Belated Justice Without Punishment: The Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals in Italy

After 1994 and especially between 2002 and 2013, Italian military courts imposed around 60 life sentences on German citizens for war crimes committed in Italy during World War II. Except for the proceedings against Erich Priebke and Karl Hass, all trials against surviving perpetrators were held in absentia. Of those found guilty of wartime atrocities, only three—then residents of Italy, Argentina, and Canada, respectively—were subsequently imprisoned, whereas the convicted Nazi criminals who were living in Germany were never extradited and thus never spent a single day behind bars. The first part of this chapter provides an overview of the prosecution of Nazi war criminals in Italy and explains the reasons why it was so long in coming. The second part evaluates the outcomes of the Italian judiciary’s belated attempt to hold German perpetrators accountable to answer the question of whether justice has indeed been served.