Former Nazi hit man sentenced to life in prison

A German court on March 23 convicted an 88-year-old of murdering three Dutch civilians as part of a Nazi hit squad during World War II, capping six decades of efforts to bring the former Waffen SS man to justice.

Heinrich Boere, number six on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of most-wanted Nazis, was given the maximum sentence of life in prison for the 1944 killings.

“These were murders that could hardly be outdone in terms of baseness and cowardice — beyond the respectability of any soldier,” presiding judge Gerd Nohl said after the trial in Aachen, Germany.

The defendant, who is half German and half Dutch, was an enthusiastic National Socialist and handed over fellow citizens to be executed, the judge said.

Boere admitted that he shot the three men, but insisted he was following military orders and could have faced imprisonment in a concentration camp or the death penalty if he refused.

Boere also told Focus magazine last year that he was following orders. “It was not difficult: You just had to bend a finger,” he said.

The prosecution argued that Boere was a willing member of the fanatical Waffen SS, which he joined shortly after the Nazis overran his hometown of Maastricht and the rest of the Netherlands in 1940. — jta & ap