Former camp workers in German courts 2021

Discussion in 'The Third Reich' started by Dave55, Feb 6, 2021.

  1. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Maybe if they find her guilty she could do lines on her typewriter.
     
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  2. Blutto

    Blutto Banned

    You're a card Owen, as sharp as a tack :)
     
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  3. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Thinking about it I should have said , "if found guilty she could do a sentence on her typewriter."

    Ok , I've overdone it now.

    I wonder if the typewriter manufacturer will be sued - if still in existence.
     
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  4. jonheyworth

    jonheyworth Senior Member

    they’d get off as they use the defence that Schindler’s list was typed on one of their machines
     
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  5. papiermache

    papiermache Well-Known Member

    Curiously enough, the CIA were still interested in Stutthof in the mid 1950's.

    See NARA "Advanced Search": ARC Identifier: 19051496

    Go to page 92. Some kind soul has transcribed most of the 100 page report.

    640447_Box32_Folder1_092.jpg
     
  6. Lindele

    Lindele formerly HA96


    The latest on the 96 year old woman is that she is back home again, but the court will resume the case on 19 October.
    Stefan.
     
  7. ltdan

    ltdan Nietenzähler

    sigh
    ...it would have been much more credible if the actual criminals and masterminds had already been sentenced in the 50s. But at that time we Germans were unfortunately still too cowardly - and too stubborn.
    The old lady is just a cheap scapegoat.
    It may sound cynical to some, but I can certainly understand why, as an old woman, she doesn't understand being charged for something she did as a 17-year-old accomplice
    Others, who were far more guilty, were acquitted decades ago - incomprehensibly so.

    But in spite of everything, the message is clear: Those who associate themselves with criminal regimes must have to worry about the consequences for the rest of their lives.
    It would be very desirable if this would pay off some day....even at the price that true justice sometimes seems pretty unfair
    This is owed to the innocent victims.
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2021
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  8. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    I agree. Virtue signaling.

    Authorities were too chicken to go after the powerful business leaders and politicians in the fifties. Joachim Piper worked for Porsche, for heavens sake.

    Every single one of these scumbags should have been breaking rocks for the rest of their lives.

    HIAG - Wikipedia
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2021
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  9. ltdan

    ltdan Nietenzähler

    Yes, that would have been an appropriate punishment....
    but you know: McCarthy, the communist threat, the enemy of my enemy is my friend...
    Realpolitik, unfortunately, always has a certain odor of excrement - an appropriate camouflage for former Nazis, under which they could best hide themselves
     
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  10. papiermache

    papiermache Well-Known Member

    Reports of the proceedings against the 96 year old woman refer to a previous case as being an important precedent. However, whilst I can find an English copy of the indictment in the "precedent" case it is proving impossible ( to me, German reading ability: nil ) to find an online copy of the judgment. Various articles cite internet links to the judgment text but these are all now broken.

    It is common to find references such as:

    " The Munich II Regional Court sentenced John Demjanjuk to five years imprisonment on May 12, 2011 for aiding and abetting murder (file number 1 Ks 115 Js 12496/08, not legally binding). "

    In 2019 the ECHR dealt with proceedings brought by relatives [ Demjanjuk v. Germany (application no. 24247/15) ] :

    " The Court ( ECHR ) found that it did not raise an issue under Article 6 § 2 that the Regional Court, after a trial of 91 days, setting out its legal and factual assessment in a judgment of 220 pages, had determined that there was at least a significant state of suspicion against the accused."

    Is there a working link to the 220 page judgment of the Munich II Regional Court ?

