Heinrich Boere

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Heinrich Boere (born September 27, 1921 in Eschweiler ; † December 1, 2013 in Fröndenberg , North Rhine-Westphalia ) was a German-Dutch war criminal . As a member of the SS he was during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II, the operation silbertanne at that in the context of reprisals shot unarmed civilians. He was later convicted of three murders as a result.

Life

Boere was born in Eschweiler. As a child he moved to the Netherlands with his family . The son of a Dutch father and a German mother signed up as a volunteer for the Waffen SS at the end of 1940 and fought on the Eastern Front for almost two years . From 1942 he belonged to the SS special command " Feldmeijer " in the Netherlands. This command committed the "silver fir" murders: After attacks by Dutch resistance fighters against Germans or collaborators, the Higher SS and Police Leader in the Netherlands, Hanns Albin Rauter , instructed the command to murder certain civilians. At least 54 Dutch people were killed in the murders triggered by the code word “silver fir”. Boere was involved in three of the murders committed in plain clothes in July and September 1944 in the towns of Voorschoten and Wassenaar . The first victim was the pharmacist Fritz Bicknese from Breda on July 14, 1944 , whom Boere shot with an accomplice. According to his own statement, months later he was commissioned to kill Frans-Willem Kusters in Voorschoten and the bicycle dealer Teunis de Groot in Wassenaar.

After the end of the war , Boere admitted the murders in questioning in 1946. In October 1949, Boere was sentenced to death by a special court in Amsterdam for murder . The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment . At the time of the judgment, Boere had already fled to Germany; the sentence was not carried out. Boere lived as a miner in Eschweiler for several decades .

After an extradition request from the Netherlands, Boere was briefly detained in 1983. To extradition did not happen, as the German authorities could not exclude that Boere by its entry into the Waffen-SS , the German citizenship had acquired; the legal situation at the time forbade the extradition of Germans abroad. A German preliminary investigation was discontinued because the reprisal was permissible under international law ; in addition, Boere acted on orders.

Conviction 2010

The regional court of Aachen and the higher regional court of Cologne contradicted this legal assessment in the summer of 2007 : Boere could not invoke an order emergency , the "silver fir" murders should not be classified as so-called war repression justified by international law. The 1949 judgment is nevertheless not enforceable, since Boere was not represented by a defense lawyer before the Dutch special court.

In 2008, the Dortmund public prosecutor brought charges against Boere for three murders . At that time Boere was living in a retirement home on the edge of the Eifel . The trial was not opened by the jury court in Aachen after an expert had declared Boere unfit to stand trial because of a heart condition.

The Cologne Higher Regional Court ruled on July 7, 2009, as a court of appeal, that Boere's health had improved, which meant that he was able to stand trial and could be charged with the murder of three Dutch citizens. After Boere's constitutional complaint against his trial was not accepted for decision and the negotiating ability for a manageable trial was confirmed by the Federal Constitutional Court , the trial against Boere began on October 28, 2009 at the Aachen Regional Court . A doctor was appointed to Boere for the trial. On March 23, 2010 Heinrich Boere was sentenced to life imprisonment .

Three sons of two victims attended the proceedings as joint plaintiffs . The subsidiary prosecution accused Boere of being implicated in seven other murders:

“The facts illustrate the criminal energy of the trained retail salesman, who was a zealous and convinced National Socialist. The co-plaintiffs Detlef Hartmann and Wolfgang Heiermann said that his self-portrayal that he acted as a mere recipient of orders could be refuted. The facts allow conclusions to be drawn about Boere's driving force and perpetrator personality, for whom the Aachen regional court must determine the particular gravity of the guilt. "

Arrested in 2011

On December 15, 2011, Boere began his prison sentence at the age of 90. He was taken from the nursing home in Eschweiler to the sick department of a correctional facility in North Rhine-Westphalia. One expert came to the conclusion that he was “principally liable”.

death

Boere died of natural causes on December 1, 2013, at the age of 92 in the Fröndenberg Correctional Hospital.

Web links

 Wikinews: Heinrich Boere  - in the news

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b focus.de: Boere / Demjanjuk: The last major Nazi trials . October 8, 2009. Retrieved October 17, 2009.
  2. ^ Trial against Nazi war criminals failed. In: Der Spiegel . January 7, 2009.
  3. ↑ NRC Handelsblad : Voormalige SS'er Boere kan terechtstaan ( Memento of 9 July 2009 at the Internet Archive ) (Dutch) of 7 July 2009
  4. ↑ Life imprisonment for 88-year-old SS men. In: The Standard . March 23, 2010.
  5. ↑ spiegel.de March 23, 2010: SS man Boere sentenced to life imprisonment
  6. ↑ spiegel.de of January 28, 2010 . Jörg Diehl: Ex-SS man is said to be involved in further murders
  7. ↑ Handelsblatt online from December 15, 2011 . Nazi criminal faces prison sentence
  8. ↑ rls / wit: Former SS man: War Criminal Boere died. In: Spiegel Online. dated December 2, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Boere, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Dutch war criminal, involved in the murders of Dutch civilians as a member of the Waffen SS
DATE OF BIRTH September 27, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Netherlands
DATE OF DEATH December 1st, 2013
Place of death Fröndenberg