Germany Has Sights on Several Alleged Nazi War Criminals
By SPIEGEL Staff
John Demjanjuk is not an isolated case. German investigators have set their sights on other presumed Nazi war criminals, raising the question of how the law should deal with the aged accessories of the Holocaust.
When he had completed the job, SS Colonel Karl Jäger, filled with pride, wrote in his report to his superiors: "Today, I am proud to report that the objective of solving the Jewish problem for Lithuania has been achieved by Task Force 3. There are no longer any Jews in Lithuania ..."
APWar crimes suspect John ("Ivan") Demjanjuk is expected to be extradited from the United States to Germany for trial imminently.
It was Dec. 1, 1941, and German troops had occupied Lithuania, which was part of the Soviet Union, since the summer. According to Colonel Jäger's meticulous account, his subordinates had killed exactly 47,326 men, 55,556 women and 34,464 children.
But Jäger did not claim all the credit for himself and the 120 men he commanded. He was only able to achieve his goal, the ardent Hitler supporter wrote, because one of his subordinates had managed to "secure the cooperation of the Lithuanian partisans."
The "partisans" Jäger referred to were anti-communist militia units that had once fought against the Soviet occupation and had now become the willing helpers of their new, German masters. One such incident of voluntary collaboration took place on August 15 and 16, 1941, in Rokiskis, a town in northeastern Lithuania, where 80 Lithuanians rounded up Jews, brought them to an execution site and helped lock up the victims. Twenty of the Lithuanian volunteers joined Jäger's men in shooting them dead.
Rokiskis was only one of many such places. The Holocaust was a crime ordered and committed by Germans, but without the help of Lithuanians, Latvians, Ukrainians, ethnic Germans living in Eastern Europe (known as "Volksdeutsche") and other Eastern Europeans, the death toll would not have been as high. Historians estimate the number of non-German "killing workers" (a term coined by German writer Ralph Giordano) at about 200,000. There is probably no other group of criminals that has proven more difficult to prosecute than the Nazis' non-German helpers and accomplices. Until today, that is.
FROM THE MAGAZINE
Find out how you can reprint this DER SPIEGEL article in your publication.
Names rarely appear in archives, and many of the murderers managed to disappear in the confusion of postwar Europe or emigrated abroad. And because they were at the end of the chain of command, they were able to argue more credibly than many former members of the SS that they had no other choice, at least until someone could prove them wrong. Not all non-Germans participated in the Holocaust voluntarily the way Jäger's "partisans" did. Some in the Wehrmacht's POW camps signed up to work for the SS simply because they would otherwise have faced death by starvation.
Under these circumstances, it comes as no surprise that it has taken German prosecutors so long to turn their attention to these suspects. In mid-March, a court in Munich issued a warrant for the arrest of John ("Ivan") Demjanjuk, an 89-year-old Ukrainian-American living in Cleveland, Ohio, who is accused of being an accessory to at least 29,000 murders. Demjanjuk is believed to have worked as a guard at the Sobibor extermination camp. A US court temporarily blocked Demjanjuk's deportation, arguing that he is too frail to travel and stand trial in Germany. But German authorities expect him to be flown to Germany shortly after a US immigration appeals board ruled that he could be deported.
The Central Office for the Prosecution of National Socialist Crimes (ZSTL) in Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart, already has its sights set on four other men who may have committed murder or been accessories to murder on behalf of the Germans, and who, like Demjanjuk, subsequently emigrated to the United States.
APThe Americans recently deported suspect Josias Kumpf to Austria.
A preliminary investigation is now under way against Ivan Kalymon, 87, who lives in Michigan. Kalymon once worked for the Germans in Lemberg, now Lviv, Ukraine, as a member of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police. In August 1942, he wrote a short-handwritten note to his superiors to report on a mission. The document reads: "I employed my weapon in the line of duty during the 'Jewish Action' on 8/14/1942, at 7 p.m., using four rounds of ammunition, wounding one person and killing another."
It is hard to imagine that this would not suffice as evidence for issuing a German arrest warrant. Kalymon's appeal against the revocation of his US citizenship was denied last fall, and the Americans would be able to place him on a flight to Germany immediately. In the other three cases, German authorities are still at the start of their investigations.
