(ANSA) - Two former SS soldiers were indicted on Tuesday for one of the worst Nazi atrocities in wartime Italy - a 1944 massacre in a village near Bologna in which more than 800 civilians were slain.
Alfred Piepenschneider, 84, and Franz Stockinger, 79, will stand trial in absentia on December 1. Twelve other ex-SS troops are still under investigation for the massacre. So far, SS Major Walter Reder has been the only participant brought to justice. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1951.
In late September 1944, German troops stormed into the church in the village of Marzabotto, shot the priest and killed all those who had sought refuge inside the building. They included almost 100 children and babies, 40 women and elderly villagers.
Marzabotto was razed to the ground.
