massacre.

The matter is, however, more multi-layered than that. In the fall of 1943, when the first plans for the construction of fortifications along the Apennines and the coast were drawn up, the Wehrmacht’s commanders had anticipated evacuation of larger areas of the coast and in the mountains. However, a lack of personnel and organizational problems caused them to limit evacuations to discrete, militarily important points on the coast. In July 1944, because of an imminent withdrawal to positions on the ‘Green Line’, these measures were repeated and extended along the area of the defensive line. With an ad hoc formation, ‘Stab Ebner’, the Wehrmacht expressly created a structure for executing the measures. But staffed by older soldiers from regional defence units, ‘Stab Ebner’ encountered the same problems. When the following month, responsibility for the evacuations was transferred to the divisions, the orders were again not followed, especially since the presence of civilians represented a labour source for the combat units.

Allied propaganda had raised hopes among the Sant’Anna villagers that liberation was coming quickly. This probably had more influence on the decision to follow or disregard the evacuation orders than the partisan's improvised appeal. Taking account of the local authorities’ disorganization, the evident disinterest of the occupying troops, and the presumed imminent Allied arrival, for the populace forced resettlement seemed a greater risk than waiting out the course of events on the front.
The role of Italian fascists

Within local memory, the role played by fascists from the Sant’Anna area in the massacre was controversial. In the first investigations already, there were reports that interspersed with the German soldiers were Italian-speaking, sometimes masked men some of whom were unmistakably recognized as local fascists. However, inquiries by Italian justice in the postwar period led to no clear-cut conclusions in this respect.

The participation of Italians in the massacre unfolded in two distinct ways. On the one hand, men were pulled out of the local houses by the German soldiers and forced to work as porters. On the other hand, there was genuine collaboration on the part of the local fascists, who denounced people living in Sant'Anna as partisan supporters and functioned as guides to the German troops. Many of the porters shared the fate of the other local residents: they were shot to death as soon as their service was no longer needed. Out of principle, the Germans did not kill collaborators who had served as guides and been present at the massacre. Later, some of these men left the region for northern Italy and Germany.

The thesis, proposed in recent years, that Italian Social Republic troops participated in the massacre in a way going past the known marginal numbers is not supported by the archival sources. Former SS men themselves underscored that marginality in testimony furnished during the investigations of the early 2000s: only a few confirmed the presence of porters and local guides in Sant’Anna, and none mentioned distinct Italian fascist units. Both historical research and judicial investigation thus exclude the thesis of such collaboration.
Clashes between German soldiers and partisans

Records of the occupation troops contain many references to fights with partisans preceding the massacre. On 31 July, there was an attack on a group of soldiers from Regional Defence Battalion 1014, commanded by ‘Stab Ebner’. The men were returning from a deployment near Sant'Anna und Farnocchia meant to inform residents about the evacuation orders. There were five fatalities and six wounded soldiers.

Panzerjäger Battalion 20 of the Luftwaffen-Feld-Division participated in several operations of SS Field Reserve Battalion 16 and the 4^th company of SS Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion 16 under Walter Reder, whose men served as trainers for the Field Reserve Battalion. The sources here are fragmentary, information on other units is lacking.

In early August, the II Battalion of SS Panzergrenadier Regiments 35, then under SS Sturmbannführer Anton Galler, arrived near Pietrasanta. As a result of the hard fighting on the front, the battalion was weakened, consisting of only 300 troops and a small number of SS leaders. After one soldier captured by the partisans managed to flee and return to his unit, the German command gained exact information about their location. On 8 August, the battalion combed the area around Monte Gabberi. Here as well there were firefights, with four wounded battalion members. The SS unit then set the village of Farnocchia on fire, killing several civilians; they also killed some partisans in the fighting.

Historical research and judicial investigation have established responsibility of the II Battalion of SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 35 beyond doubt.

Zu den Bildern

The images presented here originate from multiple sources. Several come from photographs taken by Don Giuseppe Vangelisti, the parish priest of the La Culla district near Sant’Anna. As one of the first to arrive in Sant'Anna di Stazzema after the massacre, his photos capture the recovery and burial of the victims, conveying the trauma of the discovery. Some ruined houses can be seen, including the hamlet of Pero, Casa Pieri, and the area surrounding the church. Don Giuseppe gave the American investigators 20 prints of his photographs, which are now archived in the US National Archives in College Park, Maryland.