Johann Breyer, 83, was born in Slovakia and lives in Philadelphia today. The son of a Volksdeutsche man and an American woman has admitted that he worked as a guard at the Buchenwald and Auschwitz concentration camps.
A few weeks ago, the Americans deported Josias Kumpf, now 83, to Austria, from where he had emigrated to the United States. Kumpf was present when, in November 1943, the SS shot about 8,000 Jewish inmates in the space of a few days at the Trawniki concentration camp near the southeastern Polish city of Lublin. Kumpf claims, however, that his job was merely to search for survivors in the corpse pits, and that others were responsible for the murders.
NEWSLETTER
Sign up for Spiegel Online's daily newsletter and get the best of Der Spiegel's and Spiegel Online's international coverage in your In- Box everyday.
Lithuanian Algimantas Dailide, 87, already lives within the jurisdiction of German courts, namely in Kirchberg, a town in the eastern state of Saxony. During World War II, Dailide, as a member of the Lithuanian secret police, handed over Jews who had attempted to escape from the Vilnius ghetto to the Nazis, and they were subsequently murdered. At the end of the war, Dailide went into hiding in Germany, where he married a woman from the eastern state of Thuringia. In 1950, the couple emigrated to the United States and, like Demjanjuk, settled in Cleveland.
In 2001, faced with the threat of deportation from the United States, Dailide went to Europe voluntarily. A Lithuanian court sentenced him to five years in prison, but suspended his sentence due to his supposedly poor health. Now the Ludwigsburg prosecutors are examine whether they have a case against Dailide.
RELATED SPIEGEL ONLINE LINKS
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2009
All Rights Reserved
Reproduction only allowed with the permission of SPIEGELnet GmbH
SPIEGEL ONLINE SPECIAL
The Final Days of World War II
MORE ARTICLES
TIMELINE
PHOTO GALLERIES
MULTIMEDIA
By SPIEGEL Staff
John Demjanjuk is not an isolated case. German investigators have set their sights on other presumed Nazi war criminals, raising the question of how the law should deal with the aged accessories of the Holocaust.
When he had completed the job, SS Colonel Karl Jäger, filled with pride, wrote in his report to his superiors: "Today, I am proud to report that the objective of solving the Jewish problem for Lithuania has been achieved by Task Force 3. There are no longer any Jews in Lithuania ..."
AP
It was Dec. 1, 1941, and German troops had occupied Lithuania, which was part of the Soviet Union, since the summer. According to Colonel Jäger's meticulous account, his subordinates had killed exactly 47,326 men, 55,556 women and 34,464 children.
But Jäger did not claim all the credit for himself and the 120 men he commanded. He was only able to achieve his goal, the ardent Hitler supporter wrote, because one of his subordinates had managed to "secure the cooperation of the Lithuanian partisans."
The "partisans" Jäger referred to were anti-communist militia units that had once fought against the Soviet occupation and had now become the willing helpers of their new, German masters. One such incident of voluntary collaboration took place on August 15 and 16, 1941, in Rokiskis, a town in northeastern Lithuania, where 80 Lithuanians rounded up Jews, brought them to an execution site and helped lock up the victims. Twenty of the Lithuanian volunteers joined Jäger's men in shooting them dead.
Rokiskis was only one of many such places. The Holocaust was a crime ordered and committed by Germans, but without the help of Lithuanians, Latvians, Ukrainians, ethnic Germans living in Eastern Europe (known as "Volksdeutsche") and other Eastern Europeans, the death toll would not have been as high. Historians estimate the number of non-German "killing workers" (a term coined by German writer Ralph Giordano) at about 200,000. There is probably no other group of criminals that has proven more difficult to prosecute than the Nazis' non-German helpers and accomplices. Until today, that is.
FROM THE MAGAZINE
Find out how you can reprint this DER SPIEGEL article in your publication.
Names rarely appear in archives, and many of the murderers managed to disappear in the confusion of postwar Europe or emigrated abroad. And because they were at the end of the chain of command, they were able to argue more credibly than many former members of the SS that they had no other choice, at least until someone could prove them wrong. Not all non-Germans participated in the Holocaust voluntarily the way Jäger's "partisans" did. Some in the Wehrmacht's POW camps signed up to work for the SS simply because they would otherwise have faced death by starvation.
