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On his way home to face justice - death camp Nazi carried to jet in wheelchair for trial in Germany
Allan Hall12 May 2009
A massive security operation was under way at Munich airport today as a private jet landed, carrying suspected Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk for his appointment with justice.
German prosecutors say they have a “mountain” of evidence to prove that the former Ford car worker from Cleveland, Ohio, was involved in the murders of 29,000 people at the Nazi death camp of Sobibor in occupied Poland in the Second World War.
A private Gulfstream jet G4, flight number N250LB, took off from an airfield in Ohio last night to bring 89-yearold Demjanjuk to Germany after all his legal efforts to stay in America failed.
He had been taken to the private jet in a wheelchair by federal agents. Demjanjuk was sentenced to death in Israel two decades ago but evidence branding him a guard at the Nazi extermination centre of Treblinka in Poland was deemed to be unreliable.
It was feared that Communist KGB agents may have tampered with an identity card and that eyewitnesses were sometimes confused over whether he was the guard known as
“Ivan the Terrible” who mutilated women and children as he drove them into the gas chambers.
But it emerged at his trial that he was almost certainly in Sobibor. Israel, because it had directed the whole of its case against him based on the Treblinka evidence, decided it had no choice but to quash the conviction.
Final journey: Demjanjuk is helped from his wheelchair on to the Gulfstream jet at an airport in Cleveland, Ohio. German prosecutors say they can prove he was involved in the murder of 29,000 people
He was stripped of his American citizenship nine years ago as Germany began building a new case based on his SS service at Sobibor.
“The hard facts that place the Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk in Sobibor will be used this time to prove that he was involved at the sharp end of the Holocaust of European Jewry,” said a spokesman for prosecutors in Munich.
The evidence against Demjanjuk centres on interviews with a former SS guard, his own identity card bearing his SS number and paperwork found in archives in Germany, Russia and Lithuania.
That card, issued to him at the SS training camp of Trawniki and bearing his number 1393, has now been subjected to the latest forensic tests by German experts and matched against cards in the Bad Arolsen Holocaust Archive. The paper and ink have been authenticated as genuine, as has the official stamp.
Another federal archive has yielded evidence that he served at a concentration camp called Flossenburg in Germany after his service at Sobibor. Demjanjuk claims he was a Red Army soldier who was captured by the Germans and that he never killed anyone.
He is to be tried in Munich because he lived there after the war before making his way to America with false papers.
Reader views (10)
Phil Jones of London: The main thing is that he is being tried, whether it be ordered by the Germans or people on Mars!! The man helped to murder thousands and thousands of innocent people, for goodness sake. Steve of London: How dare you say that the German authorities have nothing better to do! You have no idea how people suffered under the Nazi regime which thank goodness is long gone. Killers should be tracked and sentenced. Basta!
- Wq (Ex Pat), Frankfurt, Germany, 13/05/2009 08:52
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Justice delayed is justice denied.
The unspeakable atrocities perpetrated by Germany from 1933 to 1945 and its war time axis allies must never be forgotten or sidelined by the measures taken by Britain and our allies as we fought at great cost for our own freedom. All who jumped on the evil Nazi bandwagon must face the example of judgment irrespective of age or health. Had this man been taken from his home he would have been gassed on arrival at the camp. It was Bismark who said "those who forget the lessons of the past are bound to repeat them".
- Jon, London, 13/05/2009 08:51
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Those poor souls in wheelchairs at his camps were considered sub-human and sent straight to the gas chambers. Perhaps he should be reminded of this and he'll stop using his as a sympathy prop.
- A Ridyard, London, 12/05/2009 17:07
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This guy may have been at Sobibor,He was however, only a guard, or non-commissioned officer at best, a nobody, irrespective of the crimes committed. After all this time, and, I am not trying to belittle the horrors inflicted on the world by the Nazis (The UK/Dresden USA/Hiroshima & Russia were not whiter than white)this man was a very small cog in the wheel, and, even if found guilty what will the process achieve other than exact revenge on a nobody! If indeed we are serious about bringing war criminals to justice,(Thus learning from our mistakes) why are we not giving any attention to the more recently committed 'crimes against humanity'where the perpetrators are still at liberty, strutting the world stage, or enjoying an early retirement, while the evidence against them is fresh, and, compelling! (Blair/Bush/Cheney/Rumsfield come to mind) Does make you wonder does'nt it?
- Kevin Sullivan, Roehampton, London., 12/05/2009 16:21
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Nice to know the German authorities have nothing better to do.
- Steve, London, 12/05/2009 15:51
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Justice.
- Dom, London, 12/05/2009 14:05
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How can Germany have the right to try someone who in the Second World War was following the orders of the German Government of that time? Some other government might have the right to try this man, but how can Germany try him?
- Phil Jones, London UK
For your information Phil, things have moved on - Germany is no longer under Nazi rule!
- Napoleon Blownaparte, London, 12/05/2009 11:44
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This man has a case to answer. Let justice be done.
- Bloke, London, 12/05/2009 11:40
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It was established at the Nurenburg trials after the war that "only following orders" was an insufficient defense against mass murder or genocide, and most especially so when the person accused chose to inflict greater suffering than a person reluctantly following orders to the letter and no more. I don't know the legal framework, but I would guess that the right and responsibility for prosecuting war crimes was handed back to the newly constituted German state when the Allies' occupation thereof was ended.
This man is accused of murdering 29,000 people and of sadism which exceeded any orders he was given.
- Nigel, London, 12/05/2009 11:17
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How can Germany have the right to try someone who in the Second World War was following the orders of the German Government of that time? Some other government might have the right to try this man, but how can Germany try him?
- Phil Jones, London UK, 12/05/2009 10:16
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