Martin Fellenz, a former SS Lieutenant Colonel, was sentenced this weekend to seven years hard labor on a re-trial for war crimes committed while he was a Nazi police chief in occupied Krakow in Poland and was immediately released.
In passing sentence, the Kiel court said Fellenz had spent five years in pre-trial detention and ordered that time deducted from his sentence. The court then gave Fellenz a pardon for the remainder of the sentence.
Dr. A. Kehl, chairman of the court, said Fellenz was guilty of deportation of 38, 000 Jews in 1942 from Krakow, Tarnow and Przemsyl, and that he was implicated in four cases involving the slaying of 45, 000 Jews. The Kiel prosecutor had asked a life term for Fellenz, 66, who was a Schleswig town official until his arrest.
He had been sentenced previously to a four-year term after his first trial in Flensburg on the deportation charges. Soon after he began serving that sentence, the court ordered deduction of his pre-trial detention from that sentence and he was released, A West German high court ordered the re-trial in Kiel.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.