Former Nazi worker, 97, escapes jail sentence after conviction for aiding 10,505 murders
A 97-year-old former secretary to the SS commander of Nazi Germany’s Stutthof concentration camp has been found guilty of being an accessory to 10,505 murders.
In perhaps the last ever Nazi war crimes trial, Irmgard Furchner attended court in Germany for more than a year as prosecutors outlined their case against her.
Judge Dominik Gross delivered the verdict on Tuesday morning and the Itzehoe state court handed Furchner a two-year suspended sentence.
The former Nazi German Stutthof concentration camp in Sztutowo, Poland
He said the defendant was found guilty of aiding the murders of 10,505 people, along with five cases of attempted murder in the Stutthof concentration camp in today’s Poland.
Prosecutors say she “aided and abetted those in charge of the camp in the systematic killing of those imprisoned there between June 1943 and April 1945 in her function as a stenographer and typist in the camp commandant’s office”.
Furchner largely refused to answer questions during the trial but said in her closing statement that she was sorry for what had happened and regretted that she had been there at the time.
The so-called “secretary of evil” was just 18 when she went to work for the commander of the Stutthof camp, where more than 60,000 people died.
She was sentenced under juvenile law, owing to her age at the time of the crimes.
Defence lawyers had asked for her to be acquitted, saying the evidence had not shown beyond doubt that Furchner knew about the systematic killings at the camp, meaning there was no proof of intent as required for criminal liability.
‘There were bodies carted openly through the camp’
Pic: AP
“It was impossible not to know what happened,” Stutthof survivor Manfred Goldberg told Sky News, disputing Furchner’s claim that she was not aware of the atrocities taking place there.
“There were bodies being carted openly through the camp.”
It was a defence many found hard to believe, says Sky News’ Europe correspondent Siobhan Robbins, who visited Stutthof and stood in the former secretary’s office, looking out of the window which has a view over the camp.
“Historians told us sick, starving, and terrified prisoners would have walked past the building every day. Some may have been stripped naked, yet she claimed she hadn’t seen them, wasn’t aware. She also hadn’t heard the screams from the gas chambers or been aware of the bodies hanging outside.
“And then there were the fires – first from the crematorium, which burned 24 hours a day, and then, when that couldn’t keep up with the demand, the Nazis stacked and burned bodies in piles outside. The stench would have been ghastly, impossible to miss.
“Almost 80 years on, the lie failed and the guilty verdict was handed down – proving justice has no time limit and age is no defence.”
Stutthof concentration camp
Perhaps as many as 100,000 people were deported to the Stutthof camp during the war.
Behind the electrified barbed-wire fences surrounding it, conditions were brutal.
Many prisoners died in typhus epidemics that swept through the population, while those deemed too weak or sick to work by the guards were killed.
Stutthof is also remembered for its final days as the Soviet Red Army closed in, and the harrowing events that took place as thousands of prisoners were moved by camp guards under the pretence of an “evacuation”.
Read more:
Ex-Nazi guard, 93, guilty over concentration camp mass murder
Holocaust survivors face past on royal tour of Stutthof concentration camp
Professor Rainer Schulze, a German historian and emeritus professor at the University of Essex, told Sky News: “They put them into little boats which they shoved into the Baltic Sea.
“And people died in those boats because of the exposure to the sun, no water, no food.”
The last Nazi war crimes trial?
In the chaos that swirled as the Second World War came to an end, many high-ranking Nazis fled abroad, while others returned to their normal lives.
In recent years, particularly following a change in German law, there have been a number of former concentration camp guards and staff members in their 80s and 90s put on trial accused of war crimes under the Nazi regime.
But Professor Schulze said Furchner’s trial would “probably in all likelihood be the last Nazi war crime trial”.
World
Body of missing rabbi Zvi Kogan found in UAE – as Israeli PM says he was murdered in ‘antisemitic terror incident’
The COP29 climate talks have reached a last ditch deal on cash for developing countries, pulling the summit back from the brink of collapse after a group of countries stormed out of a negotiating room earlier.
The slew of deals finally signed off in the small hours of Sunday morning in Azerbaijan includes one that proved hardest of all – one about money.
Eventually the more than 190 countries in Baku agreed a target for richer polluting countries such as the UK, EU and Japan to drum up $300bn a year by 2035 to help poorer nations both curb and adapt to climate change.
