Two former Gestapo officials, Johann Baecker, 61, and Hans Quambusch, 68, were given life sentences by a West Berlin court for the murder of Jews Poles and Ukrainians in Poland from 1941 to 1943. Both have been in custody since March 1971. The public prosecutor described Baecker as an “extremely violent criminal” who murdered “defenseless people out of sheer excessive racial hatred and utter contempt for foreigners.” The court, in handing down the verdicts, said both were “primitive personalities” who had not acted on orders but on their own initiative for reasons of racial hatred.
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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.
