Heinrich Boere
Posted on 11/27/2009 3:34:31 PM PST by lizol
Suspect in Nazi trial proud of his SS service
By DAVID RISING (AP) – 9 hours ago
AACHEN, Germany — A man accused of murdering Dutch civilians as a member of a Waffen SS hit squad said at his trial Friday that he was proud about being chosen as a volunteer to fight for the Nazis.
Heinrich Boere, 88, made his first comments to the Aachen state court since his trial opened at the end of October. As part of that SS unit, he is charged with killing a bicycle-shop owner, a pharmacist and another civilian. He faces a possible sentence of life in prison if convicted.
Boere said he remembered his mother waking him up the night in 1940 that Germany invaded his hometown in the Netherlands and seeing Stuka dive-bombers overhead. Instead of fearing the German bombs, Boere, whose father was Dutch and mother German, said his family was elated as the attack unfolded.
"(My mother) said 'they're coming' now things will be better," he told the court, speaking animatedly to the panel of judges.
"It was better," he added later.
Boere was born in Eschweiler, Germany, on the outskirts of Aachen where he lives today, but moved to the Netherlands when he was an infant.
After the Germans had overrun his hometown of Maastricht and the rest of the Netherlands, he remembers as an 18-year-old seeing a recruiting poster for the Waffen SS, signed by Heinrich Himmler. It offered German citizenship after two years of service and the possibility of becoming a policeman after that.
He showed up with 100 other Dutchmen at the recruitment office and was one of 15 chosen.
"I was very proud," Boere told the court in a statement read by his attorney before he answered questions from the presiding judge.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
looks damn tough for 88...
He’s proud of what? Offing civilians? I can see being proud of facing armed soldiers, but not this.
His case is a lot more complicated than let on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Boere
I’m of mixed minds on this one, because it seems to be more of a national spat than tied up with Nazi ideology. Boere was half Dutch and half German, was born in Germany but raised in the Netherlands. Even as a 19 year old, he was fully supportive of the Germans.
He volunteered and fought on the Eastern Front as a uniformed soldier before sent home with an infection. Then he joined the Waffen-SS, also a uniformed role, in what amounted to a counterintelligence role.
As such, he killed three partisan civilians working against the German forces. Importantly, Geneva Convention protections of non-uniform “insurgents” is very limited.
Certainly US forces recently exterminated lots of non-uniformed Iraqis who were aiding and abetting non-uniformed insurgents.
After the war, he admitted these killings as a POW, then escaped and fled to Germany, where he took German citizenship, that had been legally offered to him, under a law still in effect. From here he was given protection by the German government, that refused to extradite him to the Netherlands.
Since that time, he has been in legal limbo, batted around from court to court.
As such, this may not rise to the level of a war crime, but instead is just a national spat between the Netherlands and Germany.
if he was ONLY offing resistance members its allowed under the Geneva convention that Germany signed. We just don’t know what his actual orders where.
If that’s a current picture then he’s in great shape for his age.
His apparent composure is food for thought. Perfectly rational from his point of view.
That is probably the base of his defense. The Waffen SS were primarily military in function. Nevertheless they too committed their share of war crimes, atrocities, etc.
He is not admitting killing civilians here, just admitting and apparently defending his service to the Third Reich without specifying (within this article anyway) exactly what that service was.
If that’s a current picture then he’s in great shape for his age.
His apparent composure is food for thought. Perfectly rational from his point of view.
Until the day he died my father was very hardened towards the Germans. He always contended that they were never sorry they started the war, only that they had lost it.
He was a combat medic, and watched a close friend killed in a false white flag ambush. That too was an SS operation according to him. A harsh school.
He was a tough old guy like this one too. Something about being shot at seems to temper the steel.
This outlook/attitude is a grim outlook for us. Many in this country, as we've seen in the political establishment, are weak kneed and will go where the wind blows. I would like to feel that noone on FR would do that but...all the evidence in human history shows otherwise. L & L is necessary, and in my household, as necessary as a First Aid Kit. "I will die on my feet before I live on my knees"
"Waffen" means fighting. They were the elite German military units. Although they had more than their share of Nazi fanatics and ideologues, the majority were just damn good soldiers. Keep in mind that the German term for American bomber crews was "Terrorflieger" (terror bomber) because of the success in "offing" civilians.
Let’s keep turning over rocks until we find every little nazi there ever was. But whatever you do, don’t ever look into the Soviets or any other Communists. In fact, when have they ever been brought up before a court?
Here’s just one little episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USZcrMn48Xg&feature=related
I believe there were the “Waffen” and then the “Waffen SS”.
As for this man, for me, if the man feels proud of his service he shouldn’t be begrudged that pride, in a way compared to the weak kneed “I’m sooo sorry” stuff that happens these days, his stance is refreshing.
However, let’s not call a Sinner a Saint, he was not marching around with the Boy Scouts, he was a soldier in the Nazi War Machine who killed partisans for Hitler’s Germany.
He is a dead ringer for a guy in my neighborhood, right down to the specs and checks over the undershirt. My guy is very proud of having been a teamster security guard and regularly confers with Moses, Abraham, and various archangels, and thinks he has a second family on Venus. But his wife says he came from Alabama. I try to make time to talk to him except when I am using power equipment.
At least he’s man enough and honest enough to tell it the way he sees it.
Dobgert41,
You know that the MSM and the leftist govts of the world will never allow the truth to come out - that the commies killed 100 million in the last century.
We will never see the single prosecution of a commie genocidal thug.
Damn good soldiers maybe, but on the wrong side.
They started the war by invading sovereign countries, destroyed and killed people in uniform and out. They paved the way for the Reich Kommisars and Gauleiters and the rest of the odious Nazi mess.
There is no moral equivalence between
them, and our Eighth AF/Bomber Command bring the war home to the country that started it. If they killed patriots
in counquered countries, I consider that they certainly
should be tried by those countries courts for murder.
They were unlawfully in the Netherlands(or Russia, Poland or whereever), acting as tools for Hitler and the parties
who were tried at Nuremberg for waging aggressive war.
I believe that trumps the notion that the Waffen SS could
kill patriots resisting this horror under the Geneva Convention. The GC didn’t save SS captured and found to have killed Czechs, Poles or Russians, nor should it.
Let the Dutch have him and hang him with my blessing.
Ditto for any others that can be found.
True, but killing “partisans” is a perfectly acceptable war time activity.
A man accused of murdering Dutch civilians as a member of a Waffen SS hit squad said at his trial Friday that he was proud about being chosen as a volunteer to fight for the Nazis... As part of that SS unit, he is charged with killing a bicycle-shop owner, a pharmacist and another civilian. He faces a possible sentence of life in prison if convicted.Hey, at least the Nazis had a national health plan, and a great research arm, run by Doctor Mengele. /sarc
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