Kappler and his first wife divorced while he was serving his sentence. Paradoxically, after the war Kappler and O'Flaherty would become friends of sorts.[2]. [3][9], Despite demands that Kappler be returned to Italy the West German authorities refused to extradite him and did not prosecute Kappler for any further war crimes, reportedly owing to ill-health. Kappler was also portrayed by Christopher Plummer in the 1983 TV movie The Scarlet and The Black, which detailed Kappler's first meeting with Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty. Following the armistice between Italy and the Allies on September 8, 1943, the German military occupied Rome and Kappler was appointed as Chief of the Security Police and Security Service (Oberbefehlshaber des Sicherheitspolizei und SD) for all SS and Order Police (Ordnungspolizei) units deployed in Rome. On a visit in August 1977, Kappler's wife carried him out in a large suitcase (Kappler weighed about 47kg (104lb) at the time) and escaped to West Germany, assisted by apparently unwitting carabinieri. Kappler was responsible for many cruel deeds in Rome as well as the massacre at The Ardeatine Caves, which were personally supervised by Kappler. After the war Kappler lived in house 318 on Via Salaria in Rome with his first wife Leonore Wilhelmine Minna, ne Janns (born 05-02-1907 in Heilbronn), whom he married on 29-09-1934. Since the marriage had remained childless, the couple adopted a boy from a Lebensborn home. from the Jews of Rome, which Kappler later alleged was an attempt to prevent the deportations.[3][8][9]. [2], By 1975, at the age of sixty-eight, Kappler was diagnosed with terminal cancer and he was moved to a military hospital in Rome in 1976. While there, he asked to speak to the Monsignor and was probably surprised when OFlaherty agreed. What happened to Herbert Kappler, SS Colonel, after WWII? https://www.nytimes.com/1978/02/10/archives/herbert-kappler-dies-nazi-fled-captivity-in-rome-called-a.html. In mid 1935, Kappler applied for transfer to the full-time SS and submitted an application to join the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police) or SiPo. Mr. Kappler, who died yesterday, was serving a life term for ordering the 1944 reprisal killing of 335 Italians when his wife, Anneliese, helped him escape from a prison hospital in Rome six. Despite the Fascist dictatorship, the war, and racial legislation, the family . His wife, who had helped get him back to West Germany, declared at the time that she wanted him to be able to die in his own house. Vittorio Lattanzio resigned from his position as Minister of Defense in the aftermath of the escape. In 1947, Kappler was tried by an Italian military tribunal and sentenced to life imprisonment in the military prison of Gaeta. Anyone can read what you share. During Kappler's probationary period, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, meaning that Kappler did not have the "honor" of full SS membership prior to the Nazis' assumption of power. Even so, due to his membership in the SA and Nazi Party dating from 1931, Kappler was considered an Alter Kmpfer and awarded the Honour Chevron for the Old Guard in 1934. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Marina was born in Rome on November 4, 1942, to Jewish parents Giuseppe Del Monte and Clara Limentani. Kurtna, who was always loyal to the USSR, only started to also spy for Nazi Germany in 1943 because his new handler, Kappler, repeatedly threatened to otherwise send Kurtna and his wife to a concentration camp. During his teenage years Hugh was a talented student and golfer . Statis. Source: Dutch National Archives, The Hague. Germany was furious at the betrayal and retaliated by invading Italy. He mingled with Victor Emmanuel III, the King of Italy and he also became friendly with Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini; the founder of Italian Fascism. As Rome fell to Allied forces, Kappler unsuccessfully tried to seek refuge in the Vatican, but he was arrested by British authorities in 1945 and later turned over to the Italian government in 1947. Kappler was responsible for many cruel deeds in Rome as well as the massacre at The Ardeatine Caves, which were personally supervised by Kappler. Anneliese Kappler, wife of the former Rome Gestapo chief, Herbert Kappler and organizer of his controversial escape from a Rome military prison to West Germany, denied last night that any official German authority or any group had aided in the escape attempt. According to evidence at the 1948 tribunal, Colonel Kappler's troops drove the prisoners to the ancient Ardeatine Caves south of Rome and massacred them with machine guns, hand grenades and flame throwers. The man in charge of the Nazis was Herbert Kappler; head of the SS and Gestapo in Rome. One of the most notorious actions Kappler undertook while in Rome was the organization of the Ardeatine massacre where 335 Italian civilians were killed on March 24, 1944 in collective punishment for an attack by resistance fighters against the SS Police Regiment Bozen in Rome. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. . Kappler organized the Ardeatine massacre, in which 335 Italian civilians were killed on March 24, 1944, as a reprisal for an attack by resistance fighters that had resulted in the deaths of 33 men of the SS Police garrison in Rome. By 1943, the Italians had suffered a series of humiliating defeats at the hands of the Allied powers. Herbert Kappler joined the Nazi Party on 1 August 1931 and joined the SS in 1933. She also denied receiving financial aid for the escape from any group, but admitted, during a TV interview, that she had received money from various groups representing former SS members. iie was 70 years old. On a visit in August 1977, Kapplers wife carried him out in a large suitcase (Kappler weighed about (104 pounds at the time) and escaped to West Germany. Herbert Kappler was born on September 23, 1907, to a middle-class family in Stuttgart in the German Empire. They deposed Mussolini and freed all Allied POWs. We have no ads to show you! His wife divorced him while he was serving his sentence. In 1975, he was diagnosed with cancer. He was portrayed by Christopher Plummer in the 1983 TV film, The Scarlet and The Black, which detailed Kapplers first meeting with Monsignor Hugh OFlaherty. Priebke's commanding officer, Col. Herbert Kappler, was put on trial in postwar Rome; in 1948 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the Ardeatine Caves atrocity, but his wife eventually. There was a great sense of letting go." . Kappler's main activities during this period involved suppressing resistance groups, rounding up "enemies of the state", and enforcing anti-Jewish measures, conducting Jewish ghetto raids, and deportations to extermination camps. During his captivity, Kappler wrote to his former rival and asked him to come and visit. He would never join his diocese. In mid 1941, now an SS-Major, Kappler was selected as a liaison officer to the government of Benito Mussolini as well as a security advisor to the Fascist police. Erich Priebke did manage to escape and it was not until 1996 that Priebke would face justice. Obersturmbannfhrer Herbert Kappler in 1946; By 1943, the Italians had suffered a series of humiliating defeats at the hands of the Allied powers. Yet it was in The Scarlet and the Black that Plummer played his most Catholic role, the Gestapo chief in Rome, Herbert Kappler. Kappler performed active training duty over three separate periods from June 1935 to September 1936, with final release on September 27, 1936 with the rank of Feldwebel der Reserve. "First a great fear, then a great calm, an enormous lucidity. 2023 jewish telegraphic agency all rights reserved. Giuseppe worked as a salesclerk at an interior decoration store in Rome. The Getty Images design is a trademark of Getty Images. He escaped from prison shortly before his death in West Germany in 1978. In 1975 Kappler was diagnosed with cancer, but requests for his release were refused. In 1947, Kappler was tried by an Italian military tribunal and sentenced to life imprisonment in the military prison of Gaeta. Italy demanded his extradition, but .West Germany said this was impossible under its Constitution. Six months after his escape, Kappler died at home in Soltau, on February 9, 1978, aged 70.[4]. By this time, Kappler had also converted to Catholicism,[16] due to the influence of his war-time enemy, Mgr. Collect, curate and comment on your files. Anyone can read what you share. Appeals by both his wife and the West German government to release him were denied by Italian authorities. In practice, refusal to obey orders during war is not possible. She declined to give details of the escape, saying these would appear in a mass-circulation magazine this week. The reports suggested that Bonn would place Kappler in a German hospital under strict police guard and the Italian government would find this a politically palatable solution to the row over his escape. He was only obeying orders.. Appeals by both his wife and the West German government to release him were denied by Italian authorities. Mr. Kappler, who died yesterday, was serving a life term for ordering the 1944 reprisal killing of 335 Italians when his wife, Anneliese, helped him escape from a prison hospital in Rome six months ago. The priest believed it might be misinterpreted as an attempt to influence his trial judges. Six months after his escape, Kappler died at home in Soltau, on February 9, 1978, aged 70. The film was filled with the Catholic faith of his wife, Maria von Trapp, and their family. As Nazi police chief in Rome, he ordered the executions in 1944 after a midtown bombing attack by partisans killed 32 SS men. A particular adversary of Kappler's in this respect was Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, whose activities helping Jewish fugitives and Allied prisoners escape Rome led to Kappler having him targeted for assassination. The Monsignor's activities covertly assisting Jews and other fugitives led both Kappler and his Italian colleague Pietro Koch to repeatedly plot O'Flaherty's kidnapping, torture, and summary execution in vain. Without hesitation, O'Flaherty took up Kappler's invitation and in prison the two men chatted over coffee. He was raised in Killarney where his father was a steward on a golf course where the family lived. [citation needed] In 1938, during the Anschluss, he supervised the mass deportations of Austrian Jews as part of the Holocaust in Austria.[3]. You got lucky! Kappler and his first wife divorced while Kappler was serving his sentence, but he was married again to Anneliese Kappler, a nurse who had carried on a lengthy correspondence with Kappler before marrying him in a prison wedding ceremony in 1972. Photos:Kappler -United States War Department, Public domainvia Wikimedia Commons. The Monsignor decided to help. 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