Dec 20, 2022 - World

97-year-old former Nazi secretary convicted in German court

Erin Doherty

Defendant Irmgard F (2nd L) sits close to her lawyers Niklas Weber (2nd R) and Wolf Molkentin (R) in a courtroom in Itzehoe, northern Germany, where her verdict was spoken on December 20, 2022 — Defendant Irmgard Furchner sits close to her lawyers in a courtroom in Itzehoe, Germany, where her verdict was read on Tuesday. Photo: Christian Charisius/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

A 97-year-old former Nazi secretary was convicted Tuesday of being an accessory to murder in more than 10,000 cases during World War II, AP reports.

Driving the news: A German court gave Irmgard Furchner, who was a secretary for the SS commander of the Stutthof concentration camp, a two-year suspended sentence.

Furchner was accused of aiding and abetting "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," per AP.
She was tried in juvenile court because she was under 21 when she committed the alleged crimes.
"Today’s verdict is the best that could be achieved, given the fact that she was tried in a juvenile court," Efraim Zuroff, the chief Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said, per AP.

The big picture: Furchner last year attempted to flee her trial, but she was caught and arrested by police.

More than 6o,000 people were killed in the Stutthof concentration camp, either by lethal injections of gasoline, phenol to their hearts, starvation or they were shot. Others were sent to the camp's gas chamber or were forced outside without clothes in winter until they died of exposure.

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97-year-old former Nazi secretary convicted in German court

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