Prosecutor reopens investigation into suspect alleged to partake in 1943 massacres of Jews

Prosecutor reopens investigation of alleged Nazi

BERLIN — Hannover prosecutors have reopened an investigation into the case of a 95-year-old German accused of being involved in two 1943 massacres of Jews in the Polish city of Lublin.

Prosecutor Kathrin Soefker said Thursday that the office reopened an investigation against Erich Steidtmann based on an abbreviation in a letter he wrote in October 1943. Steidtmann was a captain in the Nazi’s elite force, the SS.

Soefker said a new understanding of the abbreviation seemed to indicate that Steidtmann was not on home leave when the shootings of thousands of Jews took place, as he had told prosecutors in the 1960s.

Soefker said her office was searching archives for further proof that Steidtmann was in Lublin when the shootings took place. They also plan to question Steidtmann.