Heinrich Boere
Encyclopedia
Heinrich Boere is a convicted German
-Dutch
war criminal
and former member of the Waffen-SS
.
, Germany, to a Dutch father and a German mother, but his parents moved to Maastricht
when he was two years old. He volunteered for the Waffen-SS
in September 1940, only months after the German occupation of the Netherlands. In June 1941 at the age of 19 he left to fight on the Eastern Front
including, in 1942, service in the Caucasus. In December 1942, he contracted pyelonephritis
and was sent back to Maastricht
.
squad of Dutch volunteers, the Sonderkommando Feldmeijer
, tasked with killing members of the Dutch resistance
and anti-German citizens in retaliation for acts of resistance against the Nazi occupation of their country. Following attacks on German occupational forces and Dutch collaborators, the SS and Police Leader
for the Netherlands, Hanns Albin Rauter
, ordered the Sonderkommando to retaliate by assassinating civilians presumed to be in some way connected to the resistance. This operation, codenamed Silbertanne
(Silver Fir), was responsible for probably 54 known killings, three of which Boere admitted to committing.
Boere’s first killing was committed in July 1944 when he and fellow SS member Jacobus Petrus Besteman received orders from the local Sicherheitsdienst
(Security Service) office in Breda
to murder a pharmacist
named Fritz Hubert Ernst Bicknese, father of twelve. Wearing civilian clothes, Boere and Besteman walked into Bicknese’s pharmacy and asked him his identity. Upon a positive reply, Boere fired three shots into Bicknese’s upper body, then Besteman fired several more shots as Bicknese lay on the floor.
In September 1944, on a Sunday, Boere and Hendrik Kromhout arrived in Voorschoten
at the home of Teun de Groot, a bicycle-shop owner and father of five children, who hid fugitives in his shop and was an acquaintance of anti-Nazi activists. As De Groot, still in his pyjamas, fumbled with his wallet to show his ID papers, Boere and Kromhout shot him. They then went to the apartment of F.W. Kusters, forced him into their car, and drove out of town. The pair then falsely claimed that they had a flat tire, stopped the vehicle and shot Kusters.
prisoner-of-war camp
, where he was interrogated and admitted to the three killings. After release from the PoW camp, Boere initially went into hiding out of fear of being sentenced to a lengthy prison sentence, but managed to flee to Germany
. In 1949, a Dutch court sentenced Boere to death
in absentia
for the three murders, for supporting the enemy, and for serving in the army of the enemy. According to Dutch law, the latter automatically leads to the loss of Dutch citizenship. Boere claimed German citizenship on the basis of a so-called Führererlass, a law promulgated by Hitler providing all SS-members with German citizenship. This law remained in force during the 1950s and 1960s in Germany, but was later annulled under pressure from the European Union
. From that point on, Boere was stateless, which was confirmed during the trial against him that started in October 2009. The German government has refused to extradite
him. West Germany
was responsible for prosecuting war criminals, but Boere was never brought to trial there.
The Dutch government repeatedly sought Boere’s extradition. In 1983, a German court refused the Dutch request to hand Boere over to the Dutch authorities on the grounds that Boere might have German citizenship, and Germany, at that time, did not permit extraditing its own nationals. In 2007, a court in Aachen
ruled that Boere could serve his sentence in Germany, but an appeals court in Cologne
overturned the ruling, saying that the 1949 conviction was invalid because Boere was unable to present a defense. Recently, Boere’s case has attracted a great deal of public attention and, in 2007, the opposition in the Dutch parliament brought the case up with the Dutch Ministry of Justice
. Boere is listed by the Simon Wiesenthal Center
as a Nazi
war criminal-at-large. Besteman, Boere’s partner in Bicknese slaying, has served time in prison in the Netherlands for his war crimes.
On 14 April 2008 the state prosecution in Dortmund
announced it was preparing to file charges against Heinrich Boere. On 8 January 2009, the State Court of Aachen
ruled that Boere is medically unfit and will not have to stand trial in the case.
The Provincial Court of Appeal
in Cologne
ruled on 7 July 2009, that Heinrich Boere was fit for trial, overturning the lower court's ruling. Following a judicial review
by the German Constitutional Court
, the court decided not to accept Boere's appeal and ruled further that Boere was indeed fit to stand trial. However, according to the court he will be under medical supervision, being provided with a doctor for the length of the trial. The trial started on 28 October 2009, at Aachen's regional court.
