Nazi Hitman Still Wanted at Age 86

Still alive at age 86, a former Dutch SS volunteer who carried out assassinations in Holland is still free and facing a possible life sentence in his homeland.

Heinrich Boere is 86 years old and leads a quiet life in Germany. He used to be a Dutch citizen but that was a long time ago. Once upon a time, in 1941, just after the Adolf Hitler's German Army crashed into tiny Holland, young Heinrich Boere eagerly volunteered for service in the SS. Boere was a Dutchman and became part of a classified SS unit, code-named Silbertanne, or “Silver Pine”. The small 15-man force was put together for 'wet-works' - politically deniable assassinations. This group was responsible for no less than 54 assassinations in Holland during World War Two of people suspected of being members of the Dutch Resistance. They operated in the shadows and wore civilian clothes instead of the black uniforms of the Storm troopers on their missions. The brave Nazi hit man Boere personally shot at least three of these unarmed men by surprise in 1944 including a pharmacist in his shop, a bicycle shop owner in his own doorway and another man while feigning to change a tire.

Boere escaped to Germany after the war but was tried in absentia in 1949 in a Dutch court and sentenced to life imprisonment. This sentence however was never carried out as Boere now claims German and not Dutch citizenship. Germany has for years refused to either imprison the war criminal or extradite him to the Netherlands. However this may be subject to change.