|  Monte Sole
that is Marzabotto
The Massacre. War on civilians in Monte Sole, the work of Luca and Paolo Pezzini Baldissera, two teachers of Contemporary History at the University of Pisa, clearly intends to return to the tragic events that occurred in September-October 1944, three municipalities in the territory of the Bolognese Apennines, and known to most people, wrongly, as "Marzabotto massacre."
In fact, the massacre was consumed in a series of small towns, characterized mostly by a few houses, church and cemetery, sometimes a small inn, within the territory of three municipalities: Monzuno, Grizzana, Marzabotto.
The authors have meticulously reconstructed the story by drawing on Italian and foreign sources, being able to shed light on how the massacres and the processes followed in what was the largest massacre of civilians committed on the Western Front during the Second World War.
The motivation of reprisal, or raking by the Nazis was, according to arguments used by the defense in court of the German military, the guerrilla presence in the area of the Red Star Brigade, commanded by Mario Musolesi, Wolf said, the brigade was in contact with the V ^ U.S. Army, from which it was supplied with weapons and information.
On September 29, exploring the four companies of the battalion of Colonel Walter Reder, the "Recce Unit", attacking from the east. ^ The march of the company there is a valuable record of a young Alsatian SS soldiers, Julien Legoll, deserter, who, though confused, is seen with other witnesses. According Legoll the location where you have clashes, more frequent and prolonged with the partisans is "Cadotte," where, by chance alone, there are the commander and deputy commander of the Red Star, the Nazis did not believe to find partisans, knowing their true basis , St. Martin, who intended to reach only after "scorched earth" around them. For scorched earth means that ruthless determination in killing unarmed civilians, the elderly, women and children, and to burn any type of construction, such was the determination of killing civilians and livestock, and destroying homes, barns and churches, the was prudence in dealing with the clash with the partisans in St. Anna di Stazzema, where there was a terrible massacre, always made from 16 ^ ss Reicfuhrer division, there was no partisan in the country.
In Cadott, therefore, for a totally random situation, the commander of the Red Star falls, Wolf, and the Germans were the only significant losses because the transaction did not expect to find partisans, then continue their work of destruction and crimes in the localities of Albergana, Ca foot, and St. John's Under Serana. In general, men at the sight of the Nazis hiding, leaving wives and children, thinking that they have nothing to fear, will remain the only survivors, and their families will be completely wiped out, this is the case of Mario and Gerard Flowers, Gaetano Sandri.
A Caprara is yet another massacre of women, children and elderly, the few survivors are saved when you pretend and remain motionless in the dead bodies; in Caprara there are partisans, all retired on Monte Sole and Monte Caprara, their only sign of some fortified house. A Caprara operated the company of 16 ^ 5 ^ p. Ss, commanded by Saalfrank.
Eliminationist roundup
Many partisans, in their flight to Monte Sole and Monte Caprara, Casaglia pass through without stop there, the civilians, but take refuge in the Church saw burning houses below, with them also the pastor of St. Martin Don Ubaldo Marchioni. They will all be conducted by the Germans in the nearby cemetery and murdered there, while the parish priest and a young woman killed in the church will be paralyzed.
Around the massacre of Casaglia there are also examples of horrors unspeakable horror that add to the already dire scenario, it does not matter that they are true or not, seems to represent rather than to develop a way of mourning, to be able to tell the end, what you can not tell except by means of symbols.
The German team operating in the area of "The Scope" and "Cerpa," killing immediately, in the early morning, two women with their daughters in the Le Brooms, continues its march toward CERP, here there is a large building called "The Palace" where there is the nursery and primary school run by Antoinette Benni, teacher and representative figure of the Ursuline community, will be the only survivor of the massacre that will be consumed on the premises of the "palace" used to oratory.
The "mopping eliminationist" continues to believe they Salvaro, according to the testimony of Walter Reder was the area of land subject to the action of air defense and artillery units of 16 ^ div. SS under the command of Captain Paustian. The depositions of the witnesses speak of German soldiers with the SS badge on the helmet and the skull, which come out in force (100-150 men), gather the approximately 80 people and received the go through flare commit the massacre. Same mode Maccagnano, Vallega above, Steccola, above the brush, St. Martin and Aspen Salvaro, where a group of men unable to work, along with some priests and elders are being held in horrible conditions, and after two days canapiera killed on the catwalk of the barrel and left there to rot in the water industry.
A Cerpa is also the infamous episode where some officers are guilty, some of the survivors locked in the cellar, pick of women, who will be forced to cook, and will be raped by Reder and medical officer Schildbach.
