Arrest and Later Life
As Rome fell to Allied forces, Kappler unsuccessfully tried to seek refuge in the Vatican, but he was arrested by British authorities in 1945 and later turned over to the Italian government in 1947. Kappler's second in command in Rome, SS-Captain Erich Priebke, did manage to escape and it was not until 1996 that Priebke would face justice.
In 1947, Kappler was tried by an Italian military tribunal and sentenced to life imprisonment in the military prison of Gaeta. Kappler and his first wife divorced while Kappler was serving his sentence, but he was married again to Anneliese Kappler, a nurse who had carried on a lengthy correspondence with Kappler before marrying him in a prison wedding ceremony in 1972. By this time Kappler had also converted to Catholicism, partly due to the influence of his war-time opponent, the Vatican diplomat Mgr Hugh O'Flaherty, who often visited Kappler in prison, discussing literature and religion with him.
By 1975, at the age of sixty-eight, Kappler was diagnosed with terminal cancer and he was moved to a military hospital in Rome in 1976. Appeals by both his wife and the West German government to release him were denied by Italian authorities.
Because of Kappler's deteriorating condition and his wife's nursing skills, Anneliese Kappler had been allowed almost unlimited access to him during his time in the Italian hospital. On a prison visit in August 1977, Kappler's wife carried him out in a large suitcase (Kappler weighed less than 105 pounds at the time) and escaped to West Germany, assisted by apparently unwitting carabinieri.
The Italians unsuccessfully demanded that Kappler be returned, but the West Germany authorities refused to extradite him and did not prosecute Kappler for any further war crimes, reportedly due to his ill health.
Six months after his escape, Kappler died at home in Soltau, on February 9, 1978, aged 70.
Read more about this topic: Herbert Kappler
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