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Nationality

German

Formation

Gestapo

Joined the NSDAP

1 July 1933, no 3.280.478 (SS-no. 290.305 beginning 30 Sept. 1937)

Armed Force

SD

Unit

Sicherheitspolizei und SD

Years of Service

1937-45

Rank

SS-Hauptsturmführer and Kriminalkommissar

Confirmed Massacres

Ardeatine Caves

Post war period

Residence in Argentina; exposure through the press; extradition to Italy; trial in Rome

Training and war experience

• Rising Tensions and the Preparation of German Occupation in Italy

  Shortly after joining the Reich Security Main Office, Erich Priebke was transferred to Rome—presumably on account of his knowledge of Italian. There he worked in the office of the German embassy’s police attaché, SS-Sturmbannführer Herbert Kappler. The office consisted of a small group of members of the Security Police and the SD. For a time, Helmut Looß and Theo Saevecke, who later became head of the Gestapo in Milan, were also part of the group. Its core comprised Herbert Kappler, his deputy Erich Priebke, and the SD officer Gerhard Köhler. They were supported by several civilian employees, including Ursula Bürger and Hildegard Burkhardt, the latter of whom, after the war in the Federal Republic of Germany, built a career as a journalist under the name Hilde Purwin.

  At the German embassy, Priebke worked closely with Kappler. He was responsible for administrative tasks, minute-taking, and translations, and also supported Kappler in communicating with Italian authorities. In this capacity, Priebke was directly integrated into the structures of security-policy cooperation, which involved both the surveillance of opponents of the regime and the handover of arrested persons to German or Italian agencies.

  As the political situation in Italy escalated, Kappler’s office was increasingly drawn into intelligence activities. Priebke took part in transmitting information to the Reich Security Main Office and was involved in the structures that, from the summer of 1943 onwards, prepared the transition to German occupation. In September 1943, he assisted in the investigations into the whereabouts of Benito Mussolini. The information collected contributed to the successful liberation of Mussolini as part of Operation Eiche (“Oak”). For his involvement, Priebke was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd Class.

  After the official establishment of the Außenkommando of the Security Police and SD in Rome in the autumn of 1943, he remained in the building of the German embassy and henceforth belonged to Kappler’s immediate staff. Working alongside him were the SD officer Gerhard Köhler and, from November/December 1943, Kriminalhauptkommissar Herbert Wuth, who was primarily responsible for administrative matters. Owing to his linguistic abilities and close connection to Kappler, Priebke was regarded as one of the most important members of the office. In November 1943, he was promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer.

• The Massacre in the Ardeatine Caves: Priebke’s Central Perpetrator Role

  As a member of the leadership staff, Priebke was involved in those activities of the external headquarters that held particular political significance. He played a central role in the massacre in the Ardeatine Caves on 24 March 1944, which had been ordered as a reprisal for the attack on German police forces in Via Rasella. Under the command of Herbert Kappler, Priebke, together with Carl Schütz and other officers, took part in the shooting of 335 civilians, among them 77 Jewish men. He was responsible for maintaining the list of victims and crossing off their names after the executions, a task he usually carried out himself. However, at times, he delegated it to other members of the office. Priebke later stated that he had perceived the operation as a “difficult task.” Nevertheless, he obeyed Kappler’s order and admitted to having personally shot two men.

• Final Months of the War: Transfer to Northern Italy and Changing Assignments

  After the withdrawal of the external headquarters from Rome in early June 1944, Priebke was initially placed under the authority of the Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD in Verona. There, he was intended for a “special assignment of the Reichsführer-SS,” about which no reliable information exists. He subsequently took over the leadership of the external post of the Security Police and SD in Brescia, though little is known about his activities there. After the war, he received written attestations from several Italian citizens, including the Bishop of Brescia, Giacinto Tredici, describing his correct conduct, his assistance in securing the release of detainees, and his comparatively mild treatment of prisoners. On 13 May 1945, Priebke was taken prisoner of war by American forces in Bolzano under his real name.

The Postwar Period

• International Research, Public Exposure, and Extradition to Italy

  In the late 1970s, Priebke’s name resurfaced for the first time in German official files. In 1978, the Federal Archives in Koblenz contacted the relevant offices, presumably in connection with his pension application. At the end of the 1980s, international efforts to pursue Nazi perpetrators once again took up the case: in 1989, the Simon Wiesenthal Center submitted an inquiry to German authorities, and in 1991, the Argentine historian Esteban Buch for the first time drew public attention to Priebke’s involvement in the massacre in the Ardeatine Caves. In parallel, the Central Office at the Dortmund public prosecutor’s office opened a murder investigation, and the military prosecutor in Rome resumed its inquiries. In 1994, over 2,000 unprocessed cases were discovered in the so-called “cabinet of shame”—among them Priebke’s file.