The church of Sant'Anna and the adjoining yard, where the only shop in the village and the elementary school were located. © US NARA - Record Group 238 / Giuseppe Vangelisti
The Pero hamlet and yard fronting the church with the schoolhouse. © US NARA - Record Group 238 / Giuseppe Vangelisti
The houses of the Pieri family that was burned down by the SS troops. 24 people were murdered here. © US NARA - Record Group 238 / Giuseppe Vangelisti
Case Franchi (24 victims) and Case Pieri (27 victims). © US NARA - Record Group 238 / Giuseppe Vangelisti

A blow against the ‘bandits’ village’

That the Sant'Anna massacre was perpetrated by German occupation troops was never seriously doubted. But there has been some doubt regarding the identity of those responsible. For a long time, responsibility was assigned to Walter Reder, although in the Bologna trial of 1951 the Austrian former SS leader was exonerated for the Sant’Anna massacre. He was, however, found guilty of participating in other massacres – Monte Sole, Bardine di San Terenzo, Valla, and Vinca. At present, both historical research and judicial inquiry have confirmed that participation by the II battalion of SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 35 in the massacre is certain. But these were not the only troops who were active at the site.

Already immediately after the war, indications emerged of participation by members of SS Panzer Battalion 16, stationed near Valdicastello. More recently, investigations by the Stuttgart prosecutor’s office confirmed the presence of soldiers from the High Mountain Infantry Battalion 3, deployed in the Vezza Valley. The discovery of new documents during research for this project has confirmed participation by SS Field Reserve Battalion 16.

These developments give substance to the hypothesis that the operation of 12 August was of major scope: not very different from later operations in the Vinca-Monte Sagro area and around Monte Sole, under the command of SS Sturmbannführer Helmut Looß, who starting in late July 1944 was responsible as an Ic-officer for combatting partisans at the SS division’s rear. It thus appears that units of Field Reserve Battalion 16 advancing from several sides, together with the Panzer and infantry battalions, had the task of surrounding the village to make it possible for men of the II battalion to move in.

Sant'Anna di Stazzema was the first village to be destroyed by troops of the ‘Reichsführer-SS’ division during a combing operation. In the eyes of the SS troops, Sant'Anna was a ‘bandit village’, its residents partisan supporters. The aim of the 12 August operation was the eradication of the village and those who lived there.
The alleged wounding of SS men in Sant'Anna

An additional facet of the massacre’s historical understanding, one that for a long time was controversy-laden, involves the role partisans played in the operation. After the war, rumours circulated about a firefight between Sant'Anna’s houses in which some SS men were wounded. The exact circumstances and events remain unclear. With the discovery of the casualty reports in the late 1990s, it became clear that on the day of the Sant'Anna massacre, one soldier and one SS leader of the 8th company of the II SS Panzergrenadier Battalion were wounded: the soldier was hit on the back of the head by a ricochet, the SS-leader in the stomach by a hand grenade splinter.

In the course of later investigations, a former SS man maintained he recalled the wounding of the SS leader and that it was an accident. In 1999, the journalist Christiane Kohl interviewed the wounded man, who said he could not explain how he was injured. He only asserted having been shot at by partisans in later investigations.

A report of the SS division in a Russian Federation military archive states that the soldiers encountered ‘resistance’ in Sant’Anna. It is difficult to judge the credibility of this information: in a situation of momentary confusion, friendly fire can be taken for fire from an enemy. The report could also have been used to cover up an accident in which a company leader was gravely wounded. Reports of attacks stemming from the populace or partisans might have served to stylize the massacre retrospectively as an act of war. It is nevertheless possible that an armed encounter took place between the village’s houses or nearby. Given the lack of evidence, what took place will probably never be known.

