Trial Of 96 Year Old Former Nazi Secretary

[naomi24]

A former secretary at a Nazi concentration camp has been captured after trying to flee before her trial in northern Germany. Irmgard Furchner, 96, charged with complicity in 11,000 murders, fled her care home and failed to turn up at court. She has since been discovered and arrested and is awaiting trial.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58747082

The question is should she stand trial after all these years and at her advanced age - or is it too late?

[douglas9401]

Simon Wiesenthal, shurely.

[ynnafymmi]

Nothing to do with the question,but my old dad when a prisoner of war in eastern Germany in the latter stages of WW2 saw what Stalins socialists did to their own prisoners of war i.e.murdered them wholesale,my old dad transformed from a rampant socialist to a rampant Tory overnight.,

[Redhelen72]

Just a thought wasn’t this woman a secretary?

[Khandro]

Doug; //Simon Wiesenthal, shurely.// Correct,
& stop calling me shurely :0)

[naomi24]

Any chance of you keeping an eye on the news and updating us, Khandro? I would be interested in the outcome of this but I'm not sure it will be widely reported here.

[1ozzy]

So what are your thoughts Naomi?
Still waiting

[naomi24]

Still waiting, 1ozzy? I can't think what that means You haven't asked me before.

My thoughts are that, on pain of her life, I very much doubt she had a choice of employment. The Nazis weren't renowned for possessing a sympathetic ear.

[1ozzy]

I doubt she had much choice Naomi, so why after all these years should she be hounded into court for crimes committed that she (possibly) had no say in?

[naomi24]

That's what I said. On the other hand she may have been utterly complicit - perhaps indoctrinated by the Hitler Youth movement - something the court must decide.

[1ozzy]

I think leave the old lady alone to finish her life.
But, she may have been complicit.
Doubt it but,
who knows?

[Peter Pedant]

// Some murderers would heave a sigh of relief to know that the passage of time offers a winning post,//

yeah see above because oral memory differs often from written record. Obvious door for defence - recollect that because there are dead bodies around you doesnt meant you committed murder

Perjury - deffo - perjury cases have been chucked out because it was so long ago ( Bartels )

[Peter Pedant]

War Crime - on which she has been indicted ( I think)
has a varied history ( here )

Deffo an crime at international law ( Nuremburg etc) but THEN the wigs and scribblers in London found it was not a crime at English common law
whooooooops ( long whoops wivva jiggle in it)

So a bill was brought in - 1993 and it was necessary to back date it. Make what was NOT a crime in 1940, now a crime
going backwards yeah ( I must remember this is AB)
Lawful in english common law - not lawful at euro-law (*)
A lot of squawking about it by the Law Lords
and there has been so far one case in the UK
cost £50m I think, and he was acquitted.....

(*) making a law go backwards

[Peter Pedant]

thank god no one understands my posts
because .....
if they did they wouldnt like it AT ALL

[naomi24]

//I think leave the old lady alone to finish her life.//

It's a difficult one because if she was complicit, there's the argument that very many of those tortured and murdered had no opportunity to grow old. Babies went to the gas chambers. And if she is found guilty, what are they going to do with her? Jail her? At her age I doubt it - and to what purpose anyway? Perhaps it will be enough that her past catches up with her.

[Khandro]

Has anyone yet pointed to the flaw in the OP ?
Calling her a secretary makes her sound of a higher status than she was; she was an 18 year old typist.

[dannyk13]

Khandro, in the link the BBC describes her as a secretary

[naomi24]

Almost all the news outlets describe her as a secretary, Khandro. I don't see the relevance in nit-picking.

[Ellipsis]

> complicity in 11,000 murders

That's the charge ... quite a serious one and, if she's guilty, she's gotten away with it for a lifetime - until now. Germany's laws, based on their problematic war record which I have no experience of, so Germany's problem to deal with it if you ask me.

[Peter Pedant]

// Some murderers would heave a sigh of relief to know that the passage of time offers a winning post, //

yes ..... yes andie!
I quite agree
and only yesterday, a Tommy was indicted for murder of an irishman whilst he was in the Army, during the troubles in the seventies

yes yes agreed - no guilty man can lie in his bed and die - - the ex Tommy is terminal - without the threat of lawful retribution still hanging over his guilty paliasse....

( whistles and awaits the squawks of the aryan usual suspects.....)

[Khandro]

It appears she gave evidence in the trial of Hoppe 70 years ago & nothing was alleged of her involvement then;

§§§ SS officer Paul Werner Hoppe, was convicted of his role in the camp and sentenced to nine years in prison by a West German court in 1957. He died in 1974.

As evidence during that investigation, given nearly 70 years ago, Furcher acknowledged working for Hoppe but said he knew nothing about the gas chambers.

The state court of Itzehoe, in northern Germany, said in a statement that the suspect allegedly ‘aided and instigated those responsible for the camp in the systematic murder of those imprisoned there between June 1943 and April 1945 in her role as stenographer. and typist in the field commander’s office. §§§

n.b. not a 'secretary'.