Nazi war crimes suspect, 96, caught after fleeing her trial hours before its start
- Judge had issued arrest warrant for Irmgard Furchner, a secretary at Stutthof concentration camp accused of involvement in World War II mass murder
- She is latest among people aged 90-99 to be charged with Holocaust crimes, with time running out for justice to be served
A 96-year-old German woman was caught hours after failing to turn up for her trial on Thursday on charges of aiding and abetting mass murder in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II, a court spokeswoman said.
Irmgard Furchner is accused of having contributed as an 18-year-old to the murder of 11,412 people when she was a typist at the Stutthof concentration camp in occupied Poland between 1943 and 1945.
But her trial in the far northern German town of Itzehoe could not begin in her absence.
“The defendant left her home in the early hours of this morning and took a taxi to an unknown location,” said court spokeswoman Frederike Milhoffer, adding that an arrest warrant had been issued. Itzehoe is 100km (60 miles) from the Danish border.
Milhoffer later confirmed that Furchner had been detained and that a doctor was assessing whether the defendant’s health would allow her to be imprisoned. She said the next hearing was scheduled for October 19.
Lawyers milled around the makeshift courtroom that had been rigged up in a nearby industry park because of the immense media interest. But Furchner’s chair, marked with her name tag, remained empty.
Charges cannot be read until Furchner, who faces trial in an adolescent court because of her young age at the time of the alleged crimes, is present in court in person.
“Healthy enough to flee, healthy enough to go to jail!” tweeted Efraim Zuroff, an American-Israeli “Nazi hunter” who has played a key role in bringing former Nazi war criminals to trial.
After long reflection, the court decided in February that Furchner was fit to stand trial.
Although prosecutors convicted major perpetrators – those who issued orders or pulled triggers – in the 1960s “Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials”, the practice until the 2000s was to leave lower-level suspects alone.
According to Der Spiegel magazine, Furchner transcribed execution orders dictated to her by camp commandant Paul-Werner Hoppe, who was convicted of accessory to murder in 1955. The magazine reported that Furchner had written to the judge asking to be tried in absentia – a legal impossibility in Germany.
However, Furchner’s lawyer Wolf Molkentin told Der Spiegel ahead of the trial that it was possible the secretary had been “screened off” from what was going on at Stutthof.
Former Nazi camp guard, 93, convicted in Germany, gets suspended sentence
The planned opening of Furchner’s trial in Itzehoe came one day before the 75th anniversary of the sentencing of 12 senior members of the Nazi establishment to death by hanging at the first Nuremberg trial.
It also comes a week before separate proceedings in Neuruppin, near Berlin, against a 100-year-old former camp guard.
Seventy-six years after the end of World War II, time is running out to bring people to justice for their roles in the Nazi system.
Prosecutors are currently handling a further eight cases, including former employees at the Buchenwald and Ravensbruck camps, according to the Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes.
In recent years, several cases have been abandoned as the accused died or were physically unable to stand trial.
The last guilty verdict was issued to former SS guard Bruno Dey, convicted last year, aged 93, of abetting the murder of 5,230 people as a guard at Stutthof. He too was tried in a youth court despite his age because he was still a juvenile at the time of the crimes.
Some 65,000 people died in the concentration camp between 1939 and 1945, of starvation and disease or in the camp’s gas chamber, including prisoners of war and Jews caught up in the Nazis’ war of extermination.
Additional reporting by DPA