In the early 2000s, during interrogation, some former SS men asserted they had been fired on ‘by partisans’. However, the investigators did not try to clarify whether this referred to encounters near Monte Gabberi on 8 August or the 12 August operation in Sant'Anna. Consequently, this information’s value is also highly limited.
History of the massacre

The massacre on 12 August took a complex course; we cannot reconstruct all of its details. But testimony from survivors and perpetrators allows a coherent understanding of the events unfolding within the surrounded area. The descriptions differ for various reasons, including the different mental situations of victims and perpetrators at the time of the killings, and individual perceptions and processing of the events.

There are very precise descriptions by former soldiers of what happened in the churchyard, but practically none by survivors. For Vaccareccia, i Franchi, and le Case the situation is the opposite – we have reports from survivors but none from the German side. We only have reports from both sides for the villages of Colle and Coletti.
Rounding up the civil populace

After the soldiers reached Sant’Anna in the early morning hours, they pulled the residents from their houses and assembled them in a few nearby places where they could be more easily kept in sight.

At this time, from fear of arrest and abduction for forced labour, the young men had already fled the village. This meant that both the burden of responsibility for the many children and familial cohesion were solely on the shoulders of the remaining women, together with villagers who were either older or very young. The forced and precipitous abandonment of houses and the threats and shoving of the SS men generated additional panic among the civilians. During the operation the German soldiers seemed to be in a frantic rush; some seemed doped. They nevertheless were acting on clear orders and were aware of their tasks.

Other troops plundered the houses and searched all buildings for hidden persons. These were killed, along with everyone who could not move because of frailty.
The bloodbath in western Sant'Anna

When the Panzergrenadier Battalion reached the mountain crest above the village, they separated into groups and spread out over the area. Those living in houses along the street were led by one group to the village of Vaccareccia. There they were initially assembled in the farms together with the village’s residents, then confined to the stalls. Residents of the villages of I Franchi and Le Case (or Casa Pieri), located a few hundred metres away from Vaccareccia, were confined to two large rooms in residential buildings there. Other soldiers from the battalion pulled residents of the village of Vinci from their houses and took them to il Pero, a village where some families that had fled were taking shelter. Here as well, all residents were driven from their houses and assembled in the churchyard with the civilians from Vinci.

In Vaccareccia, Franchi, and Case, the civilians were killed with hand grenades and automatic fire in the rooms where they had been confined. Around 140 persons, above all older persons, women, and children, were confined in the churchyard of il Pero. The few young men belonged to the families that had fled there – not knowing the area well, they were perhaps less willing to abandon their family members.

Seven SS soldiers, five from the 8^th and two from the 7^th Company, later testified about what had transpired. In addition, we have the testimony of a mountain infantryman who had observed the events at some distance. One witness reported laborious negotiations between an SS leader and the village priest, as well as radio contact to a command centre that was the source of the order to carry out the massacre. But the witness lapsed into self-contradiction with repeated interrogation, and his assertions were not confirmed by other soldiers’ reports. What is certain is that this large group of civilians was murdered by two machine guns set up for that purpose – and that among the many soldiers present, some participated in the massacre with their handguns, with others standing around and not shooting. Following the event, the corpses were covered and set on fire with furniture from the church and surrounding houses.
SS and mountain infantrymen: the events in eastern Sant'Anna

East of the depression dividing the environs of Sant'Anna in two the troops’ modus operandi was different. In this area as well – taking in the villages of Moco, Colle, Fabiani, Sennari, and Case di Berna – the soldiers drove the residents out of their houses. Initially, then, their behaviour was similar; but when the massacre began on the opposite side, the soldiers brought the civilians down to Valdicastello. It appears that mainly soldiers in the High-Mountain Infantry Battalion from Ruosina were deployed on this slope. According to the testimony of one mountain infantryman, the SS limited itself to roaming through the area.

