Irmgard Furchner spent more than a year in court as prosecutors presented their case against her in what may have been the last trial for Nazi war crimes.
A 97-year-old former secretary of the SS commander of the Stutthof concentration camp in Nazi Germany has been found guilty of complicity in 10,505 deaths.
Irmgard Furchner spent more than a year in court in Germany as prosecutors presented their case against her in what was perhaps the final Nazi war crimes trial.
Tuesday morning, Judge Dominik Gross announced the verdict, and the Itzehoe state court suspended Furchner’s sentence for two years.
He stated that the defendant was found guilty of assisting in the murders of 10,505 individuals and five attempted murders in the Stutthof concentration camp in what is now Poland.
In her capacity as a stenographer and typist in the camp commandant’s office, she “aided and abetted those in control of the camp in the methodical murdering of people interned there between June 1943 and April 1945,” according to the prosecution.
During the trial, Furchner mostly declined to answer questions, but in her closing statement, she expressed remorse for what had occurred and regretted being present at the time.
The so-called “secretary of evil” was only 18 years old when she began working for the commandant of the Stutthof concentration camp, where over 60,000 people perished.
Given her age at the time of the crimes, she was convicted under juvenile law.
The defense attorneys requested that she be acquitted, arguing that the evidence did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Furchner was aware of the systematic killings in the concentration camp, hence there was no proof of purpose as required for criminal responsibility.
Dr. Wolf Molkentin, counsel for the defendant, told that an appeal will be considered “since there are some legal questions that have not been resolved today.”
Corpses were openly transported through the camp.
“It was difficult not to know what was happening,” Stutthof survivor Manfred Goldberg told that she was unaware of the atrocities occurring there.
Corpses were openly transported through the camp.
Siobhan Robbins, who visited Stutthof and stood in the former secretary’s office with a window overlooking the camp, found the defense hard to accept.
“According to historians, sick, famished, and terrified captives would have passed by the building daily. Some may have been stripped naked, but she said she was unaware and hadn’t seen them. She was likewise unaware of the screams coming from the gas chambers or the bodies hanging outside.
“Then there were the fires – first from the crematorium, which burnt 24 hours a day, and when that wasn’t enough, the Nazis heaped and burned bodies outside. It would have been impossible to overlook the foul odor.
“Nearly eighty years later, the falsehood was exposed and a guilty judgment was rendered, illustrating that justice has no time limit and that age is no defense.”
Maxi Wantzen, the public prosecutor, told that it was “necessary and important” to continue with cases like Furchner’s “even today… not only for the survivors but also for today’s and future generations, to remind them of what happened and to ensure that we never forget.”
“According to German law, there is no statute of limitations for murder. I believe it is essential that we all remember this.”
Christoph Heubner, executive vice president of the International Auschwitz Committee, stated, “It is a process of healing… Germans have, for a very, very long time, preferred to speak about the victims rather than those guilty of all the evil.
“It is time we discuss this in Germany as well. And the instances are as follows: After her time at Stutthof, she has lived in German society and the center of society.
“It was a very human approach, looking into the life of this elderly woman and attempting to comprehend what happened to her after she left Stutthof and entered a type of normal life. I wish the court had examined the lives of the survivors and those who have awaited these court cases for the majority of their life with the same intensity.”
