Germany war-crimes trial ends with light sentence

BERLIN -- Protest and praise greeted last week's verdict in what may be Germany's last Nazi war-crimes case.

Alfons Goetzfrid, a 79-year-old former Gestapo agent, was found guilty of helping murder 17,000 people, most of them Jews. But a German court ruled that he should not serve the sentence of 10 years because of time already served in Soviet prisons.

The decision is "basically ridiculous," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center.

It is "like a slap on the wrist," he added. "What kind of lesson is that for future generations? Sentencing is not about compassion.

"I would invite Germany to look at other societies where rape and drunk driving get higher sentences," Hier said.

But Ignatz Bubis, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, welcomed the verdict.

"There might be cases where you can't punish the person, but it is very important that their guilt is stated, " said Bubis, who is a Holocaust survivor.

The comments came after a court in the southwestern city of Stuttgart found Goetzfrid guilty of assisting in the murders at the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland, in an action the Nazis called the "Harvest Festival."

The court said Goetzfrid, a Russian of German descent, should not serve any more prison time because he spent 13 years in Soviet prisons and labor camps after being convicted on the same charge.

In 1991 he immigrated from the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan to Germany.

He was arrested in Germany in March 1998 and was held for a year in jail while awaiting trial.

While Goetzfrid will continue to live freely in Stuttgart, he will lose his German pension, according to Stuttgart State Court spokesman Andreas Arndt.

For the thousands of victims and their families, said Arndt, it was "important" to strip him of the pension "even if it is clear that no one has to go to prison.

"It is the principle" that's important, he added.

According to his attorney, Dieter Koenig, Goetzfrid has until the end of this week to appeal the verdict to a higher court in Karlsruhe.

During interviews as a witness in another case, Goetzfrid had previously admitted to shooting 500 people in the action at Majdanek, according to British investigators.

But in his own trial, he denied having fired any weapons himself, saying he had only loaded weapons for others.

"I cannot remember shooting anyone myself," he said at the trial, during which he also admitted to being a member of the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police.

He said that the scene of men, women and children in agony had made him physically ill.

In its decision, the court found him guilty of assisting in, but not committing, murder.

Prosecutor Kurt Schrimm had asked for a 13-year sentence.

Outside Germany, several World War II war crimes trials are under way or recently concluded. Among them:

*Dinko Sakic, 77, currently on trial in the Croatian capital of Zagreb for his role in the massacre of hundreds of victims at Jasenovac concentration camp.

*Dr. Heinrich Gross, 83, whom Austria recently decided to try for his alleged role in the murder of children at a clinic in Vienna.

*Anthony Sawoniuk, a 78-year-old retired British railroad ticket collector, was found guilty of war crimes in Belarus during Britain's first war crimes trial, held in London last month.

*John Demjanjuk, 79, a retired auto mechanic in Cleveland, whom the U.S. Justice Department launched new proceedings against this month.

"We are coming to the end of an era," said Hier, "but that does not mean that all the criminals have been found. Some have gotten off scot-free."