Criminal charges have been filed in a West Berlin court against nine former judges of the Hitler era who are accused of having sentenced 350 Germans and non-Germans to death for political reasons. All were members of the notorious “Volksgetichtshof” which handled the cases of political opponents of the Nazi regime.
The charges were brought by the Frankfurt-based West German Association of Nazi Victims and the Union of Anti-Fascists. A spokesman for the association conceded that there are major differences of opinion in legal circles as to whether the charges will be acted upon under present West German laws.
To date there have been no successful charges against former Nazi judges. Public interest has been focused from time to time on the failure of the State prosecution to bring them to trial although they were an integral part of the Nazi machinery which resulted in the deaths of innocent people and political opponents of Hitler.
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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.
