94-Year-Old Auschwitz Guard Appeals Murder Conviction
— A former Nazi SS guard who was sentenced to five years in prison by a German court for his role as an accessory in the murder of at least 170,000 people in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in Poland has appealed his conviction.
Attorneys for Reinhold Hanning, 94, filed appeals of the verdict handed down earlier this month by the district court in Detmold, in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, The Associated Press reported.
Lawyers representing nine Auschwitz survivors or their families as co-plaintiffs at the trial also appealed the verdict, according to the AP, which could not provide further details.
Hanning will remain free while he appeals.
He joined the Waffen SS in 1942 and was posted that year to Auschwitz. Hanning had joined Hitler Youth in 1934.
His is likely one of the last trials of Nazis in Germany. Clues leading to about 30 suspects in late 2013 came from the Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in Ludwigsburg, which made a major push to identify former death camp guards after the conviction of John Demjanjuk in 2011 for his role in the murders of nearly 30,000 Jews at the Sobibor death camp in Poland. Demjanjuk died in a German nursing home in 2012 during his appeal.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Dive In
-
Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
-
Fast Forward Trump nominee Ed Martin, who praised a Nazi sympathizer, also compared Biden to Hitler
-
Fast Forward Heavy police presence blocks anti-Israel protest in Brooklyn from reaching Jewish neighborhood
-
Fast Forward Ben-Gvir says he met with 4 members of Congress, rebuffed protesters at US Capitol
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 2
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 3
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 4
Fast Forward Columbia staff receive texts asking if they’re Jewish, as government hunts antisemitic harassment on campus
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
-
News At Harvard, reports on antisemitism and anti-Palestinian bias reflect campus conflict over Israel
-
Opinion Is JB Pritzker’s very Jewish toughness the key to fighting Trump?
-
Fast Forward Trump nominee Ed Martin, who praised a Nazi sympathizer, also compared Biden to Hitler
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.