According to matching reports from survivors as well as from a witness who belonged to the 7^th Company, the residents of il Colle were also initially steered toward Valdicastello but after a short distance the SS took over and killed the group with machine guns in a hollow. Here in the eastern part of Sant’Anna as well, houses were largely set on fire, the exception being those in the village of Case di Berna. That some houses were not burnt, and that in some villages no people were killed, has been interpreted as a sign of service by fascist informers. While this is possible, it is more likely that the different treatment of individual villages was simply owed to different ways of proceeding by units involved in the operation.
The arrival of soldiers in Valdicastello

The troops finally left Sant'Anna. In Coletti, a group of houses on the way to Valdicastello, some civilians were herded onto the courtyard before their houses and killed with machine gun fire. The report of a witness who belonged to the 6^th Company might refer to this atrocity. On the way to Coletti eleven persons were murdered, ten more on the way to Valdicastello.

Around 13:00, the troops reached Valdicastello. Fourteen porters were killed on the spot. Then an additional combing operation began, with hundreds of civilians arrested. With the help of a soldier who had been a prisoner of the local partisans for several days, the men were separated into two groups. The first group consisted of around 200 men who were fit for work. They were brought to a collecting point for civilians to be sent to Lucca for forced labour; from there, many were sent onward to Germany. The second group consisted of around 60 men whom the soldier had identified as partisans. They were brought to the division’s assembly camp in Nozzano and subjected to repeated abuse and torture during interrogations. 53 of these men were murdered on 19 August 1944 in Bardine di San Terenzo.

Seven civilians were murdered in Mulina di Stazzema, on the other side of the mountain. The victims included the priest Don Fiore Menguzzo and his family members.

In their daily report, the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division treats the massacre as a normal military combing operation.

To conclude, a report on the anti-bandit operation on 12 August 1944: In total 11 mun. depots blown up, 1 large kitchen facility destroyed, and parts of a clothing depot secured. 270 bandit-gang members killed [niedergemacht]. Bandit-base S. Anna (camp for 900 bandits) (1 km north 183/30 [La Culla]) burnt down [niedergebrannt] with fire. 68 bandit-gang members were captured, five of them headquarters personnel. 209 men (suspected bandits) were brought to the Lucca holding station for labour deployment.’

16. SS-Pz.Gren.Div., Ia-Tagesmeldung v. 13.08.44 :
CAMO 500/12475/29/182

Number of victims

As with the Monte Sole massacre, for a long time following the war the number of those murdered in Sant'Anna was overestimated. The first estimated number, compiled by Allied troops in 1944, was circa 400 persons. Starting in 1947 there were references to 560 deaths, of whom 320 had been identified and officially registered in the Stazzema commune registry office. This figure of 560 was considered official by the commune’s administration for many years. But other data continued to fluctuate, extending from slightly over 300 to over 600 victims, with a large number of them remaining unidentified.

In the 2005 trial, the carabinieri of Pietrasanta presented a list with 370 death certificates. Investigations carried out in connection with the Atlante delle stragi naziste e fasciste in Italia project produced a figure of 392 dead. The latest research, carried out by Giuseppe Vezzoni and Lorenzo Alessandrini, has limited the number of victims to those in the Sant'Anna area, omitting the 12 August killings that took place outside the village, which lowers the assessed number to 324. Vezzoni and Alessandrini have offered precise figures for those killed in the individual villages and also furnished more accurate information on their identity. At present the figures presented by the two researchers, also furnished in the Atlante, are generally accepted by researchers.

In September 1944, the Italian front had advanced to the Gothic Line, halting just a few kilometers from Sant'Anna di Stazzema. During the search for German positions, American reconnaissance planes surveyed the area where the massacre took place on 12 August. The images reveal the houses destroyed by fire during the roundup in Sant'Anna di Stazzema and Farnocchia hamlets. All Air Reconnaissance photographs featured on our website originate from the National Archives of the United States in College Park, Maryland.

Visible in the upper left is the Sant'Anna church, the site of the most horrific carnage. Further down one of the paths leading to Valdicastello stand the Merli and Coletti settlements. Thirty-three people were slain along this trail and in Coletti. © US NARA - Record Group 373 - Aerial Photography
The eastern part of Sant'Anna between Monte Lieto and Monte Gabberi. On the left, along the path, the hamlets of il Colle, Fabiani, Sennari, and Case di Berna can be seen. Only the latter was spared destruction. © US NARA - Record Group 373 - Aerial Photography
Farnocchia, burned on 8 August 1944, after clashes around Monte Gabberi between SS and partisans. © US NARA - Record Group 373 - Aerial Photography

Investigations and trials

The trial of Max Simon and Walter Reder

A first investigation was initiated by the American 5^th Army immediately after liberation. Important evidence was collected in this context, especially based on testimony given by a young SS soldier, Willy Haase, who identified some perpetrators by name.

