Nazi concentration camp secretary trial

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Ex-Nazi concentration camp secretary, 96, caught after fleeing before trial
A 96-year-old woman who worked as a secretary for a Nazi concentration camp commandant has been caught several hours after she absconded from her care home and missed the start of her trial in northern Germany.

Irmgard Furchnerwas 18 when she started work at Stutthof camp on the Baltic coast in the Nazi-occupied area of the Free City of Danzig. She was due to stand trial on Thursday on charges of aiding and abetting the murder of thousands of prisoners.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...i-concentration-camp-secretary-96-faces-trial

Looking beyond the Guardian's guff about her 'being on the run' and 'fleeing', despite being 96 year old, the case is interesting.

She was an 18 year typist, hardly someone making orders, so seems vindictive to pursue her. I can understand some will have zero sympathy, but her being 'complicit in the murder of thousands' seems a stretch.

Would the Caf put her on trial?
 

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Ex-Nazi concentration camp secretary, 96, caught after fleeing before trial


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...i-concentration-camp-secretary-96-faces-trial

Looking beyond the Guardian's guff about her 'being on the run' and 'fleeing', despite being 96 year old, the case is interesting.

She was an 18 year typist, hardly someone making orders, so seems vindictive to pursue her. I can understand some will have zero sympathy, but her being 'complicit in the murder of thousands' seems a stretch.

Would the Caf put her on trial?
It's juvenile court, so in all likelihood she won't go to jail (I assume?). But if she did willingly work at a concentration then I think it's perfectly fine to put her on trial. It's about sending the message that it's never too late for justice. In any case, I'm not sure just calling her a typist is completely fair. She was apparently the first secretary to the camp commander.

If she really did sign and send on orders of deportation to Auschwitz, for example, as is alleged, then she's culpable. She's not immediately responsible, but she's somewhere on the way to responsible.

(I should say, I'm solely going off the article you posted)
 

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It's juvenile court, so in all likelihood she won't go to jail (I assume?). But if she did willingly work at a concentration then I think it's perfectly fine to put her on trial. It's about sending the message that it's never too late for justice. In any case, I'm not sure just calling her a typist is completely fair. She was apparently the first secretary to the camp commander.

If she really did sign and send on orders of deportation to Auschwitz, for example, as is alleged, then she's culpable. She's not immediately responsible, but she's somewhere on the way to responsible.

(I should say, I'm solely going off the article you posted)
I have 0 sympathy for nazis, but so many people got caught on what it was the society of the moment that she was living in and at 18 years old and only being a secretary of a camp, it's hard to imagine she had any responsibility.
 

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I have 0 sympathy for nazis, but so many people got caught on what it was the society of the moment that she was living in and at 18 years old and only being a secretary of a camp, it's hard to imagine she had any responsibility.
She didn't pull any triggers or condemn any people to death, but she was (presumably) a willing cog in the machine. Nobody had to work at concentration camps, not even soldiers. We don't have to stick her in prison or anything, but a kind of symbolic sentence could be appropriate.
 

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It's juvenile court, so in all likelihood she won't go to jail (I assume?). But if she did willingly work at a concentration then I think it's perfectly fine to put her on trial. It's about sending the message that it's never too late for justice. In any case, I'm not sure just calling her a typist is completely fair. She was apparently the first secretary to the camp commander.

If she really did sign and send on orders of deportation to Auschwitz, for example, as is alleged, then she's culpable. She's not immediately responsible, but she's somewhere on the way to responsible.

(I should say, I'm solely going off the article you posted)
I agree that the passage of time doesn't diminish guilt, but just seemed like they're going for someone who was the tiniest of cogs.
I've no idea what the employment opportunities were like if you lived in a village near a camp, but you'd imagine it would end up being a big local employer.
 

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Would the Caf put her on trial?
It should do. She was complicit, paperwork, communications, orders would all have aided the proficient murder of Jews.

'She didn't know'. - This is what the ones alive and living in Germany and Austria at the time to mention just those 2 countries say. 'We had no idea, we didn't know'. I'm afraid that generation knew. It's frightening really, our own relatives were swept up in a madness that worries me if I would be any different in the same circumstance. What compelled them? Fear, terror or revenge of some sort?
 

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She didn't pull any triggers or condemn any people to death, but she was (presumably) a willing cog in the machine. Nobody had to work at concentration camps, not even soldiers. We don't have to stick her in prison or anything, but a kind of symbolic sentence could be appropriate.
Everybody was a cog in war times. She was, someone that worked in Siemens, Volkswagen, public administrations, schools, serving coffee to nazi soldiers

I agree, but there are levels and levels. And a 18 years old secretary... is low level of culpability. But thats just my opinion
 

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She initialled all the documents her boss asked her to type, the orders, death warrants, whatever. She also ended up marrying an SS officer. She knew what was going on.

