Ageing SS 'killer' to go on trial
An 88-year-old former member of the Nazi SS will go on trial in Germany next week for the 1944 murder of a Dutch resistance fighter.
Prosecutors accuse Dutch born Hubert Bikker of murdering Jan Houtmann in 1944.
According to the indictment, Houtmann, 27, was injured after escaping from a labour camp in the Netherlands, and was lying on the floor of a nearby barn when Bikker caught up with him.
The SS man pulled his pistol and shot Houtmann, with the words “and now a good death”, according to the indictment.
Bikker was convicted in the Netherlands after the war and sentenced to life in prison but escaped in December 1952 and fled to Germany, where he has lived ever since.
Granted German citizenship during the Second World War for his service to Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, the former Nazi was protected under a law that prevents Germany from extraditing its citizens.
The trial is due to open in the state court in Hagen on Wednesday but a defence lawyer said Bikker is in hospital after collapsing and cast doubt over whether he would be able to appear in court.
“He has very high blood pressure,” Bernd Eisenhuth said. “Mr Bikker doesn’t really understand any more what is going on around him.”
The SS, short for Schutzstaffel, was the dreaded paramilitary unit of the Nazi party. It was used as a special police and involved in some of the worst crimes committed in territory under Nazi control during the war.