    The link to the English copy of the indictment is here:

    https://www.willzuzak.ca/tp/Demjanjuk2009/trawniki1393/Munich-Indictment-ENGLISH.pdf
     
  11. ltdan

    ltdan Nietenzähler

    A thought-provoking article on the process:

    The entire Holocaust, the system of about 7000 concentration and extermination camps as well as ghettos, this entire mass crime can be blamed on only three perpetrators until today. Yes, read correctly: There were no more, only these three perpetrators bear the sole responsibility, their names are Hitler, Himmler and Heydrich. All the others, the thousands who fired shots in the back of the neck, kicked people into pits, spat at them, insulted them and laughed at them, beat them into gas chambers and murdered them with poison gas, all those who were still alive after 1945, they were merely will-less assistants.
    (...)
    This is, in summary, the German jurisprudence on the Holocaust that is still valid today, all the way up to the Federal Supreme Court. Only three perpetrators would have set the crime against humanity in motion, this strange, contrived view was conceived by German courts in the postwar years. In this way, they created a convenient way out, which enabled them to classify tens of thousands of concentration camp murderers as mere "assistants" and to let them off cheaply or to drop their cases right from the start.
    (...)

    Almost all those who participated in the Holocaust have been downgraded to accomplices

    This is still the legal standard in Germany today when it comes to the Holocaust. Almost all who were involved in it have been defined down to mere assistants. The shooters at the rifle, because they were so far down in the hierarchy and had nothing to command; the desk perpetrators in the parlor, because they were so far removed from the hierarchy and had no blood on their hands; even the deputy commandant of Auschwitz, Robert Mulka, was convicted in 1965 for mere aiding and abetting - against the loud protest of the courageous prosecutor Fritz Bauer. At most, the few defendants who went beyond the Nazi killing plan on their own authority have been sentenced by courts to life imprisonment as "excess offenders." And that is the exception.

    The rule is: if one person kills another, it is murder; but if a few hundred people run a racist killing factory, almost none of them is a murderer, responsibility diffuses graciously in the air, so to speak. Almost all of them are then considered merely accessories. This legal spin has enabled the German judiciary to date to indict only about 2,000 of some 140,000 Nazi suspects under investigation for homicide, as historian Andreas Eichmüller researched a few years ago. In just over 200 cases, the judges found murder, in just under 500 cases aiding and abetting murder, and in just over 300 cases manslaughter or aiding and abetting. No more.


    Full article here:
    Holocaust und NS-Verbrechen: Es waren Mörder
     
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  12. papiermache

    papiermache Well-Known Member

    "The applicable domestic law in Germany was and still is the German Criminal Code (hereinafter referred to as the “Code”) originating from the year 1871 (Strafgesetzbuch, RGBl. 1871, p. 127); thus a piece of legislation predating the 20th century by almost 30 years, predating the WW I by almost 45 years and predating the last global conflict represented by the WW II by almost 70 years. It comes with no surprise at all that this Code was shaped in a traditional way, which presented serious difficulties in how to grasp crimes perpetrated in such vast and concerted practice as were the crimes of holocaust, exploitation of slave labor, and large-scale persecution of domestic civilian population etc. under the auspices of Nazi Germany."

    See article found here:

    STATUTORY LIMITATION OF CRIMES UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW: LESSONS TAKEN FROM THE PROSECUTION OF NAZI CRIMINALS IN GERMANY AFTER 1945 AND THE NEW "DEMJANJUK CASE LAW" | Kohout | International Comparative Jurisprudence
     
  13. papiermache

    papiermache Well-Known Member

    The proceedings in the "Stutthof" case are related by the press officer, sometimes in English, Dr. Frederike Milhoffer. "We would like to point out that all accused persons shall be considered innocent unless they are convicted when the final judgement is rendered."

    The link is:
    Landgericht Itzehoe

    I have used Google translate to render this "diary" from the press releases in to English.

