The Austrian High Court ordered today a new trial for two former SS men who were in effect acquitted in a trial in Salzburg last February on charges of mass murder of Jews in occupied Poland. The judge said he could not accept the verdict and ordered the case sent to the High Court for review.
Although 30 witnesses testified that Wilhelrn Mauer, 48, and his brother, Johann Mauer, 52, had personally tortured and murdered Jews in stanislav, the jury of six men and two women found that they had acted under “irresistible coercion.” This meant that they had been forced to obey orders and could not therefore be held responsible for their actions, in the jury’s view.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
