Erich Kassner, 52, a former officer of Hitler’s SS, told the Oldenburg Criminal Court at the opening today of his trial on charges of participating in the murder of 11, 000 Jews in 1942 in Kowell, a Ukrainian city, that he considered himself still bound by his “oath to Hitler” and, therefore, could not testify on any of the details of his wartime activities in Kowel. Kassner and Fritz Mathei, 67, also an ex-Nazi, were accused of killing the victims in a few months during the German occu- pation. Sixty witnesses, including many from Israel and the United States, are scheduled to testify that the two Nazis killed many of the victims with their own hands. Kassner also said, in his preliminary statement to the court; “I have only tried to be a faithful son of the German nation and, as such, I have always blindly obeyed orders without discussion.”
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