Search JTA's historical archive dating back to 1923

Judge of High Court in Germany Suspended for Helping Nazi Criminal

December 17, 1959
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
Advertisement

Dr.Ernst Siegfried Nuresch, the highest Judge in the Schleswig-Holstein Social Court, was under suspension today for his part in the Werner Heyde “euthanasia doctor” case.

The Administrative Court, announcing his suspension, said he had been accused of knowing since December 1954 that Dr. Fritz Sawade, employed as chief medical advisor to the Schleswig-Holstein social courts, was actually Dr. Heyde who had been sought for months. He had been charged with numerous murders committed during the Nazi period on mental patients, as well as political and Jewish concentration camp prisoners.

The Social Democratic opposition in the Schleswig-Holstein Parliament meanwhile demanded that the Parliamentary committee named to investigate the Heyde affair, should also investigate recent government proposals to fill the post of Parliamentary administrative director.

The Christian Democratic cabinet had given Parliament a choice between Wilhelm Voelpel, former SS leader, under suspicion of having committed war crimes in Norway, and Hans Laskowski, one-time personal attache of Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess. Voelpel was elected as the “lesser evil.”

Uwe von Hassel, Schleswig-Holstein Premier, said that the issue did not matter because the administrative director’s post “is merely an administrative Job.” He added that “for us, de-nazification is closed. We consider it unbearable to pursue these things over and over again.”

Recommended from JTA

Advertisement