Murder conviction upheld for 99-year-old Nazi secretary

The 99-year-old former Nazi secretary Irmgard Furchner lost an appeal on Tuesday against a previous conviction for aiding and abetting the murder of over 10,000 people in concentration camps.

» Published: August 20 2024

Murder conviction upheld for 99-year-old Nazi secretary
Photo: Christian Charisius/Pool via AP/TT

Furchner was sentenced to two years' probation at the end of 2022, as she was deemed to be involved in "cruel and malicious murders" of prisoners in the Nazi concentration camp Stutthof in occupied Poland.

A federal court rejected her request to have the verdict overturned in a final review.

Furchner was a secretary and handled correspondence from the camp between June 1943 and April 1945, under the leadership of camp commander Paul Werner Hoppe. Furchner's husband was an SS officer at the camp. Therefore, the court ruled, Furchner was well aware of what happened to the victims in the camp.

Before the first trial, which was held in a specially built tribunal at the nursing home where she lived, the then 97-year-old Furchner managed to escape. She was arrested by police on the run in Hamburg.

As Furchner was a teenager when the crime was committed, her case was tried in a juvenile court.

Furchner has maintained her innocence.

Around 65,000 people were killed in Stutthof near Gdansk in today's Poland, including Jewish prisoners, Polish resistance fighters, and Soviet prisoners of war.

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By TTTranslated and adapted by Sweden Herald
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