Herbert Kappler was instrumental in carrying out the Ardeatine massacre , one of the worst World War II atrocities on Italian soil . His life imprisonment sentence was largely in relation to that crime . He was eventually transferred to a prison hospital on account of poor health . It was there that he was smuggled out in a suitcase by his wife in 1977 ( Kappler weighed less than 105 pounds at the time ) . He escaped to West Germany , where he died at age 70 in 1978
Ardeatine massacre
Ardeatine massacre
The Scarlet and the Black