by Arneb » Tue Dec 27, 2022 12:30 pm
I'll chime in...
An interesting case, which fills me with conflicting emotions. As Richard describes, she went into the administration of a concentration camp under no pressure to do so; so I can see the point of her conviction. OTOH, Germany has allowed the big guns (and, for that matter, those with, you know, guns) to get off the hook either lightly or even completely unscathed. Is it just to try one of the smallest of wheels, when no larger ones are available anymore, through fault of Germany's lackluster prosecution alone? Question marks remain. The fact remains that the Consitutional Court ruled in the 60w that "small Wheels" in the death machinery could only be tried for being accessory to murder if there was a specific act of nurder they were complicit in - in the huge machinery of the concentration camps, this was well-nigh impossible to prove, which is why there were so few convictions. This principle was only overturned in the few trials of the post-millenium period. Most helpers had long since died by then.
But, justice must be served. Neither her age now, nor her age at the time of the crime are relevant for the indictment and the conviction. The count she was charged on was being accessory to (10,000-fold) murder (not crimes against humanity), and yes, there is no statute of limitations for murder in Germany.
The fact she landed in front of a youth court has a simple explanation: She was 18 to 19 in the period concerned, and the age of majority at the time was 21. There is no possibility to "upgrade" a defendant below the age of maturity to adult criminal law in Germany (as the US loves to do in order to get higher sentences); since the age of maturity was lowered from 21 to 18 in 1975, courts have had the option to "downgrade" a defendant from adult to minor criminal law between the ages of 18 and 21 due to a lack of maturity, following in dubio pro reo. For the secretary, this played no role, as she was legally a minor at the time of her crime. A youth chamber it had to be.
The highest sentence you can get in minor criminal law is 10 years, and even that is a rare occurence. Only in cases where general penal law stipulates a prison sentence of more than ten years can a minor be sentenced to more than five. The relatively lenient sentence in the secretary's case resulted from mitigating circumstances: Her contribution, while indespensable, was small, and it was strictly limited to clerical tasks. 2 years is exactly the the limit up to which a sentence can be suspended on probation.
There is no upper age limit for incarceration in Germany, but severely impairede or terminally ill inmates generally get a suspension and are released on probation as long as they do not pose a danger to the public anymore.
Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem