Alfred Rapp, 66, a former commander of one of the Nazi extermination groups which slaughtered hundreds of thousands of persons in the wake of the German army advance, admitted his guilt without reservation, a rare development in Nazi war crimes trials.
Rapp, charged with the murder of 3,000 victims, testified that “what has happened is so frightful that I neither can nor will ask for leniency.” Most of the former Nazis who have been tried in West Germany have denied the charges against them, or tried to shift responsibility to their superiors. Rapp also testified he had never pleaded obedience to orders as an excuse for his actions, and that he had expressed his readiness to take responsibility for them. The prosecutor has demanded a sentence of life imprisonment for the defendant.
He admitted he had taken part in the execution of mental defectives at Trubtchevsk, and in one execution of Jews which, he said, had been an overwhelming shock. He said that, since the war and during four years of pre-trial detention, he had time for reflection on his wartime activities.
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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.
