Germany: Former Nazi death camp secretary appeals conviction

A 97-year-old woman who worked as secretary to the commander of the Stutthof concentration camp during World War II while a teenager is appealing her conviction for being an accessory to murder in thousands of cases.

The December 20 verdict by the state court in Itzehoe is being appealed at the Federal Court of Justice (BGH), Germany's supreme criminal court, by both the woman's defense lawyers and a lawyer for a co-plaintiff, according to the Itzehoe court.

A spokeswoman for the court said the appeal could only concern an examination of whether the sentence had been based on a violation of the law and that no new evidence would be presented.

Irmgard F.'s conviction relied on a German legal precedent established over the last decade that allows people to be prosecuted as an accessory to the murders in Nazi death camps even if they cannot be shown to have participated in specific killings. 

What was the camp secretary's conviction?

Irmgard F., who was secretary to camp commander Paul Werner Hoppe at the Stutthof camp in German-occupied Poland between June 1943 and April 1945, received a two-year suspended sentence for being an accessory to murder in 10,505 cases and an accessory to attempted murder in five cases.

She was tried in juvenile court because she was 18 and 19 when the alleged crimes were committed

Prosecutors accused her of complicity in the "cruel and malicious murder" of prisoners.

Her lawyers, on the other hand, argued that there was no evidence she knew about the systematic killings at the camp and thus no proof of intent as would be necessary to make her criminally liable.

Presiding Judge Dominik Gross said, however, as he announced the verdict that it was "simply beyond all imagination'' that the accused didn't notice the killings at Stutthof.

As the trial drew to a close, Irmgard F. told the court she was "sorry about everything that happened."

An estimated 65,000 people died at the camp, which was situated near today's Gdansk. They included "Jewish prisoners, Polish partisans and Soviet Russian prisoners of war," prosecutors said. 

No date has so far been given for the supreme court to review the case.

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tj/rt (AP, AFP)