NAZI MONSTER APOLOGIZES — AFTER 80 YEARS!
But death camp secretary, 97, fled mid-trial
AFTER dodging justice for 80 years, Nazi death camp secretary Irmgard Furchner finally broke down in court and confessed she’s “sorry” for aiding in the torture and deaths of more than 11,000 prisoners during World War II.
“I’m sorry for everything that happened,” foul Furchner told Germany’s Itzehoe Regional Court early in December — but only after she was captured after living a full life her evil actions denied Jews who perished in Stutthof concentration camp’s gas chamber.
Now 97, Furchner was an executive assistant at the Polish killing field from June 1943 to April 1945.
Dubbed the Secretary of Evil by starving inmates who were worked to death, the young woman served the camp’s boss, SS Obersturmbannführer Paul Werner Hoppe, and was responsible for making sure his orders were carried out ruthlessly and efficiently.
She’s charged with aiding in the murder of 11,412 of the 65,000 prisoners killed at Stutthof — but was tried as a juvenile because Furchner was 18 when she started working in the hellhole.
As GLOBE previously reported, Furchner tried to brazenly skip out of her trial in September when she fled her Quickborn retirement home in a taxi and was dropped off at a subway station. She was captured six hours later by police who found her wandering on a street in Hamburg. Before she went on the lam, the schemer told her judge, “Due to my advanced age and my physical impediments, I will not be attending the court appointment and would request that I am represented by my defense lawyer.
“I want to spare myself these embarrassments and don’t want to make myself the laughing stock of humanity.”
Due to her age and ailments prosecutors have asked for a two-year suspended sentence if she’s ultimately found guilty around year’s end.
Prosecutors say her trial is largely symbolic, but it’s important to bring Nazi war criminals to justice. Experts say 6 million Jews and 5 million Poles were slaughtered by the Nazis during their reign of horror.