A sentence of three years at hard labor for one ex-Nazi, and acquittal for another, was asked by the prosecution in Kassel today at the conclusion of a trial of two former Hitler regime police officers charged with complicity in the murder of 500 Jews in Russia during World War II.
The prosecution sought the prison term for Joseph Lechthaler, 72, a police colonel in the Nazi forces who had served at Sluzk and Smolewitsch, where he was accused of participating in the slaughter of Jews in October of 1941. Acquittal, on the grounds that the charges had not been proven, was asked for Willy Papnekoft, a former police inspector with the same unit in which Lechthaler had served.
Testimony was concluded at Flensburg today in the trial of former SS Major Martin Fellenz, who is charged with murdering more than 30, 000 Jews in the Krakow region in Poland in 1941 and 1942. More than 140 witnesses were heard. The verdict will be rendered January 11.
The jury court, having enlisted the aid of two experts on contemporary history, will seek to determine whether and to what degree the defendant was responsible for the crimes.
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.
