Thursday 25 April 2024 – 08:17
When he discovered his father’s true past, a member of the so-called Death Battalion of the SS, he disowned him and wanted to change his surname from Udo Maier to Surer. From that painful tear was born a path of pacification and friendship towards survivors and family members of Nazi-fascist victims.
The Tuscany Region rewarded that journey on April 25th, and yesterday awarded a glass plaque to Udo Surer in recognition of his work. The plaque was delivered at the headquarters of the Presidency of the Region at Palazzo Strozzi Sacrati in Florence by the regional councilor for the Culture of Memory. Present were the mayor of Cascina, the mayor of Fivizzano and the president of the provincial Anpi of Pisa.
That of Udo Surer, born Maier, lawyer from Lindau in Bavaria, is a worthy path of reconciliation with a terrible, ignoble past, which affected his family and whose discovery led him to deny his father, change his surname and start a new life centered on the values of pacification and of brotherhood among peoples. It is a path, that of Udo, aimed at building a bridge with the descendants of those who were massacred by the SS and the so-called Death Battalion, of which his father was also a member, Josef Maier, one of the perpetrators of the San Terenzo Monti and Vinca massacres in Fivizzano, in Lunigiana, in the summer of 1944.
The President of the Region underlined how, after discovering his father’s true past, Udo Surer had the courage and determination to want to meet the family members and survivors of the massacres that occurred in Italy by undertaking a path of peace and rehabilitation. He also highlighted how the action of this Bavarian lawyer has always been and still is conducted in the name of humility and profound respect for the victims of the Nazi-fascist massacres.
For the regional councilor for the Culture of Memory, it is a source of pride to welcome Udo Surer to Tuscany by giving him a plaque with the symbol of the Tuscany Region, the winged Pegasus who was Tuscan National Liberation Committeea symbol therefore full of meaning.
“It is the best way to spend the eve of April 25th – the councilor wanted to underline – a date that is the most important and the most beautiful in our civil calendar because it reminds us of the sacrifice and commitment of partisans and partisans who fought to give us a free, democratic and peaceful country, focusing on the value of this word today, in light of the international scenario”.
History
The story begins in 1992 when Josef Maier died and Udo and his relatives met the five children his father had had from a previous marriage. From those meetings they began to emerge new and terrible detailsan unknown yet chilling truth: Josef Maier had adhered with conviction to the Reich and Nazism.
Udo thus began carrying out archival research. In 2004 he discovered that his father had been part of the infamous 16th platoon of the Reichsführer division, better known as Death Battalion, commanded by the infamous General Walter Reder. This battalion, included in the SS, in August 1944 massacred over 400 civilians, including many women and childrenin Lunigiana.
Joseph Maier had never mentioned his past, but research confirmed it father’s responsibility in some massacres. So Udo decided to change his surname and undertake a sort of cathartic pilgrimage in order to mend the wounds inflicted on innocent populations by Nazi Germany and by those who, like his father, served it with conviction.
Over many years Udo Surer visited Marzabotto, Guardistallo, Sant’Anna di Stazzema, San Terenzo Monti, Valla, Bardine and Vinca di Fivizzano, collecting the testimonials of the descendants and relatives of those who were barbarously killed.
Udo Surer is still busy tracking down survivors and descendants of the victims of the Nazi-Fascist massacres today Lunigiana but also in other parts of the Tuscany and Emilia, innocent victims of massacres perpetrated by Nazi troops often together with units of the fascist army of the Republic of Salò.
Udo Surer has been awarded several honours, including honorary citizenship of Fivizzano. And yesterday he was a guest of Cascina. Today it is the Tuscany Region that gives him a plaque to highlight his tireless work in favor of the truth: a job that for Udo, over the years, must also have been very painful, because to do it he had to become aware of a brutal reality and renounce his father figure.
