Justice, finally, for brutal SS killer

Sixty years after convicted Dutch Nazi Klaus Faber escaped from prison in the Netherlands, it looks likely that the former SS volunteer, now 89, will return to jail and end his life behind bars.

In 1940, Faber volunteered for the SS, the paramilitary arm of the Nazi party that systematically murdered Jews, as well as Dutch citizens who attempted to aid them and members of the Dutch underground. In 1947, he was convicted in Holland for war crimes and initially sentenced to death, a sentence that was mitigated to life in prison. In 1952, however, he managed to escape from prison and cross the border into Germany.

Faber took advantage of a law that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had put in place during his rule, which granted German citizenship to anyone who volunteered for the SS, and therefore provided protection from extradition back to the Netherlands. For six decades, he has been living as a free man in the German state of Bavaria, working at the Audi car company and receiving a generous pension.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, which works to bring Nazi war criminals to justice, has worked with Dutch officials in recent years to bring about Faber’s return to jail, and the Bavarian state prosecutor recently demanded that Faber be imprisoned immediately inside Germany's borders. A court is being asked to make a ruling, a move that only now, after 60 years as a free man in Ingolstadt, makes it look as though Faber might be brought to justice.

Simon Wiesenthal Center Director Dr. Efraim Zuroff said, “This step will finally achieve justice. Faber was a brutal killer, currently located at the top of our wanted list. It is inconceivable that a person convicted of numerous murders would not be punished and held fully accountable, but rather would live for decades in peace and quiet and Germany. Old age should not protect people like that.”