A former official at World War II Gestapo headquarters in Berlin claimed at the opening of his trial yesterday that he did not know about the fate of the thousands of Jews he ordered deported to Nazi death camps. Fritz Woehren, 64, is the principal defendant among nine former Gestapo aids charged with murder. They have been labeled “desk killers” by the prosecution and their trial is the first in which ex-Nazis have been indicted for murder although they were far from the scene of the crime.
Woehren, a former captain in the SS (Elite Corps), worked in the Jewish Affairs section of Gestapo headquarters. His eight co-defendants are charged with complicity in murder for having carried out his orders which resulted in the deaths of thousands of Jews between 1940 and 1945. There were originally 12 defendants but one died and two others became ill and will be tried separately.
The prosecution said that the defendants must have been aware of what happened to deported Jews because all death certificates were returned to their office so that the files could be closed. The prosecution charged in a 720-page indictment that Woehren was “filled with hatred against the Jews and had been convinced of the necessity of killing them.”
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