Nazi commanders in Italy receive death for massacre (11-30-46)

1

The Pittsburgh Press (November 30, 1946)

Nazi commanders in Italy receive death for massacre

British court at Rome orders firing squad for reprisal killing of 335 Italians

ROME (UP) – Col. Gen. Eberhard von Mackensen and Lt. Gen. Maeltzer, Nazi commanders in occupied Italy, were sentenced to death today for the Ardeatine Caves massacre of 335 Romans in reprisal for the killing of 32 Germans in 1944.

A British military court found von Mackensen and Maeltzer guilty of war criminality and sentenced them to die before a firing squad.

The verdict followed a week-long trial of the case which Italians generally regard as the greatest single crime of the war.

Von Mackensen was commander of the German 14th Army in Italy and Maeltzer was commandant of the Rome area during the occupation of Italy.

The mainstay of the defense case was a plea that the officers merely obeyed an order from Adolf Hitler for a mass killing of Italians in reprisal for the deaths of the German soldiers when a partisan tossed a bomb at their headquarters here.

The trial closed with black-veiled widows of the massacre victims crying “death” and hang them.”

2

The Pittsburgh Press (December 1, 1946)

2 Nazi generals get death penalty

British court acts in Rome massacre

ROME, Nov. 30 (UP) – Col. Gen. Eberhard von Mackensen and Lt. Gen. Kurt Maeltzer were found guilty today and sentenced to die before a firing squad for the Ardeatine Caves massacre of 335 Romans.

A British military court reviewed evidence of the two-week trial and reached a verdict of guilty after an hour and a half deliberation. No date was set for the executions.

C. L. Sterling, adviser to the court, who read the verdicts, emphasized they must be confirmed by higher military authorities before becoming final.

Marches from room

The former Nazi commanders whose orders resulted in the massacre of 335 Rome citizens in reprisal for the death of 32 Germans by a partisan bomb in March 1944 received the verdicts unemotionally.

The 57-year-old von Mackensen, son of the famed Prussian field marshal, turned and practically marched from the courtroom. Maeltzer walked more slowly and at one point his knees started to buckle.

The excited spectators, most of them widows of the martyred partisans, were held in the court booing and hissing, until the doomed generals were whisked away in a caged car.

Burst into tears

Then the verdicts were translated into Italian for them and they shouted “Grazie, mille grazie – thanks, a thousand thanks,” and many of the women burst into tears.

Earlier, when the court began deliberating the verdict, the widows yelled “Hang them. Hang the murderers.” Presiding Judge Maj. Gen. I. S. O. Playfair had to urge silence several times.