A black and white photo showing Klaus Konrad as a young man in uniform without his hat.
© BArch, PERS 6-151481

Klaus Konrad

* "22 December 1914" – Charlottenburg, Berlin
† "15 August 2006" – Scharbeutz (Schleswig-Holstein)

Beginning in Jan. 1944, Klaus Konrad served in the headquarters of Grenadier Regiment 274 of the 94th Infantry Division in Italy. In this role, he participated in the massacre at San Polo.

Konrad came from an upper middle-class family and was a jurist. He joined the SA in 1933 and the Nazi Party in 1937. In 1940, he was drafted and fought in France and on the Eastern Front.

The Giessen prosecutor’s office began investigating Konrad, regiment Kommandeur Ewert, and other officers in 1967; the proceedings were terminated in 1972. At this time Konrad was at the height of his political career as a member of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (the SPD). 

In Oct. 2004, Konrad’s participation in the massacre at San Polo became public knowledge through the widely viewed TV-magazine Kontraste. In 2006, the military court in La Spezia opened proceedings against him. But he died that same year, before they were completed.

Nationality
German
Formation
1933 SA
1938-1945 Wehrmacht
Army branch
army
Joined the NSDAP
1937
Armed force
Wehrmacht
Unit
Grenadier-Regiment 274, 94. Infanterie-Division
Years of service
1938-1945
Rank
First lieutenant (from 1 July 1944)
Offensive
France 1940
Eastern Front 1941-42
Occupation of Italy and deployment at front 1944-45
Confirmed Massacres

San Polo

Post war period

SPD politician
Subject of legal proceedings by Giessen prosecutor’s office beginning 1967
Acquittal 1972

Udo Gümpel and Renè Althammer interviewing Klaus Konrad

Klaus Konrad as an old man in his flat in Scharbeutz. He is wearing a brown suit. His hair is white.
Klaus Konrad during an Interview with Udo Gümpel in 2004. © rbb Red. Kontraste

Training and war experience 

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.

Participation in the massacre of civilians

The postwar period

A photo from the Kontraste-documentation broadcasted on German TV: It shows Klaus Konrad, now with white hair and beard, in his appartment.
© rbb Red. Kontraste

I found the entire matter most unfortunate. For shooting to death 50 or 60 people is a matter that affects anyone. It’s only that as had been acknowledged partisans were in any case present there. [...] But what are they supposed to do with 50 or 60 people that we can’t guard if we don’t have them in a locked-up space and we don’t know what they’ll do if we simply let them go. That’s also hardly possible. The Oberst decided they had to be shot [...].

Klaus Konrad :
2004

Sources

The personnel files of Klaus Konrad are kept in the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv in Freiburg (German Federal Archives - Military Department in Freiburg).

The files of Konrad’s denazification proceedings are kept in the Schleswig-Holstein State Archives in Kiel, Abt. 460.3 Nr. 72. 

Additional information on Konrad can be found in the investigation files of the Giessen prosecutor’s office in Hesse: S. 261/04 RNR (San Polo); copies are kept in the archives of the Territorial Military Court in Rome.

Literature

Uwe Danker, Sebastian Lehmann-Himmel, Geschichtswissenschaftliche Aufarbeitung der personellen und strukturellen Kontinuität nach 1945 in der schleswig-holsteinischen Legislative und Exekutive - Drucksache 18/1144 (neu), Husum, Schleswig-Holsteinischer Landtag, 2016.

Carlo Gentile, Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS im Partisanenkrieg: Italien 1943-1945, Paderborn, Ferdinand Schöningh, 2012, pp. 371f. 

Carlo Gentile, Le stragi nazifasciste in Toscana 1943-45. Vol 4. Guida archivistica alla memoria. Gli archivi tedeschi, mit einem Vorwort von Enzo Collotti, Rome, Carocci, 2005, pp. 99-100.

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