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 | |  | | Erich Priebke | | | context : | Occupied Italy  | | judgement place : | Italy | | status : | Sentenced | | particulars : | Condemned to life imprisonment by the Italian military judiciary | | position : | Hauptsturmführer (Captain) of the Waffen-SS |
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| | | | The massacre in the Ardeatine Caves had already been the subject of a trial before the military tribunal in Rome shortly after World War II, the procedure being brought against Colonel Kappler and five other German officers.
In its judgment dated 20 July 1948 the military tribunal found Kappler guilty of the murder of 15 persons and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The court noted that the order to take reprisals at the outset concerned the execution of 320 civilians. This order was indeed illegal, but the court estimated that it could not be excluded that Kappler thought it to be completely legal at the time. Because it could not be proven that the accused had knowingly committed a crime, the killing of the 320 persons had to be disregarded and Priebke found not guilty on this count. The situation with regard to the additional ten Jews and the 5 other persons killed by error was different. For these cases, Kappler was held to be fully responsible. The first crime was ordered by Kappler autonomously, whereas the second crime was due to his lack of humanity and control over the operation.
The military tribunal furthermore acquitted the five co-accused officers, as they had acted on orders from a superior. The court considered that they had served in an organisation with an extremely rigid disciplinary system and would have run the risk of facing a German military tribunal. Furthermore, they had not been made aware as to why the killings in the Ardeatine Caves had been ordered. It could therefore be excluded, according to the reasoning of the court, that they knowingly executed an illegal order. | |    | |  |  | | nationality : | | | Germany | | | date of birth : | | | 29.07.1913 | | | period of charges : | | | 24.03.1944 | | | judgement period : | | | 02.1998 - 09.03.1998 | | | charges : | | | Crimes against humanity | | | profile last modified : | | | 13.11.2009 |
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