A former SS officer who made home movies of the execution of Jews by SS units, was acquitted today of murder charges by a Bonn criminal court which accepted his plea of amnesia concerning “everything connected with the Jewish question during the Nazi regime.” The acquittal was the second for the defendant, identified under court orders only as Franz T.
He had been tried previously on charges of participation in the mass murder of Polish Jews and was released after the court accepted his contention that he had known nothing of the executions at the time and found out about them only at the end of the war.
He was put on trial a second time after a police search of his home during the course of investigating an unrelated case turned up the film. During the second trial, Franz T. switched his defense from no knowledge to amnesia. He was supported by a court psychiatrist who testified that this could have been the case.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
