90yo former Wehrmacht-lieutenant on trial

[Ketzerfreund]

Greetings,

since nobody else brought it up, yet, I'm going to notify you about this.
Especially in the light of that idiotic and insulting "If Adolf Hitler..."-thread that had been moved to the Academy.

Sources:
Euronews-article including a video
An msnbc-article containing more details

Article on the online platform of Der Spiegel (German)
Translation:

NS-trial of a war criminal

I hear well!

Vocal protests, loyal admirers and a 90 year old culprit: At the Munich jury court the trial against the reputed war criminal Josef S. has begun. He is accused of 14-fold murder. However, the senior citizen acted as if all of that wasn't his business.

Munich - The humming sounds of the releasers, the clicks of flashlights - Josef S. cannot hear the sounds of the photo- and video-cameras. The 90 year old, who is almost deaf, blinks at the journalists posing questions. He has put his hearing aid on the table in front of him.

With a crutch under his right arm the former commanding officer of a Wehrmacht-company has scuffled into the hall of the jury court of the Landgericht München I (=District Court Munich I) at 9.23 o'clock. Under the grey jacket the old man wears a chequered shirt and a buckskin vest. The public prosecutor's office accuses Josef S. of 14-fold murder in coincidence with tried murder - 54 years after the massacre.

To the end of June, 1944, Josef S., company leader in the mountain pioneer battalion 818, presumably gave the order to two requital attacks for a partisan attack in Falzano di Cortona, between Arezzo and Perugia, Italy. As a lieutenant he supposedly ordered his men to "systematically search the area and arrest several predominantly male persons", said public prosecutor Hans-Joachim Lutz. Whoever would elude the arrest should be shot at once, the arrested ones should be brought to a central place and be killed there.

Only because of that, so the prosecution, three men and one woman were killed when they had coincidently crossed the path of the German soldiers. Then the privates rounded up eleven other men, blew up half the village before their eyes and then locked them into a farmer's house - and also blew that up with dynamite. "The arrested persons suffered from mortal fear.", said prosecutor Lutz.

"Several minutes after the detonation one could still hear screams, groaning and moaning, so that from outside the German soldiers shot at the ruin with machine guns." Ten men aged 16 to 66 lost their lives in that act of revenge.
Only a 15 year old survived, he is regarded an important witness in this trial.

On the verge of being unfit to stand the trial

At first Josef S. followed the readout of the charges with his hearing aid, but formed a cone with the left hand at his ear. Promptly the chief judge Manfred Götzl ordered headphones for the retiree. Leaned back and motionless S. listened to the accusations. "Can you understand everything with the headphones?", Götzl asked him later. Vocal answer: "I hear well!"

Yet, his advocate Christian Stünkel from Jena announced to request to declare him unfit for the further course of the trial because of his hearing impairment - "in spite of his well general condition according to the drafting of an expert's diagnosis". Plus, in light of his high age the advocate doubts that S. could actually mentally follow the trial and that his ability to concentrate and react wasn't limited. And from a basically constitutional point of view it was "irresponsible to expose a 90 year old man to the exertions of a long trial". After all, declaring him unfit for trial wasn't applied for by the advocate, however.

Instead, on behalf of his client advocate Stünkel stressed that Josef S. "completely denied" the accusations. He had neither given the order to kill nor received it by his former superior Major Herbert S. or even prepared it together with him.

His advocacy-colleague Rainer Thesen applied for a military expert's opinion that should prove that Josef S. had not ordered the massacre. Thesen, colonel of the reserve, listed twelve reasons for why his client couldn't have given the order for the executions in June, 1944.

In the audience: demonstrators - and admirers

Josef S. followed the work of his advocates with a gaze or even closed eyes. Sometimes one could believe the white-haired man with the bushy eyebrows had already dozed off. Only once he budged when he noticed an elderly companion in the audience and greeted him friendly. That a young admirer smuggled himself among the press photographers and proudly made it to a photo with his digital camera went unnoticed with the retired master joiner.

