The German media portrayed the trial as possibly the last verdict against the participants of the National Socialist death machine, since most of those involved are either dead or no longer fit to stand trial due to their advanced age.
For most of the post-war years, German prosecutors had to prove that concentration camp guards were specifically involved in specific murders in order to convict them. These high hurdles meant that many Nazi perpetrators were able to escape justice.
But the 2011 conviction of former Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk, who was found guilty of aiding and abetting mass murder while serving as a guard at the Sobibór concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, set a new precedent in Germany, allowing prosecutors to prosecute anyone found guilty of aiding and abetting mass murder in concentration camps.
This precedent also allowed prosecutors to convict Fuchner, who was in her late teens when she worked as a stenographer for the commandant of Stutthof. Because of her young age, a juvenile court decided the case and gave her a two-year suspended sentence.
Furchner’s lawyer argued that the public prosecutor’s office had not been able to prove beyond a doubt that she had known about the systematic killings in the camp. However, the Leipzig Higher Regional Court rejected this argument in its ruling on Tuesday.
“Administrative staff are less closely involved in the crime, but that is not a criterion for criminal liability for aiding and abetting,” said Thomas Will, prosecutor at the Central Office of the State Judicial Authorities for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes, in a telephone interview with POLITICO before the verdict. “Our argument was that administrative support of a mass murder must be aiding and abetting murder.”
Will’s office investigates suspects in cases involving concentration camps and then hands over the results to prosecutors in the respective judicial districts seeking conviction. Two cases are currently underway in the Hanau and Berlin regional courts, Will said, but it is unclear whether the suspects will be found fit to stand trial. Another case is with the prosecutor’s office in Neuruppin in the eastern state of Brandenburg.
“We are working on transferring more cases,” he added.
