Intimidating history: massacre of Italian forced laborers in 1945

Intimidating history: massacre of Italian forced laborers in 1945

On August 13, 2025, the Potsdam University Press published the book “The bloodbath of Italian forced laborers on April 23, 1945 near Treuenbrietzen: what we know about a crime from the end of the Second World War,” written by Dr. Thomas Peter Gallon. This work sheds light on the gruesome events surrounding the massacre of 127 Italian military internees who were shot by Wehrmacht and SS units in the final phase of the Second World War.

Gallon began his research on this historically significant topic 25 years ago, prompted by an article in a local newspaper. His book offers the first systematic reconstruction of the events, based on contemporary witness reports and archive materials, and also contains photographic documents of the crime scene, the victim recovery and the resting places. The Italian victims are buried in the Italian war cemetery at the Zehlendorf Forest Cemetery in Berlin.

The massacre of April 23, 1945

On April 23, 1945, one of the most gruesome massacres of the war took place near Treuenbrietzen, in which the Wehrmacht drove 131 forced laborers into a forest near Nichel and shot them except for four survivors. On the same day, the Red Army occupied the city again and ordered the residents to evacuate. The night before, Wehrmacht soldiers had retaken parts of the city, and men were separated from women and children to be taken to the forest where they were killed.

The memorial for the victims of both massacres in Treuenbrietzen includes 337 dead, including 209 German soldiers and 125 civilian residents. However, there is disagreement about the exact number of victims; Estimates vary between 30 and 1,000, although the latter is considered dubious. Interestingly, the GDR General Prosecutor's Office became inactive in the matter in 1974, while the Italian authorities began their own investigation in 2002 based on survivor statements.

The context of forced labor

Forced labor was a widespread phenomenon in Germany during World War II, particularly when the “total war” war economy was shaped by the mass recruitment of foreign workers in 1942. Italian military internees who fell into German captivity following the collapse of the armistice agreement between Italy and Germany in 1943 suffered particularly poor conditions.

Krew's foreign workers made up over a quarter of the workforce in many sectors of the economy; Of these, forced laborers from the Soviet Union in particular were discriminated against because of their legal status. The living conditions for Italian forced laborers were also precarious, and repression by the Wehrmacht and the SS was omnipresent.

Dr. Gallon describes how he was able to gain a deeper insight into human fate through exchanges with the descendants of these forced laborers and the volunteers who buried the dead. He sees the value of his book not in possible awards, but in the necessary remembrance of the victims and the lessons that must be learned from these crimes.

As events at the time show, responsibility for the forced laborers remained unclear for many decades, and the German government only took responsibility 65 years after the war, when the debate about compensation was initiated. To date, around 4.7 billion euros have been paid out to 1.7 million survivors.

Thomas-Peter Gallon's book is not only an important contribution to historiography, but also a clear call to confront one's own past.