Dutch SS officer finally faces German court

[JJHH]

Dutch SS officer finally faces German court

Published on : 28 October 2009 - 3:02pm | By Laurens Boven

Almost 65 years after the end of the Second World War, an 88-year-old former Dutch SS officer finally faced a German court today. Back in 1949, Heinrich Boere was convicted in the Netherlands of the murder of three innocent civilians, but he avoided prison by fleeing to Germany.

Today’s case was adjourned almost immediately following accusations that the Public Prosecutor is biased.

On 3 September 1944, the doorbell rang at the home of Teun de Groot in town of Voorschoten near The Hague. The 41-year-old bicycle repair man and father of five opened the door to two men in plain clothes. They asked if his name was De Groot, when he said it was, they shot him dead without another word.

Teun de Groot was the victim of Operation Silbertanne, in which the Nazi occupiers killed more than 50 innocent Dutch civilians in 1943 and 1944, in reprisal for resistance attacks. "The whole point of Operation Silbertanne was to spread terror and to intimidate people," says Teun de Groot jr. on the eve of the trial in Aachen of Heinrich Boere, his father’s murderer.

Heinrich Boere and his comrades murdered more than 50 people within a year. Every time a German occupier or Dutch collaborator was killed, the German intelligence service ordered three Dutch civilians to be shot dead. A list of names of potential victims was provided by the Dutch Nazi movement, the NSB.

Family torn apart
His father's murder ruined Teun de Groot jr.’s life. He does not remember much about that day: "Just that my uncle told me and I cried an awful lot." Mr De Groot jr. was only 11 years old and the murder turned his life upside down. "Our whole family was torn apart. My mother couldn’t cope. Emotionally I was on my own after that." A couple of years later, he was placed with foster parents.

After the war, Heinrich Boere was arrested and sent to the southern Province of Limburg to do forced labour. He escaped and went into hiding in the Netherlands and later fled across the border to Germany. In 1949, he was sentenced to death in absentia by a Dutch court for the murder of three Dutch civilians, one of them was Teun de Groot. His sentence was later commuted to life.”

Safe in Germany
Boere has, however, not served a day of his sentence. He knew he was safe at his home in the small town of Eschweiler near Cologne in Germany. It was 1980 before his past caught up with him. The Netherlands requested his extradition, but this was refused after a few years of legal wrangling. The German authorities cited a 1943 decree in which Adolf Hitler gave all members of the SS German nationality. Boere was able to escape prison in the Netherlands because, under German law, its citizens cannot be extradited.

At the time, he was also not brought to trial in Germany itself. Detlef Hartmann is Teun de Groot’s lawyer. He is still angry at the position adopted by the German justice authorities in the 1980s: “Judicial proceedings were suspended in 1984. The public prosecutor decided that reprisal measures such as the Operation Silbertanne murders were not culpable because the Dutch Resistance had also done terrible things. That sort of argument is too ridiculous for words.”

The case was only reopened in 2003, when the Netherlands requested that Boere should serve his sentence in Germany. The German authorities also turned this request down. They did, however, agree to start new proceedings against him. This time the public prosecutor in charge of the case was Ulrich Maass, a generation younger than his colleagues from the 1980s. “I see it differently from them,” he says, explaining the differing positions. It still took another few years before it was decided whether the geriatric Boere was well enough to stand trial. The German Constitutional Court has now come out with a definitive ‘yes’.

Strengthen the prosecution
Today, Wednesday, was to be the biggest day of Mr De Groot’s life: “A really special day. The day I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. It’s fantastic that he’s going to appear before a judge. And a German judge at that.” Mr De Groot is the official secondary prosecutor in the trial, with the right to read the court papers and even address the court. “I hope to strengthen the prosecution case and give the family’s side of the story. I will definitely have something to say to Boere himself.” With today’s adjournment, he will have to wait a little longer to do this.

Boere does not deny being involved in the Operation Silbertanne murders. Last year, in an interview with the German weekly, Focus, he said: “Yes, I got rid of those people. I had to do it.” On the question of whether he found it difficult to pull the trigger, he answered: “Oh no, it wasn’t hard. All I had to do was move my finger.”

