Nazi Hitman Goes on Trial

Klaas Carel Faber can continue to live in freedom in Germany

(AP) - An 89-year-old German man considered one of the most prominent Nazi war crimes suspects alive won't be extradited to the Netherlands and can continue to live in freedom, according to German officials. Klaas Carel Faber was convicted in 1947 of complicity in 22 murders and for aiding the Netherlands' Nazi occupiers during World War II. He was handed a death sentence that was later commuted to life in prison, at least until he escaped in 1952, and fled to Germany where he has lived in freedom ever since. More»

Klaas Faber, 88, is now living in Germany

(NEWSER) - The Netherlands has issued a European arrest warrant for Klaas Carel Faber, a convicted Nazi war criminal who escaped from prison nearly 60 years ago, the Telegraph reports. Faber, 88, was part of an SS unit that committed summary executions of Dutch civilians for being either Jewish or "anti-German"—that is, sympathetic to the resistance. He was sentenced to death in 1947 by a Dutch court for the murder of 22 individuals; the sentence was commuted to life in prison. More»

Boere says he had no choice but to kill Dutch civilians

(NEWSER) - A former Nazi hitman on trial in Germany confessed to killing three Dutch civilians but offered prosecutors a familiar excuse. "As a simple soldier, I learned to carry out orders," Heinrich Boere told the court. "And I knew that if I didn't carry out my orders I would be breaking my oath and would be shot myself." More»

(NEWSER) - A former commander in Adolf Hitler's army has been sentenced to life imprisonment for a massacre in Italy he ordered 65 years ago, the BBC reports. In what is expected to be one of the very last Nazi trials, a Munich court found Joseph Scheungraber guilty of murder in the killing of 10 Italian civilians in reprisal for partisan attacks. The victims were herded into a barn, which was then blown up. A 15-year-boy survived and testified at Scheungraber's trial. More»

Germany probing 1944 massacre in occupied France

(NEWSER) - German police have raided the homes of six former SS soldiers suspected of having taken part in the worst massacre of civilians in Nazi-occupied France. A German war crimes prosecutor says the John Demjanjuk trial inspired him to reopen the investigation into the massacre of 642 men, women, and children in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane four days after the D-Day landings in 1944, Der Spiegel reports. More»