A former member of the Nazi SS being tried for murder admitted in court today that he killed three Dutch civilians during World War II, but insisted he was following orders.
Heinrich Boere told the Aachen state court in a statement read by attorney Gordon Christiansen that he had killed a bicycle-shop owner, a pharmacist and another civilian in 1944 as a member of a Waffen SS hit squad.
"At no time in 1944 did I act with the feeling that I was committing a crime," the 88-year-old said in his statement.
"Today, after 65 years, I naturally see things from a different perspective," he added.
"As a simple soldier, I learned to carry out orders," Boere said. His attorneys are likely to use the argument that he was following orders to try to win his acquittal.
Boere has not entered a plea, which is usual under the German judicial system. He faces a possible life prison sentence if convicted of three counts of murder.
Boere was born in Eschweiler, Germany, on the outskirts of Aachen, where he lives today. The son of a Dutch man and a German woman, he moved to the Netherlands when he was an infant.
He volunteered for the SS after the Germans had overrun his hometown of Maastricht and the rest of the Netherlands in 1940. After fighting on the Russian front, ended up back in the Netherlands as part of "Silbertanne" - a unit of largely Dutch SS volunteers responsible for reprisal killings of their countrymen for resistance attacks on collaborators.
Boere admitted the three killings to Dutch authorities when he was in captivity after the war but managed to escape from his POW camp and eventually return to Germany.
He was sentenced to death in the Netherlands in 1949 - later commuted to life imprisonment - but has avoided jail so far.
AP