German Nazi war crimes suspect who went on the run goes on trial

[TaylorSwift 162,281]

A 96-year-old German woman who was caught shortly after going on the run ahead of a court hearing last month on charges of committing war crimes during World War Two appeared before a judge in the northern town of Itzehoe. She was taken into the courtroom in a wheelchair.

The trial was postponed after Irmgard Furchner left her home early on Sept. 30 and went on the run for several hours before being detained later that day.  
She didn't want to appear in court and told the judge in a letter “I want to spare myself these embarrassments and don’t want to make myself the laughingstock of humanity”.

Irmgard Furchner is accused of having contributed as an 18-year-old to the murder of 11,412 people when she was a typist at the Stutthof concentration camp between 1943 and 1945.

The court was told she would have “been aware of all happenings” at Stutthof because of her key administrative position. 
Transport lists of detainees destined to be sent to Auschwitz to be murdered as well as radio messages, the dictation of Hoppe’s (commandant of Stutthof concentration camp) orders and his correspondence went through her hands.

She was not willing to respond to questions from the court.

source  source  source

 

[bionic 50,111]

I have such mixed feelings about these type of cases  

[Chic 20,830]

An 18 year old typist? I dunno. Didn’t even have time in life to be an adult before she was in this position. How much of that was coercion?

[TheDemonIClingTo 1,018]

Never too late for some Nuremberg

[moonsago 7,285]

Seriously? I am sorry but most people in war time do things because they HAVE to and are FORCED to by the people in power not because they WANT to... on both sides, on all sides. And she was 18... and she is 98 now... there’s no justice served, there’s only cruelty and this is just another case of how the modern justice system has nothing to do with justice but only punishment. A modern day form of torture. Primitive but in disguise. 

[PunkTheFunk 125,703]

6 minutes ago, moonsago said:

Seriously? I am sorry but most people in war time do things because they HAVE to and are FORCED to by the people in power not because they WANT to... on both sides, on all sides. And she was 18... and she is 98 now... there’s no justice served, there’s only cruelty and this is just another case of how the modern justice system has nothing to do with justice but only punishment. A modern day form of torture. Primitive but in disguise. 

If I'm not mistaken, participation in the war effort by German females as auxiliaries (phone operators, typists, etc.) was voluntary...I'm fairly sure no one held a gun to her head and told her she had to be a secretary at a concentration camp where people were being massacred. That makes her complicit in the crime.

[littlepotter 76,610]

Imagine escaping prison for 80 years. That must be some kind of record

[TheDemonIClingTo 1,018]

1 minute ago, littlepotter said:

Imagine escaping prison for 80 years. That must be some kind of record

Luck runs out eventually

[TheDemonIClingTo 1,018]

25 minutes ago, PunkTheFunk said:

If I'm not mistaken, participation in the war effort by German females as auxiliaries (phone operators, typists, etc.) was voluntary...I'm fairly sure no one held a gun to her head and told her she had to be a secretary at a concentration camp where people were being massacred. That makes her complicit in the crime.

Yeah, there's also their (in)famous phrase "we were just following orders"

[TaylorSwift 162,281]

2 minutes ago, littlepotter said:

Imagine escaping prison for 80 years. That must be some kind of record

Imagine living for 80 years with awareness of all these crimes.

[moonsago 7,285]

35 minutes ago, PunkTheFunk said:

If I'm not mistaken, participation in the war effort by German females as auxiliaries (phone operators, typists, etc.) was voluntary...I'm fairly sure no one held a gun to her head and told her she had to be a secretary at a concentration camp where people were being massacred. That makes her complicit in the crime.

If that is true than I can understand she was complicit, however, I doubt an 18 year old truly knew and understood what she was getting herself into. I am not trying to make excuses for her or justify her horrible actions but I am sure in war times people have all kinds of reasons to do what they do, from government pressure, propaganda ( which can be lies ), religious beliefs, mass manipulation, etc. Not excusing her but trying to find an explanation because we don’t know what its like to live with the mentality people had in such hard times, and however case may be, being served with a sentence at 98 seems pointless especially since we don’t know if she reflected on what she did or changed her stance and has lived her life in regret or not. Idk, I see the problem in a more grey manner not so black and white since what this situation entails is something we don’t know and understand because we haven’t gone through war ( hopefully most of us at least ). 

[PartySick 172,380]

I looked it up because I was curious...

Under international law, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide have no statute of limitations, according to the Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity and Article 29 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

...she lived a full life between 18 and 80, I'm assuming. Though I have mixed feelings about the whole thing, they're not particularly strong feelings. If she perpetuated Nazi crimes, then she does the Nazi time. Even if it has been nearly a century.

[HEARTSTOP 3,154]

2 hours ago, moonsago said:

If that is true than I can understand she was complicit, however, I doubt an 18 year old truly knew and understood what she was getting herself into. I am not trying to make excuses for her or justify her horrible actions but I am sure in war times people have all kinds of reasons to do what they do, from government pressure, propaganda ( which can be lies ), religious beliefs, mass manipulation, etc. Not excusing her but trying to find an explanation because we don’t know what its like to live with the mentality people had in such hard times, and however case may be, being served with a sentence at 98 seems pointless especially since we don’t know if she reflected on what she did or changed her stance and has lived her life in regret or not. Idk, I see the problem in a more grey manner not so black and white since what this situation entails is something we don’t know and understand because we haven’t gone through war ( hopefully most of us at least ). 

