German Court to Rule on Appeal of 99-Year-Old Convicted in Nazi War Crimes

A German federal court is set to announce its verdict on Tuesday regarding the appeal of Irmgard Furchner, a 99-year-old woman convicted of being an accessory to over 10,000 murders during her tenure as a secretary to the SS commander at the Stutthof concentration camp during World War II. Furchner's conviction by a state court in Itzehoe in December 2022 has been challenged in the Federal Court of Justice, where her lawyers questioned her awareness and involvement in the atrocities committed at the camp, located near what is now Gdansk, Poland. The Itzehoe court found that Furchner, who worked as a stenographer from June 1943 to April 1945, knowingly contributed to the systematic killings of prisoners through her administrative role. The court highlighted that her actions facilitated the cruel treatment and deaths of 10,505 individuals, who suffered from gassings, harsh camp conditions, and forced transportation to death camps like Auschwitz. As the legal proceedings unfold, a special federal prosecutors’ office in Ludwigsburg is investigating additional cases related to Nazi-era war crimes, raising concerns about the fitness of aging suspects to stand trial. Furchner's case is part of a broader trend in Germany, following the precedent set by the 2011 conviction of John Demjanjuk, which established that aiding in the operation of a concentration camp could warrant accessory to murder charges. Stutthof, initially a collection point for Jews and non-Jewish Poles, evolved into a labor camp where many, including political prisoners and marginalized groups, perished. The camp's history is marked by the deaths of over 60,000 individuals, underscoring the gravity of the crimes associated with its operation.