Two former West German police officials at Giesen and a former Hitler Storm Trooper went on trial in that Hessen town yesterday, charged with having murdered at least 360 Jews in the Polish town of Ostrow-Mazowieck within the first two months after the Nazi army’s invasion of Poland in 1939.
The ex-police officials are Hans Hoffmann, 57, and Kurt Kirschner, 62, while the former Storm Trooper is Theodor Pillich. Hoffman was, at the time of his arrest two years ago, head of the Giesen security police with the rank of commissar. All three men are accused of having been members of an einsatzcommando ordered to liquidate all the Jews in the community who had not fled to the Russian side of the then Polish border.
A total of 30 German police officers are alleged to have taken part in the murders. The offenses came to light as a result of inquiries begun more than two years ago by the public prosecutor at Wiesbaden.
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