In 1946, the extraordinary assize court in Lucca opened proceedings against three Italians accused of collaboration with the German troops; during the preliminary proceedings, the charges were dropped against all three men.

In 1946 the files of the American investigation were transferred to Italian military justice, which terminated the investigation and archived these files together with two other collections of documents concerning the Sant'Anna massacre. Until 1994, the documents were kept under wraps in the so-called ‘cabinet of shame’ in the archives of the military prosecutor in Rome.

In 1947, a British investigation tied to proceedings against SS Gruppenführer Max Simon, former commander of the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division 'Reichsführer-SS', contributed to his being found guilty and sentenced by the British military court in Padua. Simon was incarcerated in the prison in Westphalian Werl. In 1951 his death sentence was commuted to life in prison; he was released on 30 November 1954 after seven years imprisonment.

In 1951, the events in Sant’Anna were one count in the trial of Walter Reder in Bologna. He would be found guilty and sentenced for his role in the Monte Sole, Bardine di San Terenzo, Valla, and Vinca massacres; he was found not guilty of participating in the massacre at Sant'Anna di Stazzema.
New investigations, historical and journalistic research

In 1994, the investigative files kept in the archives of the Rome military prosecutor were transferred to the La Spezia military prosecutor. However, the first significant findings from this material would only come after 1999.

In 1998, based on the American investigations between 1944 and 1946, the local historian Paolo Paoletti published a study of the massacre, for the first time demonstrating the responsibility of the II SS Panzergrenadier Battalion. This work contained some inaccuracies that were corrected in the course of legal investigations and further historical research. But a true turning point only came in October 1999, when journalist Christiane Kohl published an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung daily newspaper titled ‘Der Himmel war strahlend blau’ (‘The skies were brightly blue’) that was published the same day in the Italian daily La Repubblica under the title ‘Sant'Anna. E Roma insabbiò le indigene sui Nazi’ (‘Sant’Anna. And Rome buried the Nazi-investigation’). The article contained an interview with a former member of the battalion, speaking under the pseudonym Heinz Otte.
Investigations of the La Spezia military prosecutor’s office

The ensuing widespread media echo prompted the judicial authorities to revive their activities. In June 2000, the La Spezia military prosecutor began this process with new proceedings against former SS Hauptsturmführer Anton Galler and four other past members of his battalion. In February 2001, historian Carlo Gentile was brought into the proceedings as an expert assessor. He could identify the unit’s personnel, hence c. 30 former SS leaders and non-commissioned officers, against whom the prosecutor initiated proceedings.

The German legal authorities initially remained cautious, limiting themselves to answering information requests from Italy and only advancing at a sluggish pace. The results of German reviews were often negative; in particular, for a long time, the Ludwigsburg Central Office was not in a position to process the extensive Italian inquiries.
TV Interviews with the Perpetrators

Until 2002, the situation in Germany remained unchanged. Already in 2001, the journalists René Althammer and Udo Gümpel had revealed that the former SS commander in Genoa, Friedrich Engel, was living undisturbed in Hamburg despite having been condemned to life in prison in Italy; this news already generated a great deal of public attention. Now, in a new report for the Magazin Kontraste TV program, they revealed that a group of former SS men accused of participating in the Sant'Anna and Monte Sole massacres were likewise living normal lives in various German cities. In this case, as well, broadcast images had a strong public impact. The new report was broadcast on 11 April 2002, nearly a week before German president Johannes Rau’s scheduled visit to Italy – and his first visit to Monte Sole and the tombs of the victims in the Marzabotto memorial.

This marked the second important turning point in the investigations. On 22 April, military prosecutor Marco De Paolis took over the direction of the La Spezia prosecutor’s office. A short time later, the Ludwigsburg Central Office also became active, initiating preliminary investigations then handed on to the Stuttgart prosecutor’s office.