Under these circumstances, it comes as no surprise that it has taken German prosecutors so long to turn their attention to these suspects. In mid-March, a court in Munich issued a warrant for the arrest of John ("Ivan") Demjanjuk, an 89-year-old Ukrainian-American living in Cleveland, Ohio, who is accused of being an accessory to at least 29,000 murders. Demjanjuk is believed to have worked as a guard at the Sobibor extermination camp. A US court temporarily blocked Demjanjuk's deportation, arguing that he is too frail to travel and stand trial in Germany. But German authorities expect him to be flown to Germany shortly after a US immigration appeals board ruled that he could be deported.
The Central Office for the Prosecution of National Socialist Crimes (ZSTL) in Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart, already has its sights set on four other men who may have committed murder or been accessories to murder on behalf of the Germans, and who, like Demjanjuk, subsequently emigrated to the United States.
AP
A preliminary investigation is now under way against Ivan Kalymon, 87, who lives in Michigan. Kalymon once worked for the Germans in Lemberg, now Lviv, Ukraine, as a member of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police. In August 1942, he wrote a short-handwritten note to his superiors to report on a mission. The document reads: "I employed my weapon in the line of duty during the 'Jewish Action' on 8/14/1942, at 7 p.m., using four rounds of ammunition, wounding one person and killing another."
It is hard to imagine that this would not suffice as evidence for issuing a German arrest warrant. Kalymon's appeal against the revocation of his US citizenship was denied last fall, and the Americans would be able to place him on a flight to Germany immediately. In the other three cases, German authorities are still at the start of their investigations.
Johann Breyer, 83, was born in Slovakia and lives in Philadelphia today. The son of a Volksdeutsche man and an American woman has admitted that he worked as a guard at the Buchenwald and Auschwitz concentration camps.
A few weeks ago, the Americans deported Josias Kumpf, now 83, to Austria, from where he had emigrated to the United States. Kumpf was present when, in November 1943, the SS shot about 8,000 Jewish inmates in the space of a few days at the Trawniki concentration camp near the southeastern Polish city of Lublin. Kumpf claims, however, that his job was merely to search for survivors in the corpse pits, and that others were responsible for the murders.
NEWSLETTER
Sign up for Spiegel Online's daily newsletter and get the best of Der Spiegel's and Spiegel Online's international coverage in your In- Box everyday.
Lithuanian Algimantas Dailide, 87, already lives within the jurisdiction of German courts, namely in Kirchberg, a town in the eastern state of Saxony. During World War II, Dailide, as a member of the Lithuanian secret police, handed over Jews who had attempted to escape from the Vilnius ghetto to the Nazis, and they were subsequently murdered. At the end of the war, Dailide went into hiding in Germany, where he married a woman from the eastern state of Thuringia. In 1950, the couple emigrated to the United States and, like Demjanjuk, settled in Cleveland.
In 2001, faced with the threat of deportation from the United States, Dailide went to Europe voluntarily. A Lithuanian court sentenced him to five years in prison, but suspended his sentence due to his supposedly poor health. Now the Ludwigsburg prosecutors are examine whether they have a case against Dailide.
- Part 1: Germany Has Sights on Several Alleged Nazi War Criminals
- Part 2: Failures of the German Judiciary
RELATED SPIEGEL ONLINE LINKS
- Nazi Suspect: Alleged Death Camp Guard Battles Extradition (04/08/2009)
- Nazi Guard: German Prosecutors File Charges against Demjanjuk (03/11/2009)
- Photo Gallery: Alleged 'Ivan the Terrible' John Demjanjuk
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2009
All Rights Reserved
Reproduction only allowed with the permission of SPIEGELnet GmbH
SPIEGEL ONLINE SPECIALThe Final Days of World War II
MORE ARTICLES
- The End of Dr. Death? Wanted Nazi Criminal May Have Died in 1992
- The Last Taboo: Will Germany Finally Rehabilitate Nazi- Era 'Traitors'?
- Death in Marienburg: Mystery Surrounds Mass Graves in Polish City
- Nazi News: Magazine Faces Legal Action over Third Reich Reprints
- Malbork Massacre: World War II Mass Grave Unearthed in Poland
- Romania and the Holocaust: Reviving Memory in a Killing Field
TIMELINE
-
DPA
PHOTO GALLERIES
MULTIMEDIA
'Old and miserable.' Demjanjuk Photo: AFP