In 2009, Boere lived in an old-age home in his birth town of Eschweiler, Germany. He was not taken into custody for the trial against him. In an interview with Der Spiegel
, he said, "I'm not interested in what happened back then." In a documentary by Dutch journalists Rob van Olm and Jan Louter, who were the first to bring Boere to the attention of the public, Boere did admit to some feeling of remorse and states he has confessed his crimes to a priest, and has prayed for his victims. On 23 March 2010 in Aachen, Germany, he was sentenced to life in prison. His defence, that he would have been shot had he disobeyed orders (sometimes known as the 'Nuremberg Defense'), was rejected. Following the ruling of the court, his solicitors announced that they would appeal the judgment.
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
-Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
war criminal
War crime
War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...
and former member of the Waffen-SS
Waffen-SS
The Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
.
Early life
Boere was born in EschweilerEschweiler
Eschweiler is a municipality in the district of Aachen in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany on the river Inde, near the German-Belgian-Dutch frontier, and about 15 km east of Aachen and 50 km west of Cologne.- History :...
, Germany, to a Dutch father and a German mother, but his parents moved to Maastricht
Maastricht
Maastricht is situated on both sides of the Meuse river in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands, on the Belgian border and near the German border...
when he was two years old. He volunteered for the Waffen-SS
Waffen-SS
The Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
in September 1940, only months after the German occupation of the Netherlands. In June 1941 at the age of 19 he left to fight on the Eastern Front
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
including, in 1942, service in the Caucasus. In December 1942, he contracted pyelonephritis
Pyelonephritis
Pyelonephritis is an ascending urinary tract infection that has reached the pyelum or pelvis of the kidney. It is a form of nephritis that is also referred to as pyelitis...
and was sent back to Maastricht
Maastricht
Maastricht is situated on both sides of the Meuse river in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands, on the Belgian border and near the German border...
.
War crimes
In 1943, Boere became a member of a 15 man Waffen-SSWaffen-SS
The Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
squad of Dutch volunteers, the Sonderkommando Feldmeijer
Henk Feldmeijer
Johannes Hendrik Feldmeijer was a Dutch National Socialist politician and a member of the NSB.-Early years:...
, tasked with killing members of the Dutch resistance
Dutch resistance
Dutch resistance to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II can be mainly characterized by its prominent non-violence, summitting in over 300,000 people in hiding in the autumn of 1944, tended to by some 60,000 to 200,000 illegal landlords and caretakers and tolerated knowingly...
and anti-German citizens in retaliation for acts of resistance against the Nazi occupation of their country. Following attacks on German occupational forces and Dutch collaborators, the SS and Police Leader
SS and Police Leader
SS and Police Leader was a title for senior Nazi officials that commanded large units of the SS, of Gestapo and of the regular German police during and prior to World War II.Three levels of subordination were established for bearers of this title:...
for the Netherlands, Hanns Albin Rauter
Hanns Albin Rauter
Johann Baptist Albin Rauter was a high-ranking Austrian Nazi war criminal. He was the highest SS and Police Leader in the occupied Netherlands and therefore the leading security and police officer there during the period of 1940-1945...
, ordered the Sonderkommando to retaliate by assassinating civilians presumed to be in some way connected to the resistance. This operation, codenamed Silbertanne
Operation Silbertanne
Operation Silbertanne was the codename of a series of murders taking place between September 1943 and September 1944 during the German occupation of the Netherlands...
(Silver Fir), was responsible for probably 54 known killings, three of which Boere admitted to committing.
Boere’s first killing was committed in July 1944 when he and fellow SS member Jacobus Petrus Besteman received orders from the local Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...
(Security Service) office in Breda
Breda
Breda is a municipality and a city in the southern part of the Netherlands. The name Breda derived from brede Aa and refers to the confluence of the rivers Mark and Aa. As a fortified city, the city was of strategic military and political significance...
to murder a pharmacist
Pharmacy
Pharmacy is the health profession that links the health sciences with the chemical sciences and it is charged with ensuring the safe and effective use of pharmaceutical drugs...
named Fritz Hubert Ernst Bicknese, father of twelve. Wearing civilian clothes, Boere and Besteman walked into Bicknese’s pharmacy and asked him his identity. Upon a positive reply, Boere fired three shots into Bicknese’s upper body, then Besteman fired several more shots as Bicknese lay on the floor.
In September 1944, on a Sunday, Boere and Hendrik Kromhout arrived in Voorschoten
Voorschoten
Voorschoten is a village and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. It is a smaller town in the Randstad, enclosed by the cities of Leiden and The Hague. The municipality covers an area of 11.59 km²...
at the home of Teun de Groot, a bicycle-shop owner and father of five children, who hid fugitives in his shop and was an acquaintance of anti-Nazi activists. As De Groot, still in his pyjamas, fumbled with his wallet to show his ID papers, Boere and Kromhout shot him. They then went to the apartment of F.W. Kusters, forced him into their car, and drove out of town. The pair then falsely claimed that they had a flat tire, stopped the vehicle and shot Kusters.
