World War II Database

Heinrich Boere, age 88, was put on trial in Aachen, Germany on 28 Oct 2009 on charge of murder of three Dutch men in 1944. The killings were said to be reprisal killings for Dutch resistance activities. Boere was a member of the Waffen-SS, the military arm of the Nazi SS organization, which was deemed illegal after the war. The three men killed were chemist Fritz Bicknese, bicycle seller Teun de Groot, and resistance fighter Frans Kusters. He had admitted to the killings to Dutch authorities shortly after the war, but fled to Germany before he was tried. He had told Spiegel magazine that he was ordered to execute "terrorists", thus he thought he was "doing the right thing". He was sentenced to death by a Dutch court in absentia in 1949, and the sentence was later reduced to life in prison, but Boere never served the sentence. The Netherlands issued an extradition request in the early 1980s.

For more information: BBC: Ex-Nazi put on trial in Germany.