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German court upholds ex-Nazi camp secretary conviction

August 20, 2024

Germany’s federal court has upheld the conviction of 99-year-old Irmgard Furchner, a former Nazi camp secretary. She remains guilty of aiding in the murders of thousands during World War II.

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Irmgard F. sitting in the courtroom in Itzehoe in 2022
Prosecutors have argued that Irmgard Furchner was aware of the atrocities carried out at the Nazi Stutthof concentration campImage: Christian Charisius/dpa/picture alliance

Germany's Federal Court of Justice (BGH) on Tuesday upheld the conviction of a 99-year-old former concentration camp secretary of complicity in the murder of over 10,000 people.

The woman, identified as Irmgard Furchner, worked as a stenographer and typist at the Stutthof death camp near Nazi-occupied Danzig, now Gdansk in northwestern Poland.

"The conviction of the defendant... to a two-year suspended sentence is final," presiding judge Gabriele Cirener said.

The President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, welcomed the verdict, calling Furchner "a conscious accomplice of the National Socialist murder machine." It is “enormously important"  for Holocaust survivors that even "a belated attempt at justice" is made, said Schuster.

An estimated 65,000 people died at Stutthof. Victims included Jewish prisoners, Polish partisans and Soviet prisoners of war.

History of the case

In 2022, a juvenile court in Itzehoe in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein sentenced Irmgard Furchner to two years' probation for complicity in murder in 10,505 cases and attempted murder in 5 cases.

The Stutthof memorial site with the former commandant's office building of the concentration camp, where the defendant in the Itzehoe Stutthof trial, Irmgard Furchner (99), worked as a secretary from June 1943 to April 1945
Irmgard Furchner worked as a stenographer and typist at the Stutthof death camp near Nazi-occupied Danzig, now GdanskImage: Bernhard Sprengel/dpa/picture alliance

The defendant was tried in a juvenile court as the crimes were committed between 1943 and 1945 when she was only 18 to 19 years of age.

Defense attorneys had called for her to be found not guilty, arguing she was not aware of the murders committed at the camp.

After her conviction, the defense appealed the verdict in federal court.

In 2021, she was caught attempting to escape the trial by fleeing her elderly care home.

Co-plaintiffs feel sense of relief

The lawyers for the 23 co-plaintiffs also welcomed the verdict. Originally, 30 joint plaintiffs, including survivors of the camp from Poland and Israel, had joined the prosecution in Itzehoe. His clients were not seeking revenge or retribution, said lawyer Onur Özata in an interview with DW. 

The ruling is "an important decision because it says that the defendant cannot use the excuse that she was only doing paperwork. You can no longer get away with this excuse," Özata said.

sdi,es/fb,rm (dpa, AFP)

Luisa von Richthofen contributed to this report 

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