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Germany continues to shelter a former SS officer who is wanted for murder and
for his alleged role in the deportation of hundreds of
Jews to Nazi concentration camps.
Most wanted Nazi war criminals
Zuroff launches last round-up of senior Nazis
The Daily Telegraph has tracked down former SS-Obersturmfuehrer
Søren Kam to the peaceful suburbs of Kempten im Allgäu,
a town about 75 miles from Munich.
Dr Efraim Zuroff, a veteran Israeli Nazi-hunter, will be in Europe next week
to mount “Operation Last Chance”, to bring men such as
Kam to justice and to expose the role of complacent German
judicial authorities in continuing to provide alleged
war criminals with safe havens.
“Kam is on my list because in my estimation he is one of the top 10 Nazis that
could feasibly be brought to trial” for war crimes, said
Dr Zuroff, who is director of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre
in Jerusalem.
The 86-year-old Dane is number
eight on the list of 10 “most wanted Nazi war criminals”
drawn up by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.
But in Bavaria, Kam, a man
who met Adolf Hitler, lives openly. By his doorbell is
a traditional Bavarian clay plaque, made by his grandchildren,
and bearing the family name.
Kam responded to knocks on his front door by opening his front window and hiding
behind the curtains. All that could be seen was his hand,
but the voice of the SS man remained clear and dismissive.
“I know who you are. I don’t want to talk to you. Leave
me in peace,” he said, before slamming the window.
Kam has been indicted by the Danish government for the murder in 1943 of Carl
Henrik Clemmensen, the anti-Nazi Danish newspaper editor.
Clemmensen’s bullet-riddled
body was found by a roadside after he was seized from
his home by three men, led by Kam. Denmark’s authorities
would also like to talk to him regarding the theft in
1943 of a population register, later used to round up
and deport 500 Danish Jews to concentration camps.
But Kam is protected. Munich
courts earlier this year threw out attempts, under a
European Union arrest warrant, to deport him back to
Denmark. A clear case, claimed Dr Zuroff, of “misplaced
German judicial sympathy for a despicable Nazi collaborator
who faithfully served the Third Reich”.
While many of Denmark’s Jews
were able to flee the Holocaust to Sweden, others were
not so lucky, and hundreds were deported to Terezin,
in what is now the Czech Republic, en route to Auschwitz
and other death camps.
“Not all the Danish Jews were
rescued,” said Dr Zuroff. “Five hundred were sent to
the Theresienstadt concentration camp and dozens died
there due to the awful conditions.”
Kam’s daughter confronted
The Daily Telegraph near his home. “What do you want
from my father?” she said. “Can’t you leave my father
alone? He is not talking. If you don’t leave immediately
we will call the police.”
Many of Kam’s elderly neighbours seemed to agree and reactions ranged from refusals
to talk to indifference.But one young father, who asked
not to be named, admitted his shame. “We all know who
he is and what he has done,” he said. “I have strong
personal opinions on this and I would prefer him not
to be my neighbour.”
Kam was born in Copenhagen on Nov 2 1921 but fled his country after the war to
take German citizenship in 1956.
He has the dubious distinction
of being the highest decorated Nazi Dane after being
awarded the Knight’s Cross for his leadership of Danish
SS men against the resistance of his countrymen.
The former obersturmfuehrer
— a senior lieutenant — has remained a controversial
figure, active on the far-Right and has regularly attended
veterans’ rallies of SS men.
He has also been closely associated
with Heinrich Himmler’s daughter Gudrun Burwitz and her
network Stille Hilfe [Silent Aid], set up to support
arrested, condemned or fugitive former SS men.
Until 1999, Kam denied any
role in the Clemmensen murder. Of the two other Danish
SS men involved, Knud Flemming Helweg-Larsen, was executed
in 1946 solely for his role in the murder. The other
culprit disappeared after the war.
Mona Clemmensen, a teenager
in 1943 remembers her father’s death. “He was afraid
and covered his face with his hands. I was told that
they shot through his hands to kill him,” she said.
Miss Clemmensen believes that
Kam’s prosecution is of wider historical importance.
“It is always important that somebody who has done what
he did is put to justice. Furthermore it is of great
importance today to serve as an example for genocide
cases in Yugoslavia and Africa,” she said.
But earlier this year, Munich
courts rejected the allegations of the Danish government
and believed the former SS man’s claim that he was acting
in self-defence when the unarmed Clemmensen was killed.
The offence of manslaughter or accidental death expires
under Germany’s statute of limitations, meaning Kam’s
peaceful Bavarian life could continue.
Erik Høgh Sorensen, a Danish
journalist and Nazi-hunter, who has compiled detailed
evidence of Kam’s alleged war crimes, claims that the
Bavarian courts showed a clear bias. Officials from Germany’s
Justice Ministry have refused to comment “on judicial
proceedings”.
telegraph.co.uk
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