German commander jailed for life in Nazi trial
A 90-year-old former German infantry commander has been jailed for life for ordering the murders of 14 civilians in an Italian village in 1944 during the Second World War.
In one of Germany's last Nazi war crimes trials the court found Josef Scheungraber ordered his troops to shoot dead three men and a 74-year-old woman in the street before driving another 11 men, aged between 15 and 66, into a barn and blowing it up.
Just one survived – 15-year-old Gino Massetti, though he suffered terrible injuries. Some 65 years later, Mr Massetti gave evidence at Scheungraber's trial in Munich.
The massacre of the civilians, in the Tuscan village of Falzano di Cortona, was revenge for an attack by Italian partisans that left two German soldiers dead.
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
In one of Germany's last Nazi war crimes trials the court found Josef Scheungraber ordered his troops to shoot dead three men and a 74-year-old woman in the street before driving another 11 men, aged between 15 and 66, into a barn and blowing it up.
Just one survived – 15-year-old Gino Massetti, though he suffered terrible injuries. Some 65 years later, Mr Massetti gave evidence at Scheungraber's trial in Munich.
The massacre of the civilians, in the Tuscan village of Falzano di Cortona, was revenge for an attack by Italian partisans that left two German soldiers dead.