Nazi concentration camp secretary charged with 10,000 counts of accessory to murder

[Omaha Steve]

Source: USA Today-AP

By David Rising

BERLIN – German prosecutors have charged the elderly secretary of the former SS commandant of Stutthof with 10,000 counts of accessory to murder, arguing that she was part of the apparatus that helped the Nazi concentration camp function.

The 95-year-old also faces an unspecified number of counts of accessory to attempted murder for her service at the camp between June 1943 and April 1945, Peter Mueller-Rakow, spokesman for prosecutors in the northern town of Itzehoe, said Friday.

Despite her advanced age, the suspect will be tried in juvenile court due to the fact that she was under 21 at the time of the alleged crimes, Mueller-Rakow said.

The suspect, whom Mueller-Rakow would not identify in line with German privacy laws, is believed to be in good enough health to stand trial.


Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2021/02/05/nazi-concentration-camp-secretary-faces-10-000-murder-accessory-counts/4406932001/

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Holocaust survey:Almost two-thirds of millennials, Gen Z don't know that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/09/16/holocaust-history-millennials-gen-z-cant-name-concentration-camps/5792448002/

[hlthe2b]

1. Bizarre, but you've gotta respect their determination to seek justice, no matter what.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Good to know they never give up on accountabillity

though I always have a doubt about the idea of how they could be expected to disobey an unlawful order in Nazi Germany. It would have been fatal.

[PSPS]

4. The "just obeying orders" excuse was summarily dismissed at Nuremberg

[OnlinePoker]

16. I think there's a vast difference between someone in their 20s or 30's compared to a 17 year old

You have to think that from the time she was 7 when the Nazi's seized power in 1933, she was fed a nonstop litany of propaganda. She was then put into a position she was expected to fulfill by the State and probably fed BS like it was her sacred duty to the fuehrer's cause. How is someone raised like that supposed to discern right from wrong?

[radical noodle]

19. I agree

I'm all for accountability, but I have mixed feelings about this one.

[thucythucy]

26. And yet the members of the White Rose resistance group

were of similar age, maybe a couple of years older. The "Edelweiss Pirates of Cologne" were pretty much all teenagers, and they weren't at all fooled by the propaganda.

There are no easy answers in a situation like this. But considering this woman has lived the vast majority of her life without consequence, I'm not sure I'm willing to give her a complete break.

In any case, she'll be tried in a court of law, and will be given every opportunity to defend herself. Something the victims of the Holocaust were never allowed.

[Joinfortmill]

33. A minor at the time charged with 10k counts of murder?

I have Jewish family members and my outrage at the holocaust knows no bounds, but this serves no good purpose.

[thucythucy]

25. Read "Hitler's Willing Executioners."

The book details instances where Germans, even in the military, refused to obey orders that violated their conscience, and were not punished in any way, certainly not put to death. Generally all that happened was they were shuffled to another posting.

The fact is that many who participated in the atrocities were quite eager to "do the job." It was only when they were put on trial (and many weren't) that they tried the "I had to follow orders" defense.

[MyOwnPeace]

3. SO, does that mean......

we COULD charge BunkerBoy as an accessory for over 400,000 deaths because of COVID?

What the hell - let's GO FOR IT!!!!!!

If nothing else it will totally blow out what's left of micro-brains on the MAGA front.....

[reACTIONary]

6. Accessory? I'd say he's the perp. nt

[oldsoftie]

10. His defense would be simple though;

there's no way to know how many people would have lived if he'd done things differently. I mean, we did have estimates of 2.5 million dead in a yr if we did nothing.
But its funny to picture him in one of those Nuremberg cages they used.

[bdamomma]

13. Charge him

with CRIMES against Humanity. This bastard knew they have the tapes to prove it too.

[brush]

5. What took them so long to find her if she's been Germany...

all that time? The war ended 76 years ago.

[reACTIONary]

7. The interpretation of the law ...

.....seems to have changed, leaving her open to prosecution.

The case against her will rely on new German legal precedent established in cases over the last decade that anyone who helped Nazi death camps and concentration camps function can be prosecuted as an accessory to the murders committed there, even without evidence of participation in a specific crime.

