With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

German WWII officer cleared on appeal of Italian killings

A 94-year-old former German army officer sentenced to life in prison by an Italian military court for the deaths of four Italian civilians in August 1944 has been cleared on appeal, his lawyer said Friday.

Francesco Coran told the ANSA news agency that the military appeal court in Rome had quashed the sentence handed down against Hans Dietrich Michelsen, who was tried in his absence by a military tribunal in La Spezia in February last year.

Michelsen, then a 29-year-old Wehrmacht major, had been tried in his absence for the killing of the civilians on August 18, 1944 in the central Italian village of Grotta di Maona.
Read entire article at http://www.expatica.com