Case Against Ohio Man Could Be Germany's Last Nazi Crimes Trial

LUDWIGSBURG, Germany -- Prosecutors here have assembled a case against a retired autoworker living in Ohio that could lead to Germany's last major Nazi war crimes trial.

The Central Office for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes, based for the past half-century in this southwestern German town, recently recommended the filing of murder charges against John Demjanjuk, 88, a Ukrainian by birth who immigrated to the United States in 1952. Demjanjuk has long been accused of working for the Nazis as a death camp guard, but his conviction on similar charges in Israel was overturned in 1993 by that country's Supreme Court.

It has been seven years since Germany last convicted a former Nazi of committing atrocities under Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Although prosecutors say they are pursuing other targets, the Demjanjuk case could be Germany's final opportunity to bring a major Nazi figure to justice.

The few former Nazis still alive are in their late 80s or 90s, raising doubts about their ability to stand trial. The trails of many fugitives went cold decades ago. In other cases, there are no surviving eyewitnesses.

"Our job is very difficult, and our success rate is not high," said Kurt Schrimm, director of the Central Office in Ludwigsburg. "We don't know exactly how long we'll be able to stay open. Our job will end when we don't know what to do next."

Germany set up its Nazi investigation office in 1958 in response to criticism that it had been too lax in pursuing Third Reich criminals after the end of the war. Since then, the Central Office has investigated more than 7,000 cases, though the number of active files has dwindled substantially of late.

Schrimm said he spends 90 percent of his time these days working as a "historian or a detective," with little practical hope of bringing anyone to trial. He said that his staff, which includes seven investigators, is pursuing a handful of cases but that only Demjanjuk is close to being ready for prosecution.

"It's getting more and more difficult with each passing year," he said.

German prosecutors hope to win a rare conviction against a former Nazi in an ongoing trial in Munich, where Josef Scheungraber, 90, stands accused of murdering 14 Italian civilians in Tuscany in June 1944. His trial began in September and is expected to continue for months.

In April, prosecutors in Dortmund indicted Heinrich Boere, 87, a confessed SS commando accused of killing three Dutch civilians during the war. But the case has been repeatedly delayed over questions of whether Boere is fit to stand trial.

Critics have complained that Germany's efforts to bring Nazis to justice have been hamstrung by a slow-moving bureaucracy and a reluctance among some officials to try elderly citizens for crimes committed more than six decades ago.

"The race against time has been lost," Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said in a speech last month commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Nazi investigation office in Ludwigsburg. "An unknown number of grave crimes remain unpunished."