After confirmation of the La Spezia judgment, the Italian authorities issued a European arrest warrant against the sentenced men, then still alive. But Germany did not honour the warrant, justifying this on the basis of the in-absentia nature of the sentence.

Shown is the mass grave containing the 151 people murdered in the Sant'Anna churchyard and behind the bell tower. On the building to the left, an attempt had been made to erase the inscription “W il Duce” (Long live the Duce). © Collezione privata Tabarrani

The La Spezia verdict

In La Spezia, De Paolis brought together an investigative group of bilingual detectives directed by the head of the carabinieri, Roberto D'Elia, and initiated close cooperation with prosecutors and police officials in the various German states. The investigation was a complex one, carried out with great determination against 24 persons. On 20 April 2004, the main proceedings, held in absentia, began; they led on 22 June to guilty verdicts passed against 10 defendants and their sentencing to life in prison. In 2006, the judgement was confirmed by the military appeals court in Rome; in 2007, it was confirmed by the Court of Cassation. After confirmation of the La Spezia judgement, the Italian authorities issued a European arrest warrant against the sentenced men, then still alive. But Germany did not honour the warrant, justifying this on the basis of the in-absentia nature of the sentence.
Investigations of the Stuttgart prosecutor’s office

In 2002, the Stuttgart prosecutor’s office opened a – far more protracted – investigation of 17 former SS men, involving examination of at least 200 witnesses in Germany, Austria, and Italy. There was sharp public criticism of the course taken by the investigation under Stuttgart state prosecutor Bernhard Häußler. After a decade, in 2012, the investigation was terminated without any charges filed.
Enrico Pieri’s complaint-enforcement proceedings

As president of the Associazione Martiri Sant'Anna di Stazzema, Enrico Pieri represented the victims of the massacre and those who were left behind. At the age of ten, he had survived the massacre, while losing his parents, siblings, and other family members. He now applied to open complaint-enforcement proceedings against the Stuttgart court’s decision.

Pieri was supported by his German lawyer, Gabriele Heinecke, and advised by the historian Carlo Gentile. The proceedings were allowed to open and were successful in 2014, the proceedings of the last remaining accused man, Gerhard Sommer, were transferred to the Hamburg prosecutor’s office. In 2015, due to the lasting incapacity of the accused to stand trial, the proceedings were terminated. Sommer died on 22 February 2017.

An additional series of images presented here was taken by an unnamed photographer at Sant'Anna di Stazzema during the first memorial service honouring the victims of the massacre. Originating from a roll of film purchased by a private citizen at a flea market in Versilia, we thank the owner for allowing us to present the images on our website. Additionally shown is a picture depicting a victim's relative at the mass grave in Sant'Anna di Stazzema, captured on 14 December 1944, by members of the US Army Signal Corps. Unfortunately, the original film footage from that day seems to be lost in the archives.

August 1945: Relatives of the deceased and survivors of the massacre packed the churchyard of Sant'Anna di Stazzema during the first commemoration ceremony. The plane tree with a black cloth on one branch marks the place where the bodies of the murdered victims have been heaped and burned. © Collezione privata Tabarrani
The church of Sant'Anna one year after the massacre. In the background stand Monte Lieto and the Colle, Fabiani, and Sennari hamlets. The rectory roof still awaits repair. © Collezione privata Tabarrani
Relatives of the victims gather around the mass grave in the churchyard of Sant'Anna di Stazzema. The priests have just given the blessing. Traces of the fire set by the German troops still scar the building where the village shop was. © Collezione privata Tabarrani
Shown is the mass grave containing the 151 people murdered in the Sant'Anna churchyard and behind the bell tower. On the building to the left, an attempt had been made to erase the inscription “W il Duce” (Long live the Duce). © Collezione privata Tabarrani
On 14 December 1944, an American Signal Corps film crew visited Sant'Anna. This photo was taken in front of the large mass grave in the churchyard. © US NARA - Signal Corps

Memory

A fractured and isolated community

Following the massacre, for a long time the perpetrators remained nameless and the victims could receive no justice. As a result, tensions burdened the memory of what had occurred. The massacre’s infrastructurally isolated location contributed to this situation – a street suitable for autos would only be built there in 1967.

