War Crimes Report Estimates 165 Murders Per Day

[Hektor]

In the first Reder trial 1951 no defense witnesses were allowed. The court obstructed the defense and refused to place the trial to a neutral location. This clearly shows that the whole thing was nothing but a show trial with no judicial value. Now this is an interesting admission by "der Spiegel", but remember they wrote this 40 years ago.

There is an admission that the Marzabotto Mayor was a Communist.

And ...shot down a town with 'flak guns'? Say what? That seems a bit absurd to me. Flak guns are aerial defense weapons. Are there photos of this 'shot down town'?

That's most probably referring to the use of 88mm guns.

The 88 performed well in its original role of an anti-aircraft gun, but it proved to be a superb anti-tank gun as well. Its success was due to its versatility: the standard anti-aircraft platform allowed gunners to depress the muzzle below horizontal, unlike most other anti-aircraft guns. During the initial stages of the war, as it was becoming increasingly clear that existing anti-tank weapons were unable to pierce the armour of heavier enemy tanks, gunners increasingly put the weapon to use against enemy tanks, a situation that was aided by the prevalence of the 88 among German forces.
Similarly to the anti-aircraft role, in the anti-tank role the 88 guns were tactically arranged into batteries, usually four guns each. The higher-level tactical unit was, most commonly, a mixed anti-aircraft battalion (Flak-Abteilung, gemischte).[N 4] It totaled 12 such guns on average, supplanted by light cannons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.8_cm_Flak_18/36/37/41

It's a Flak, but also suitable for ground operations. If they shelled a village with this. A high rate of casualties is plausible. This in turn can be used the create a completely different story from events.

[Mkk]

total Civilians killed: 1830

This is what the revisionist source I cited earlier deals with:

Der Marzabotto-Mythos

Reder war nun tot, aber der Marzabotto-Mythos lebt noch. Er lebt nicht nur, er ist auch verewigt in Stein. Schon kurz nach Kriegsende entdeckte der Bürgermeister von Marzabotto, welch ungeahnten Möglichkeiten die Vernichtung der Brigade Stella rossa seiner Stadt bot. In der unterirdischen Galerie der Kirche wurden auf großen Steintafeln 1830 Namen eingemeißelt. Hinter einer dicken Glasscheibe liegen Skeletteile der „Opfer des Massakers“. Eine große, gewinnbringende Touristenindustrie wurde aufgebaut, Postkarten und Touristenbroschüren verkünden jedem Besucher das bestialische Vorgehen der Deutschen. Marzabotto ist eine Art Wallfahrtsort geworden. 1957 unternahm ein österreichischer Journalist von Echo der Heimat eine Untersuchung: befragte Einwohner der Stadt, auch Priester und Lehrer. Er fand nicht eine einzige Person, die das angebliche, von Major Reder befohlene und geleitete Massaker, oder Major Reder selbst gesehen hätte. Er sah jedoch viele unbeschädigte Häuser, die älter als 30 Jahre und somit vor dem Krieg gebaut worden waren. 1961 schrieb ein italienischer Journalist von der Wochenzeitung Gente über Marzabotto als einer „kolossalen Mystifikation“, und verglich die kirchlichen Matrikeln mit den in Stein gehauenen Namen. Er fand heraus, daß die 1830 Namen nicht nur sämtliche Tote der Kriegsjahre in Marzabotto und Umgebung beinhalten (einschließlich der Opfer des Partisanankrieges und der amerikanischen Luftangriffen), er fand darunter auch zahlreiche Personen, die noch – 1961 – am Leben waren! Und hinter der Glasscheibe gab es nicht die Überreste von 1830, sondern nur 808 Personen, darunter 195 österreichische Kriegsgefangenen aus dem Ersten Weltkrieg, die bei der Minenräumung für ihre Gewahrsamsmacht starben.

What this is saying is:

An Austrian jounralist investigated the town and found many houses older than 30 years old, which couldn't have been burned down. He claims to not have found anyone to testify to the massacre. Later, an Italian journalist found that the 1830 names included all victims of war in the town and surrounding area - including partisan war victims and Allied bomb attacks - and also that some of the names included people who were still alive as of 1961. The memorial pupports to show all the 1830 bodies, but infact only includes 808 bodies, including almost 200 of dead Austrian POWs.

http://www.vho.org/VffG/2004/4/Bruckner402-410.html

Hektor, I know you can speak German, what are the main points in that book purporting to debunk the massacre I linked to earlier>

[Hannover]

Hektor:
Thanks for the info. on the adaptability of the famed German 88. These are what I was thinking:





The use of an 88 on an old Italian village only makes sense if the village had become an armed camp. Otherwise, use of an 88 would be like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Mkk translated:

What this is saying is:

An Austrian journalist investigated the town and found many houses older than 30 years old, which couldn't have been burned down. He claims to not have found anyone to testify to the massacre. Later, an Italian journalist found that the 1830 names included all victims of war in the town and surrounding area - including partisan war victims and Allied bomb attacks - and also that some of the names included people who were still alive as of 1961. The memorial pupports to show all the 1830 bodies, but infact only includes 808 bodies, including almost 200 of dead Austrian POWs.
http://www.vho.org/VffG/2004/4/Bruckner402-410.html

So there it is then.

Curious how people continue to lie even though the truth has been determined.

- H.

[Hektor]

So this was rather the battle of Marzabotto against Partisans. Some more documents would be great.

[Kingfisher]

In the first Reder trial 1951 no defense witnesses were allowed. The court obstructed the defense and refused to place the trial to a neutral location. This clearly shows that the whole thing was nothing but a show trial with no judicial value. Now this is an interesting admission by "der Spiegel", but remember they wrote this 40 years ago.

There is an admission that the Marzabotto Mayor was a Communist.

And ...shot down a town with 'flak guns'? Say what? That seems a bit absurd to me. Flak guns are aerial defense weapons. Are there photos of this 'shot down town'?

Nice work, Hektor.

- H.

Flak guns were also used for ground support: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.8_cm_Flak_18/36/37/41#Support_of_German_ground_troops

[Hannover]

So this was rather the battle of Marzabotto against Partisans. Some more documents would be great.

Perhaps. There may have been some locals who did not like the communist occupation of their village and did resist. It seems to me though that Marzabotto had been inundated with, and that most Marzabotto folks aided, abetted, housed the illegal communist partisans, (remember, the mayor was a communist) which essentially changed the village into a fortress of sorts ... not that the villagers were generally fighting the partisans, on the contrary. However, I am curious if it was indeed a few locals who brought the communist occupation to the Germans' attention.
But given the Austrian reporter's assessment, whatever did happen was nothing like the present day propaganda. That much is very clear.

Kingfisher:

Flak guns were also used for ground support: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.8_cm_Fla ... und_troops

Yes, in general I knew that, but the lack of evidence (via the Austrian journalist) would seem to indicate that 88s were not used. They were a very powerful gun and the reporter stated that he saw no such damage that the 88s would have necessarily produced had they been used.

H.

[Hektor]

Not necessary battle by Marzabotto residents. But at Marzabotto by Axis forces against partisans in the area of Marzabotto.
So far everyone agrees. The Massacre Mythology was only spun afterwards. And given the role players visible, it is a Communist ploy. It seems they ran the whole thing, protested at "trials", pressured people, etc.

There have been statements by alleged witnesses:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjiAUcpwEcQ
And I wonder, if one can catch them lying on occassion.

[Hektor]

More dished up on Marzabotto

Marzabotto extermination

The discovery was made deep in the heart of Italy’s Apennine mountains between Bologna and the Po valley, in the communities of Castiglione dei Pepoli, Monte Stanco, Grizzana Morandi and the surrounding area, where, unbeknownst to South Africans, local people gather annually not only to celebrate their towns’ emancipation from Nazi forces in the autumn of 1944 by the 6th Armoured Division from Bloemfontein, South Africa, but even to raise the South African flag in ceremony.

6th South African Armoured Division 1945
6th South African Armoured Division 1945
Their gratitude is so great, because this area was the site of the biggest, yet least-known, massacre of innocent civilians in Italy during WWII: the Marzabotto Massacre.

