Butcher of Genoa convicted of massacre

An former SS major known as the Butcher of Genoa was sentenced to seven years imprisonment today for a wartime massacre but, because he is 93, Freidrich Engel will not have to spend a minute behind bars.

The prosecution in one of Germany’s Nazi war crimes trials had sort a life sentence for the Second World War murder of 59 Italian prisoners.

Engel denied the charges and blamed Nazi naval officers who carried out the shootings for the May 1944 massacre at a mountain pass outside Genoa.

A neatly dressed man who walks with the help of cane, Engel appeared unmoved as the verdict was read in the Hamburg court.

Judges said a lesser sentence was justified because of ‘‘exceptional circumstances’’ created by the long interval since the crimes and a spotty witness testimony.

‘‘It was a cruel and illegal killing, which Engel helped bring about,’’ said presiding Judge Rolf Seedorf. Despite such statements, the court said Engel would not be required to serve the sentence because of his age.

Judge Seedorf rejected Engel’s argument that Naval personnel who guarded the transport from Genoa’s Marassi jail and carried out the shootings on Turchino Pass bore the main responsibility, noting that Engel was the highest-ranking officer present.

The shootings at the Turchino Pass were in retaliation for an attack on a cinema that killed five German soldiers during Italian partisans’ fight to drive Nazi occupying forces out of the country.

Prosecutors described the killings as particularly cruel, saying the Italian captives were bound in pairs and forced to walk onto a plank over an open grave where they were shot.

Engel argued that the partisans provoked the Nazis with ‘‘treacherous, underhanded attacks’’ and cited an alleged order from Adolf Hitler to retaliate massively against attacks on German forces in Italy.