2 Nazi War Criminals Sentenced

A Dutch-born war criminal who served with the SS and his German accomplice, were sentenced to prison terms by a district court in Hagen, West Germany today. Siert Bruins, 59, drew seven years in jail and August Neuhaueser, 68, a German national, was sentenced to eight years. Both were found guilty of complicity in the murders of Dutch Jews during World War II. Neuhaueser’s sentence was reduced by four years in consideration of time already served.

Bruins, who was sentenced in absentia in Holland in 1949 to life imprisonment for murder, was convicted by the Hagen court of murdering two Dutch Jewish brothers, Lazar and Meyer Sleuterberg. The crime occurred in Groningen province where the brothers were hiding on April 25, 1945, only a few days before Allied forces liberated that part of Holland. Bruins escaped across the German border and took up residence in a nearby village. He was detected there last July by private investigators from Groningen as a result of information provided by Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal. He claimed West German citizenship.

Meanwhile, a lawyer representing convicted Nazi war criminal Ernst Heinrichsohn has lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court in Karlsruhe against the conviction and sentencing of his client by a Cologne court on Feb. 11. Heinrichsohn, the former Mayor of Buergstodt in Bavaria, was one of three former Gestapo officials founds guilty of deporting French Jews and others to Nazi death camps during the war. He was sentenced to six years. His co-defendants, Herbert Hagen and Kurt Lischka, received 12 and 10-year sentences, respectively. They are also expected to appeal.