Image size: 1600 x 1260 pixel. 385 KB
Date: November 1944
Place: Italian front
Photographer: Unknown
SS-Sturmbannführer Luis Thaler (left) in discussion with Waffen-Obersturmbannführer Armando Giorleo of the Italian Waffen-SS, 29. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (italienische Nr. 1). Giorleo wears the grey-green wool tunic of the Italian Army with SS rank added to the collar, still on the early style red background despite Himmler's order substituting black from June 1944. Lieutenant-Colonel Giorleo has bright silver shoulder cords of rank on Waffen-SS style double underlay, in German infantry white over red. Luis Thaler was Italian citizen to the beginning of the war and join the SS after an agreement between the German and the Italian governments to permit "Germans" from south Tyrol to join the Reich.
Source:
Book "The Italian Army 1940-45: Italy 1943-45" by Philip S. Jowett and Stephen Andrew
Sturmbannführer Luis Thaler's grave is in Bruneck at the Heldenfriedhof-Waldfriedhof (Cimitero di Guerra). The memorial on his grave indicates that he was born Nov. 28, 1909 and died May 2, 1945.
ReplyDeleteI confirm this. I was on that cemetery last week and have seen his grave there
ReplyDeleteSS Major Luis Thaler was a Nazi war criminal.
ReplyDeleteHe was shot by the partisans on 2. May 1945, for having killed 10 inhabitants of the town of Rodengo Saiano near Brescia.
I confirm, see:
Deletehttps://www.bresciaoggi.it/argomenti/eccidio-di-rodengo-il-ricordo-resta-acceso-1.4317139
What happened to Armando Giorleo at the end of the war? He was responsible of the Podhum massacre in Croatia. Was he extradited to Yugoslavia?
ReplyDeleteI found the answer on Chat GPT: Armando Giorleo, a Royal Italian Army lieutenant colonel who later served as a Waffen-Obersturmbannführer in the Italian Waffen-SS, survived the end of World War II. He probably surrendered or was captured when the 29th Waffen-Grenadier Division surrendered to American forces near Gorgonzola on April 30, 1945, although his individual circumstances are undocumented. An Italian Army Historical Office file proves that he was alive in 1947, when he personally submitted a defense memorandum to the Italian commission investigating Yugoslav accusations concerning his role in the 1942 Podhum massacre. No evidence has emerged that he was extradited to Yugoslavia, tried, or convicted, and his later civilian life and date of death remain uncertain.
Delete