Ex-Nazi death camp secretary released pending trial

Prosecutors argue that the woman, Irmgard Furchner, was part of the apparatus that helped the Nazis' Stutthof camp function during World War II more than 75 years ago.

File photo: Barbed wire fence surrounding an area at the former Nazi Death Camp Stutthof, in Sztutowo, Poland on July 21, 2020.
AFP

File photo: Barbed wire fence surrounding an area at the former Nazi Death Camp Stutthof, in Sztutowo, Poland on July 21, 2020.

A 96-year-old former secretary at a Nazi concentration camp who tried to flee before her trial has been released from custody in Germany ahead of the next hearing, a court spokeswoman said.

Irmgard Furchner had been due in court last Thursday for the opening of her trial on charges of complicity in the murder of more than 10,000 people at Stutthof camp in occupied Poland.

But she failed to turn up after leaving her retirement home near Hamburg in a taxi, which took her to a subway station, from where she went missing.

Police detained her several hours later and she was remanded in custody before the resumption of her trial on October 19.

On Tuesday, the court in the northern town of Itzehoe decided she could be freed under unspecified conditions.

READ MORE: Germany charges Nazi camp secretary with complicity in murders

Reuters

Judge Dominik Gross and others arrive for a trial against a 96-year-old former secretary to the SS commander of the Stutthof concentration camp, at the Landgericht Itzehoe court, in Itzehoe, Germany on September 30, 2021.

Nazi-era crimes

"The court has suspended the arrest warrant and released the accused from custody under the condition of precautionary measures," said court spokeswoman Frederike Milhoffer.

The spokeswoman declined to give details on the conditions but said "it is however assured that she will appear at the next appointment".

One of the first women to be prosecuted for Nazi-era crimes in decades, Furchner is accused of having assisted in the systematic murder of detainees while she was working at Stutthof in the office of camp commander Paul Werner Hoppe between June 1943 and April 1945.

Roughly 65,000 people died at the camp near Gdansk, among them "Jewish prisoners, Polish partisans and Soviet Russian prisoners of war", according to the indictment.

Christoph Heubner, vice president of the International Auschwitz Committee, was among those who expressed shock at the handling of the case.

He told AFP the escape attempt showed "contempt for the survivors and also for the rule of law".

READ MORE: Poland parliament passes law to curb WWII property claims

Loading...

Defendant's age

Furchner spent a night in a youth detention facility before she was moved to another institution in Luebeck "because of her age and her need for care", Bild newspaper reported.

She was then placed under quarantine for the coronavirus in a medical section and allowed to spend an hour outside every day, according to the newspaper.

Despite her advanced age, the woman is being tried in juvenile court because she was under 21 at the time of the alleged crimes. 

A court spokeswoman said after she skipped the trial opening last week that the defendant previously had “announced that she didn’t want to come” to court, but that did not provide sufficient grounds for detaining her ahead of the trial. 

Given the woman’s age and condition, she had not been expected “actively to evade the trial."

READ MORE: Netherlands to verify artwork stolen by Nazis for restitution

Loading...
Route 6