It is a far cry from the $1.3trn experts say is needed, and from the $500bn that vulnerable countries like Uganda had said they would be willing to accept.
But in the end they were forced to, knowing they could not afford to live without it, nor wait until next year to try again, when a Donald Trump presidency would make things even harder.
Bolivia’s lead negotiator Diego Pacheco called it an “insult”, while the Marshall Islands’ Tina Stege said it was “not nearly enough, but it’s a start”.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell said: “This new finance goal is an insurance policy for humanity, amid worsening climate impacts hitting every country.
“No country got everything they wanted, and we leave Baku with a mountain of work still to do. So this is no time for victory laps.”
The funding deal was clinched more than 24 hours into overtime, and against what felt like all the odds.
The talks were rocked from the start by the incoming presidency of climate denier Mr Trump, the moment Argentina’s team were recalled back to Buenos Aires by their right-wing president and a controversial letter that sent shockwaves through the United Nations.
Pic: AP
The fraught two weeks of negotiations pitted the anger of developing countries who are footing the bill for more dangerous weather that they did little to cause, against the tight public finances of rich countries.
A relieved Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, climate envoy for Panama, said there is “light at the end of the tunnel”.
Just hours ago, the talks almost fell apart as furious vulnerable nations stormed out of negotiations in frustration over that elusive funding goal.
They were also angry with oil and gas producing countries, who stood accused of trying to dilute aspects of the deal on cutting fossil fuels.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Climate-vulnerable nations storm out of talks
The UN talks work on consensus, meaning everyone has to agree for a deal to fly.
A row over how to follow up on last year’s pledge to “transition away from fossil fuels” was left unresolved and punted into next year, following objections from Chile and Switzerland for being too weak.
A draft deal simply “reaffirmed” the commitment but did not dial up the pressure in the way the UK, EU, island states and many others here wanted.
Saudi Arabia fought the hardest against any step forward on cutting fossil fuels, the primary cause of climate change that is intensifying floods, drought and fires around the world.
Governments did manage to strike a deal on carbon markets at COP29, which has been 10 years in the making and will allow countries to trade emissions cuts.
‘Not everything we wanted’
👉 Tap here to follow the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts 👈
The UK’s energy secretary, Ed Miliband, said the deal is “not everything we or others wanted”, but described it as a “step forward”.
“It’s a deal that will drive forward the clean energy transition, which is essential for jobs and growth in Britain and for protecting us all against the worsening climate crisis,” he added.
“Today’s agreement sends the signal that the clean energy transition is unstoppable.
“It is the biggest economic opportunity of the 21st century and through our championing of it we can help crowd in private investment.”
Protesters at the summit in Baku. Pic: AP
Read more:
Azerbaijan president hails oil and gas as ‘gift from God’
UN climate summits ‘no longer fit for purpose’
The Azerbaijan team leading COP29 said: “Every hour of the day, we have pulled people together. Every inch of the way, we have pushed for the highest common denominator.
“We have faced geopolitical headwinds and made every effort to be an honest broker for all sides.”
At least 20 people have been killed and 66 injured in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.
Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dig through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.
The attack destroyed an eight-storey residential building and badly damaged several others around it in the Basta neighbourhood at 4am (2am UK time) on Saturday.
The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut
The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack and has not commented on the casualties.
At least four bombs were dropped in the attack – the fourth targeting the city centre this week.
A separate drone strike in the southern port city of Tyre this morning killed two people and injured three, according to the state-run National News Agency.
The victims were Palestinian refugees from the nearby al Rashidieh camp who were out fishing, according to Mohammed Bikai, spokesperson for the Fatah Palestinian faction in the Tyre area.
Israel’s military warned residents today in parts of Beirut’s southern suburbs that they were near Hezbollah facilities, which the army would target in the near future. The warning, posted on X, told people to evacuate at least 500 metres away.
The army said that over the past day it had conducted intelligence-based strikes on Hezbollah targets in Dahiyeh, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. It said it hit several command centres and weapons storage facilities.
Pic: AP
Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.
Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, at least 3,670 people have been killed in Israeli attacks there, with more than 15,400 wounded.
It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.
Read more:
No 10 indicates Netanyahu would be arrested
‘Dozens’ of Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrike
Meanwhile, six people, including three children and two women, were killed in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis.
Some 44,176 Palestinians have been killed since the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, but it has said that more than half of the fatalities are women and children.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking another 250 hostage.
US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.
Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports8 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway