proud of my SS service
Heinrich
squad said at his trial Friday that he was proud about being chosen as a
volunteer to fight for the Nazis.
Heinrich Boere, 88, made his first comments to the Aachen state court since
his trial opened at the end of October. As part of that SS unit, he is
charged with killing a bicycle-shop owner, a pharmacist and another
civilian. He faces a possible sentence of life in prison if convicted.
Boere said he remembered his mother waking him up the night in 1940 that
Germany invaded his hometown in the Netherlands and seeing Stuka
dive-bombers overhead. Instead of fearing the German bombs, Boere, whose
father was Dutch and mother German, said his family was elated as the attack
unfolded.
"(My mother) said 'they're coming' now things will be better," he told the
court, speaking animatedly to the panel of judges.
"It was better," he added later.
Boere was born in Eschweiler, Germany, on the outskirts of Aachen where he
lives today, but moved to the Netherlands when he was an infant.
After the Germans had overrun his hometown of Maastricht and the rest of the
Netherlands, he remembers as an 18-year-old seeing a recruiting poster for
the Waffen SS, signed by Heinrich Himmler. It offered German citizenship
after two years of service and the possibility of becoming a policeman after
that.
He showed up with 100 other Dutchmen at the recruitment office and was one
of 15 chosen.
"I was very proud," Boere told the court in a statement read by his attorney
before he answered questions from the presiding judge.
After fighting on the Russian front, Boere ended up back in the Netherlands
as part of "Silbertanne", a unit of largely of Dutch SS volunteers
responsible for reprisal killings of their countrymen for resistance attacks
on collaborators.
Boere admitted the three killings to Dutch authorities when he was in
captivity after the war but managed to escape from his POW camp and
eventually return to Germany.
He was sentenced to death in the Netherlands in 1949, a sentence later
commuted to life imprisonment, but Boere has managed to avoid jail so far.
Still, Boere told the court he was aware of the possibility he would be
pursued by authorities, so much so that he never married.
"I always had to consider that my past might catch up with me, and I didn't
want to inflict that upon a woman," he said in his statement.
Boere refused to comment on his time with Silbertanne, but his attorneys
said he would address that period when the trial resumes Dec.
Al Nakba
classy freddie blassie once opined: "you can hurt people and even maim
them, but being a boere is the worst sin of all1 god will punish you
for that!"
Heinrich
"Al Nakba" <william...@bluebottle.com> schreef in bericht
news:68b9fb41-0630-47a5...@j4g2000yqe.googlegroups.com...
he was sentecedto death after the war but managed to escape to germany.
various requests over the years to send him back to holland failed because
he has got the german nationality. allof a sudden it seems now possible for
the germans to sue him and bring him before a judge
cornholio
but unarmed POW's -- including US POW's. Many US Army soldiers
wouldn't
take the surrenders of SS soldiers....ditto for the Russians.
American Eagle
Combat SS fought to the death, moron. Concentration camp SS were a
totally different breed. I know an elderly Combat SS corporal here, that
would kick your ass into next week while cuddling a kitten. He fought in
Russia and was in the last contingent pulled out of Russia. The Berlin
SS made the Russians lose about a million men just to take one city.
The vaunted Israeli Goliani Division cried and ran like Rabbits when the
ragged poorly armed, vastly outnumbered Hezzbollah kicked their ass out
of Lebanon. That would never have happened with an SS Unit.
cornholio
Yes, that's why they began changing uniforms or wearing civilian
clothes
at the end of the war.
It wasn't camp guards who slaughtered a bunch of US soldiers
following
the Battle of the Bulge, then failed to bury the evidence.
I know they fought to the death in Russia -- but only because the
Russians
wouldn't take them prisoner.