A German court on Tuesday convicted a 97-year-old woman of being an accessory to murder in over 10,000 cases for her role as a secretary to the SS commander of the Nazis’.
A German court on Tuesday convicted a 97-year-old woman of being an accessory to murder in over 10,000 cases for her role as a secretary to the SS commander of the Nazis’ Stutthof concentration camp during World War II, the AP reports. Irmgard Furchner was accused of being part of the apparatus that helped the camp function. The Itzehoe state court in northern Germany gave her a two-year suspended sentence, German news agency dpa reports. Furchner, dubbed the “secretary of evil,” was alleged to have “aided and abetted those in charge of the camp in the systematic killing of those imprisoned there between June 1943 and April 1945 in her function as a stenographer and typist in the camp commandant’s office.”
The verdict and sentence were in line with prosecutors’ demands. Defense lawyers had asked for their client to be acquitted, arguing that the evidence hadn’t shown beyond a doubt that Furchner knew about the systematic killings at the camp, meaning there was no proof of intent as required for criminal liability.