Just because people have reasons for what they do, it doesn't mean they shouldn't get the consequences of it.

Most serial killers have a reason for what they do. Most drug international cartel sex and child traffickers have a reason for what they do. Most animal torturers have a reason for what they do.

It doesn't mean these reasons are valid in the eyes of what humanity should thrive to be.

 

The reason it's not pointless is mainly because she ran from the consequences for 80 years, and she shouldn't get rewarded for it. That doesn't set a good example, even though I would probably do the same if I was in her position. No one should be above the law (and I mean humanitarian law, not government law).

[moonsago 7,285]

22 minutes ago, HEARTSTOP said:

Just because people have reasons for what they do, it doesn't mean they shouldn't get the consequences of it.

Most serial killers have a reason for what they do. Most drug international cartel sex and child traffickers have a reason for what they do. Most animal torturers have a reason for what they do.

It doesn't mean these reasons are valid in the eyes of what humanity should thrive to be.

 

The reason it's not pointless is mainly because she ran from the consequences for 80 years, and she shouldn't get rewarded for it. That doesn't set a good example, even though I would probably do the same if I was in her position. No one should be above the law (and I mean humanitarian law, not government law).

But now that you speak of humanitarian law and not government law, is in your opinion throwing people away in cells to rot for the rest of their lives of stripping them away of their rights for however many years humane? If we understand that those people mentioned above do what they do because they have a reason behind it and not out of pure malice but because so many factors have come together to make them the way they are, is throwing them away the answer? This is why I don’t support the justice system, it does nothing, especially bring justice. Now that does not mean I support them being allowed to walk freely, but the way the system is, it does not rehabilitate people and it does not help them realize the severity of their doings and how it affected the lives of other people, it just pushes them away and in the state that they are they don’t feel remorse or real guilt, it just bottles their feelings up and in most cases makes THEM feel unjustly treated. I believe people don’t act out of pure malice but out of a distorted sense of reality, these people have been hurt in some kind of way and in their mind they rationalized what they do. They need to be put back on track, real justice is making these people FEEL what they actually did, the real hurt they caused, that is the resolution, and I believe that can also bring more healing to the people involved and hurt too. I believe in restorative justice because look at the world, the way we are doing it, ain’t working. And I get that its easier to feel sympathy just for the people hurt in the incident and forget that the one hurting was also hurt at one point or failed by the many possible factors in his life such as family, environment, community, mental/physical health, etc. It’s the only way we can heal the world, throwing people away won’t do sh*t. It’s like waste, we disregard ourselves of the clothes ( for example ) we don’t wear anymore and they end up in a field somewhere in the world. The problem is not solved, it’s still there just out of our sight, yet still pilling up. 
Again, before somebody twists my words, I don’t believe they should just be allowed to walk freely, but a new system that takes them in and works to heal and rehabilitate them should be put in place instead of the one that just takes them and never allows them to grow, heal, truly apologize and feel remorse and move on. Yes, I said move on, everybody should be allowed to turn their life around if they work for it, one wrong should not define that person for the REST of their lives especially when we don’t know what they went through to get there. 

[HEARTSTOP 3,154]

58 minutes ago, moonsago said:

But now that you speak of humanitarian law and not government law, is in your opinion throwing people away in cells to rot for the rest of their lives of stripping them away of their rights for however many years humane? If we understand that those people mentioned above do what they do because they have a reason behind it and not out of pure malice but because so many factors have come together to make them the way they are, is throwing them away the answer? This is why I don’t support the justice system, it does nothing, especially bring justice. Now that does not mean I support them being allowed to walk freely, but the way the system is, it does not rehabilitate people and it does not help them realize the severity of their doings and how it affected the lives of other people, it just pushes them away and in the state that they are they don’t feel remorse or real guilt, it just bottles their feelings up and in most cases makes THEM feel unjustly treated. I believe people don’t act out of pure malice but out of a distorted sense of reality, these people have been hurt in some kind of way and in their mind they rationalized what they do. They need to be put back on track, real justice is making these people FEEL what they actually did, the real hurt they caused, that is the resolution, and I believe that can also bring more healing to the people involved and hurt too. I believe in restorative justice because look at the world, the way we are doing it, ain’t working. And I get that its easier to feel sympathy just for the people hurt in the incident and forget that the one hurting was also hurt at one point or failed by the many possible factors in his life such as family, environment, community, mental/physical health, etc. It’s the only way we can heal the world, throwing people away won’t do sh*t. It’s like waste, we disregard ourselves of the clothes ( for example ) we don’t wear anymore and they end up in a field somewhere in the world. The problem is not solved, it’s still there just out of our sight, yet still pilling up. 
Again, before somebody twists my words, I don’t believe they should just be allowed to walk freely, but a new system that takes them in and works to heal and rehabilitate them should be put in place instead of the one that just takes them and never allows them to grow, heal, truly apologize and feel remorse and move on. Yes, I said move on, everybody should be allowed to turn their life around if they work for it, one wrong should not define that person for the REST of their lives especially when we don’t know what they went through to get there. 

I'm not sure which country you're in, but prison in (the richer part of) Europe is VERY different from prison in the US.

Even though it's not a perfect system, it is much more oriented towards rehabilitation and reintegration in society, rather than a "throw away and forget it" kinda deal.

Either way, there is no hope for rehabilitation for someone her age, especially when her crime was helping to murder almost 12000 people, and run away from justice for 80 years.

Spoiler

PS: please use some spacing next time, it was very hard to read this block of text