In late summer 1944, a part of this division, SS-Panzer-Aufklärungsabteilung 16 (Reconnaissance Battalion 16), commanded by Major Walter Reder, was withdrawn from engagement with the American 5th Army then advancing on the Gothic Line to deal with an Italian Communist guerrilla unit, the Red Star Brigade (Brigata Stella Rossa).
On Reder's direct orders the SS-Panzer-Aufklärungsabteilung 16 destroyed the village Marzabotto in reprisal for the local support given to the partisans and the resistance movement.
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In October 1951, Reder was sentenced to life imprisonment at Gaeta fortress prison, on the coast north of Naples, for ordering the destruction of Marzabotto and other villages near Bologna during the anti-partisan sweeps and for ordering the execution of Italian civilians in Tuscany and Emilia during the same period.
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Years later, a group of soldiers whom Reder had commanded in 1944 were tried and convicted for their role in the Marzabotto massacre.
Walter Scott | Sir Walter Scott | Walter Cronkite | Walter Raleigh | Walter Benjamin | Walter Mondale | Walter Matthau | Walter Gropius | Walter Hamma | Walter Savage Landor | Walter Burley Griffin | Walter Payton | Walter | Bruno Walter | Walter Winchell | Walter Crane | Walter Rilla | Walter Koenig | Walter Brennan | Walter Sickert | Walter Pidgeon | Walter Isaacson | Walter Damrosch | Walter Crickmer | Walter Brueggemann | Walter Reed | Walter Browne | Little Walter | Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford | Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild |