Postwar
Walter Reder was captured by U.S. troops and released soon after because of his war time wounds. However, he was rearrested by U.S. authorities in Salzburg, held at U.S. internment camp at Glasenbach and later transferred to British custody. In May 1948 he was extradited to Italy and tried by Italian military court in Bologna. 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. Former SS-Obersturmführer Ernst-Günther Krätschmer, author of Ritterkreuzträger der Waffen-SS, championed Reder's cause, forming Gaeta-Hilfe along with 5 other veterans in 1957. This aid society initiated petitions resulting in 280,000 letters by soldiers from 35 countries being sent to the Italian government urging Reder’s release. Reder expressed profound repentance in a December 1984 letter to the citizens of Marzabotto, was released from prison on 24 January 1985, and promptly relocated to Vienna. Soon after arriving there (and he was received with full military honours by the then-Minister of Defense of Austria), he was quick to retract his apology to the Italian people, stating explicitly that he had pronounced such words of apology solely to exploit a political opportunity.
He died in Vienna, Austria in 1991 and is buried in Gmunden (Oberösterreich).
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