Also unnoticed by him went the protests in front of the court building at Nymphenburger Straße. In the early morning demonstrators arrived that demanded the conviction of the "mass murderer" and held up banners with the names of the 14 victims.

"The subject matter of the proceedings should be thrown light on by historians and not by legal practitioners - at the expense of the health of a 90 year old, innocent man", asserted advocate Stünkel at the court and enraged the representative of the accessory prosecution, Gabriele Heinecke.

It was not about politically historical ends in themselves, said the lawyer from Hamburg that represents 19 relatives of the victims. "My clients have waited for atonement for this crime against their relatives for 64 years."

It will probably be the last grand trial against a reputed NS-war criminal in Germany - and one of the most difficult ones: Not only the accused is highly aged. Six of the until now 22 summoned witnesses have already passed away, announced the court on this monday."

I hope my translation makes sense.
I wanted at least one German source for this.


Before anyone complains about terms like "presumably", "reputed" etc., please consider that the press has to abide by the presumption of innocence given by our constitution. When a trial has not ended with a sentence against the accused, yet, a newspaper, magazine etc. can be sued for infringing upon it.


-Der Ketzerfreund.

[VALIS]

Lock him up!
Age is no excuse, he must be brought to justice for his dispicable crimes against humanity.

[Panzerbear]

putting a 90 year old on trial? really?

where the have German authorities been all these last 60 years? too busy fighting commies? this is kind of pathetic.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

putting a 90 year old on trial? really?

where the were the authorities have been all these last 50 years? this is kind of pathetic.

Yep, this sums my feelings. This guy needs to be released for a peaceful death.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Murder is murder, whether it was committed yesterday or 100 years ago. If he's guilty, he should be punished. If not, let him go.

[Scar Face]

putting a 90 year old on trial? really?

where the have German authorities been all these last 60 years? too busy fighting commies? this is kind of pathetic.

Agreed. At 90, there is no justice. There is only revenge. Why was he not brought to court thirty, fourty years ago- I have no idea. But he wasn't, and he has maybe one or two years left, this case should be thrown out.

[Thanatos]

Agreed. At 90, there is no justice. There is only revenge. Why was he not brought to court thirty, fourty years ago- I have no idea. But he wasn't, and he has maybe one or two years left, this case should be thrown out.

So justice is not eternal, it's just a momentary thing?

I don't know about that, man.

[Heathen Hammer]

90 years old? I doubt he actually remembers what he was doing in 1940s.. I think that German government should find better things to do, rather than tracking down ancient nazis, who are not likely to be threat to anyone.. And what kind of point would they make by imprisoning him? And again, what did they wait for 60 years?

[Richard]

90 years old? I doubt he actually remembers what he was doing in 1940s.. I think that German government should find better things to do, rather than tracking down ancient nazis, who are not likely to be threat to anyone.. And what kind of point would they make by imprisoning him? And again, what did they wait for 60 years?

Rubbish; I'm sure he remembers perfectly well. It's not the fact that he's a threat (if he is guilty, of course), it's just that otherwise it's letting him get away with murder. It says he's perfectly fine, except for his hearing.

This dude can't even defend himself anymore. This isn't a fair trial.
I have no love for ex-SS offcers or something like that but this serves little purpose at all. What if he is guilty? You lock him up and he probably won't even understand what is going on anymore.

It's time to bury this.

If he IS guilty, then he certainly needs to be locked up. The only issue I have is that if he is innocent, putting him through a trial like that would cause undue stress, especially at his age (though as I said in previous paragraph, it says he's in good health). And what do you mean he can't defend himself anymore? Most people use lawyers in court, it's normal. If he IS guilty, the naievity of people like you are a great boon to his case, and he and his lawyers probably know it.

The sad thing is that he could be a nice old man, or he could be pure evil, but in order to find out he has to be tried (well, sad in the event he's innocent, anyway)

[gsoxx]

Rubbish; I'm sure he remembers perfectly well. It's not the fact that he's a threat, it's just that otherwise it's letting him get away with murder. It says he's perfectly fine, except for his hearing.

So you know he is guilty?

[Ketzerfreund]

Good question, actually. Not too long ago an old SS-member in his upper 80s was also pulled before a court. And during the whole time between founding of the Federal Republic Of Germany in 1946 and today such trials have occured time and time again. Maybe they are just trying not to miss a single one who wasn't just a plain soldier who did the minimum of what constituted his duty.

[Francisco Montana]

If he is innocent this is a travisty. If hes guilty I dont think you can put a statute of limitations on something like this.

Must. Read. More. To. Have. An. Opinion.

Good topic though. 90 plus years old. Wow, WWII is still affecting us in the twenty-first century.

[Thanatos]

If he's guilty, he deserves execution.

[Ketzerfreund]

Only Hessen has the death penalty still listed among it's state laws, but federal law beats state law, so it can't ever be used.

[Francisco Montana]

Only Hessen has the death penalty still listed among it's state laws, but federal law beats state law, so it can't ever be used.

Federal Law being decided by whom? Thats not, at all, a rhetorical question. Honestly. Who has decided this should be the law of the land? :hmmm:

[VALIS]

Federal Law being decided by whom? Thats not, at all, a rhetorical question. Honestly. Who has decided this should be the law of the land? :hmmm:

The German federal government and on top of that, the European Union.

[Francisco Montana]

The German federal government...on top of that, the European Union.

So you are saying, right here and now, that the European Union sits atop the German Federal Government?

I am not german. But Germany has much to be proud of and I think, by now, they are more than capable of making their own decisions (says this 1/4th german.)

I dunno.

I yust dont think a bunch of beurocrats in elitist cities have the slightest idea what I need or want in northcentral Montana. Or Calgary. Or New York City, or San Francisco, or Berlin, or London, or Paris. Get my point? We are all so different. There is nothing wrong with getting along. Thats what treaties were made for. But how about, for once, we all lived up to the spirit of such arrangments (let alone agreements.)

[Rapax]

I am not german. But Germany has much to be proud of and I think, by now, they are more than capable of making their own decisions (says this 1/4th german.)

What has it to do with the death penalty though? We're not proud of it, we don't need it, we don't want it.

[VALIS]

So you are saying, right here and now, that the European Union sits atop the German Federal Government?

I am not german. But Germany has much to be proud of and I think, by now, they are more than capable of making their own decisions (says this 1/4th german.)

I dunno.

I yust dont think a bunch of beurocrats in elitist cities have the slightest idea what I need or want in northcentral Montana. Or Calgary. Or New York City, or San Francisco, or Berlin, or London, or Paris. Get my point? We are all so different. There is nothing wrong with getting along. Thats what treaties were made for. But how about, for once, we all lived up to the spirit of such arrangments (let alone agreements.)

Damn...you're really out of the loop concerning the EU situation, in terms of the judiciary the EU controls like 80% of individual nations laws.

[LoZz]

So you are saying, right here and now, that the European Union sits atop the German Federal Government?

I am not german. But Germany has much to be proud of and I think, by now, they are more than capable of making their own decisions (says this 1/4th german.)

I dunno.

I yust dont think a bunch of beurocrats in elitist cities have the slightest idea what I need or want in northcentral Montana. Or Calgary. Or New York City, or San Francisco, or Berlin, or London, or Paris. Get my point? We are all so different. There is nothing wrong with getting along. Thats what treaties were made for. But how about, for once, we all lived up to the spirit of such arrangments (let alone agreements.)

the european law on human rights is what over-rides the german law when its come to the death penality. the eu law on human rights is a bit like the UN one

Damn...you're really out of the loop concerning the EU situation, in terms of the judiciary the EU controls like 80% of individual nations laws.

no it doesnt.