Former SS Officer Erich Priebke died at the age of 100 on Friday in Italy at the home of his lawyer, where he was under house arrest for his war crimes, the Washington Post reported.
Due to his old age, the former Nazi soldier began serving his life term at his attorney's house.
"The dignity with which he withstood his persecution made him an example of courage, coherence and loyalty," Priebke's lawyer Paolo Giachini said.
After escaping to Argentina for 50 years following the war, Priebke was extradited to Italy and put on trial for his role in the 1944 killing of 335 civilians at the Ardeatine Caves outside of Rome. The brutal massacre was carried out in response to an assault by resistance fighters that killed 33 Nazi police officers a day before.
Priebke admitted to shooting two people and gathering victims but claimed he was just following orders. He also said he was being unfairly prosecuted since other Nazi soldiers weren't being convicted, a second lawyer for him said.
It wasn't until an Argentinian television station reported that Preibke was living freely in the country that he was prosecuted. The long extradition progress immediately began with him boarding a plane on Nov. 20, 1995 -- marking the 50th year of the Nuremberg Trials.
Efraim Zuroff, a Nazi hunter for Simon Wiesenthal Center who recently began a new search for unprosecuted war criminals, said Priebke's conviction demonstrates the importance of continuing investigations into Nazi criminals despite little faith in finding them.
"Priebke's death at the age of 100 should be a powerful reminder that some of the worst perpetrators of the crimes of the Holocaust live to a healthy old age and that a person's chronological age should never prevent them from being held accountable for their crimes if they are healthy enough to be brought to justice," Zuroff said.
"Priebke was a classic example of a totally unrepentant Nazi war criminal," he added.
