Klaas Carel Faber

Klaas Carel Faber (born January 20, 1922 in Haarlem , Netherlands ; † May 24, 2012 in Ingolstadt ) was a Dutch member of the Waffen SS and a war criminal living in Germany .

Second World War

In 1940, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II, Faber joined the Dutch SS like his brother Pieter Johan . There he guarded prisoners, including those in the Westerbork transit camp , which Anne Frank and her family also had to pass through in 1944 . He was involved in the killing of prisoners. He is also said to have participated in the murder of suspected Dutch resistance fighters as part of the Silbertanne special command .

Prosecution

In the Netherlands he was sentenced to death on June 9, 1947, like his brother, for murdering 22 prisoners . While his sentence was being carried out in 1948, Klaas Carel Faber's sentence was reduced to life imprisonment on January 14, 1948 . He had also lost his Dutch citizenship under Dutch law because of his SS membership.

At Christmas 1952 he fled with the war criminals Willem Polak (1915–1993), Herbertus Bikker (1915–2008), Antoine Touseul (1921–1991), Sander Borgers (1917–1985), Willem van der Neut (1919–1983) and Jacob de Jonge from the “dome prison” in Breda (Netherlands) and with the help of a German policeman and former war comrade, he escaped across the border into the Federal Republic of Germany . There the extradition was repeatedly refused because, as an SS volunteer, he was considered a German citizen due to a decree of 1943 and Germans could not be extradited under the law of the time.

In 1957 the Düsseldorf Regional Court refused to open main proceedings against Faber on the grounds in dubio pro reo (Latin: "In case of doubt for the accused"), because the Netherlands had refused to present evidence. He moved from the Ruhr area to Ingolstadt in 1961 and worked as an employee at the car manufacturer Auto Union (now Audi ) until he retired .

In 2004 the Netherlands asked the German penal system to take over the enforcement of the sentence, but the Ingolstadt district court interpreted the Düsseldorf decision of 1957 as a consumption of criminal charges and refused to take over the enforcement as well as further investigations.

In 2006, the central office of the state justice administrations for the investigation of National Socialist crimes intervened in the matter without success.

The intervention of the Simon Wiesenthal Center , which placed Faber in fifth place on the list of internationally wanted Nazi criminals , an initiative of 150 Jerusalem lawyers, the Israeli Ministry of Justice and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, and the application of the Israeli Justice Minister Jaakov Neeman came in 2010 Movement in the matter again: Federal Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger , who had already shown irritation about the attitude of the Ingolstadt judiciary in 2009, asked her Bavarian colleague Beate Merk to examine the matter. The Bavarian Ministry of Justice reacted cautiously: There would have to be “new, previously unknown facts” in order to enforce the Dutch judgment.

On 25 November 2010, the Netherlands issued a European Arrest Warrant against Faber.

On May 18, 2011, the Munich Public Prosecutor's Office decided that Faber could not be extradited to the Netherlands due to his lack of consent.

In January 2012 it became known that the Ingolstadt public prosecutor's office had applied to the Ingolstadt regional court for the sentence to be enforced in Germany.

On the sidelines of his two-day state visit to the Netherlands on the holiday of liberation from National Socialism in 2012, the German President Joachim Gauck showed understanding for the Dutch interest in prosecution, but referred to the independence of the judiciary. There had previously been a public discussion there about whether the visit was appropriate, especially with regard to this holiday, as long as Faber was not extradited.

Faber died shortly afterwards in Ingolstadt Hospital on a kidney failure .

Web links

• Marc Brupbacher: Reporter tracks down Nazi criminals - he lives undisturbed in Germany. In: Tages-Anzeiger . 5th July 2019 . 
• Dossier Klaas Faber. In: fpmedia.tk. March 28, 2012, archived from the original on March 31, 2013 (Dutch). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Arnold Karskens : stuff Gezochte oorlogsmisdadiger Willem Polak. In: ThePostOnline. March 30, 2015, accessed April 20, 2020 (Dutch). 
2. ↑ Decree on acquiring German citizenship through employment in the German Wehrmacht, the Waffen-SS, the German police or the Todt Organization of May 11, 1943 (RGBl. IS 315)
3. ↑ ^{a b} Der Demjanjuk from Ingolstadt: Why an alleged war criminal lives unmolested by the judiciary in Bavaria. (mp3 audio, 12.3 MB) (No longer available online.) In: B5-aktuell broadcast “Der Funkstreifzug”. August 6, 2010, formerly in the original ; accessed on April 20, 2020 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  
4. ↑ Israel asks Berlin to investigate the case of a Nazi war criminal. In: tagesanzeiger.ch. August 26, 2010, accessed April 20, 2020 . 
5. ^ Netherlands: arrest warrant for Nazi criminals living in Germany. In: Focus Online . November 25, 2010, accessed April 20, 2020 . 
6. ↑ Nazi collaborator: Klaas Carel Faber is not extradited. In: Focus Online. May 18, 2011, accessed April 20, 2020 . 
7. ↑ Harald Jung: Justice: 90-year-old war criminal should be in custody. In: Augsburger Allgemeine . January 13, 2012, accessed April 20, 2020 . Hans Holzhaider: The last one on the list. In: sueddeutsche.de . January 17, 2012, accessed April 20, 2020 . 
    
8. ↑ respect for the legal order. Gauck on Liberation Day in the Netherlands: "I am not a king". In: europeonline-magazine.eu. May 6, 2012, archived from the original on July 31, 2012 ; accessed on April 20, 2020 . 
9. ↑ Rob Savelberg: Liberation Day: Dutch feel offended by Gauck's visit. In: Welt Online . April 28, 2012, accessed April 20, 2020 . 
10. ↑ Horst Richter: Nazi criminal Klaas Carel Faber is dead. In: Donaukurier.de . May 26, 2012, accessed April 20, 2020 .