|
A suspected Nazi war criminal, now aged 89, may finally be brought to justice
over a massacre of more than 60 Jews in 1945 because of
detective work by a university student.
German police raided the home of the man, named only as
Adolf S., after an Austrian university student researching
Nazi war crimes recognised him during his doctoral studies.
Prosecutors took away boxes of paperwork from the man's
home in Dortmund in the raid earlier this week, but did
not place him under arrest. They say they are still pondering
whether to charge him with murder over the massacre in
March 1945.
He is also believed to have shot in the back a Jew who could no longer walk during
a march from Deutsch Schuetzen to Hartberg in Austria,
police said later in a statement.
Andreas Forster, 28, led police to him. He became interested
in the March 29, 1945 atrocity as he carried out research
work in German and Austrian military and Nazi archives.
He discovered the names of a trio of Waffen SS members
said to have gunned down the group of Hungarian Jewish
slave labourers employed to build last-ditch defences in
Austria against the advancing Soviet army. It happened
at the village of Deutsch-Schuetzen, not far from the border
with Germany.
Two of the killers were sentenced after the war - the 'third
man' escaped justice.
Through the archives he found references to this third man being Adolf S and
then cross-checked the name in the German telephone directory.
Ulrich Maass, senior prosecutor in Dortmund, said a prosecutor
responsible for war crimes had been sent to the scene of
the murders to gather evidence. The man's home was raided
on Tuesday.
Police said that the man invoked his right not to make a statement to them.
The suspect was interned in an American prisoner of war
camp following the war, but was released in 1946, Maass
said. In the chaotic aftermath of the war, however, it
was not uncommon for possible war criminals to slip through
the cracks.
The Austrian press has reported the man changed the spelling
of his name after World War II, perhaps helping him go
undetected for so long.
The man is being investigated on suspicion of murder, for
which there is no statute of limitations.
Three former Hitler Youth members, conscripted to dig a
mass grave for the victims, have been traced and will be
called as witnesses if the suspect is formally charged
with murder.
Maass said it was too early to say if the man would be
indicted, adding, 'We have to gather evidence first.'
The bodies of victims were exhumed in 1995 and the mass
grave was then sealed and blessed by a rabbi.
The accused man lives quietly in the western city of Duisburg,
and has discussed his other wartime experiences in interviews,
but refused to talk about the day of the massacre when
asked. He had since said he would give no more interviews.
Forster the sleuth, himself the son of a Knight's Cross
holder - Nazi Germany's highest award for valour - said:
'I am no Nazi hunter. It was just something I stumbled
upon.
'Reaction to my find has been mixed. Many people have sent
hate messages saying that I, as the son of a Knight's Cross
holder, should be ashamed of myself for what I did.'
dailymail.co.uk
|
