Cadotto

Group of cottages in Cadotto. The Waffen-SS soldiers arrived on 29 September at dawn. © Udo Gümpel

29 September 1944 , Cadotto, group of farm houses in the Marzabotto commune (Bologna, Emilia Romagna)

At daybreak on 29 Sept. in Cadotto, clashes broke out between ‘Stella Rossa’ partisans and soldiers from the 1^st and 5^th companies of the ‘Reichsführer-SS’ reconnaissance patrol. There were losses on both sides. Some soldiers observed that after the fighting, civilians – including women, children, and older people – had been systematically shot to death and not, for instance, lost their lives during the fighting.

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Involved Unit: 1^st Company and an infantry-gun platoon of the 5^th Company of the reconnaissance-battalion
Commander: 16. SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Division "Reichsführer-SS"
Culprits: Willfried Segebrecht
Victims: 48
Armed forces: Waffen-SS

The Cadotto cottages, site of the 29 September 1944 massacre. © Udo Gümpel

Skirmishes with partisans

Cadotto was a small settlement on the eastern slopes of Monte Termine, north of Rioveggio. It was one of the first localities attacked in the course of the actions of 29 and 30 Sept. 1944. The village consisted of the houses of Cadotto and the adjacent houses of Ravecchia. Several partisan leaders had spent the night in the farmhouse of the Commissari family, including Mario Musolesi (alias ‘Lupo’), commander of the ‘Stella Rossa’ brigade.

The German soldiers reached Cadotto before dawn on 29 Sept. This was a battalion of the 1^st company under the command of SS Untersturmführer Helmuth König. When the soldiers arrived, an intense gunfight broke out with the partisans. The soldiers suffered losses: three were killed immediately, the battalion leader was badly wounded and died a few days later in the field hospital; there were eight badly wounded and eight lightly wounded soldiers. The firefight lasted a long time and reinforcement was requested from the 1^st and 5^th companies and the division’s flak unit. That unit was approaching from the Grizzana-Veggio area and itself had registered one dead soldier and four wounded. Notwithstanding the assertion, made by the defence at Walter Reder’s trial in Bologna in 1951, of a high number of losses on the part of SS units, these are the only documented losses suffered by the reconnaissance battalion and reinforcement troops.
Murder of civilians

During the firefight with the partisans, who had barricaded themselves in one of the houses, the soldiers cleared out the other houses. According to an eye-witness account, civilians, above all women, children and older people, were killed on the spot at the order of SS Obersturmführer Willfried Segebrecht. In total, appr. fifty people died: ten members of the Ferretti family from Ravecchia, eleven of the Gamberini family, and people who had been driven out of Cerreta di Rioveggio. Many children were murdered, including some infants.

On the way we arrived at a farmhouse. Before the house, two old women lay shot to death. I immediately had the impression they were not victims of the fighting but people who had been shot and killed afterwards. They lay directly before the door and gave the impression they had been placed by the door against the wall and shot.

Rudi Vysek, 1947

Statement of German and South African soldiers

In 1947, SS Obersturmführer Rudi Vysek, who had been assigned by the 16^th SS flak battalion to Walter Reder for the duration of the undertaking, described the murder of civilians in Cadotto:

‘We marched around three hours [...] before we reached Segebrecht. On the way we arrived at a farmhouse. Before the house two old women lay shot to death. I immediately had the impression that they were not victims of the fighting but people who had been shot and killed afterwards. They lay directly before the door and gave the impression they had been placed by the door against the wall and shot. Along the way I saw several farmhouses in flames.’

The twenty-year-old Alsatian Julien Legoll, who was taken prisoner by the Allies on 22 Oct. 1944 and interrogated by French counterintelligence, likewise reported that Segebrecht had issued the command to kill civilians:

‘We arrived at a group of three farmhouses. Fire from a submachine gun came at us from the cellar of one of them, without causing any losses. One of the houses was around 45 - 65 meters away from the two others, which were standing close to each other. The shots came from the one isolated house. The 1^st company of the reconnaissance battalion attacked the two other farmhouses without encountering any resistance and pulled out those inside: a total of around thirty civilians, two of whom were old men, the rest women and children. The civilians were placed against a wall and shot to death by a soldier whose name I can’t recall at Obersturmführer Segebrecht’s command. The bodies were left lying where they had fallen on the ground, and the buildings were set on fire. I saw how these civilians were shot to death. This happened around 8 o’clock. I was around fifteen meters away from the Obersturmführer when I heard him give the command: “Shoot everyone immediately.”

Not all the victims could be buried right after the massacre. Many corpses remained in the ruins of the houses, and their remains were clearly visible to the German and Allied soldiers operating in this area. We thus read the following in the official history of the South African military contingent: ‘Reconnoitring forward to Cadotto, they found the village badly wrecked. About 17 civilian dead, including women and children who were obviously victims of atrocities, were found among the ruins.’

In Cadotto, the soldiers and partisans fought intensely and for a long time. In the Wehrmacht’s final report, we read that in the raid, Commander ‘Lupo’ and fifteen of his officers were killed, recognizable by their epaulettes and insignia.

The death of ‘Lupo’

In Cadotto, the soldiers and partisans fought intensely and for a long time. The SS only gained the upper hand after hours of fighting. In the battle, some partisan leaders were killed; others were taken prisoner or could escape. In the Wehrmacht’s final report, we read that in the raid, Commander Mario Musolesi (nom de guerre ‘Lupo’, ‘wolf’) and fifteen of his officers were killed, recognizable by their epaulettes and insignia. After the war, former 1^st company SS Sturmmann Kurt Wölfle claimed to have killed ‘Lupo’ in a firefight before the house with his submachine gun while the partisan leader was trying to flee. In the 1951 trial, Reder claimed to have witnessed the review of the insignia of the fallen partisans.

After Musolesi’s death, a conflict developed between his family members and the surviving partisans. According to some rumours, ‘Lupo’ had been killed by his own comrades, the cause being conflicts on a political level or else an effort to steal money from the brigade’s cash box. An investigation by the Bologna prosecutor’s office between 1972 and 1975 concluded that Musolesi had been killed in the fighting. The weapon used, however, had another calibre than that of the German troops. It was assumed that the shot was fired by a collaborator. Despite the statements of Wölfle and Reder, the rumours of partisan responsibility still circulate.

Literature

Luca Baldissara, Paolo Pezzino, Il massacro. Guerra ai civili a Monte Sole, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2009, pp. 130-136, 141-149, 581.

Carlo Gentile, Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS im Partisanenkrieg: Italien 1943-1945, Paderborn, Ferdinand Schöningh, 2012, pp. 242-257.

Dario Zanini, Marzabotto e dintorni, 1944, Bologna, Ponte nuovo, 1996, pp. 529-531.

Authorship and translation

Author: Carlo Gentile

Translated from German by: Joel Golb

2023

Text: CC BY NC SA 4.0

Cadotto

Skirmishes with partisans

Murder of civilians

Statement of German and South African soldiers

In Cadotto, the soldiers and partisans fought intensely and for a long time. In the Wehrmacht’s final report, we read that in the raid, Commander ‘Lupo’ and fifteen of his officers were killed, recognizable by their epaulettes and insignia.

The death of ‘Lupo’

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