It was an exceptionally bleak atrocity for Italy, as it involved the extinction of an entire ‘race’. The story is well told in Jack Olsen’s 1964 book, Silence on Monte Sole, but unfortunately there’s only space here for a summary: on 3 October 1944, German and Austrian SS troops were ordered to purge the entire area of Monte Sole and Monte Ruminci, because the townspeople of Marzabotto, Grizzana Morandi, and Monzuno were suspected of helping and supplying Italian partisans along the Gothic Line, which Hitler himself had ordered to be kept at all costs to sever south Italy and Allied forces from the industrialised and developed north. Here Allied and Austrian SS forces saw out the last winter of WWII, tired, cold, depleted, neither able to advance or retreat. Here is where the Allies eventually broke through the following Spring, spelling the end of the war in Italy. Before that, Nazi troops literally marched into every town and exterminated every living thing in sight. Women, children, young babies and the elderly alike were killed by gunfire and with grenades. By sunset 3 October, Marzabotto’s and Monzuno’s unique population of mountain people, nearly two thousand people, were entirely exterminated.

Castiglioni dei Pepoli South African WWII cemetery Scenic Landscape

Executed on the morrow
The SS then started moving into Grizzana Morandi and Monte Stanco herding the townspeople into two groups in no particular order. The first group (half the population) were slaughtered that night, the remaining group was to be executed the next morning.
On 4 October 1944, the executions had already started, when out of nowhere a group of Allied soldiers who had been sent to patrol and scout the area, unaware of the purge, appeared and engaged the SS in combat. After a long battle they managed to drive the Nazis off well behind the Gothic Line, saving the few remaining people of Monte Sole. This group of soldiers was the 6th Armoured Division of South Africa.
They were the first Allied troops to arrive in the area; British, American, New Zealand, Rhodesian (modern day Zimbabwe), Australian, and Indian troops arrived some three days later from the nearby American base in Livergnago (dubbed ‘Liver & Onions’ by soldiers) with food and supplies for the towns’ afflicted victims and set up Allied camps along what is today one of Italy’s most famous war commemoration sites – the Gothic Line.
The new road named after SA 6th Division in Castiglioni dei Pepoli inaugurated Dec 2007 (by Elvorne Palmer)

The new road named after SA 6th Division in Castiglioni dei Pepoli inaugurated Dec 2007 (by Elvorne Palmer)

Shermans of the Pretoria Regiment, 6th SA Armoured Division, Italy 1944/45
Shermans of the Pretoria Regiment, 6th SA Armoured Division, Italy 1944/45
A lifetime later…
Hence, the people of Monte Sole celebrate South Africa every year, because the few survivors (some even today), owed their lives to the 6th Armoured Division.
Col Palmer is today practically a Monte Sole local. She has arranged special celebrations and commemoration days there from now on recognised by South Africa and attended by the ambassador, the (new) Defence Attaché, embassy official, and even government bigwigs flown in from South Africa. She also assisted the community of Castiglione dei Pepoli in gathering information, photographs and testimonies to contribute to a new museum dedicated to the 6th Armoured Division. The town is also the site of the only Commonwealth War Cemetery in Italy entirely built by South Africans though few get the chance to visit because of the distance and cost of travel. Similarly, the Italian Zonderwater Cemetery in South Africa is maintained by local communities there on behalf of Italian families who can’t visit South Africa regularly. Col Palmer oversaw the signing of an official commitment by the Italian Carabinieri and local communities to maintain the graves of young soldiers who fought and died so far from their own homeland. In Zonderwater, South Africa, there is an urn with soil from Castiglione dei Pepoli, and in Castiglione, there is an urn with South African soil from Zonderwater.
A new street connecting Castiglionei dei Pepoli and the entire area with the Bologna-Modena highway was unveiled in November last year was named in honour of the South African 6th Armoured Division.
Col Palmer takes with her to South Africa, a commemorative hand-made plate revealing the natural beauty of the area, to present as a gift to the current commander of the 6th Armoured Division in Bloemfontein, South Africa, as proof of the Italian towns’ appreciation for what the division did over 60 years ago.
http://www.henrileriche.com/2013/01/20/ ... italy-war/