The initial assumption was that Walter Reder and the men of his reconnaissance battalion were responsible for the massacre. But concrete evidence was absent. Because Reder participated in various massacres, he was thus sentenced to life imprisonment in 1951 in Bologna but had to be found not guilty in respect to the events at Sant’Anna. In Sant’Anna, this judgement was perceived as unjust over many decades. But we now know that Refer and his men were not responsible for this particular atrocity but rather another unit of the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division ‘Reichsführer-SS’.

Since the question of guilt remained unanswered, those left behind sought explanations elsewhere, identifying behaviour of the partisans and collaboration of local fascists as central factors: this in a context of perceived lack of public attention to the massacre and its consequences. All of this led to fissures within a society feeling itself alone with grievous losses.

Over the decades, numerous initiatives nevertheless emerged aimed at realizing structures of remembrance, such as the ossuary for the victims and an impressive memorial. In addition, the community and individual persons were offered official recognition such as the Gold Medal for Military Valour. In this way, the intention was to convey a political consensus for memorializing while the local sentiments were very much divided.
The memorializing initiatives

On 12 August 1948, the fourth anniversary of the massacre, an ossuary was inaugurated on the Col di Cava, designed by architect Tito Salvatori: a twelve-meter-high tower supported by four arches. Since 1971 a sculpture by Vincenzo Gasperetti has stood beneath it; it is of a dying mother with her arms around an already deceased daughter (the work was designed as early as 1945). The names of the identified victims can be read on the base. Giovanni Gronchi, president of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies, was present at the inauguration.

In 1959 Don Innocenzo Lazzeri, one of the symbolic figures in the massacre, was awarded the Gold Medal for Civil Courage.

In 1970, the Stazzema commune was awarded the Gold Medal for Military Valour. In the award’s explanation, Sant'Anna was described as a symbol of the partisans’ military courage and the ‘blood sacrifice of the Versilia populace’. That same year, on a regional level as well, the Sant'Anna massacre was designated, alongside the revolt in Florence, as a symbolic cornerstone in confronting recent history.

In 1971, the ‘Sant'Anna di Stazzema, 12 August 1944’ association (Associazione Martiri di Sant'Anna) was founded, it aims to preserve the memory of the massacre.

The first exhibition with centrepieces of the Museum of Sant’Anna, located in the former primary school, was inaugurated in 1982 by Italian President Sandro Pertini. Based on Regional Law no. 39/9,1 in 1991 it became the Historical Museum of the Resistance. The exhibition was reworked in 2007 and 2013.

On the same legal basis, in 1991 the Stazzema commune established the Committee for the Honour of Martyrs, representing the Martyr’s Association, the different resistance associations, the Historical Institute of the Resistance, local institutions (the Versilia communes, the Apuan Park, the Mountain Community consortium) the province of Lucca and the region of Tuscany.

In the 2000s, additional victims were awarded civilian medals of valour: Don Fiore Meneguzzo, Genny Bibolotti Marsili, Milena Bernabò, and Cesira Pardini – the latter two persons survived the massacre and are still among the living.

With the establishment of the National Park of Peace in 2000, Sant'Anna gained nationwide recognition in Italy. The focus of thematic engagement with the massacre now shifted from resistance to civil values such as promoting international peace and intercultural cooperation.
Official state visits

For many years Stazzema, like other sites of massacres in Italy, remained excluded from institutional visits to the country by the German Federal Republic’s leaders of state and government. Among various reasons for this, there was, in particular, mistrust in Germany of a form of remembrance, promoted by the Italian Communist Party, that focused on the partisans.

A shift in approach began in 1998 with the Social Democratic-Green Party coalition under Gerhard Schröder. Also contributing to this was the journalistic work of Christiane Kohl, René Althammer, and Udo Gümpel on war crimes and mass killings that had never been examined in Germany.

The first German governmental representative to visit Sant’Anna di Stazzema was Interior Minister Otto Schily. The occasion was the massacre’s 60^th anniversary in 2004, and Schily appeared alongside his Italian counterpart Giuseppe Pisanu. Delivering his speech in Italian, Schily criticized the hesitant and delayed onset of the ongoing investigation of those responsible.

