Short answers, pulled from the story.
SS-Sturmbannführer Walter Reder led soldiers from the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division Reichsführer-SS to kill hundreds of people. The operation targeted residents not only of Marzabotto but also of the adjacent communes of Grizzana Morandi and Monzuno.
Historians struggle to document the exact number of victims, with some sources reporting up to 1,830 deaths while others estimate as few as 955 killed. This event stands as the largest massacre of civilians committed by the Waffen-SS in western Europe during the war.
An SS officer discovered him while he was burying bodies of those killed and shot and killed him for his actions. His sacrifice is commemorated with a Gold Medal of Military Valour awarded posthumously.
On the 54th anniversary of the massacre in 1998, German President Johannes Rau made a formal apology to Italy. He expressed profound sorrow and shame to the families of the victims during this ceremony.
In January 2007, ten of seventeen suspected former SS members were found guilty in absentia by an Italian military tribunal in La Spezia. These men received life sentences for their roles in the massacre and were ordered to pay roughly one hundred million euros to survivors and relatives.