Post-War years
In the immediate post-war years, Boere spent two years in an AlliedAllies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
prisoner-of-war camp
Prisoner-of-war camp
A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of combatants captured by their enemy in time of war, and is similar to an internment camp which is used for civilian populations. A prisoner of war is generally a soldier, sailor, or airman who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or...
, where he was interrogated and admitted to the three killings. After release from the PoW camp, Boere initially went into hiding out of fear of being sentenced to a lengthy prison sentence, but managed to flee to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. In 1949, a Dutch court sentenced Boere to death
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
in absentia
In absentia
In absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use, it usually means a trial at which the defendant is not physically present. The phrase is not ordinarily a mere observation, but suggests recognition of violation to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial.In...
for the three murders, for supporting the enemy, and for serving in the army of the enemy. According to Dutch law, the latter automatically leads to the loss of Dutch citizenship. Boere claimed German citizenship on the basis of a so-called Führererlass, a law promulgated by Hitler providing all SS-members with German citizenship. This law remained in force during the 1950s and 1960s in Germany, but was later annulled under pressure from the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
. From that point on, Boere was stateless, which was confirmed during the trial against him that started in October 2009. The German government has refused to extradite
Extradition
Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...
him. West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
was responsible for prosecuting war criminals, but Boere was never brought to trial there.
The Dutch government repeatedly sought Boere’s extradition. In 1983, a German court refused the Dutch request to hand Boere over to the Dutch authorities on the grounds that Boere might have German citizenship, and Germany, at that time, did not permit extraditing its own nationals. In 2007, a court in Aachen
Aachen
Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...
ruled that Boere could serve his sentence in Germany, but an appeals court in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
overturned the ruling, saying that the 1949 conviction was invalid because Boere was unable to present a defense. Recently, Boere’s case has attracted a great deal of public attention and, in 2007, the opposition in the Dutch parliament brought the case up with the Dutch Ministry of Justice
Ministry of Justice (Netherlands)
The Ministry of Security and Justice is the Dutch ministry of justice. Until 14 October 2010, the ministry was just called Ministry of Justice , but at the start of the Rutte cabinet, the name changed because it had taken over some public safety duties from the Ministry of the Interior...
. Boere is listed by the Simon Wiesenthal Center
Simon Wiesenthal Center
The Simon Wiesenthal Center , with headquarters in Los Angeles, California, was established in 1977 and named for Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter. According to its mission statement, it is "an international Jewish human rights organization dedicated to repairing the world one step at a time...
as a Nazi
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
war criminal-at-large. Besteman, Boere’s partner in Bicknese slaying, has served time in prison in the Netherlands for his war crimes.
On 14 April 2008 the state prosecution in Dortmund
Dortmund
Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union....
announced it was preparing to file charges against Heinrich Boere. On 8 January 2009, the State Court of Aachen
Aachen
Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...
ruled that Boere is medically unfit and will not have to stand trial in the case.
The Provincial Court of Appeal
Oberlandesgericht
The Oberlandesgericht is one of the 'ordinary courts' in Germany...
in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
ruled on 7 July 2009, that Heinrich Boere was fit for trial, overturning the lower court's ruling. Following a judicial review
Judicial review
Judicial review is the doctrine under which legislative and executive actions are subject to review by the judiciary. Specific courts with judicial review power must annul the acts of the state when it finds them incompatible with a higher authority...
by the German Constitutional Court
Federal Constitutional Court of Germany
The Federal Constitutional Court is a special court established by the Grundgesetz, the German basic law...
, the court decided not to accept Boere's appeal and ruled further that Boere was indeed fit to stand trial. However, according to the court he will be under medical supervision, being provided with a doctor for the length of the trial. The trial started on 28 October 2009, at Aachen's regional court.
In 2009, Boere lived in an old-age home in his birth town of Eschweiler, Germany. He was not taken into custody for the trial against him. In an interview with Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
, he said, "I'm not interested in what happened back then." In a documentary by Dutch journalists Rob van Olm and Jan Louter, who were the first to bring Boere to the attention of the public, Boere did admit to some feeling of remorse and states he has confessed his crimes to a priest, and has prayed for his victims. On 23 March 2010 in Aachen, Germany, he was sentenced to life in prison. His defence, that he would have been shot had he disobeyed orders (sometimes known as the 'Nuremberg Defense'), was rejected. Following the ruling of the court, his solicitors announced that they would appeal the judgment.
External links
- Germany: Trial opens of former SS member Heinrich Boere, wsws.org 2 November 2009
- Life imprisonment for SS man Heinrich Boere, wsws.org 3 April 2010