Source: http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/dutch-ss-officer-finally-faces-german-court

[oregongrunt]

Did they find that 88 year old man in a nursing home or something?

[my name again]

Did they find that 88 year old man in a nursing home or something?

What? Do you mean if you get old all your crimes are forgiven?

[rafus]

He should be punished but it will be rather difficult to put him in jail.

[Switek]

Punishment yes!, but without revenge. I'd love to see this man sentenced not necessary jailed.

[largewar]

Did they find that 88 year old man in a nursing home or something?

If not, he probably needs such a room now!
Now we just missing Søren Kam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kam

[PhillyMobster]

What amazes me about this is that the German's actually recognized a decree passed by Hitler. I would have thought after the war, his decrees and orders would have been overturned.

[Cipher]

Did they find that 88 year old man in a nursing home or something?
As the great poet Aaliyah once said, "age ain't nothing but a number".

[SniperLane]

What amazes me about this is that the German's actually recognized a decree passed by Hitler. I would have thought after the war, his decrees and orders would have been overturned.

x2

........

[rgjbloke]

Have to say, he should have been in a Dutch or German prison years ago. At 88 years of age though, I can't see there is much they can do to him now. He will get a conviction for murder on his record but apart from that, what else are you going to do to really punish a man of that age?

[Zarak]

Have to say, he should have been in a Dutch or German prison years ago. At 88 years of age though, I can't see there is much they can do to him now. He will get a conviction for murder on his record but apart from that, what else are you going to do to really punish a man of that age?

Yeah, seriously. They could put him in an Old People's Home and not allow him to eat the Jello for desert...

[toki]

What amazes me about this is that the German's actually recognized a decree passed by Hitler. I would have thought after the war, his decrees and orders would have been overturned.

If you're granted German nationality/citizenship, it doesn't matter in which era it was granted. It will always hold value. Granting citizenship isn't unlawful from todays standpoint.
It's not that everything would be overturned.

We accept German citizenship of Volga Germans, who transfered to Russia in mid 18th century to follow some settlement politics and lived there in a Germans enclave since.
Though the ancestry laws are rather complicated, you won't get German citizenship if your grandpa emmigratd and voluntarily gave up his citizenship.

[OrangeWolf]

Screw that citizenship law and formalities, they should have kidnapped him and brought him to the Netherlands decades ago.

What a coward, for not facing justice and for siding with the enemy so he could kill innocent civilians. He did not just take orders, he shot civilians, "bevel was bevel" (an order was an order) my ass. And even today he shows no respect to the relatives.

A stain on our people, I hope this parasite will be locked up, slowly seeing his body decline in strength as he approaches a lonely death, fully aware he accomplished nothing to help a fellow human being. Life sentence should be the minimum!

[Fade]

Nazi suspect proud of service
By David Rising, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

AACHEN, Germany (AP) — A man accused of murdering Dutch civilians as a member of a Waffen SS hit squad said at his trial Friday that he was proud about being chosen as a volunteer to fight for the Nazis.

Heinrich Boere, 88, made his first comments to the Aachen state court since his trial opened at the end of October. As part of that SS unit, he is charged with killing a bicycle-shop owner, a pharmacist and another civilian. He faces a possible sentence of life in prison if convicted.

Boere said he remembered his mother waking him up the night in 1940 that Germany invaded his hometown in the Netherlands and seeing Stuka dive-bombers overhead.

Instead of fearing the German bombs, Boere, whose father was Dutch and mother German, said his family was elated as the attack unfolded.

“(My mother) said ‘they’re coming’ now things will be better,” he told the court, speaking animatedly to the panel of judges.

“It was better,” he added later.

Boere was born in Eschweiler, Germany, on the outskirts of Aachen where he lives today, but moved to the Netherlands when he was an infant.

After the Germans had overrun his hometown of Maastricht and the rest of the Netherlands, he remembers as an 18-year-old seeing a recruiting poster for the Waffen SS, signed by Heinrich Himmler. It offered German citizenship after two years of service and the possibility of becoming a policeman after that.

