A former SS officer, convicted of complicity in the murder of 4,000 persons, was sentenced to six-and-one-half years in jail today — and promptly set free on probation. The officer, Dr. Albert Widmann, 54, was convicted in a Stuttgart court for his participation in the killing of mental defectives in Russia in 1941.
The court president, Dr. Wolfgang Fischer, noted that Widmann had already served three-and-one-half years in jail on another conviction, for taking part in human “guinea pig” tests on prisoners at the Sachenhausen concentration camp in 1942. Concluding that Widmann had already served more than two-thirds of his jail sentence on this charge, Dr. Fischer released him on four years’ probation. He also ordered Widmann to pay a fine of 4,000 marks ($360) to charity.
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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.