    Date 02/16/2022
    In the trial before the 3rd Large Juvenile Chamber, the hearing on February 15, 2022 continued the taking of evidence through the audiovisual questioning of a joint plaintiff living in Israel.
    The trial will continue on Tuesday, February 22nd, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. with the audiovisual hearing of another joint plaintiff.
    Date 03.02.2022
    In the trial before the 3rd Large Youth Chamber, the taking of evidence was continued in the hearing on February 1, 2022 by questioning the historical expert.
    The trial will continue on Tuesday, February 8, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. In the next appointment, witnesses from the public prosecutor's office and the LKA, who were involved in the investigation against the accused, are to be heard. An audiovisual questioning of a joint plaintiff as a witness will not be continued on this day.
    Date 17/01/2022
    In the main hearing against a former civilian employee of the Stutthof concentration camp before the 3rd Large Youth Chamber, the hearing scheduled for January 18, 2022 will take place as a short hearing without experts or witnesses.
    Date 11/01/2022
    The 3rd Large Youth Chamber has canceled the hearing date scheduled for January 11th, 2022 for reasons of infection protection.
    The trial will continue on Tuesday, January 18, 2022 at 10 a.m. Should there be a change in the appointment time, a separate notification will be sent.
    Date 23.12.2021
    In the trial before the 3rd Large Youth Chamber, the audiovisual interrogation of a witness living in the USA who survived the Stutthof concentration camp will continue on January 11, 2022 at 3 p.m.
    Date 20.12.2021
    The 3rd Large Youth Chamber has canceled the hearing scheduled for December 21, 2021 for reasons of infection protection.
    Date 15.12.2021
    The taking of evidence continued in the trial before the 3rd Large Youth Chamber. A witness who survived the Stutthof concentration camp and is a resident of the USA was interviewed audiovisually.
    Date 13.12.2021
    In the trial before the 3rd Large Juvenile Chamber, the taking of evidence was continued by questioning a survivor of the Stutthof concentration camp as a witness.
    The trial will continue on Tuesday, December 14, 2021 at 2:30 p.m. The audiovisual questioning of a witness is planned for the next appointment.
    Date 24.11.2021
    In the trial before the 3rd Large Youth Chamber, the taking of evidence was continued by questioning the historical expert. He finished the complex on the role of female civilian employees of the SS and started on the topic of responsibilities and activities in Department I of the command staff.
    Date 11/18/2021
    In the process before the 3rd Large Youth Chamber, the presiding judge Dr. Groß informed at the beginning of today about the further planned procedure in the main hearing.
    According to this, at least two witnesses should be heard as soon as the expert has finished with the topic "Female civilian employees of the SS in the concentration camp system and in the Stutthof concentration camp". According to current planning, this will be the case from December 7th, 2021. According to the current state of planning, the date of December 14, 2021 will be postponed to the afternoon because a witness in the USA is to be questioned audiovisually and the time difference must be taken into account. With regard to another witness, it is currently being clarified whether he will be able to testify in December.
    The court is waiting for the request that has already been made to inform the other representatives of the joint plaintiffs as to whether and, if so, when and under what conditions their clients would be willing and able to be heard in the main hearing.
    The taking of evidence was then continued by questioning the historical expert.
    Date 11/11/2021
    In the trial before the 3rd Large Youth Chamber, the taking of evidence was continued by questioning a historical expert. He reported on the structure and organization of the concentration camp system with special reference to the Stutthof concentration camp and in particular the role of female civilian employees of the SS.
    The trial will continue on Tuesday, November 16, 2021 at 10:00 a.m. with the further hearing of the expert.
    Datum19.10.2021
    Today, the arraignment has taken place as part of the proceedings against the accused being heard by the 3rd Grand Juvenile Court Chamber. The indictment dated 26th January 2021 accuses the defendant, who was a young adult at the time, of aiding murder and attempted murder in more than 11,000 cases. The accused is charged with aiding those in a position of responsibility at the former Stutthof concentration camp with the systematic killing of those imprisoned there, due to her work as a shorthand typist/secretary in the Camp Commandant’s Office between June 1943 and April 1945.
    The accused did not comment on the accusations today. Her defence lawyer made a statement about the indictment in accordance with Section 243 Para. 5 Sentence 3 StPO [German Code of Criminal Procedure].
    The proceedings will be continued at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday 26th October 2021. At this session, evidence shall be taken; an expert in the field of history shall be examined.
    When the proceedings were opened on 30th September 2021, the arraignment was not possible as the accused had left her place of residence to travel to an unknown destination early in the morning and was only arrested by the police in the afternoon on the basis of an arrest warrant issued by the court.
     
  14. Charley Fortnum

    Charley Fortnum Dreaming of Red Eagles

    That looks like a smooth, quick and simple process for a defendant closer to 100 than 90 to follow.
     
