German Court Lets Admitted Nazi Murderer Go Free

by John Rosenthal
Misleading headlines in other media notwithstanding, the SS hitman Heinrich Boere stands a good chance of living out his life in comfortable retirement.
“Ex-Nazi Guilty in Wartime Murders,” the New York Times headline ran. “Heinrich Boere, Ex-Nazi SS Member, Convicted For WWII Murders” ran the headline of the AP article on the Huffington Post. The Times in London (in an otherwise informative article, it must be said) even chose to run with “SS killer Heinrich Boere finally jailed at 88.” But the headlines could just as well have run “German Court Lets Admitted Nazi Murderer Go Free.”
For that is, in fact, what happened in a courtroom in Aachen last Tuesday. The court convicted Boere, who has made no secret of his participation in the murders in question, and then let him go free. The New York Times article fails even to mention this fact. The AP does eventually get around to mentioning it, but not before noting, “Though sentenced to death in absentia in the Netherlands in 1949, later commuted to life imprisonment, Boere has managed to avoid jail until now” — as if he was not, in fact, continuing to avoid jail!
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