A former Nazi SS officer admitted today that he shot a number of Jews in a mass execution during the Second World War. Captain Karl Dalheimer, 55, one of 14 former Nazis on trial here for their participation in the mass murder of more than 35,000 Jews in Minsk, told the court that he stood on the edge of the mass grave where the victims were lying while still alive–“and shot and shot until I was sick,” More than half of the defendants have now confessed to the atrocities.
Dalheimer named Georg Heuser, 49, the principal defendant, as the officer who forced the doomed Jews to undress before entering the grave. Heuser was chief of police in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate until his arrest in 1959.
Another defendant, Artur Harder, described to the court how a woman and two men were cremated alive with a method of incineration which, he confessed, he had developed.
While few persons are attending the trial as spectators, the judges today ruled that a number of children seeking admittance to the court could not enter. Several persons, including a student, said they felt the court should remain open to youngsters, to give them a graphic picture of Germany’s Nazi past.
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