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  15. papiermache

    papiermache Well-Known Member

    The whole procedure is based on a "precedent" which was an even more bizarre case and came about because the appellant in that case died before the appeal court could be bothered to list it, which was an urgent matter, given that the defendant attended court lying in bed due to his illness. Also that the court said we can't make a final decision because the appeal court has to agree with our court. Which begs the question whether the original court could have jurisdiction at all. Anyway, the English criminal system is in such chaos that cases are being listed for hearing in 2025, so credit to the German criminal court for something, if not much.
     
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  16. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

  17. GERMANICUS

    GERMANICUS Member

    Forgiveness....

    Churchill had a conversation with Josef Stalin asking Stalin to forgive him for all of his opposition.

    Stalin told him it wasn't up to him. He was only a man, and only GOD could hand out forgiveness.

    Perhaps the same thing should be said in the case of the Holocaust.
     
  18. papiermache

    papiermache Well-Known Member

    Latest from the court press office is that the defendant continues to be ill. For more visit:

    Landgericht Itzehoe

    "In dem Prozess gegen eine ehemalige Zivilangestellte des Konzentrationslagers Stutthof fallen die Termine am 4.4. und 5.4.2022 wegen fortbestehender Erkrankung der Angeklagten aus!

    Datum
    29.03.2022
    Die Verhandlung wird fortgesetzt Dienstag, 12.4.2022, 9:00 Uhr (!) mit der
    audiovisuellen Vernehmung einer in Australien lebenden Nebenklägerin.

    Alle Folgetermine beginnen um 10:00 Uhr im CLC, Vossbarg 1 in Itzehoe. Für den Zugang zum Sitzungssaal gilt FFP-2-Maskenpflicht!

    Es wird darauf hingewiesen, dass bis zu einer eventuellen rechtskräftigen Verurteilung jede/r Angeklagte als unschuldig gilt.

    Dr. Frederike Milhoffer
    Pressesprecherin"

    Google translate:

    "
    In the trial against a former civilian employee of the Stutthof concentration camp, the dates fall on April 4th. and April 5, 2022 due to the defendant's continuing illness.
    Date 29.03.2022
    The hearing will continue Tuesday, April 12, 2022, 9:00 a.m. with the
    audiovisual interrogation of a co-plaintiff living in Australia.

    All follow-up appointments begin at 10:00 a.m. at the CLC, Vossbarg 1 in Itzehoe. FFP-2 masks are mandatory for access to the meeting room.

    It should be noted that each accused is presumed innocent pending a final conviction.

    dr Frederike Milhoffer
    press secretary"
     
  19. papiermache

    papiermache Well-Known Member

    Latest from the court:
    "In dem Prozess gegen eine ehemalige Zivilangestellte des Konzentrationslagers Stutthof fallen die Termine am 4.7.2022 und 5.7.2022 wegen der Erkrankung Prozessbeteiligter aus!
    LETZTE AKTUALISIERUNG: 06.07.2022
    Die Verhandlung wird fortgesetzt am Montag, 18.7.2022, 10:00 Uhr mit der weiteren Vernehmung des historischen Sachverständigen.
    Alle Folgetermine beginnen um 10:00 Uhr im CLC, Vossbarg 1 in Itzehoe.
    Es wird darauf hingewiesen, dass bis zu einer eventuellen rechtskräftigen Verurteilung jede/r Angeklagte als unschuldig gilt.
    Nicolaus Rittgerodt
    Stellv. Pressesprecher"

    Google translate:

    "In the trial against a former civilian employee of the Stutthof concentration camp, the dates on July 4th, 2022 and July 5th, 2022 are canceled due to the illness of one of the trial participants!
    LAST UPDATE: 07/06/2022
    The hearing will continue on Monday, July 18, 2022, 10:00 a.m. with the further hearing of the historical expert.
    All follow-up appointments begin at 10:00 a.m. at the CLC, Vossbarg 1 in Itzehoe.
    It should be noted that each accused is presumed innocent pending a final conviction.
    Nicholas Rittgerodt
    deputy press secretary"
     
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  20. Lindele

    Lindele formerly HA96


    Google Translate worked well.
    Stefan.
     
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