Wiesenthal Center Submits Complaint to German Prosecutors in Osnabrűck and Kassel Against Einsatzgruppen Members Kurt Gosdeck and Herbert Wahler | Simon Wiesenthal Center | Wiesenthal

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center announced today that its chief Nazi-hunter Dr. Efraim Zuroff has submitted official complaints to state prosecutors in Osnabrück and Kassel against Kurt Gosdeck and Herbert Wahler, both of whom served in the notorious Einsatzgruppe C murder squad which killed tens of thousands of Jews and others in the Ukraine in 1941-1942. The names of both men appeared on a list compiled by Zuroff of men and women born in 1920 and later who had served in the Einsatzgruppen, which had been submitted by the Wiesenthal Center to the German ministers of justice (Heiko Maas) and the interior (Thomas de Maziere) on September 1, 2014, as part of the Center’s efforts to assist in locating members of these units. (In the wake of a change in German prosecution policy ten years ago, it became possible to convict of “accessory to murder” anyone who served either in a Nazi death camp or the mobile killing units based on service alone.) German television ARD’s Kontraste program recently interviewed both Gosdeck and Wahler in their homes and found them in good health mentally and physically, but the German authorities had still not pressed charges against them, which prompted the submission of the Center’s complaint in order to expedite legal action against them.