18 November 2009

Q. How do you find a Nazi war criminal?

A. Look them up in the phone book according to the Times and several other papers.

90-year-old Adolf Storms, a former member of elite Waffen SS Wiking Division has been charged with the murder of 58 Hungarian Jews. He was found by University of Vienna

Towards the end of the war the Wiking Division was in Austria
Storms was charged at a regional court in Duisburg with the following

“On March 29, 1945, the accused and his accomplices brought at least 57 Jewish forced labourers in several groups to a nearby forest area, where they had to surrender their valuables and kneel by a grave. The accused and other SS members then cruelly shot the Jewish forced labourers from behind.”

According to testimony laid before the court 57 labourers were killed near the Austrian village of Deutsch Schuetzen. On 30 March Storms allegedly shot another Jewish labourer who could not keep up on a forced march between Deutsch Schuetzen and the village of Hartberg

The mass grave at Deutsch Schuetzen was excavated in 1995 and the bodies were given proper funerals

As yet no living witness has been found to testify on the mass shooting; the case against Mr Storms for that alleged atrocity will be based on written statements made in previous trials.

Mr Forster, who was studying the forest massacre for part of his university course, was reviewing the files on the Hitler Youth burial unit and came across the name of Mr Storms. He searched German telephone books and worked out that a Duisburg pensioner matched the description.

Storms, apparently, remembers nothing about the massacre.

It remains to be seen if he ever comes to trial but even at this very late stage I wonder if there are others like him who realise that there is still just enough time for that knock at the door

12 comments:

Stephanie, Mama Dramatist said...

Dear God!! I'm speechless!!

Except to say, let's get out some phone books and go Nazi huntin'!!

jams o donnell said...

Haha good idea Stephanie

ModernityBlog said...

A spokesperson for the German state said:

"We never thought of that one"

Kay Dennison said...

Amazing!!!!! So what do you do with him? He's 90!

Sean Jeating said...

Well ..., no reason to be surprised.

Let's take a glimpse at but a tiny aspect of the so-called denazification after 1945 - the judicary in Lower Saxony.
97% of the judges and prosecutors had also "done their duty" at courts-martial.
In summer 1948, 25 out of 767 judges had been removed.
Ah, at the same time there were 8 (in words: eight) judges and prosecutors serving the new democracy who during the shortest of all millennia had been in prison.
Another random example:
Our local newspaper for decades used to have a daily rubric "Today 50 years ago".
Guess what happened in January 1983.
Hm?!
Well, they changed the title a bit. "Today 25 years ago."

I think that's what in English is being called 'coming to terms with the past'.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

In other words: happy birthday, Adolf.

beakerkin said...

Unfortunately with the passage of time it gets harder to convict these type of criminals.

It would be nice if we tried the Pol Pot's, Kim Jong Mentally Ill and Muggabe's of the world. Unfortunately, there is selective outrage by the usual suspects who have their reality guided by fundamentalist Marxist dogma.

Anonymous said...

Dubya, we know where you live!

James Higham said...

How would it be? All those years...

jams o donnell said...

THanks for your comments. To be honest, time is no defence even if a conviction is very unlikely, given his age and probable health

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

I agree with you,jams.

jams o donnell said...

At this stage I'm glad they have tapped hom on the shoulder so to speak. He probably won't be tried but he has been recognised and that is enough at this very late stage