Caiazzo massacre
The Caiazzo massacre (, ) was the massacre of 22 Italian civilians at Caiazzo, Campania, Southern Italy, on 13 October 1943, during World War II by members of the German 3rd Panzergrenadier Division. The massacre was described as having been of a particularly brutal nature and its leader, Lieutenant Wolfgang Lehnigk-Emden, was soon after captured by Allied forces. Lehnigk-Emden confessed to part of the crime but was later accidentally released and, for the next four decades, was not put on trial. In 1994 an Italian court sentenced Lehnigk-Emden and a non-commissioned officer of the division, Kurt Schuster, to life imprisonment in absentia, but neither was extradited by Germany. Lehnigk-Emden was also put on trial in Germany in a case that went to the high court, the Bundesgerichtshof; he was found guilty but released as the statute of limitations had expired. This caused considerable outrage in both Germany and Italy because of the particularly brutal nature of the crime. Massacre On 13 October 1943, the day Italy declared war on Nazi Germany, German forces were retreating from the area around the Volturno river. At Monte Carmignano the 3rd Company of the 29th Panzergrenadier regiment had been taking defensive positions, part of the Volturno Line, and were under threat by advancing American forces. The German units in the area feared attacks by local partisans and reacted with violence, resulting in the execution of 33 local civilians in the period between 2 and 13 October, the worst of those incidents being the Caiazzo massacre. In the evening Lehnigk-Emden spotted what he perceived to be secret signals from a large farmhouse nearby the advancing Americans. Lehnigk-Emden, who was not particularly well-respected by his soldiers, entered the farmhouse with a few of them to find 22 peasants from four different families hiding there from the anticipated fighting. His company commander, Draschke, ordered the execution of the four heads of the families. This order was carried out, as well as the shooting of three women who tried to prevent the German soldiers from doing so. Lehnigk-Emden confessed during captivity that he was part of this execution commando, whose deed was classified as manslaughter by the German courts. Following this, Lehnigk-Emden and two sergeants, one of them Kurt Schuster, returned to the farmhouse where the remaining 15 women and children were hiding. They threw hand grenades through the window and shot and bayoneted survivors trying to escape. Wilhelm May, a German soldier who was not involved in the second part of the massacre, later testified as a witness to the events that women and children were brutally murdered. Aftermath Capture and escape Lehnigk-Emden and members of his company were captured by American forces on 4 November 1943 and immediately questioned about the massacre by German-born journalist Hans Habe. At an interview in a prisoner-of-war camp in Aversa, Italy, Lehnigk-Emden confessed to having participated in the first part of the massacre, but denied his involvement in the second part. In 1944, while a prisoner of war in a