Germany’s Chief War Crime Prober Accused of Murders During Nazi Era

The Soviet Government has accused Erwin Schuele, director of the Central Committee for the investigation of Nazi War Crimes in Ludwigsburg, of being a war criminal himself during the German occupation of Western Russia in World War II, it was reported here today from Moscow. The charges, which were handed to the West German Embassy by the Soviet Government, accused Schuele of murder and other crimes during the Nazi occupation.

The Soviet charge was the second of its kind made from Communist sources against Dr. Schuele. Last February, East German officials charged him with having been a “loyal follower” of Hitler, of having been a member of the Nazi Party and as having been a judge in a Nazi court. Dr. Schuele conceded he had been a member of the Nazi Storm Troopers but said he had never been a full member of the Nazi Party or ever served in the Nazi judiciary. The West German Government expressed full confidence in him at the time.

Helmut Cramer, a former Nazi SS officer and Bonn publisher, has disclosed in Cairo that he asked Egypt for political asylum, it was reported here today from the Egyptian capital. Cramer fled Germany in April to avoid standing trial last May before a Cologne court on charges of endangering the Federal Republic by spreading Nazi thinking and working for the rehabilitation of the Waffen SS.

Cramer told the press in Cairo that he had material incriminating some 100 senior German judges of Nazi crimes, and that he would publish the material in about nine months. He said he was seeking asylum in Egypt because his case arose from an incident in which an Israeli student tore down a placard advertising books on one of his mobile bookshops in a public square. He said that he fled because he was convinced he would not get a fair trial in Cologne.

A second trial of Auschwitz death camp personnel accused of war crimes is due to open at the end of November, it was disclosed here today. In the first Auschwitz trial which ended last month, 17 of the 21 accused were given prison sentences ranging from three and a half years to life, three of the defendants were acquitted and the trial of a fourth was postponed due to his illness.