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Latest update: 11/08/2009
- Germany - Italy - justice - Nazis
Former Nazi officer jailed for life over Italian massacre
A German court has found former Nazi commander Josef Scheungraber guilty of ordering the execution of 14 Italian civilians in Tuscany in 1944 and sentenced the 91-year-old to life in prison.
REUTERS - A German court sentenced a former Nazi army commander to life in prison on Tuesday for his role in the murder of 10 Italians in Tuscany in 1944.
After an 11-month trial, the Munich court found Josef Scheungraber, a German born in 1918, guity of ordering the murder of civilians in Falzano, Tuscany, as a reprisal for attacks by Italian partisans.
The case is one of Germany's last Nazi trials, alongside the forthcoming case of John Demjanjuk, a suspected death camp guard who was deported from the United States in May to face charges he helped to murder nearly 28,000 people during World War Two.
Scheungraber, who spent decades after World War Two as a free man in his hometown in the southern state of Bavaria, had denied the charges and said he had handed over the individuals in question to the military police.
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Comments (1)
Does every German Soldier in WW2 be a Nazi?
It seems that every German Military, SS or not, and even such as a recycled non German, war prisoner, as John Damianchuk, are all Nazi! This is not based on facts! All Russians were not Bolsheviks or Communists?
This is a sad Joke. And German Justice, should be ashamed to play this game to please the US/Jewish Lobbies!
What's happened in Tuscany, was an act of war, as retaliation has been part of wars for centuries. After WW2 it's called "Collateral Damage" in Washington, in our numerous enterprises!
This case should have been closed long ago, by an appology from Adenauer and a cheque to the Tuscan Village!