Former Nazi typist aged 97 found guilty of WWII murders
A 97-year-old woman has been convicted of Nazi war crimes after being found guilty of contributing to the murder of nearly 11,000 people.
Irmgard Furchner was given a two-year suspended sentence by the district court in the German town of Itzehoe after being convicted under juvenile law owing to the fact that she was only 18 years old at the time of the crimes.
As a stenographer and typist at the Stutthof concentration camp, now in northern Poland near Gdańsk, she is said to have helped those responsible for the camp with the systematic killing of prisoners between June 1943 and April 1945.
As a stenographer and typist at the Stutthof concentration camp, now in northern Poland near Gdańsk, she is said to have helped those responsible for the camp with the systematic killing of prisoners between June 1943 and April 1945.
Stutthof was set up by the Germans in 1939 to incarcerate Poles from the Danzig area.
Around 65,000 people died in Stutthof concentration camp and its sub-camps, as well as on death marches at the end of the war.
Around 65,000 people died in Stutthof concentration camp and its sub-camps, as well as on death marches at the end of the war.
Murders were carried out with a shot in the neck, with poisonous syringes and the poison gas Zyklon B.
In 1954, she testified that all correspondence with the SS Main Administration Office passed through her desk and that the camp’s commandant Paul Werner Hoppe (pictured) dictated the contents of letters to her every day.
Furchner had already been examined as a witness on several occasions during which she revealed the extent of her complicity.
In 1954, she testified that all correspondence with the SS Main Administration Office passed through her desk.
She testified that Commandant Paul Werner Hoppe dictated the contents of letters to her every day.
In 1942 the first German female SS Aufseherinnen guards arrived at Stutthof. Some of them were later executed for war crimes.
She said at the time that she knew nothing about the killing machine, although her workplace was a few metres away from places where prisoners were killed.
The German authorities found the suspect after an investigation by the Central Office for the Prosecution of Nazi Crimes in Ludwigsburg.
Efraim Zuroff, top Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said that “today’s verdict is the best that could be achieved, given the fact that she was tried in a juvenile court.
Efraim Zuroff, top Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said that “today’s verdict is the best that could be achieved, given the fact that she was tried in a juvenile court.
“In view of Furchner’s recent statement to the court that she ‘regretted everything,’ we were concerned that the court might accept her defense attorney’s plea for an acquittal.
“Yet given her claim that she had no knowledge of the murders being committed in the camp, her regret was far from convincing.”
Prosecutors in Itzehoe said that Furchner’s trial may be the last of its kind.
