The German Federal Court has upheld the conviction of 99-year-old Irmgard Furchner for her role as a typist at a Nazi concentration camp during the final two years of World War II. Furchner was sentenced in 2022 to a two-year suspended sentence for aiding and abetting the murder of 10,505 people while working as an 18- and 19-year-old secretary at Stutthof concentration camp.
The court rejected the defense’s argument that Furchner’s activities were merely “everyday” tasks, ruling that her actions supported the atrocities committed by the main perpetrators. The court’s decision is final and cannot be appealed.
The judges noted that Furchner was fully aware of the crimes being committed at Stutthof, where approximately 65,000 people, including prisoners of war and Jews, died of starvation, disease, or in the gas chambers. Many victims were also sent from Stutthof to be gassed at Auschwitz.
Furchner became one of the world’s oldest fugitives at 96 when she failed to appear for the opening of her trial in 2021, prompting an arrest warrant. Her case is among the last efforts by prosecutors to bring justice for the victims of the Holocaust.