He showed up with 100 other Dutchmen at the recruitment office and was one of 15 chosen.

“I was very proud,” Boere told the court in a statement read by his attorney before he answered questions from the presiding judge.Article continued at http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2009/11/27/11951241-ap.html

[OrangeWolf]

He's a war criminal, and also a criminal because he was member of a criminal organization. He will die in prison, or at least as a prisoner. And he will hopefully die realizing that he, just like his traitor friends, never did anything good in their life other than their last breath.

EDIT:
btw there's another thread about this http://militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=167768

[juliannicholas]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8381413.stm


Nightmarish memories of Nazis' Sobibor death camp

Steve Rosenberg visits the site of the Sobibor death camp

John Demjanjuk is due to stand trial in Germany accused of helping to murder more than 27,000 Jews at the Nazi death camp of Sobibor in occupied Poland. The BBC's Steve Rosenberg returns to the site of the camp with one man who survived its horrors.
In the Jewish cemetery in the town of Izbica, 84-year-old Philip Bialowitz shows me a battered gravestone among a tangle of bushes.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gif http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46812000/jpg/_46812583_bialowitz226.jpg
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/start_quote_rb.gif In Sobibor life was hell. But we took revenge. We escaped to tell the world what had happened http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/end_quote_rb.gif


Philip Bialowitz

"This is the place where I was shot," he tells me. "I was brought here with a group of people and we were shot with machine-guns."
The Nazis murdered 4,000 Jews in the cemetery. Philip's mother was killed here. But her son had a remarkable escape. Lined up with other Jewish prisoners by the side of a freshly dug grave, he jumped in as soon as the bullets started to fly.
"I fell down and pretended I was dead. I made myself room to breathe. Many people were screaming. They were injured. I couldn't help them. I lay there a few hours covered in blood. Then I managed to get out."
A few months later, Philip was rearrested, together with his brother, his two sisters and his niece. This time they were not taken to the cemetery. They were transported to Sobibor.
"We knew that Sobibor was a death camp," Philip recalls. "We'd heard. So when they took us on the road to Sobibor we knew that this is the end of our life."
Sobibor was one of three secret killing factories built by the Nazis in eastern Poland. In 18 months, a quarter of a million Jews were transported here and murdered in the gas chambers. Their bodies were incinerated, their ashes buried in pits.
It is here that John Demjanjuk is accused of being a guard and of helping to kill 27,900 Jews. His trial begins next week in Munich. John Demjanjuk denies the charges.
Slave labourers
I go with Philip to Sobibor.
"Every inch of this ground is holy," he tells me. We're standing on waste ground; little remains of the camp.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46809000/gif/_46809747_sobibor_466.gif
1. Officers' compound
2. Accommodation and workshops for Jewish slave labourers
3. Selection area where new arrivals had their belongings and clothing taken and new slave labourers were chosen
4. The majority of arrivals were led naked at gunpoint down a path known as the Tube
5. At the end of the Tube were the gas chambers, where they were killed

Source: Holocaust Research Project

"This is where the people perished, where they were gassed, where they were burned."
When Philip Bialowitz was transported here, an SS officer selected him and his brother Simcha to be slave labourers. It would delay their death sentence. The brothers were then separated from their relatives.
"We said goodbye to them. Even my seven-year-old niece knew she was going to die."
As a Jewish slave labourer, Philip had to help unload the transports of Jews arriving at Sobibor and remove the bodies of dead passengers.
"One Sunday, a German guard took 10 of us to help unload a transport. The smell was terrible. He told me to take people out of the wagon. When I pulled out a woman, her skin remained in my hands. I still have nightmares about that episode," he says.
While Polish Jews like Philip knew Sobibor was a death camp when they got here, Jews arriving from other countries had little idea what lay in store.
"Jews from Holland were deceived by the Nazis into thinking they were going to be resettled," says Philip.
"I helped them out of the trains with all their baggage. My heart was bleeding knowing that in half an hour they would be reduced to ashes. I couldn't tell them. I wasn't allowed to speak. Even if I told them, they would not believe they were going to die.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46812000/jpg/_46812607_sign226.jpg There are little physical remains of the camp at Sobibor

