Klaus Konrad

Klaus Konrad was born on 22 Dec. 1914 in Berlin-Charlottenburg, into an upper middle-class family. He spent his childhood in Bavaria, in Bad Kissingen, Coburg, and Schweinfurt. His father was a commercial agent. 

In 1933, Konrad graduated from secondary school in Schweinfurt, after which he studied law in Berlin, passing his first state examination in Feb. 1937. A year later he was drafted into the Wehrmacht, then receiving his military training in Berlin-Spandau and Potsdam.

In 1940, Konrad took part in the campaign in France, fighting with Infantry Regiment 511 of the 293^rd Infantry Division. In the spring of 1941, he qualified as a judge by passing the second state exam. The following summer, he returned to his regiment as a non-commissioned officer, participating as a squad leader in action in the central section of the Eastern Front and being wounded there. He recuperated in Germany. His life then proceeded along two routes. In Sept. 1942, he was given a position in the military administration of the Luftwaffe’s territorial command in East Prussia’s Königsberg (now Kaliningrad). At the same time, until 12 Jan. 1943 he was active as an administrator in the Wollstein POW camp (Stalag XXI C/H Wollstein). Starting 14 Jan. 1943, he attended a course for reserve officers; he was promoted to lieutenant on 1 April. In his Königsberg position, he reached the rank of Oberstabsintendant in 1944, without, however, actually taking up this work since he continued to be deployed in the field. 

In early Jan. 1944, Konrad was assigned to Grenadier Regiment 274 of the 94th Infantry-Division in Italy as an ordinance officer. In his diary, Oberst Wolf Ewert, who in early Feb. 1944 had taken over the regiment’s command, describes him as a ‘very intelligent, flexible, and articulate jurist’ who ‘made a good impression’. He distinguished himself in the May 1944 fighting on the Garigliano Front and on 1 June was awarded the Iron Cross 1^st class. A month later, he was promoted to first lieutenant.

Klaus Konrad and other officers in the regimental staff played a central role in the massacre at San Polo. In the framework of investigations in the postwar period, Konrad admitted his presence at the brutal interrogations of both partisans and civilians taken prisoner in Molino dei Falchi and Pietramala. But he denied any participation in their killing.

Konrad remained with Grenadier Regiment 274 until 5 Oct. 1944; then he was transferred to Grenadier Regiment 267 of the same division. Here he served as an adjutant, until he was wounded on 21 April 1945, shortly before the liberation.

The Giessen prosecutor’s office investigated Klaus Konrad, Wolf Ewert, and other officers in Grenadier Regiment 274 between 1967 and 1972. This was the period in which Konrad was at the height of his political career. 

The prosecutors presumed that the killings perpetrated during the San Polo massacre took place at two different points in time. The initial killings appeared to have been carried out around noon, in the Villa Mancini, the regiment’s headquarters, with Konrad presumably present. The acts involved here were classified as homicide and were thus lapsed. By contrast, the executions in the park of the nearby Villa Gigliosi were recognized as murder and thus continued to be punishable. But the investigators were of the opinion that in this case, no direct participation by a regimental officer was demonstrable, the identity of those in the firing squad unclear.  

Konrad and his former comrades were thus considered exonerated; the proceedings were terminated in 1972. But in fact, the first investigations following the massacre had shown that all the shooting, together with the burying of the victims in pits, took place in the late afternoon in the park of the Villa Gigliosi. 

Konrad only again attracted judicial attention when he was interviewed by journalists René Althammer and Udo Gümpel in the context of their research into the massacres in occupied Italy. The interview’s broadcast on the Kontraste TV-magazine in Oct. 2004 produced an echo in other media. As a result, Konrad resigned from all his offices. On 31 Jan. 2006, the military court in La Spezia filed charges against him. Following this, the Schleswig-Holstein SPD executive expelled Konrad from the party. The trial opened on 22 March 2006, to then repeatedly be interrupted and postponed. Klaus Konrad died on 15 Aug. 2006 in his house in Scharbeutz near Lübeck without ever having been sentenced. The military court’s trial of a second accused person was continued. He was acquitted in Feb. 2007. 

With the death of Klaus Konrad, new proceedings of the Giessen prosecutor’s office also came to an end – that office had again begun to investigate Konrad in 2004.