Germany’s Federal Court of Justice on Tuesday upheld the conviction of a 99-year-old former secretary at the Stutthof concentration camp for aiding and abetting the mass murder of more than 10,000 people between June 1943 and April 1945.
The court sitting in the eastern city of Leipzig dismissed the appeal against a verdict handed down by the Itzehoe Regional Court, to the north of Hamburg, in December 2022.
The regional court had sentenced the woman to a two-year suspended juvenile sentence for aiding and abetting murder in 10,505 cases and attempted murder in five cases.
The woman, identified under German privacy laws as Irmgard F, received a youth sentence as she was under 21 years old at the times the crimes were committed. Tuesday’s decision is now final.
The case is considered possibly the last criminal trial for addressing the Nazi mass murders.
Irmgard F was employed as a typist in the commandant’s office of the Stutthof Nazi concentration camp near what was then the Free City of Danzig – now Gdańsk in Poland – when she was 18-19 years old.
The regional court had judged that through her work, the young woman had assisted the camp’s officials in the systematic killing of inmates. Also, supporting activities could legally be seen as aiding and abetting murder.
Irmgard F’s defence team had filed the appeal. The Federal Court of Justice, Germany’s highest civil and criminal court, held an oral hearing on the matter at the end of July.
The lawyers tried to cast doubt, among other things, whether intent could be proven against her. They argued it was not shown that she really knew what was happening in the camp. She was 18 or 19 years old at the time.
Additionally, they said her work as a typist did not differ significantly from her previous job in a bank. From her perspective, she had carried out “neutral actions.” The federal judges did not agree with this argument.
The Federal Court of Justice confirmed the Itzehoe Regional Court’s assessment that Irmgard F had provided assistance to the murders through her willingness to serve. Almost all of the camp’s correspondence passed over the desk of the typist.
According to the Arolsen Archives documentation centre, approximately 110,000 people from 28 countries were imprisoned in the Stutthof concentration camp and its 39 subcamps between 1939 and 1945. Almost 65,000 did not survive.
