Introduction

Abstract

The interest shown by Italian historians in the massacres of civilians by German soldiers during World War II is the result, not only of incidental circumstances (the 50th anniversary, in 1994, of these episodes and the two trials against Erich Priebke in 1996–1997 for the massacre of the Ardeatine Caves), but is also directly related to a debate that developed in Germany on the nature of the war waged by the German Wehrmacht. German historians have discussed at length the part played in the war by the extermination of civilians, especially in Eastern Europe, and their conclusions have reshaped our understanding of this specific aspect of the conflict. The image of a “clean” Wermacht, for years a central element of the German (and Italian) memory of World War II, has been definitively dismissed.