Klaas Carel Faber, Fugitive Nazi War Criminal, Dies In Germany

Klaas Carel Faber, a Nazi war criminal who escaped from a Dutch jail in 1952, after being sentenced to death, died at the age of 90 in Germany, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Reuters reports that Faber was number two on the Center’s list of most wanted Nazi criminals, and was originally sentenced to death in the Netherlands in 1947 for killing at least 11 people at a staging post for Dutch Jews, who were being taken to concentration camps.

While his sentence was commuted to life in prison, he escaped in 1952, fleeing to Germany. He was found dead in Ingolstadt, a Bavarian town in which he had lived since 1961.

Dutch authorities have been attempting to extradite Faber since 1954, but he was able to acquire German citizenship, because he served Germany during World War II. The request to extradite him was then rejected, because West German did not extradite its own citizens.

Haaretz reports that a Dusseldorf court rejected attempts to bring Klaas Carel Faber to trial in Germany in 1957, because they believed there was not enough evidence against him. The Dutch again attempted to jail the Nazi fugitive in 2004, but that also failed. Prosecutors in Munich considered re-opening the case in 2006, following new evidence in the case, but that was also rejected, after the court stated he could only be convicted of manslaughter, and the statute of limitations for that crime had long-expired.

The Netherlands most recently asked for Faber’s extradition in 2010, using a new European arrest warrant, but it was rejected again, because his consent was required to extradite him as a German citizen, and he declined.

Efraim Zuroff told Reuters that prosecutors in Ingolstadt were preparing to finally detain the Nazi fugitive when he died of apparent kidney failure. Zuroff stated:

“The decision was imminent. We know the state prosecutors in Ingolstadt supported sending Faber to jail to serve the rest of his life sentence.”

Klaas Carel Faber’s death is the second so far this year of a top Nazi war criminal, as John Demjanjuk, who was a retired U.S. engine mechanic, died in March at 91 in Germany. Demjanjuk was convicted in 2011 for his role in the murder of 28,000 Jews when he worked as a Nazi death camp guard.

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