Her reasons for not turning up at court were ironic - she didn't want to be humiliated, evidently. Humiliation is a small price to pay for having had the opportunity of a long life.

Any sentence she's given is meaningless at this stage, but having to stand up in court and hear the truth is important, even now.
 

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Normally I would say, yes go ahead and put her to trial.
But given Germany's protection of SS officers, war criminals, state solicitors, judges, murderers, their direct assistants, and all the other important clerks and collaborators in the Nazi era, I find all these trials grotesk and laughable.
 

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She was a teenager during the war, and is 96 now. There are so few of them left and very soon there won't be any Nazi trials anywhere in the world. I believe she should suffer some consequences, even at this very late stage.

Just a trial would be sufficient, to make her face up to what she was involved with back then. Give her a suspended sentence, but let everyone know about the part she played.
 

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Normally I would say, yes go ahead and put her to trial.
But given Germany's protection of SS officers, war criminals, state solicitors, judges, murderers, their direct assistants, and all the other important clerks and collaborators in the Nazi era, I find all these trials grotesk and laughable.
I agree with this post' sentiment. Low-level folks being held to trial while far more important people got away free.
 

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Everybody who worked at the camps did so through choice. There were plenty of other jobs available within the war machine. If you went to a camp, you knew what was going on and you chose to partake in it. She should get the harshest punishment available.
 

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Normally I would say, yes go ahead and put her to trial.
But given Germany's protection of SS officers, war criminals, state solicitors, judges, murderers, their direct assistants, and all the other important clerks and collaborators in the Nazi era, I find all these trials grotesk and laughable.
I don't really see the logic in saying that because people used to turn a blind eye frequently some 70-80 years ago we have to do the same now.
 

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It should do. She was complicit, paperwork, communications, orders would all have aided the proficient murder of Jews.

'She didn't know'. - This is what the ones alive and living in Germany and Austria at the time to mention just those 2 countries say. 'We had no idea, we didn't know'. I'm afraid that generation knew. It's frightening really, our own relatives were swept up in a madness that worries me if I would be any different in the same circumstance. What compelled them? Fear, terror or revenge of some sort?
Who knows? It might just have been that her old man got her job there and there were few other options or she felt pressured to take the job. Maybe she was a vengeful jew-hater who revelled in it, I've no idea.
It just seems a bit much going after teenagers who were merely following orders in an admin role. What about local carpenters who built the cabins in the camp? You can take it to the nth degree.
 

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I don't really see the logic in saying that because people used to turn a blind eye frequently some 70-80 years ago we have to do the same now.
Very valid point.

But, now I'm reading that the perpetrators shall never feel safe and shall always fear a persecution. My worry is that people actually start to believe that. My worry is that these trials, that have been paused pretty much since 1969 and have only been restarted in 2016 (ffs!!!, 2016!!!), may paint a different picture of how the German system of justice dealt with these criminals. My worry is that people may actually start to think or believe that most of the Nazis were actually put on trial in Germany.

The reality is that most of the Nazis have gotten away. Some due to negligence, some have been supported and actively protected. The legislation in the 60's in Germany effectively stopped any kind of persecution. Former Nazis became an integral part of the new republic. There were a few trials but the prosecutors in these cases were facing many obstacles in their work. So the reality is that most of the Nazis that survived the war lived a pretty good in life in Germany, they had their careers, a guy who joined Hitler's party in 1933 (!!) even became chancellor of Germany in 1966. I think we should accept that open, rotten and burning wound as part of the history and active consciousness of the FRG. (Because many governments after 1966 had to opportunity to change that, but didn't.)

So, there is a rule in the German legal system which says that there shall be no equality in injustice. But I find it laughable that you do not even charge 99,9 % of the perpetrators (many of them with actual power and influence), and you can still charge some imps of the system. Again, we shall live with that open, pestering wound - we should not pretend that we can establish any kind of justice now.
 

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I agree with this post' sentiment. Low-level folks being held to trial while far more important people got away free.
This has less to do with a high level/low level discrepancy (although there have obviously been cases like that, e.g. Albert Speer vs. Fritz Sauckel) but with the age factor. The reason that in recent years the last convictions were mainly low level figures is because the higher once have already been sentenced or have already died. The judiciary system was obviously a joke in terms of denazification in the first decades after the war but that should not mean that people should get off lightly now that it has finally improved in the last few decades.
 

