A 97-year-old woman is appealing her conviction in Germany of being an accessory to more than 10,000 murders when she was a secretary to the commander of the Nazis’ Stutthof concentration camp during World War II.
In a Dec. 20 verdict, the Itzehoe state court gave Irmgard Furchner a two-year suspended sentence for being an accessory to murder in 10,505 cases and an accessory to attempted murder in five cases. The court said Wednesday that both the defense and a lawyer for a co-plaintiff filed appeals to the Federal Court of Justice.
It wasn’t immediately clear when the federal court will consider the case.
Furchner was accused of being part of the apparatus that helped the camp near Danzig, now the Polish city of Gdansk, function between June 1943 and April 1945.
The case relied on a German legal precedent established over the last decade that allows anyone who helped Nazi death camps and concentration camps function to be prosecuted as an accessory to the murders committed there, even without evidence of participation in a specific killing.
Defense lawyers had sought Furchner’s acquittal, arguing that the evidence hadn’t shown beyond doubt that she knew about the systematic killings at the Stutthof camp, meaning there was no proof of intent as required for criminal liability.
But presiding Judge Dominik Gross said as he announced the verdict that it was “simply beyond all imagination” that Furchner didn’t notice the killings at Stutthof.
Furchner was tried in juvenile court because she was 18 and 19 when the alleged crimes were committed and the court couldn’t establish beyond a doubt her “maturity of mind” at the time.
(AP)
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5 Responses
If the court couldn’t establish beyond a doubt this woman’s “maturity of mind” at age 18, there should have been an immediate acquittal. What kind of sentence is two years suspended when this monstress is 97?
Arizona, that’s why she was tried as a juvenile and not as an adult.
But really this whole prosecution was stupid virtue signalling. She was a secretary. She did her job. The whole idea that you can be convicted of a crime because 80 years ago you did a normal job for someone who was a criminal is outrageous. If that principle is accepted none of us will ever be safe.
>>>But really this whole prosecution was stupid virtue signalling. She was a secretary. She did her job.
All of the Nazis defended themselves with “we were following orders” And unlike her they were actually drafted and had no choice about just staying (but no one forced them to join the SS) She was not just doing a job for someone who happened to be a criminal. She was a worker and willing participant in a murderous criminal operation.
Not only is the sentiment in your post virtue signaling on your part It is rabidly antisemitic virtue signaling at that. My only question about you is if you are a Jewish antisemite or non-Jewish antisemite . I assume the former because Western non-Jewish antisemites are usually less sympathetic to the Nazis.
If a white 18 is caught for assisting in killing one single shvartze there would be no juvenile nothings.
lame excuse
my family didn’t get to appeal…she is 97 and she lived a life my family and many never did….appeal….let her appeal to G-d and let him give her his answer…..he already did…she is sitting there and I pray she doesn’t get up…