"The Gestapo man welcomed them and apologised for the inconvenience of travel. He said that because of typhus they had to take a disinfection. They must undress. 'But before you undress,' he said, 'I would strongly recommend you send home postcards to your dear ones that you are here in a nice place.' So people were clapping. Some even cheered 'Bravo!'."
Naked, at gunpoint, the Jews were herded down a path through the forest. It led not to the shower rooms, but to the gas chambers.
"A few minutes later the whole camp heard screams. First loud and strong. And later subsiding, until we didn't hear anything. This went on every day."
'Biggest victory'
But one remarkable day the Jews of Sobibor fought back.
On 14 October 1943, the slave labourers launched an uprising. It was led by a Polish Jew, Leon Feldhendler, and a Russian Jewish POW, Sasha Pechersky.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gif http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/start_quote_rb.gif We took revenge. We escaped to tell the world what had happened http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/end_quote_rb.gif


Philip Bialowitz

Their escape plan exploited the Nazis' greed. Slave labourers, whose job it was to sort the clothes of murdered Jews, put aside the best items. These were then used to lure the SS guards into traps one by one.
"I was one of the messengers," remembers Philip. "I went up to a Gestapo and told him, 'I've been sent to tell you they found a very beautiful leather coat and boots for you. Come to the warehouse to try it on'. When they went in, they were killed with knives and axes."
The Jews killed 12 SS men before the plot was discovered.
In the chaos which followed, more than 300 of the 600 Jewish slave workers broke out of the camp. Many were killed by mines or shot dead. Around 50 escapees survived till the end of the war.
After the uprising, the Nazis murdered the Jews who had stayed behind. Then, to try to conceal the systematic slaughter they had carried out here, they pulled down the death camp.
After escaping from Sobibor, Philip and his brother Simcha took refuge on a farm near their home town of Izbica. A Polish farmer risked his life by hiding them under his barn. They remained there for a year. Once the war was over, Philip began a new life in America, his brother Simcha in Israel.
"In Sobibor life was hell," Philip says. "But we took revenge. We escaped to tell the world what had happened. And I made a victory over the Germans. I created a new family of five children and 14 grandchildren. This is my biggest victory."
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46813000/jpg/_46813432_008080791-1.jpg Sobibor was a Nazi extermination camp in the Lublin region of occupied Poland

[EMC Andy]

He's a war criminal, and also a criminal because he was member of a criminal organization. He will die in prison, or at least as a prisoner. And he will hopefully die realizing that he, just like his traitor friends, never did anything good in their life other than their last breath.

EDIT:
btw there's another thread about this http://militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=167768

Are you saying we Germans are all war criminals?

My grand father and two of my uncles served in WW2 and I just want to know what are you meaning with your statement?

[BafuD]

Criminals offcourse should be punished, but like others guys said, at that age what can they do to him. And all who says he's criminal and he should die in jail, there can easily be dozens of files what includes allied soldiers with some nasty stuff. It's not only the guys who served at the nazi-germany side.

[congofal]

I am always amazed at the fact that everyone always brings up the millions of jews killed by the Nazi Regime but no one ever brings up the millions of jews killed by the Soviet Regime.

[BafuD]

And millions of other people from baltic countries and so on. Many of my classmates haven't even ever heard about these.

[congofal]

Plus the 1,100,000 repatriated Soviet nationals killed between 1943-47 by Stalin's orders.

[OrangeWolf]

Are you saying we Germans are all war criminals?

My grand father and two of my uncles served in WW2 and I just want to know what are you meaning with your statement?

He was a member of the Waffen-SS, in its entirety classified as a criminal organization. He joined an army which was at war with his nation. He was German-born but a Dutch citizen.

[BafuD]

And they said Hitler was a bad man. And btw, it was Himmler who ordered these death-camps to be build, not Hitler. =P

[tyovan]

Lock him up in a prison for the rest of his miserable life. Even after 60 years of living in a totally different world, he still can not see that what he did was wrong. If he expressed any remorse, I'm sure people would feel differently about his case. But he's still proud of collaborating with the most evil regime in human history and murdering innocent civilians.

