Capistrello
![The coloured photo shows Capistrello, a small town situated in a valley lined with mountains.](/fileadmin/_processed_/a/5/csm_Capistrello_alto_d190bb26cd.jpg 320w, /fileadmin/_processed_/a/5/csm_Capistrello_alto_ecb80187f1.jpg 480w, /fileadmin/_processed_/a/5/csm_Capistrello_alto_913139a290.jpg 640w, /fileadmin/_processed_/a/5/csm_Capistrello_alto_c05f90912a.jpg 960w, /fileadmin/_processed_/a/5/csm_Capistrello_alto_580a9cabb3.jpg 1280w, /fileadmin/_processed_/a/5/csm_Capistrello_alto_6754b90301.jpg 1920w, /fileadmin/_processed_/a/5/csm_Capistrello_alto_0d3aa8bcb5.jpg 2560w)
4 June 1944 , L´Aquila, Abruzzo
Capistrello is a location in the Marsica region in the Liri Valley, east of Rome. Between late May and early June 1944, German troops moved through the region while withdrawing northward. In a situation marked by fear of Allied-supported partisan attacks, the Germans behaved brutally toward the local civilian populace. On 4 June, in a combing operation soldiers encountered a group of civilians, mainly shepherds. They first confined them to the railway station grounds, then shot them to death.
In the postwar period, there were several inquiries into the massacre in Italy and Germany, but the perpetrators could never be identified. Some documents kept in the central archives of the Russian Federation’s defence ministry have now allowed us to identify the 3rd Company of Pioneer Battalion 80 as responsible for the murders.
- Involved Unit
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3rd Company of Pioneer Battalion 80
- Culprits
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Oberleutnant
Herbert Boestel - Victims
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33
- Investigations and processes
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1944-1951: first investigations of the Avezzano prosecutor’s office in connection with the so-called Cabinet of Shame.
1965-1967: German investigations by the Hof prosecutor’s office; termination because responsible persons could not be identified.
1994-2001: new investigations by the Rome military prosecutor’s office. Preliminary investigations by the Ludwigsburg Central Office. Both were inconclusively terminated.
- Armed forces
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Wehrmacht
The Massacre
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The withdrawal through central Italy
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The tense situation in the Liri Valley
All civilians encountered in the mountains are to be shot to death ruthlessly, without being searched or interrogated, including women and children.
This document was found in the course of research on this project. It is the only known written order of this sort issued on the Italian front. As a rule, orders of this sort were conveyed orally; if they did take written form, they would then be destroyed. In this case, the order was not carried out: no women or children were killed in the ensuing operation. But the document reveals the highly tense climate in which the massacre of 4 June took place.
Already in the previous days, fear of a partisan ambush had become rampant. General Ortner from the division command thus issued the following order:
All Italians who do not voluntarily leave the area of our positions are to be ruthlessly placed under fire.
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Responsibility for the massacre
![The black and white photo shows officers of battalion 80 in a garden. In the Background, the wall of a house, a fence as well as trees and bushes can be seen. Five men sit in front on chairs with the other officers standing behind them in two rows. They are all wearing their uniforms, but no one has their cap on.](/fileadmin/_processed_/9/4/csm_RH_46-790_Pi_80_Foto_ufficiali_Seite_02_particolare_38470b2795.jpg 320w, /fileadmin/_processed_/9/4/csm_RH_46-790_Pi_80_Foto_ufficiali_Seite_02_particolare_1f2036836f.jpg 480w, /fileadmin/_processed_/9/4/csm_RH_46-790_Pi_80_Foto_ufficiali_Seite_02_particolare_cf60f1074f.jpg 640w, /fileadmin/_processed_/9/4/csm_RH_46-790_Pi_80_Foto_ufficiali_Seite_02_particolare_7e88cc8bd5.jpg 960w, /fileadmin/_processed_/9/4/csm_RH_46-790_Pi_80_Foto_ufficiali_Seite_02_particolare_e11b9d7f9a.jpg 1280w, /fileadmin/_processed_/9/4/csm_RH_46-790_Pi_80_Foto_ufficiali_Seite_02_particolare_2ff9dc48f7.jpg 1920w, /fileadmin/_processed_/9/4/csm_RH_46-790_Pi_80_Foto_ufficiali_Seite_02_particolare_ddcd570756.jpg 2560w)
Investigations and trials
In 1951, the initial investigations were terminated by the court in Avezzano.
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The report of June 1944 and the first Italian investigations
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Investigations in Germany
This time as well the responsible persons could not be identified. On 2 Feb. 2001, the Rome military court closed the investigations.
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Italian investigations in the 2000s
Memory
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Monuments and the Gold Medal for Civil Valour
Sources
The material tied to the investigations of the Hof prosecutor’s office in the mid-1960s (2Js 196/67) is kept In the Ludwigsburg Central Office (518 AR 3188/66; that tied to the Italian investigations in the archives of the Rome military court).
Examination of military documents discovered in archives of the former Soviet Union (https://germandocsinrussia.org) has offered new insight into the massacre at Capistrello. Among these documents is the war diary of Pioneer Battalion 80, the unit responsible for the murders in Capistrello (CAMO/500/12483/23 and 24).
Literature
Gloria Chianese, ‘Quando uscimmo dai rifugi’. Il Mezzogiorno tra guerra e dopoguerra
(1943-46), Rome, Carrocci, 2004, pp. 68-69.
Carlo Gentile, Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS im Partisanenkrieg: Italien 1943-1945, Paderborn, Ferdinand Schöningh, 2012, p. 150.
Antonio Rosini, Giustizia negata: martiri di Capistrello, martirio di Piero Masci, Luco dei Marsi, Aleph editrice, 1998.
Gerhard Schreiber, Deutsche Kriegsverbrechen in Italien. Täter, Opfer, Strafverfolgung, Munich 1996, pp. 164f.
Authorship and translation
Autor: Carlo Gentile
Translated from German by: Joel Golb
© Project ‘The Massacres in Occupied Italy (1943-1945): Integrating the Perpetrators’ Memories’
2023