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Erich Priebke, convicted Nazi war criminal involved in Italian massacre, dies at 100

Erich Priebke, a former German SS officer who helped carry out one of the worst massacres in Italy during World War II and whose trial years later became a defining moment in Italy’s struggle to reckon with its wartime past, died Oct. 11 in Rome. He was 100.

The Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported his death, citing an announcement by Mr. Priebke’s lawyer. The cause was not disclosed.

In Rome, two sites have come to represent the battles and brutality that wracked the city and country during the war: Via Rasella, a street not far from the Trevi Fountain, and the Ardeatine Caves, on the outskirts of the capital. Their significance in Mr. Priebke’s life became public five decades after the war, when ABC’s Sam Donaldson confronted him on camera about the [history]....

Read entire article at Associated Press