Albert Filbert, a former Nazi SS officer on trial for his part in the murder of at least 11,000 Russian Jews, when he headed a Nazi einsatzkommando operating in the German-occupied areas of Russia in 1941, admitted here today that he had volunteered to command the unit during the German invasion of Russia, He told the court, however, that, had he known beforehand what the job was, be would have arranged for a trustworthy doctor to make him unfit. He told the court his brother had died in one of Hitler’s concentration camps.
Filbert, who faces a possible life imprisonment sentence, was arrested after a three-year investigation which also led to the arrest of five other SS men who took part in the killings. The latter five, charged with aiding and abetting the murders, face lesser terms.
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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.