The Partisans
Despite being alerted by the time they are totally unprepared for the partisans of the German offensive, especially because they do not expect that type of criminal attack against the unarmed population, due to bad weather and the rain continues to make communications more difficult and their movement, and for the ease with which the commander and deputy commander of the Red Star you will find and will be killed in Cadott, where else, will be the only real gun battle between partisans and Germans. Especially nell'eccidio Casaglia, because the partisans, who were a short distance does not intervene? In this regard Guerrino Avon, the company commander, will change its position on three occasions: Othello Musolesi blaming his commander, saying that the Germans were not visible from his position, arguing that there were his friends who said that action would have worsened the situation of the hostages. Certainly in those frantic moments opened a discussion among the partisans entrenched in Monte Sole: some wanted to get off the counter, while the other wanted to save and escape from the ammunition under cover of darkness.
Around the inaction of the partisans focused political struggle following the war, even debating the political and moral legacy of the war of resistance, according to testimony today analyzed the most plausible is that, after the unexpected death of Commander Wolf and his deputy, the total lack of orders, the preponderant number of the Nazis, the disruption of such destruction, the Red Star has dissolved and dropped into small groups, planned mode in the absence of the master and a lack of orders.
The Germans
Field Marshal Kesselring was the Commander of the Wehrmacht for the southern front, on 1 April publish a communiqué to the guidelines on the fight against gangs, which mirrors the one used in 1942 on the eastern front, guidelines harsh and merciless in which specifies that any excess not will be punished. After the attack on Rasella Kesselring in Rome sends a telegram to Field Marshal Keitel to the conflict of powers between him and the commander of the SS General Wolff in Italy, Keitel gives full powers to Kesselring, which emanates August 21, 1944, after Salò regime protests the crimes committed by the troops, a directive against the raids and the discipline of their men, who did not, however, nothing will change the behavior of the soldiers involved in similar incidents.
Kesselring in court, in its shameless self-defense, while acknowledging disciplinary problems related to the young age of the soldiers, paratroopers linked to its own code of honor, to the SS, and the Hermann Goring Division, tough and politically trained fighters to the forces of Salò , argued that guerrilla warfare was contrary to any international convention, it was cowardly, dishonorable and treacherous, reduced to bands of common criminals, in this very similar to the "Theory of the Partisan" of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt.
The General Simon defends attributing the killings to heavy artillery and war particularly treacherous of partisans, who, in his opinion, does not allow to distinguish combatants from the population.
These investigations are being undertaken by the British military and the U.S., the first to become aware of the massacre are precisely the vertices of V th Army, with three defectors: Julien Legoll, Rudi Vysek and Kneissl.
Even the Italians, then open an investigation, entrusting it to the Captain of Police, Paul Galli, who, despite numerous testimonies will prove completely incompetent, Bologna, moreover, the newspaper "Il Resto del Carlino", immediately after the massacre had published an article "categorically refuted" any suggestion of massacre.
The processes
The American and British authorities decided to prosecute the German military leaders, and to allow officers to lesser degrees to the Italian authorities, and immediately Kesselring and Simon are sentenced to death, but the Cold War is lurking and Germany is an ally too valuable to the West in the fight against communism, the death penalty was soon commuted to life imprisonment and then in a few years in prison.
Britain Reder delivery to Italy in 1948, Reder also relies on its defense to a memorial in which it reaffirmed its ideology indicating a plague in guerrilla warfare, an enemy irregular and counterinsurgency a legitimate need, enclosing an article in the UK B. Liddell Hart, military historian, known for his Nazi sympathies. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1952 on charges of murder, violence continued, fires, destruction, with the implementation of a "program plan" already predisposed against civilians. The ruling also contained a defense of the partisan war that was declared outside of the offense internationally with the statement that "it is necessary that the international law of war is to be really active, as close as possible to the evolution of war. "
Reder will present request for a pardon several times, is finally accepted, and the prisoner set free in 1985, the Prime Minister Craxi, in a political period in which, with the clearance by the same MSI Craxi put an end to ' Resistance was as a founding element of the Italian Republic.
It then opens another season with the search and the arrest of Erich Priebke, who collaborated with the massacre of the Ardeatine Kappler, and the discovery by the Military Prosecutor Antonino Intelisano, a large fund of files relating to war crimes improperly withheld, so also reopened the case of Monte Sole, with the call in court for non-commissioned officers and soldiers who participated in the massacre, the process will end with 10 life sentences.
Although the only one to pay for the massacre at Monte Sole has been, and remains the only Reder, the conclusion of trials, even after many years, remains a landmark case and demonstrates that, while there is contamination between law and politics, and but ended with a huge delay, has had important achievements: the legitimacy of any partisan warfare and the moral imperative for every soldier to refuse orders criminal; foundations on which people can discuss future jobs.
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