Son of Nazi hit man’s victim urges him to accept responsibility for killings at German trial

Victim’s son urges Nazi hit man to accept blame

AACHEN, Germany — The son of a Dutch civilian killed by a Nazi hit squad during World War II urged the former Waffen SS soldier charged with his father’s murder to accept responsibility for his actions in court Monday.

In a statement read to the Aachen state court by his attorney, Teun de Groot said he had waited 65 years to look defendant Heinrich Boere in the eyes.

“Now you say that you regret what you did back then,” de Groot said in the short statement. “If you really regretted it, then accept the verdict of the court.”

De Groot was referring to Boere’s 1949 conviction in Holland, where he was sentenced to death in absentia — later commuted to life imprisonment.

He admitted to the three killings to Dutch authorities while in captivity after the war, but managed to escape and flee to Germany before his trial.

“You have always managed to escape your punishment,” de Groot said in the statement read by attorney Detlef Hartmann. De Groot attended the opening of the trial last week, but was unable to be present Monday.

Boere faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted of the killings of de Groot’s father, a bicycle-shop owner also named Teun, as well as a pharmacist and another civilian while part of an SS death squad code named “Silbertanne,” or “Silver Pine.”

Sitting in a wheelchair, Boere, 88, looked down as de Groot’s statement was read and showed no reaction. His attorneys said he may make his own statement when the trial resumes next week.

As is usual in Germany, Boere has entered no plea. His attorneys have not yet said how they would try and counter his confessions to the killings — both to Dutch authorities and in comments to the media — but they could argue he was just following orders.

Boere sat impassively as prosecutor Andreas Brendel read out the indictment charging him with the three murders, but told the presiding judge he had understood the charges.

Ahead of that, the court rejected a defense motion filed last week to have lead prosecutor Ulrich Maass removed from the trial. It dismissed lawyers’ argument that Maass had made statements to the Dutch and German press which called his objectivity into question.

The trial comes after decades of trying to bring Boere to justice.

In 1983, a German court refused to extradite him to the Netherlands because he might have German citizenship as well as Dutch; at the time, Germany had no provision to extradite its nationals.

Another German court refused in 2007 to make Boere serve his Dutch sentence in a German prison because he had been absent from his trial and therefore unable to defend himself.

The trial in Aachen has finally helped bring closure to the victims, said attorney Wolfgang Heiermann, who represents Lou and Dolf Bicknese, the sons of pharmacist Fritz Hubert Ernst Bicknese — the first man Boere is accused of killing.

“My clients had hoped that this trial would have begun 50 years ago, but are relieved that it is finally happening today,” Hartmann said.

Dolf Bicknese, then age 8, “ran into the pharmacy after the shooting and saw his father lying shot dead on the ground, an image that has been burned deep into his memory,” he said.

The Bicknese brothers, as well as de Groot, have joined the trial as co-plaintiffs as allowed under German law.

Boere’s accomplice in the Bicknese killing, fellow SS man Jacobus Petrus Besteman, is the only other known living member of the Silbertanne unit. He did not respond to two requests to come from Holland to testify Monday, presiding judge Gerd Nohl said.

Both the prosecution and defense agreed another attempt should be made to either convince him to come to Germany for the trial or give testimony from his Dutch home. He has already been convicted and served his sentence for his wartime actions with Silbertanne.

The trial resumes Nov. 10.