Thread by @NickWhithorn

12 August 1944, 560 civilians were massacred in the mountain village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema in the Province of Lucca (Tuscany). The victims were almost all women & children. The atrocity was carried out by Waffen-SS troops, aided by Italian fascists [Thread] >> 1

At the time, German forces along the so called 'Gothic Line' were holding up the Allied advance northwards. Sant'Anna di Stazzema, normally an isolated sparsely populated village, had been designated a 'white zone' by the Germans, suitable for holding displaced persons >> 2

Hence, the village was home to about 1,000 people by 12 August. Italian partisans of the 'Garibaldi Brigades' operated in the Apuan Alps region, carrying out acts of sabotage and ambushes against German forces. These often provoked reprisals against the civilian population >> 3

In addition to murdering civilians in reprisal for deaths of German soldiers, the occupying forces also often entered villages to round-up able bodied men to use in the construction of defensive fortifications along the Gothic Line >> 4

On the morning of 12 August 1944, soldiers of the 16th SS-Panzergrenadier-Division "Reichsführer SS" blocked the road leading to the village and, by 7 a.m., the entire area was surrounded. They were guided by Italian fascists disguised in German uniform >> 5

When people in the village became aware of what was happening, they did not panic. Partisans had not been especially active in the area in recent times and there had not been any attacks resulting in deaths among German troops. Therefore, reprisal attacks were not expected >> 6

People assumed, therefore, it was one of the frequent 'round-ups' in search of men to use as labour in construction work. Consequently, the men in the village went into hiding in the surrounding forest, as they had done on previous occasions, while women & children remained >> 7

What ensued was described by an Italian military court in 2005 (see below) as, "a premeditated terrorist attack, planned in great detail, aimed at crushing the spirit of the population, subduing it through terror." >> 8

The soldiers went from house to house, rounding people up. Many (350+) were taken to the Piazza in front of the church and shot in mass, using machine guns. Others were herded into stables, kitchens, or other enclosed spaces, and killed using machine guns & grenades >> 9

Many of the buildings were then set on fire. By the end of the day, having extended the operation to all outlying farms & houses, the German troops had killed 560 people, 130 of whom were children, 65 of them under the age of ten. Only 350 of the bodies could be identified >> 10

The youngest victim, Anna Pardini, was just 20 days old. Her elder sister Cesira, who miraculously survived, found her barely alive in their dead mother's arms but she died a few days later in hospital >> 11

Nobody was put on trial for the massacre of Sant'Anna di Stazzema until 2004. Even the fact that this trial took place was down to chance. Ten years earlier, in 1994, the Prosecutor at the Military Court in Rome had been looking for evidence to incriminate Erich Priebke >> 12

Priebke was accused of participating in the Fosse Ardeatine massacre in Rome in March 1944. The Prosecutor, Antonino Intelisano, during investigations, found a cupboard in the basement of a building belonging to the Military Court. It became known as the 'cupboard of shame' >> 13

The cupboard had been placed in an inaccesible corner of the basement with its doors facing the wall. It was found to contain 695 files and a register of 2,274 war crimes committed by Nazi-Fascist troops in Italy during World War II >> 14

It also contained a report produced by British Secret Services, "Atrocities in Italy", which had been handed to Italian judges at the end of the war. Some of the files concerned Sant'Anna di Stazzema >> 15

With the help of these files, the Military Prosecutor in La Spezia, Marco De Paolis, was able to identify many of those responsible & put them on trial in 2004. It was decided to prosecute only officers & NCOs and, in 2005, ten were convicted & sentenced to life imprisonment >>16

These sentences were confirmed on appeal in 2006 & by the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation in 2007. However, none of the defendants (all aged over 80) ever went to prison because the German authorities refused to extradite them >> 17

In 2012, German prosecutors in Stuttgart decided not to pursue the case as they considered it impossible to establish premeditation, number of victims & individual responsibility >> 18

In December 2017 the municipality of Stazzema set up an antifascist register, open for anybody who wishes to show their opposition to the ideology that led to the terrible events of 1944. You can sign by clicking the link below // 19
anagrafeantifascista.it