Admitted Nazi Hit Man Faces Murder Charges

6 Decades Later, German Prosecutor Charges 86-Year-Old For World War II Murders Of 3 Men

(AP)  Authorities tried futilely for decades to bring the admitted Nazi hit man to justice for killing civilians. Now a German prosecutor has filed new murder charges against 86-year-old Heinrich Boere in a last-ditch effort to see him prosecuted.

Dortmund prosecutor Ulrich Maass told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the charges involve the World War II murders of three men in the Netherlands while Boere was a member of a Waffen SS death squad that targeted civilians in reprisal killings for resistance attacks.

AP was first to report last month that Maass had quietly reopened the case by beginning his own investigation.

Though Boere was sentenced to death in absentia by a Dutch court in 1949 - later commuted to life imprisonment - German courts have blocked attempts to extradite him or enforce the verdict here. Maass will now seek a German trial for Boere.

"It's high time that this happened, and I'm very pleased that the German prosecutors have finally moved against Boere," Efraim Zuroff, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's chief Nazi hunter, said in a telephone interview from Jerusalem.

"We're running out of time and every day that goes by without these people being put on trial is another chance they have to elude justice."

Boere is among more than 1,000 Nazi cases around the globe that Zuroff's office says were still open as of a year ago.

The son of a Dutch man and German woman, Boere was 18 when he joined the Waffen SS - the fanatical military organization faithful to Adolf Hitler's ideology - at the end of 1940, only months after his country had fallen to the Nazi blitzkrieg.

After taking part in the invasion of the Soviet Union, he ended up back in the Netherlands as part of a unit known as Silbertanne, or Silver Pine, which was composed mostly of Dutch volunteers given the job of killing their countrymen in reprisal for attacks by the anti-Nazi resistance.

The unit is suspected of 54 killings, and Boere admitted after the war while in an Allied prison camp that he took part in three slayings, according to Dutch court documents.

Boere also described his participation in killings during an interview with a Dutch newspaper last year, but said he was working in an official capacity.

"I didn't feel anything, it was work. Orders were orders, otherwise it would have meant my skin. Later it began to bother me, now I'm sorry," he was quoted as saying by the newspaper Algemeen Dagblad.

Boere detailed the killings, almost gunshot by gunshot, in statements to Dutch police preserved in the court file.

The first was in July 1944 - the killing of a pharmacist named Fritz Hubert Ernst Bicknese.

According to Boere's statement, he and fellow SS man Jacobus Petrus Besteman - wearing civilian clothes - walked into the shop and asked the pharmacist if he was Bicknese. When he answered "yes," Boere pulled a pistol from his right coat pocket and fired two or three bullets into Bicknese's upper body, then Besteman fired two or three shots into the pharmacist as he lay on the floor.

The next victim, in September, followed a similar pattern: Boere and an accomplice named Hendrik Kromhout shot bicycle-shop owner Teun de Groot when he answered the doorbell at his home in the town of Voorschoten.

Boere and Kromhout then went to the apartment of F.W. Kusters, and forced him into their car. They drove him to another town, stopped on the pretense of having a flat tire and shot him dead.

"Kusters fell against the garden door of the Villa Constance and sunk to the ground on the other side of the street from the car..." Boere told investigators. "A strong, maybe 10- to 15-centimeter (4- to 6-inch), spurt of blood shot out of Kusters' neck."

Reflecting on that day some 63 years later in 2007, Boere was quoted by the newspaper Algemeen Dagblad as saying that "it was another time, with different rules."

"When we knew for sure we had the right person, we shot him dead, at the door," he was quoted as saying.

For Teun de Groot's son, who has the same name as his father, Boere's late expression of regret is not enough. He told AP that he planned to take part in the prosecution of Boere, as allowed under German law.

"First we have to see if the court will hear the case, and then will it be really real..." de Groot said Wednesday. "But the mood in Germany is such - I think that they want to have an honorable end to this long, sad affair."

The Netherlands has sought Boere's extradition, but a German court in 1983 refused on grounds that he might have German citizenship, and Germany at the time had no provision to extradite its nationals.

A state court in Aachen ruled last year that Boere could legally serve his Dutch sentence in Germany, but an appeals court in Cologne overturned the ruling, calling the 1949 conviction invalid because Boere was not there to present a defense. He had fled to Germany.

It was after the appeals ruling that Maass quietly reopened the case, effectively beginning from scratch.

The murder charges against Boere were filed Tuesday with the state court in Aachen in western Germany near the border with the Netherlands, Maass said.

It was not immediately clear when the court might decide whether to take up the case, and Boere was not arrested after the charges were filed, Maass' office said.

Boere's attorney, Gordon Christiansen, said his client would remain at his upscale old-age home in Eschweiler, near Aachen, while the process is under way.

Christiansen would not comment on the charges, saying he had not yet seen the official documents.

Boere checked himself into an Aachen hospital Monday for unspecified reasons and could not be reached for comment, the old-age home said.

Christiansen said one of his first actions would be to file a motion with the court to determine whether Boere is fit to stand trial.

"I'm no doctor, I can't say myself," Christiansen told AP. "It also depends on how long it takes for this process to begin; one must see."

[emilymhanson]

Quote: "There are provisions in place in the military. If you feel that an order you have been given is illegal, you can insist it be put in writing. That way if it is illegal then the person giving the order is responsible not you. There is no provision for not following an order as you can be charged under military law if you refuse to carry out an order. You may win but you never know for sure until you have been there and been tried."

This was under Hitler''s rule then, not the American military today.

