60 years ago, German mountain troops left a trail of blood through Greece; today, the public prosecutor’s office is investigating the case
As every year at Whitsun, Wehrmacht veterans and Bundeswehr soldiers of the mountain troops gather in Mittenwald, Bavaria, to commemorate the fallen. For 50 years they met undisturbed, but now protest is stirring: Anti-fascists organize on 7. June a hearing on the war crimes committed by the Nazi mountain hunters and put the victims’ demands for compensation on the agenda. The organizers of the protests ame that numerous Nazi war criminals will meet in Mittenwald. The public prosecutor’s office has resumed investigations against members of the NS mountain troops.
Cover of the magazine for the members of the Kameradenkreis der Gebirgstruppe
Near the Austrian border, surrounded by steep mountains and quiet waters, lies the small village of Mittenwald. There, every year at Whitsun, veterans of the Wehrmacht and soldiers of the German armed forces meet to commemorate the "Memorial of the Mountain Troops" on the Hohe Brendten of the "fallen and missing comrades" to commemorate. The event, which includes a church service and mountain music corps, is considered to be Germany’s largest military ceremony.
The traditional association Kameradenkreis der Gebirgstruppe, which organizes the meetings, has about 8.000 members. Among the more prominent is Edmund Stoiber, former candidate for chancellor and Bavarian minister president. In a pit word to the comrades he had said at one of the last meetings, according to the TV magazine Monitor:
"As Bavarian Minister President, who did his basic military service with the mountain troops, I am naturally particularly proud of this specifically Bavarian troop and its achievements in the past and present."
War crimes in 50 places
Past performances – including massacres, summary deportations, robberies and the desecration of women’s bodies. Serious war crimes committed by the mountain troops are documented for about 50 places in Europe. In September 1943, mountain troops of the Wehrmacht murdered at least 4 soldiers on the Greek island of Cephalonia.000 Italian prisoners of war after the Duce Benito Mussolini had been deposed and the once-allied Italy had concluded a separate armistice with the Allies. Not one of the German soldiers was punished for it. Only Hubert Lanz, later spokesman for defense policy of the FDP, stood before the Nurnberg Military Tribunal. It is unclear, however, whether the former general, who had commanded the XXII. The man who commanded the mountain corps was sentenced to twelve years imprisonment for Kephalonia or other war crimes.
Less than a month earlier, the mountain troops shot dead 317 men, women and children in the northern Greek village of Kommeno. The 12 under the command of the later Bundeswehr General Reinhold Klebe. The 98th Company of the Mountain Infantry Regiment murdered civilians and gave the village to private raiders. Klebe denied before the public prosecutor’s office in Munich that he had given the order. His superior, Lieutenant Colonel Josef Salminger, was ambushed by partisans in October 1943 and died near Klisaru in northern Greece. Afterwards, between the 1. and 4. October 1943, Alois Eisl, living in Munich, is said to have destroyed 18 villages with his troop as a suhnemabnahme. Those who did not flee were killed. In the Epirus area supported the 1. Mountain Division also assisted the Geheime Feldpolizei in the deportation of Greek Jews in Joannina. The troops also murdered 80 people in Lyngiades, 146 men and 2 women in Skines and 98 inhabitants in Camerino.
The achievements in the present – Edmund Stoiber was surely thinking of the deployments of mountain troops within SFOR and KFOR in the former Yugoslavia and ISAF in Afghanistan rather than the video footage of posed racist murders, rapes and anti-Semitic violence. Soldiers of the Gebirgsjagerbataillon 571 from Schneeberg/Westerzgebirge had shot the movies. Officers are also alleged to have been involved.
The perpetrators should be held accountable
This year at Pentecost, the working group "Attacking Traditions" and the "Association of the Persecuted of the Nazi Regime – League of Anti-Fascists (VVN/BdA) at the traditional stationing place of the 1. Gebirgsdivision in Mittenwald a hearing on the war crimes of the Gebirgsjager.. Greece is at the center. The Gebirgsjager should be confronted with the survivors of the massacres.
"The cultivation of tradition represents the commemoration of the most serious crimes", says Ulrich Sander, spokesman of the VVN-BdA. Therefore, a debate about the understanding of tradition of German soldiers should be stimulated. At the meetings and in the publications, the war crimes were sometimes aggressively denied and not a word was said about the victims of the mountain division, according to the critics. Christina Dimon, a survivor of the Kommeno massacre, Amo Pamploni from Italy, a resistance fighter and survivor of Cephalonia, the Wehrmacht deserter Ludwig Baumann and several historians will speak at the hearing.
