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CRIME

Germany charges Nazi camp secretary with complicity in murders

German prosecutors said Friday they have charged a former secretary at a Nazi concentration camp with complicity in the murders of 10,000 people, in the first such case in recent years against a female staff member.

Germany charges Nazi camp secretary with complicity in murders
The former Stutthof concentration camp, now a memorial site. Photo: DPA

They said the woman, who was not named by prosecutors, had worked at the Stutthof camp near what was Danzig, now Gdansk, in then Nazi-occupied Poland.

She “is accused of having assisted those responsible at the camp in the systematic killing of Jewish prisoners, Polish partisans and Soviet Russian prisoners of war in her function as a stenographer and secretary to the camp commander” between June 1943 and April 1945, the prosecutors said in a statement.

The accused, who was a minor at the time of the alleged crimes, is charged with “aiding and abetting murder in more than 10,000 cases” as well as complicity in attempted murder, added prosecutors from the northern city of Itzehoe.

Due to her age at the time of the alleged violations, she will face a juvenile court.

Germany has been racing to bring to justice surviving Nazi staff after the 2011 conviction of former guard John Demjanjuk on the basis he served as part of the Nazi killing machine set a legal precedent.

Since then, courts have handed down several guilty verdicts on those grounds rather than for murders or atrocities directly linked to the individual accused.

Among those who were brought to late justice were Oskar Groening, an accountant at Auschwitz, and Reinhold Hanning, a former SS guard at the same camp.

Both were convicted of complicity in mass murder at the age of 94 but died before they could be imprisoned.

READ ALSO: Germany's Nazi hunters in final straight of race against time

In a most recent case, a former SS guard, Bruno Dey, was found guilty at the age of 93 and was given a two-year suspended sentence.

He worked in the same Stutthof camp, set up by the Nazis in 1939. They initially used it to detain Polish political prisoners.

But it ended up holding 110,000 detainees, including many Jews. Some 65,000 people perished in the camp.

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CRIME

German prince denies coup plot

A self-styled German prince Friday denied being the ringleader of a coup plot, tearfully recounting his "traumatic" life as he fights accusations that a far-right group sought to overthrow the German state.

German prince denies coup plot

Prince Heinrich XIII Reuss is among a nine-strong group on trial in Frankfurt in one of the biggest cases heard by German courts in decades.

Prosecutors accuse the group, which includes a former politician and ex-army officers, of preparing a “treasonous undertaking” to storm the Bundestag and take MPs hostage.

Reuss, a minor aristocrat and businessman, is one of the alleged ringleaders and was in line to become the provisional head of state after the government was overthrown, according to prosecutors.

READ ALSO: German ‘prince’ goes to court in second trial against far-right coup plot

But the 72-year-old told the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt: “I cannot confirm what I am accused of in substance.”

He then gave a lengthy account of his life, which he said was marked by “traumatic” events.

“It is important to understand me as a person,” said Reuss, who is in custody, adding that he was in an “unstable” state.

He described a troubled childhood, during which he was physically and psychologically abused at school by his teachers.

Health problems resulting from a car accident led to him being discharged from the army. His Catholic parents rejected his marriage to an Iranian woman, now his ex-wife, he said.

“Even if she had been the daughter of the emperor of China, they wouldn’t have accepted her,” Reuss said.

Defence lawyer Roman von Alvensleben said he aimed to prove Reuss was not “a man who wanted to provoke violence, that he does not want to kill people, that he is not a danger to the Republic of Germany”.

The sensational plan, announced by authorities at the end of 2022, is the most high-profile example of what is considered a growing threat of fringe violence in Germany. The biggest threat is from the far right, according to officials.

The alleged plotters are said to have taken inspiration from conspiracy theories, including the global QAnon movement, and drawn up “lists of enemies”.

They belonged to the German Reichsbuerger (Citizens of the Reich), a political movement of extremists and gun enthusiasts who reject the legitimacy of the modern German republic.

The proceedings, in which a total of 26 people face trial, are being held across three different courts — Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Munich.

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