Contested Memory. Herbert Kappler's Escape from Italy and German-Italian Conflicts over Recollections of the Second World War

The contribution investigates Herbert Kappler's seemingly unexplainable escape from captivity in Rome in August 1977. As a former SS-officer who had been responsible for a massacre on Italian civilians in March 1944, Kappler had been sentenced to lifelong imprisonment by an Italian military court in 1948. His flight to West Germany sparked off an acrimonious memory conflict between Italians and West Germans that temporarily even strained diplomatic relations between the two states. Combined with the controversies over the inclusion of the Italian Communists into the political arena and the debate on left-wing terrorism in the two states, contrasting memories (especially on the role of Italian resistance fighters) gave rise to deeply-rooted mutual suspicions and stereotypes.