Cologne Public Prosecutor Johann Cohnen yesterday demanded jail sentences for three former Nazis charged with complicity in the wartime murder of thousands of French Jews and Communists. He called for 12-year sentences for Kurt Lischka, 70, the qestapo chief in Nazi-occupied Paris, and Herbert-Martin Hagen, 66, who was responsible to the “Jewish Office” in Berlin, both of whom Cohnen said were actively involved in all anti-Jewish measures in France and in organizing the mass deportations to Auschwitz.
The prosecutor also called for a five-year jail sentence for Ernest Heinrichsohn, 59, now the mayor of a small town in Bavaria, accused of dealing with the elderly and child deportees. Cohnen said he was asking for a lesser sentence for Heinrichsohn because during the trial, which lasted several weeks, he had declared his “moral guilt” over what had occurred during the war although he did not accept legal guilt.
Cohnen, in demanding the jail sentences, said all three must have known the fate awaiting French deportees to Auschwitz and must have known the meaning of the official term “the final solution to the Jewish problem.” Summation by the defense is scheduled for next week.
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