(ANSA) - Rome, January 11 - Two new suspects have emerged in a probe into the WWII execution of Italian soldiers by German forces on the Greek island of Kefalonia, Italian military judicial sources told ANSA Monday. The sources named the two as former Wermacht soldiers Gregor Steffens and Peter Werner, both 86, suspected of involvement in the biggest slaying of Italian troops by German soldiers during the Second World War. The Kefalonia (Cephallonia) Massacre is thought to have been the second-largest slaughter of prisoners of war during World War II. The incident formed part of the backdrop to Louis de Bernieres' 1993 bestselling book Captain Corelli's Violin, turned into a Hollywood film in 2001.
Rome military prosecutor Antonino Intelisano confirmed to ANSA that two men were under investigation but declined to give further information. The sources, however, said that Steffens and Werner had already been questioned at their homes in Germany and had reasserted their innocence.
They had already been the subject of an Italian probe in the late 1950s, which was unable to fully identify them, and a Dortmund investigation in the mid-'60s which was eventually shelved, the sources said.
The sources said they had uncovered a report by military chaplain Father Luigi Ghilardini, drafted soon after the massacre, which said "the soldiers Steffens Gregor and Werner Peter, who had previously been prisoners of ours...boasted that they shot 170 unarmed soldiers who had surrendered" on a road on the island.
The identification of the suspects reopens the Kefalonia case, which had remained unpunished after the death of Muhlhauser apart from a commander who served three years after Nuremberg.
Mulhauser, who would have turned 89 in September, was accused of having headed a team tasked with executing officers from Italy's Acqui Division on Kefalonia when Italy switched sides in the war in 1943. At the time of his indictment, Muhlhauser was the only surviving officer from the German division.
His commanding officer, General Hubert Lanz, was sentenced to 12 years at Nuremberg, mainly for the Kefalonia Massacre, and served three years.
Of the 11,500 Italian soldiers stationed on the island, thousands were killed during fighting, shot or drowned. The precise number of fatalities is unclear but at least 2,300 are known to have died over the course of two weeks. Some historians have put the figure as high as 9,400.
The events were fuelled by the Italian Armistice on September 8, 1943, which left Italian soldiers who had been fighting alongside and under Germans in an extremely difficult position.
The commander of the Italian division on Kefalonia initially received contrasting orders and then reportedly dithered about whether to surrender, resist or join the German troops nearby. He eventually decided to resist, and hundreds of his men died in the ensuing battle, which started on September 15.
But the massacre itself only started once the Italians were defeated and surrendered, on September 21. Accounts from the few survivors and the diary of an Austrian soldier involved in the massacre suggest thousands of soldiers were either gunned down while trying to surrender or summarily executed after being taken prisoner.
Although long-standing international laws of war strictly prohibit the execution of enemy prisoners of war, the Germans had apparently received orders to execute the men as traitors.
Muhlhauser also believed this, according to interviews conducted in 1967 when German authorities started investigating the incident. During the interviews, which are now part of the Italian record, Muhlhauser defended his actions, calling the Italian "traitors".
The German prosecution resulted in the acquittal of Muhlhauser and his co-defendants on the basis he had not committed the charge of ''aggravated murder''.
Interviewed again in 2004, Muhlhauser said the Germans had also received a direct order ''from the Fuhrer''.
Earlier last year, Italy's top military prosecutor expressed anger at the fact former Nazis sentenced to life by Italian courts for their part in other atrocities are not serving time. He specifically pointed to sentences against 15 ex-Nazis who continue to live in Germany and Austria, despite their convictions in Italy and the issue of European arrest warrants by Italian prosecutors.
Only three former Nazis have ever been jailed in Italy for war crimes.