Erich Priebke

Erich Priebke
Priebke on duty, 1940s
Born(1913-07-29)29 July 1913
Hennigsdorf, German Empire
Died11 October 2013(2013-10-11) (aged 100)
Rome, Italy
AllegianceNazi Germany
Service / branchSchutzstaffel
RankHauptsturmführer
Unit

Erich Priebke (29 July 1913 – 11 October 2013) was a German mid-level SS commander in the SS police force (SiPo) of Nazi Germany.[1] In 1996, he was convicted of war crimes in Italy for commanding the unit which was responsible for the Ardeatine massacre in Rome on 24 March 1944 in which 335 Italian civilians were killed in retaliation for a partisan attack that killed 33 men of the German SS Police Regiment Bozen.[2] Priebke was one of the men held responsible for this mass execution. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, he fled to Argentina, where he lived for almost 50 years.

In 1991, Priebke's participation in the Rome massacre was denounced in Esteban Buch's book El pintor de la Suiza Argentina.[3] In 1994, 50 years after the massacre, Priebke felt he could then talk about the incident and was interviewed by American ABC News reporter Sam Donaldson.[4] This caused outrage among people who had not forgotten the incident and led to his extradition to Italy and a trial which lasted more than four years.[5]

  1. ^ "Erich Priebke, ex-Nazi officer who never repented". Expatica. 11 October 2013. Retrieved 2 July 2019.
  2. ^ Steffen Prauser: Mord in Rom? Der Anschlag in der Via Rasella und die deutsche Vergeltung in den Fosse Ardeatine im März 1944. Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 2/2002, S. 289
  3. ^ Esteban Buch (1991), El pintor de la Suiza Argentina, Editorial Sudamericana (Buenos Aires). ISBN 978-950-07-0663-6.
  4. ^ Mary Williams Walsh, "At Long Last, Nazi Faces Trial", Los Angeles Times, 8 May 1996; retrieved 30 April 2019.
  5. ^ Samuels, Shimon (15 May 2020). "The SS and the Vatican". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 2 September 2020.