Cornia

Back to overview of massacres

Involved Unit

Military Police Detachment b 1000; “Hermann Göring” military band

Commander

Parachute Panzer Division “Hermann Göring”

Culprits

Captain Heinz Barz

Victims

32 in Cornia, 16 in Gebbia

Armed forces

Wehrmacht

• Women and children shot as well

  Cornia, a district of Civitella in Val di Chiana, lies high up in a side valley, around eight kilometres south of San Pancrazio. In contrast to the other two villages, women and children were not spared during the operation around Cornia: the men of the Feldgendarmerie and the "Hermann Göring" military band (the Musikkorps) deployed as reinforcements killed all the inhabitants they encountered on their way. Some witnesses reported recognising Italians among the soldiers, including a well-known collaborator from the area.

• Revenge against partisans

  In an interview with the German journalist Christiane Kohl, a former member of the military band who witnessed the massacre reported that he had come across some paratroopers at the foot of the hill of Cornia. These were possibly comrades of the soldiers killed on 18 June in the Dopolavoro premises in Civitella. However, his assertion is not supported by the surviving documents: Since it was precisely on 21 June on the road below Cornia that partisans seriously wounded an NCO of the Feldgendarmerie of the 'Hermann Göring' Division - who later succumbed to his injuries - and captured two others, revenge and retaliation were probably the motives for the soldiers' violent action. The parish of Cornia and its priest in particular were seen as supporters of the partisans and were therefore frequently threatened by local fascists.

• Violence in the streets and on the farmsteads

  On the morning of 29 June, the German soldiers climbed the mountainside in groups towards the village. They encountered three women and a boy on the main road and killed them near a bridge, some distance from the road. Two men from a nearby farmstead were also killed. The bodies of these people were set on fire on the orders of the commanding officer. Several hundred metres further up the road, the soldiers reached the Morcaggiolo farmstead. Here the soldiers behaved inconsistently: in some cases, women and some children were released, in others they were locked up in their houses and killed. Three women aged between 19 and 58, a 15-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy were shot dead. Four men were killed in another room of the farm. At the Burrone farmstead, ten people were shot dead by the roadside, including two girls, aged six and eleven, and two boys aged 13 and 14. The other dead were men and women aged between 28 and 85. One of the dead was a partisan of Albanian origin: the only partisan killed during the entire operation on 29 June in the three villages. Some of their bodies were burnt on a haystack.

  The Germans approached Cornia from different directions, and divided into three groups. Between 50 and 100 soldiers were active in the area, some of them equipped with motor vehicles. Individual civilians had warned the inhabitants of the impending danger. Several men and women had fled and sought shelter in the woods. Some of the remaining women were held captive in one of the houses. Witnesses heard them screaming for a long time before they were killed. They were probably victims of sexual violence.

• In Solaia and Gebbia

  In the afternoon, the soldiers reached the village of Solaia. This is where the last massacre of the day took place, with almost only women and children falling victim. Among them was the youngest victim: one-year-old Gloriano Rossi, who was killed together with his mother. 

  In Gebbia, a small town about two kilometres north of Cornia, some residents were also arrested and later killed.

• Helga Elmqvist and Giovanni Cau

  The Swedish artist Helga Elmqvist and her husband Giovanni Cau, a writer, were arrested by the Feldgendarmerie on charges of supporting partisans and subsequently disappeared. Their remains were found and identified in 1950 during excavations in the area around Monte San Savino. In 1956, Helga Elmqvist's elderly mother asked the German consulate for compensation or a contribution towards the education of the couple's three orphans. The consulate rejected the request for compensation, but held out the prospect of an investigation by the German judiciary. The Düsseldorf public prosecutor's office was entrusted with the investigation to identify the perpetrators. Two former officers who had served in the area of Monte San Savino in 1944 were located and interrogated.

  Both claimed to have known nothing about the fate of the couple and to have left the area long before the massacre on 29 June. However, the latter was not true, as it is proven that their unit remained in the area until at least 30 June 1944. The investigation stalled and was closed in December 1957. It is not known whether Helga Elmqvist's mother ultimately received the help she needed to support her grandchildren.