16 May 2025

After eighty years, one would think that all the war stories worth telling and hearing had been told and heard but not so. I was moved to hear the tale of a German soldier who had been making his way home through Italy when he was obliged to join another portion of the disintegrating German forces in the last days of the war.

At one point, they encountered a priest as they entered Giazza. Father Domenico Mercante had come out to meet the German soldiers to persuade them not to cause bloodshed. The Germans paid no attention to his appeal. Instead, they seized him and used him as a human shield in the face of Italian partisans.

In the chaos of the retreat, it was decided to shoot the priest. A firing squad was chosen. Among them was the soldier who had been making his way home. He was a devout Roman Catholic who was wearing a crucifix and had in his possession a rosary.

He refused to participate. As a consequence, he witnessed the priest being shot and then he was shot himself. The two were buried in a makeshift grave. Unfortunately, the soldier had no identifying papers on his body just a photograph of his wife. He was eventually buried in a grave for German soldiers.

Whereas the priest was known locally, the name of the soldier was difficult to discover. In 1959, the Bishop of Verona unveiled a plaque to celebrate the heroism of the Italian priest and the German soldier who still had no name attached to his grave.

It took the martyred priest’s successor another twenty-six years to discover the soldier’s identity and report it to his wife who was still alive. How much courage did it take Leonhard Dallasega to refuse to shoot the priest? How much courage did it take the priest to strive to make peace? Greater love hath no man than this.