Abstract
In September 1943, several hundreds of Italian soldiers were massacrated by German troops after their surrender on the Greek island of Cephalonia. The paper examines how the war crime on Cephalonia was investigated by the international, Italian, and West Germany justice in the period 1945-1970 in which the Western Allies changed their attitude toward punishment of the war crimes carried out by the Germany Army and the "clean wehrmacht" myth consolidated among the west German society.
It also analyzes how this event was interpreted by the German Foreign Ministry and the veteran association whose members were possibly involved in the Cephalonia war crime and how they prepared themselves to face a possible public debate about the massacre on Cephalonia. The study based on archive documents reveals that more strategies were considered by the Foreign Ministry as well as by the veteran association, yet, silence proved to be the most efficient one.