The topic will not only be the crimes of the Wehrmacht, but also those of the SS – and the question of compensation will be discussed. Argyris Sfountouris, who survived the massacre in Distomo as a young boy, will report on the open claims for compensation against the Federal Republic of Germany. Up to now, the German government has refused to pay compensation for the more than 50.000 lawsuits from Greece to be paid. In addition to the demands for compensation, it is also a question of holding the perpetrators accountable.
It is in our interest that German soldiers are finally brought before a German court for war crimes – as far as we know, this has never happened before.
Historian Ralph Klein, organizer of the hearing and a member of the "AK Attackable tradition cultivation"
The historians of the working group suspect that Nazi war criminals will meet in Mittenwald again this year. "When, from 1968 onwards, there were investigations into war crimes against former members of the mountain troops, those concerned used the Whitsun meetings to discuss their statements and their defense strategy among themselves. With rough success", so the "AK Attackable tradition care".
"It will take time"
That could change now. The working group has continued its research and has now filed a complaint and an application for the reopening of the investigation proceedings for murder and crimes against humanity against named members of the 12. Company of the Gebirgsjager Regiment 98. Historians handed over a list of more than 150 people alleged to have carried out massacres in Greece to the public prosecutors in Munich, Vienna, Ludwigsburg and Dortmund. "We don’t know how many of them are still alive, we have only been able to find a dozen so far", says Klein.
The public prosecutor’s office could investigate this much faster, but the responsible offices are understaffed, the investigation is slow and so far no charges have been filed, Klein criticizes. In the case Kommeno is clarified at present only, which of the listed persons still lives. "At present, the police are still conducting preliminary investigations", says Joachim Eckert, senior public prosecutor in Munich. When it will be decided whether the preliminary investigation, which was closed in 1972 on the grounds of the "Lack of evidence" It is unclear when the investigation will be reopened: "It will take time", according to the senior public prosecutor’s assessment.
Because historians and journalists presented new witnesses and historical evidence, the investigation into the deportations on Cephalonia in September 2001 was resumed. Thus, during the investigations in the sixties, no suspects from the former GDR were questioned.
"I am investigating at full speed and work ten hours every day", says senior public prosecutor Ulrich Maab. He is the head of the North Rhine-Westphalian Central Office for the Prosecution of National Socialist Violent Crimes and is investigating the Kephalonia case. over 4.000 people from Canada, Belgium, the USA, Austria, Italy and other countries he has to find and question. In the former GDR alone, he has meanwhile identified and questioned 25 witnesses.
In the case of ten former officers living in Germany, charges could be brought, but not before next year, according to Maab. But then the case first had to be forwarded to the competent public prosecutors in southern Germany and accepted by them. "It seems possible that in about 5 cases it could come to an indictment," the public prosecutor formulates cautiously.
The legal problem: manslaughter has long been outdated, now the perpetrators must be proven guilty of murder. For this there must be, for example, homespun or cruelty. According to prosecutor Maab, the documented summary deportations fall under the criterion of cruelty.
Not only in the judiciary stones start to roll. Even on the ground, in Mittenwald, things are getting shaky: Edmund Stoiber’s dictum of the "unassailable preservation of tradition" is no longer true. At their meetings with roast pork, Knodel, beer and brass band, the mountain comrades toasted each other undisturbed for fifty years and indulged in militaristic sentimentality. Last year the Bavarian-German idyll was poked into for the first time. Anti-fascists demonstrated against the tradition of the Gebirgsjager and wanted to hold a memorial minute in honor of the murdered people in Greece, Italy, France, Poland, Yugoslavia and other places. The old and young comrades reacted indignantly, with fists and truncheons they drove the critics out of the pub. A large police force took 56 of the protesters into temporary custody. The rally in the center of Mittenwald was banned.
This year, the organizers of the hearing expect about 150 participants. By the beginning of the year, the organizers are stirring up "naked rejection" with the city administration, police and parties, according to Ralph Klein. In the meantime, efforts are being made to ensure that the protest actions are carried out in a formally correct manner, albeit with conditions imposed. In the matter, however, there is always hostility, for example when one reads the negative comments of Mittenwald representatives in the local press, says Klein.