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But I find it laughable that you do not even charge 99,9 % of the perpetrators (many of them with actual power and influence), and you can still charge some imps of the system. Again, we shall live with that open, pestering wound - we should not pretend that we can establish any kind of justice now.
Again, who is a high profile perpetrator right now alive that hasn't been sentenced? I agree with the rest of your post, especially with plenty of parties or organizations that decorate themselves with people in their history that had deep involvement in the NS times.
 

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Appropriate phrasing, considering WW2 established that merely following orders is not a defense.
That was for soldiers though, the article said it was a new recent precedent that allowed them to go for 'the machinery', so separate thing. I mean she typed letters.
Just to add, I'm pretty sure I've mentioned on here before that my grandfather was a POW in Germany during WWII, but forced to work down a mine rather than in a concentration camp - I don't have any sympathy for actual Nazis.
 

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She deserves to die in prison. She won’t, though.
 

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Very valid point.

But, now I'm reading that the perpetrators shall never feel safe and shall always fear a persecution. My worry is that people actually start to believe that. My worry is that these trials, that have been paused pretty much since 1969 and have only been restarted in 2016 (ffs!!!, 2016!!!), may paint a different picture of how the German system of justice dealt with these criminals. My worry is that people may actually start to think or believe that most of the Nazis were actually put on trial in Germany.

The reality is that most of the Nazis have gotten away. Some due to negligence, some have been supported and actively protected. The legislation in the 60's in Germany effectively stopped any kind of persecution. Former Nazis became an integral part of the new republic. There were a few trials but the prosecutors in these cases were facing many obstacles in their work. So the reality is that most of the Nazis that survived the war lived a pretty good in life in Germany, they had their careers, a guy who joined Hitler's party in 1933 (!!) even became chancellor of Germany in 1966. I think we should accept that open, rotten and burning wound as part of the history and active consciousness of the FRG. (Because many governments after 1966 had to opportunity to change that, but didn't.)

So, there is a rule in the German legal system which says that there shall be no equality in injustice. But I find it laughable that you do not even charge 99,9 % of the perpetrators (many of them with actual power and influence), and you can still charge some imps of the system. Again, we shall live with that open, pestering wound - we should not pretend that we can establish any kind of justice now.

You can only prosecute what's in front of you and for today's attorneys the only ones who are left to prosecute are the people who used to be teenagers in low level roles, everyone else is dead by now. You can still use their cases to create precedents that even these small cogs in the system were culpable and that this guilt will follow them into the grave. I think that's an important point to make and thus it's absolutely right to go after them.

I don't disagree with your points, but I think they are a separate issue, a wrong today's prosecutors can't make right. It's up to historians and interest groups to remind people.
 

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You can only prosecute what's in front of you and for today's attorneys the only ones who are left to prosecute are the people who used to be teenagers in low level roles, everyone else is dead by now. You can still use their cases to create precedents that even these small cogs in the system were culpable and that this guilt will follow them into the grave. I think that's an important point to make and thus it's absolutely right to go after them.

I don't disagree with your points, but I think they are a separate issue, a wrong today's prosecutors can't make right. It's up to historians and interest groups to remind people.
While we stand by and watch Guantanamo rumble on and countless state-sponsored persecutions and massacres around the globe.
 

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Again, who is a high profile perpetrator right now alive that hasn't been sentenced? I agree with the rest of your post, especially with plenty of parties or organizations that decorate themselves with people in their history that had deep involvement in the NS times.
I don't know - maybe there aren't any more out there - hopefully.

But, there are stille many open questions. We are talking about restitution of works of art (sometimes the are even stored in state museums); facilitated re-naturalisation of the children of jewish expellees; restitution of real estate, sometimes even still occupied by the heirs of Nazi henchmen; - there are still many legal issues that are unforgivably still open.

But these are all points that cost more and someone might actually be in danger of losing something.

On the other hand, this is about individual, very eager prosecutors (who certainly mean well), but they will not change anything. Nothing.

So, as someone said, well meant does not mean it's good.
 

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While we stand by and watch Guantanamo rumble on and countless state-sponsored persecutions and massacres around the globe.
We are talking about German prosecutors. Do they have any authority on the issues you mentioned?
 

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Surprised this is up for debate.

She was a part of the Nazi regime, she married an SS officer, no matter how little or large, she's complicit.
 

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We are talking about German prosecutors. Do they have any authority on the issues you mentioned?
Of course not know, but people are getting high and mighty about punishing historic things while turning a blind eye to current atrocities. One shouldn't preclude the other of course and I don't want to derail the thread.
 