He's scum.

[LineDoggie]

Criminals offcourse should be punished, but like others guys said, at that age what can they do to him. And all who says he's criminal and he should die in jail, there can easily be dozens of files what includes allied soldiers with some nasty stuff. It's not only the guys who served at the nazi-germany side.I believe Orangewolf was referencing the fact that the SS(& obviously the Waffen-SS was a part of it) was declared a criminal organization during the Nuremburg trials. As such only those Conscripted into the Waffen-SS were exempted from being labeled criminals.

[Telmar]

I am always amazed at the fact that everyone always brings up the millions of jews killed by the Nazi Regime but no one ever brings up the millions of jews killed by the Soviet Regime.

You will continue to be amazed a long time. Until you actually get the point.:roll:

[Indiana Jones]

I am always amazed at the fact that everyone always brings up the millions of jews killed by the Nazi Regime but no one ever brings up the millions of jews killed by the Soviet Regime.


Plus the 1,100,000 repatriated Soviet nationals killed between 1943-47 by Stalin's orders.
First off, it is supremely unlikely that the Jewish victims of the Soviet regime numbered in the millions. Mind you, the Soviet Union did murder millions of other people, but in any case we should stick to the facts.
Secondly, the crimes of the Soviet Union should have no bearing on how we decide to handle this issue. Of course it is too late for any real semblance of justice, but he if he is found guilty of what he is accused of, better late than never.
Best regards,
IJ.

[fooj]

He has already had 60 plus years of peaceful, maybe even prosperous living that he was not entitled to. He's at the end of his life now, even if convicted and jailed, justice may never be served.

[OrangeWolf]

I believe Orangewolf was referencing the fact that the SS(& obviously the Waffen-SS was a part of it) was declared a criminal organization during the Nuremburg trials. As such only those Conscripted into the Waffen-SS were exempted from being labeled criminals.

Right. If I remember correctly the US didn't consider some parts of Baltic units as hostile. But there were volunteers in those units.

This guy joined the army of a country his country was at war with (though he was ethnically a German). A traitor right there. Second he murdered and targeted civilians. Third he was part of a criminal organization which was involved in the holocaust, he went through all the racial indoctrination and what not. And still no shame. A war criminal, a member of a criminal organization, and no regrets.... geez what else is there to say.

I don't mean this literally, but he should "hang", sitting the rest of his life behind bars that is.

[Connaught Ranger]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20091208/tts-uk-germany-nazi-trial-ca02f96.html
Former SS man confesses to killing Dutch civilians

1 hour 34 mins ago
http://l.yimg.com/i/i/uk/ne/reute.jpg (http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/*******online/SIG=114rh0n4s/**http%3A%2F%2Fwww.*******.co.uk%2F)

Buzz Up!
Print Story (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20091208/tts-uk-germany-nazi-trial-ca02f96.html?printer=1)


An 88-year-old former SS death squad member admitted in a German court on Tuesday that he had killed three Dutch civilians in World War Two but said he had been following orders.

Heinrich Boere, who is on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's list of most wanted war crime (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/fc/crime-punishment.html) suspects from World War Two, went on trial in October in the western city of Aachen charged with the 1944 killings.

"His lawyer read a statement to the court which acknowledged he had shot dead the three civilians," said a spokesman for the Aachen court.

"He also said he was acting upon orders and that at the time, he had viewed this kind of behaviour as part of a war situation," added the spokesman.

Boere was captured by U.S. forces in the Netherlands after the war and confessed to killing the three Dutch civilians when he was a member of an SS squad targeting anti-Nazi resistance fighters.

Boere escaped and fled to Germany before being sentenced to death in absentia in the Netherlands in 1949. After refusing a 1980 Dutch extradition request, a German court indicted him in April 2008.

German media have reported that Boere and other members of the squad shot dead a chemist in his shop in the Dutch town of Breda, as well as a bicycle seller and another man in Voorschoten in the southern Netherlands.