After survivor Enrico Pieri contacted German President Joachim Gauck in a letter, on 24 March 2013 Gauck visited the local church together with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano. In their speeches, both presidents emphasized reconciliation and the possibility of achieving a form of justice for the victims through remembrance when courts could no longer achieve that goal.

Sources

The massacre at Sant'Anna di Stazzema has left some traces in the German military documentation. This is above all the case for daily reports issued by the different commands, starting with those of the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division ‘Reichsführer-SS’ and of the general command of the XIV Panzer Corps; these documents were found in the Russian Federation military archives in the course of work on this project. (See esp. CAMO 500/12475/29 and CAMO 500/12485/31 for the operations preceding the massacre). The Military Archives of the German Federal Archives in Freiburg holds the daily reports of the 14^th Army High Command (RH 20-14/46, Ia-TM 13 August 1944; RH 20-14/114, Ic-M, 12 August 1944 and 13 August 1944) and of Commander Southwest (BArch, RH 2/667, Ic-M, 12 August 1944 and 13 August 1944). The casualty reports are located in the German Federal Archives Berlin, section PA.

Many files offer a view of the work of the judicial authorities. The first investigations of the Judge Advocate of the US 5th Army are kept in the US National Archives, Washington (US NARA, RG 153, Entry 143, Box 527, Case 16-62 -Santa Anna). The documents tied to an investigation by the British Special Investigations Branch in preparation for the trial of Max Simon are kept in the British National Archives, London (Kew) (TNA, WO 204/11494). The files of the Bologna trial of Walter Reder and those of the investigations, beginning in 1994, of the La Spezia military court are kept in the office of the Rome military prosecutor’s office. The German investigations headed by the Stuttgart prosecutor’s office are mostly kept there; some were transferred to the German Federal Archives in Ludwigsburg.

Of special interest is a series of photos, taken by an unknown but evidently professional photographer, during the first commemoration of the massacre in the Sant'Anna cemetery in August 1945. The role of the film with the images was purchased by a private person at a Versilia flea market. We thank the film’s owner for permission to publish the photos on our website.

One copy of the American investigative files in the US National Archives contains photos made by Don Giuseppe Vangelisti, the priest of the village of La Culla, during the recovery and burial of the corpses of those who were massacred (Record Group 238: Records of the Office of the Chief Counsel for War Crimes, Entry 2, Box 10). Also found in the National Archives while working on this project are photos taken during aerial reconnaissance flights showing the extent of the destruction inflicted by SS troops in and around Sant'Anna di Stazzema (Record Group 373: Records of the Defence Intelligence Agency, US Flown Foreign Aerial Photography). Until now, a film taken on 14 December 1944 in Sant'Anna by camera personnel accompanying US troops has not been found. In one retained frame, a survivor can be seen standing in the churchyard before the mass grave.

Literature

Marco De Paolis, Paolo Pezzino, Sant’Anna di Stazzema. Il processo, la storia, i documenti, Rome, Viella, 2016.

Carlo Gentile, Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS im Partisanenkrieg: Italien 1943-1945, Paderborn, 2012, Ferdinand Schöningh, pp. 213-227, 254-261, 269ff., 294ff., 405-411.

Gabriele Heinecke, Christiane Kohl, Maren Westermann (eds.), Das Massaker von Sant’Anna di Stazzema. Mit den Erinnerungen von Enio Mancini, Hamburg, Laika Verlag, 2014.

Christian Jennings, Anatomy of a Massacre: How the SS Got Away with War Crimes in Italy, Cheltenham, The History Press, 2021.

Paolo Pezzino, Sant´Anna di Stazzema. Storia di una strage, 2^a edizione, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2013.

Giuseppe Vezzoni, Lorenzo Alessandrini, L’eccidio di Sant’Anna di Stazzema. Nomi e luoghi delle vittime, Viareggio, Pezzini Editore, 2020.

Authorship and translation

Author: Carlo Gentile

Translated from German by: Joel Golb

2023

Text: CC BY NC SA 4.0