[ranger1948]

There are provisions in place in the military. If you feel that an order you have been given is illegal, you can insist it be put in writing. That way if it is illegal then the person giving the order is responsible not you. There is no provision for not following an order as you can be charged under military law if you refuse to carry out an order. You may win but you never know for sure until you have been there and been tried.

[swwils]

They can all hide and run but if they don''t die soon they will be caught.The interpol has a task force to track these Nazi war criminals down,and bring them to justice.The Jewish people deserve this,they were treated worse than animals at the hands of Hitler and his henchmen,this at least shows that some people understand ,and care about their plight throughout history.I can''t believe that the stupid Iranians don''t believe the Holocaust even happened.They are idiots,they show the free world this continually on a daily basis.

[swwils]

I don''t care if he is 90,take him to trial and if convicted execute his old a.s.s.,he made it all these years traveling under the radar.Now it is time to pay the piper for hi dirty deeds.I laughed when they caught that 86 year old dude in Canada recently.He got his reward,the rest of his days in a 6 by 9 steel and concrete house in Ramstein prison.

[cfin5]

Where''s McVet? Here''s a real life heel clickin'' nazi getting his and now nothing but crickets from herr micvayett.

[excoachken]

"It was another time and rules were different" seems to be the Bush Administrations mantra for violating our Constitution and the Geneva Convention rules as well. This guy would fit right in with Cheyney,Rove, Mukasey and the rest of the thugs!

[ranger1948]

No couldn''t be McVet, he is just an armchair warrior.

[jwrhea]

I am fairly certain if our troops disobey an order, they will be dishonorably discharged and possibly spend time in leavenworth.
If you were a soldier in the SS and you disobeyed an order, I am reasonably certain that you would be summarily shot (like dead).
It was war and this man was a soldier. I didnt read anywhere in the story of him killing women and children. And i dont imagine the three people he is reported to have killed were completely uninvolved in the war against Germany.
The big question here in regards to all these opinions is. What would any one of you do if you found yourself in his shoes during WWII?? Would you disobey your orders and give up your life??
And as far as the war in iraq and the comparisons to naziism. i wont even try to dignify that train of thought to a bunch of armchair riding, tin hat generals. But i will admit that we went to war in Iraq for all the wrong reasons. And we were lied to by our President to do so.

[brianbwb-2009]

Hie trial should serve as a warning to Bush and his henchmen, including "soldiers" who took part in illegal tortures, murders, rapes, and other acts of inhumanity as a result of Bush''s lies. There are those who will always call for you to face justice for your crimes, and I will be one of them.

"Why do most liberals think that retired, former and current active duty Marines can be equated with Nazi''s??? Charles H." Posted by jarheadcwo

Because they are doing exactly the same things, for exactly the same reasons, just with a different set of victims.

[BiteMeBrian]

Your an ass@#%!...Thinkf of this when you lay your fat head down at night. Our soldiers are fighting for you to say stupid shi! like that. They are dying so you can talk like that. The least you can do is show some ****** respect. Granted this post is over a year old...LOL

[newsjunky5]

"it was another time, with different rules."
----------------
The rules were always the same.

[alphaa10-2009]

Americans applauding Nazi-like actions need not worry about their connections to Adolf Hitler. Hitler recedes into the distant past, replaced by today''s rampant fascism-- alive and well from Washington, DC to Beijing and Belarus.

These Americans should worry a great deal whether they and Bush meet the following definition of "fascism"--

"a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with a belligerent nationalism." (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)

[andrew_693]

when right wing hero oliver north brought weapons to the republican party friends : the islamic christian fascists in iran, he was also following orders. Look at him now, a hero, free and talk show host in fox news. Why would they prosecute this nazi than?. Oliver north gave the weapons they are using against the US soldiers in iraq and probably provided the mustard gas for saddam hussein as well, yet he walks free.

[shanev137]

"I didn''t feel anything, it was work. Orders were orders, otherwise it would have meant my skin."

-------

That''s the same thing our troops say when they''re forced to torture someone at Gitmo or kill a civilian in Iraq.

[rudy654-2009]

I think the so-called "conservatives" on this site are feeling rather sad for the Nazi who killed innocent people. Wow. Just doing his duty is what they think.

[rudy654-2009]

Posted by libsrweak at 11:56 PM

How come you guys don''t stick to the story?

[lucasnico]

Why do most liberals think that retired, former and current active duty Marines can be equated with Nazi''''s???

Charles H.

this may well be the most idiotic statement ever posted on this board. you are awarded no point, and may God have mercy on your soul

[ubrew12]

libsrweak said: "liberas wants the marines out of middle east and out of thier liberal cities. funny aint it"
Berkeley liberals want Marine Corp recruiting stations to close up shop, because they know the recruits are just cannon-fodder for Bush''s ego.

I don''t know if the Bezerkly liberals got their way, but one city hardly constitutes a liberal ''trend'' (except in your hyperactive imagination, of course).

More to the point: prosecuting Nazi''s 60 years after the fact only points out the futility of justice against Fascism.

Imagine prosecuting libagenda 60 years hence for promoting sending our kids to die in Iraq for no reason at all. It would just point out how futile the Justice system is at prosecuting criminals for their actions.

[libsrweak]

Why do most liberals think that retired, former and current active duty Marines can be equated with Nazi''''s???

Charles H.


Posted by jarheadcwo3 at 11:52 PM : Apr 16, 2008
+ report abuse
**************

the liberals wants our soldiers home and out of middle east..that way its easier for them to spit at the marines..

((liberas wants the marines out of middle east and out of thier liberal cities. funny aint it?))

[jarheadcwo3]

Why do most liberals think that retired, former and current active duty Marines can be equated with Nazi''s???

Charles H.