Hans Steinbrenner, former Nazi guard at the Dachau concentration camp, was sentenced to life imprisonment yesterday for the murder of a Jewish inmate of the camp. The same German court sentenced him to 10 years in jail for another murder and an accomplice to six years on various charges of assault.
Steinbrenner defended his killing the Jewish prisoner on the grounds that as a guard he was “a tool of a legal state, and I believe orders are orders.” He explained that he had entered the cell of one of his victims, thrust a knife in the Jew’s hand and then shot him in “self defense.”
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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.