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It's juvenile court, so in all likelihood she won't go to jail (I assume?). But if she did willingly work at a concentration then I think it's perfectly fine to put her on trial. It's about sending the message that it's never too late for justice. In any case, I'm not sure just calling her a typist is completely fair. She was apparently the first secretary to the camp commander.

If she really did sign and send on orders of deportation to Auschwitz, for example, as is alleged, then she's culpable. She's not immediately responsible, but she's somewhere on the way to responsible.

(I should say, I'm solely going off the article you posted)
Whether she's culpable or not, trying a 95 year old woman in a juvenile court for something that happened nearly 80 years seems a bit bizarre all the same.

Just reading there she married a senior member of the SS in 1945 and has been called to give evidence previously, denying all knowledge of the murders, which seems unlikely.
 

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If it were up to me I'd try and make the rest of this cnuts life as uncomfortable as possible.
 

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You say that like it was a crime in itself. Millions of blokes will have served the state in some capacity at the time.
Only the select Nazis were admitted to the SS, and even fewer were officers. He wasn't a soldier first, he was a Nazi first.
Recruits, who had to prove none of their ancestors were Jewish, received military training and were also taught they were the elite not only of the Nazi Party but of all humankind. By the start of World War II (1939-45), the SS had more than 250,000 members and multiple subdivisions, engaged in activities ranging from intelligence operations to running Nazi concentration camps. At the postwar Nuremberg trials, the SS was deemed a criminal organization for its direct involvement in war crimes.
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/ss
 

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You say that like it was a crime in itself. Millions of blokes will have served the state in some capacity at the time.
It's not a crime in itself, but it is one more piece to indicate that she wasn't as naive and innocent as she's claiming. As @Penna pointed out, to be an SS officer you had to be a seriously committed Nazi. No one blundered into being an officer in the SS.
 

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She was a teenager during the war, and is 96 now. There are so few of them left and very soon there won't be any Nazi trials anywhere in the world. I believe she should suffer some consequences, even at this very late stage.

Just a trial would be sufficient, to make her face up to what she was involved with back then. Give her a suspended sentence, but let everyone know about the part she played.
I completely get this point of view, but I thought the last paragraph of the article summed it up for me

Legal and history experts dealing with the Nazi era have described the court cases as largely symbolic, making up for decades in which the justice system failed to pursue many far more important figures involved in the Nazi regime. Owing to the advanced age of those on trial, none of them is likely to end up in prison.
This idea of getting the smallest cogs regardless of their role only really started in the last 5-10 years and it seems pretty harsh to me that truly complicit people can be sheltered by foreign governments, for example some of the Nazi scientists and how they were treated after the war in the US and other countries and companie like IBM can walk away scott free, while a woman who was employed as a juvenile in the camp is prosecuted.

This feels as though the victims of this awful era have been horribly let down.
 

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Appropriate phrasing, considering WW2 established that merely following orders is not a defense.
This.

Any cog in that wheel should be punished appropriately regardless the current age of the defendant or their position within the Nazi regime.

I second what @Carolina Red stated about her ‘ignorance.’
 

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Only the select Nazis were admitted to the SS, and even fewer were officers. He wasn't a soldier first, he was a Nazi first.

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/ss
It's not a crime in itself, but it is one more piece to indicate that she wasn't as naive and innocent as she's claiming. As @Penna pointed out, to be an SS officer you had to be a seriously committed Nazi. No one blundered into being an officer in the SS.
In the early days maybe, but the Death's Head division was mainly fat old retired cops and security guards and they even had an ill-fated Indian SS division at one point, undermining the racial purity line that Himmler touted.

https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Indische_Legion
 

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Who knows? It might just have been that her old man got her job there and there were few other options or she felt pressured to take the job. Maybe she was a vengeful jew-hater who revelled in it, I've no idea.
It just seems a bit much going after teenagers who were merely following orders in an admin role. What about local carpenters who built the cabins in the camp? You can take it to the nth degree.
She is going to trial, the court will determine her culpability.

I don't like this 'We were only obeying orders business'. Never have. Carpenters, secretaries, soldiers, whoever aided the murder of 6 million jews they should be tried. I'm sure you wouldn't want to tell me that you had some small hand in the efficient parcelling off of a race to the next life but were only obeying orders, not enjoying it, not the first each time to volunteer?
 

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In the early days maybe, but the Death's Head division was mainly fat old retired cops and security guards and they even had an ill-fated Indian SS division at one point, undermining the racial purity line that Himmler touted.

https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Indische_Legion
The Waffen-SS opened up recruitment / conscription of non-Aryans due to manpower shortages. They had no intention of integrating those people into their proposed Aryan dominated society after the war ended. They saw them as momentarily useful cannon fodder.