The case has attracted wide international interest, not least because it has coincided with the case of John Demjanjuk, 89, who went on trial last week in Munich on charges of helping to kill 27,900 Jews at the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland.

Experts say a new generation of lawyers are seeking to prosecute the last remaining war crime suspects and are keen to improve Germany's patchy record of bringing former Nazis to justice.

In January, Boere's case nearly collapsed due to a court ruling that he was unfit for trial mainly due to a heart condition but the ruling was overturned on appeal. The proceedings will resume on Friday.

(Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Noah Barkin)



The same old excuses:- "but said he had been following orders. ":roll:

[Erkeengel]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20091208/tts-uk-germany-nazi-trial-ca02f96.html

The same old excuses:- "but said he had been following orders. ":roll:


Well technically, didn`t he ?

I agree that it is not an excuse that should be weightened in such a way that he does not get sentenced but I honestly wonder what alot of the members of this forum would have done in those times.

It is far to easy to sit comfortable today and judge peoples actions that happened along time ago.

I do of course not excuse his behavior but I will say that it is for sure possible that I might have been in his shoes and done the same thing if I was in his situation.

[Zarak]

I agree that it is not an excuse that should be weightened in such a way that he does not get sentenced but I honestly wonder what alot of the members of this forum would have done in those times.

The way people on this forum talk (real MILPER excluded) they'd have massacred anyone who gave them the stink eye. :roll:

[RSone]

He is guilty of both treason and war crimes and clearly so. I wonder why they didn't shoot the guy outright when the German forces surrendered.

This is one of those few cases I wish our governments were a bit more 'aggressive' in their persecution of war criminals.

[Connaught Ranger]

Well technically, didn`t he ?

I agree that it is not an excuse that should be weightened in such a way that he does not get sentenced but I honestly wonder what alot of the members of this forum would have done in those times.

It is far to easy to sit comfortable today and judge peoples actions that happened along time ago.

I do of course not excuse his behavior but I will say that it is for sure possible that I might have been in his shoes and done the same thing if I was in his situation.

Then you would have been a common murder just like him.

[Holycrusader]

Right. If I remember correctly the US didn't consider some parts of Baltic units as hostile. But there were volunteers in those units.

This guy joined the army of a country his country was at war with (though he was ethnically a German). A traitor right there. Second he murdered and targeted civilians. Third he was part of a criminal organization which was involved in the holocaust, he went through all the racial indoctrination and what not. And still no shame. A war criminal, a member of a criminal organization, and no regrets.... geez what else is there to say.

I don't mean this literally, but he should "hang", sitting the rest of his life behind bars that is.


Good posts Orangewolf... Send the guy to prison

[Erkeengel]

Then you would have been a common murder just like him.

Yes of course, though justification and motivation for ones actions is in the eye of the beholder, and in history of war as accountability is concerned probably influenced by who draws the longest straw and becomes the victorious part.

Either way, the key word in your sentence is "common", which was sort of my point.

[OrangeWolf]

http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/article1354742.ece/Levenslang_geeist_tegen_oud-sser_Boere

The piece of **** got a life sentence! No less would have been sufficient! May he rot in hospital prison!

[BLUE THOR]

Glad justice was served eventually, but shouldnt he have been returned to the Netherlands? I would expect his sentence to be commuted to life in prison, as I dont see the Dutch hanging people anymore, but he still should have been returned to be punished by the Dutch. Just my opinion. If only to set a precedent that war criminals will be sent to the country of their crimes to face the people they hurt directly or otherwise with their actions.

[JJHH]

http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/article1354742.ece/Levenslang_geeist_tegen_oud-sser_Boere

The piece of **** got a life sentence! No less would have been sufficient! May he rot in hospital prison!

My friend, the public Prosecutor is demanding a life sentence, there is no final judgment yet..

[OrangeWolf]

My friend, the public Prosecutor is demanding a life sentence, there is no final judgment yet..

Oh, my bad... WHY IS THIS PROCESS TAKING FOREVER

btw next in line to persecute is his freaking douche bag lawyer, what a disgusting individual. sorry that's my emotional response but I'd love to hit that guy in square in the balls.