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Ex-Nazi Officer Charged In Slayings

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 19, 2008

MUNICH, Germany - An 89-year-old former Nazi officer was charged Friday with murder in the killing of 14 civilians in Italy during World War II, German officials said.

Josef Eduard Scheungraber will go on trial Sept. 15, the Munich state court said.

Prosecutors accuse Scheungraber, who was stationed in Italy as the commander of a mountain infantry battalion, of ordering his troops to kill the civilians at Falzano di Cortona, near the Tuscan town of Arezzo, in June 1944 in reprisal for the killing of two German soldiers.

The troops shut 11 people in a farmhouse and blew up the building.

Anton Winkler, a spokesman for Munich prosecutors, said the charges were based on documents and witness testimony, including that of a survivor of the massacre.

In September 2006, a military court in La Spezia, Italy, found Scheungraber and another former German soldier guilty of complicity in murdering civilians following a trial conducted in absentia.

Scheungraber denies the charges, Winkler said. He said the defendant acknowledges he was part of the unit in question, but maintains that he knew nothing about the killings at the time and was not involved in them.

The Associated Press

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