[BobTheSubgenius]

15. So ANY job at all.

I am not a fan of laws that have virtually unlimited scope and reach. Unless they have a pretty well-defined *help the camps function* it sounds like it could apply to anyone.

Railroad workers, bakers, janitors...those and many more could be said to facilitate camp functionality. As much as I despise this entire bit of history, I dislike such a catchall law, too.

[reACTIONary]

27. That would be the...

.... ditch at the bottom of the slippery slope. Don't know if they are in the ditch yet.

[mountain grammy]

8. Never forget

[Behind the Aegis]

31. One would think....

...yet read some of the other comments and that phrase seems lost on them. Not surprising though.

[monkeyman1]

9. trump up next !! 400,000 plus ➕

[moniss]

11. This is

not directed at people here on DU. But isn't it amazing how people in America will cheer this "holding to account" while at the same time ignoring our past and continuing actions against Native Americans. For example how is it that we have a supposedly "progressive" channel on Sirius and 24/7 on MSNBC and now NBCLX etc. and we still have no indigenous voices given a show of even an hour per month to have on guests and present current situations facing indigenous people here in the US? But I'm so old that I can remember how ridiculous it was for the TV moguls back in the 60's/'70's to schedule "public affairs" programs with black hosts/guests to run only at 4:00 a.m. on Sunday if they had any show at all.

[Bayard]

17. I agree

The U.S. has never been held accountable for what they did to the indigenous people here. The history is horrifying, and most everyday citizens know nothing about it, or current affairs.

[Hortensis]

22. But we're NOT ignoring our past and continuing its actions against...etc.

And you've interjected mention into this thread about a Nazi mass murderer, so what you apparently see as a moral and intellectual duty to note at every point is covered here too.

[moniss]

24. I have

absolutely no idea how you could be so confused about my post. It clearly states that it is not in response to DU comments and it should be clear to anyone that it was observational about an additional genocide.

[alphafemale]

28. There are also still people alive who lynched African Americans

Carolyn Bryant Donham is only 87

She's the one who caused Emmett Till to be murdered.

Let's put her on trial for murder.

I'm sure we could find many more.

[Demsrule86]

40. It took more than 30 years and three trials to convict Medger evers killer Byron De La Beckwith.

Should we have let him go because he was an old man? He died in prison.

[Joinfortmill]

34. Amen

[Hortensis]

23. She worked two years in a death camp knowing its purpose was

to exterminate Jews, Gypsies, defective members of the super race, etc.

I do not share the stated notion of what constitutes an excuse for not getting sick and going home to her mother. Or imagine that just anyone would settle in to process genocide efficiently. Some would. Some would not. She's the former.

And again, what on earth does being 95 have to do with guilt? If she was guilty of killing babies and 95-year-olds at 17-19, did her guilt eventually just decompose into unidentifiable dust like the bones of the children in the mass graves?

[Demsrule86]

36. Excellent post and so true. She had no mercy for the elderly or the children.

[Polybius]

30. I agree

I think there should be a statute of limitations on murder, such as 50 years.

[Demsrule86]

37. I dont. She should have been prosecuted earlier. She is a monster.

[Joinfortmill]

35. Agree.

[brooklynite]

14. Unless she's been hiding in Argentina, isn't his a little late?

[Demsrule86]

32. The Nazis spared no aged folks. These jobs were manned by volunteers,

[Bayard]

18. 95 years old....

What are they going to do, put her in prison? She was a kid in that time.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

20. Not prison. Put her in a juvenile detention center. She was 17 at the time.

She's 95, let her go.

[Demsrule86]

38. How many old people and children did she help murder? People were beaten to death , shot

or gassed. Maybe they would like to have died a peaceful death surrounded by their families.

[Hortensis]

21. Good! Clerical criminals are criminals, and participants in genocide are mass murderers.

As for living to 95 before being brought to justice? That's being extremely fortunate, not becoming less guilty.

She was an active participant in mass murder and should have gone to prison as a young woman, sentence taking into account the circumstances of her crimes. These last 70 years that she got to live and live free, a whole lifetime, are 70 years that she took away from her long-dead victims.

[NurseJackie]

39. I have mixed feelings about this.

One one hand... and then on the other hand... and then on the other hand... well, it's all there in the story.