  The Simon Wiesenthal Center transmitted documentation to the German and Italian authorities and pressed for consistent criminal proceedings. In 1993, German authorities applied for Priebke’s extradition. In the spring of 1994, the US broadcaster ABC News located him in Bariloche and aired an interview in which he admitted to being present at the scene of the crime while denying personal involvement. The broadcast provoked international outrage; Italy subsequently issued an official extradition request.

  The Argentine judiciary reacted in contradictory ways: a federal judge imposed house arrest, but an appeals court initially ruled that extradition was inadmissible. After the Attorney General lodged an appeal, the arrest was reinstated because Germany had also submitted a competing extradition request. On 2 November 1995, Argentina’s Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favour of Italy. The preliminary investigation in Rome had confirmed Priebke’s role, as already established in the trial against Kappler. A plea based on the statute of limitations was expressly rejected: the massacre constituted a crime not subject to the statute of limitation and liable to life imprisonment.

• The Rome Trial: Defence Arguments, Verdict, and Sentencing

  In 1995, after decades in Argentina, Priebke was extradited to Italy. He was accused not only of participating in the Ardeatine Caves massacre, but also of having played a central organisational role in it: compiling the list of victims, being active at the site of the executions, and personally murdering at least two individuals.

  The main trial began in the summer of 1996 before the Rome military court. Priebke’s defence rested on the claim that he had merely obeyed orders. This argument, however, was decisively undermined by a recorded interview from 1974 with Herbert Kappler, in which Kappler admitted that the men serving under him had not been compelled to collaborate under threat of death and had only asserted such a claim at his instruction. The defence line thus collapsed. Testimony given by former SS officer Karl Hass also gravely incriminated Priebke.

  On 1 August 1996, the military court found Priebke guilty, but declared his acts not punishable due to “extenuating circumstances” and the statute of limitations. The judgment provoked massive protests: turmoil broke out in front of the courtroom, politicians and victims’ associations voiced sharp criticism, and the mayor of Rome switched off the lighting of public buildings in protest.

  In October 1996, the Italian Court of Cassation annulled the verdict and ordered new proceedings. In the spring of 1998, following an interim reduction of the charges, the military appeals court confirmed Priebke’s full guilt and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Priebke remained unrepentant: in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung on 3 May 2000, he described himself as the victim of “international manipulation,” alluding to supposed masterminds in “Wiesenthal centres” – thus giving voice to his persistently antisemitic mode of shifting blame.

• House Arrest, Public Controversies, and Acts of Provocation

  Owing to his age and state of health, Priebke served his sentence under house arrest in Rome. At times, the authorities granted him certain relaxations, which triggered heated protests. In 2007, he was permitted to move about Rome in a limited manner after reporting to the police; following public pressure, this measure was revoked. On several occasions, his defence counsel demanded a pardon, referring to his age and again invoking the claim that he had merely obeyed orders, without success.

  Additional indignation arose from public acts of provocation. In 2003, his lawyer organised a celebration for Priebke’s ninetieth birthday, and in 2010, the far-right NPD in Germany briefly floated the idea of putting him forward as a candidate for the federal presidency. That same year, his sentencing conditions were again relaxed. In 2013, the newspaper La Repubblica published a video showing him walking through Rome, once more prompting protests.

  On the occasion of his hundredth birthday in July 2013, Rome’s mayor Ignazio Marino called for the prevention of any celebration. There were clashes in front of Priebke’s residential building, and several neo-Nazis were arrested.

• Death and Absent Remorse

  Erich Priebke died on 11 October 2013 in Rome. Burial in either Bariloche, where he had lived for decades, or in his birthplace, Hennigsdorf, was refused by the responsible authorities as well as by the local communities. A funeral organised by the traditionalist Catholic Society of Saint Pius X had to be abandoned owing to tumultuous clashes; Priebke was ultimately buried at a secret location. Far-right groups took his death as an occasion to extol him publicly as a “true soldier.”

  Priebke had already published his autobiography Vae Victis – Wehe den Besiegten in 2003, a work of more than one thousand pages in which he recounted his life, justified his actions by again invoking obedience to orders, and played down his responsibility. The book makes it unmistakably clear that he did not revise his stance even in old age: until his death, Priebke distanced himself neither from his National Socialist convictions nor from his role in the Ardeatine Caves massacre.