‘Only Doing Duty At Auschwitz’

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30941, 23 December 1965, Page 13

‘Only Doing Duty At Auschwitz’

f.N'.Z. Press Association —Copyright >

FRANKFURT, Dec. 22.

Three former Nazis claimed with tears and shouting today that they were only doing their duty at Auschwitz, United Press International reported.

Wilhelm Burger, a 61-year-old former businessman, blew his nose loudly and sobbed at the war crimes trial as he told the Court he never selected Jewish women for the Gestapo bordellos at Auschwitz. Josef Erber's stony composure cracked when the presiding Judge, Emil Opper, asked him: “Didn’t you have any inner feelings about what went on at Auschwitz?” “Nobody Wanted it” “I don’t want to answer that,” Erber cried. “It was my duty, that’s all. If you think any man there found pleasure in what he did, you’re wrong. . . . “It’s true those who took ipart in selections (of inmates

for death in gas chambers) got extra rations of schnappe and sausage, but nobody wanted it” The third defendant Gerhard Neubert, shook his fist when the Judge questioned his claims that be did not know what happened to prisoners carted off in closed vans from the hospital where he worked. “This isn’t fair," he said. “All this time I’ve only made one mistake—4hat is, I’ve told the truth. People accuse me of all sorts of horrible things ... I just did my duty.” The three are being tried for their part in running the death camp that slaughtered millions in Nazi-occupied : Poland. The hearing was adjourned to December 28.