Breda Four
The Breda Four, were the last four continuously imprisoned German war criminals in the Netherlands following the Second World War. The group consisted of Willy Lages, Joseph Kotalla, Ferdinand aus der Fünten, and Franz Fischer. From 1952, they were incarcerated in the dome prison in Breda, which inspired their collective name.
Lages, Aus der Fünten and Fischer played a key role in the deportations of Jews, while Kotalla was deputy head of Kamp Amersfoort. The Breda Four were initially sentenced to death, but in 1951–1952 were among those whose sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. However, they were the only German war criminals in the Netherlands not released before 1961.
In the following decades, pushes were made to release them. The West German government and other organisations lobbied for them. The clemency requests coincided with increasing awareness of World War II and the psychological impact on victims in the Netherlands. Ministers of Justice decided against releasing them, after proposals for release were met with public protests and emotional debates in parliament. This reached a peak in 1972.
Lages was released on sick leave in 1966 and died five years later in Germany. Kotalla died in prison in 1979. In 1987, Aus der Fünten and Fischer became the last German war criminals in Europe who had been continuously imprisoned since 1945. They were given clemency on 27 January 1989 and died the same year.
Crimes and sentencing
As part of the Special Jurisdiction, the Breda Four were among the 240–242 Germans tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Netherlands after the Second World War. Eighteen Germans, including the Breda Four, were sentenced to the death penalty, which had been reintroduced for the Special Jurisdiction.Franz Fischer
was transferred to the Reich Security Main Office Referat IV B4 in The Hague in November 1940. Although Wilhelm Zoepf was the head, Fischer was in practice in daily charge of the deportation of 13,000 Jews and the tracking down of Jews in hiding. He was spared the death penalty and instead received a life sentence on 17 March 1949, after the judge ruled that his personality disorder diminished his responsibility and that his antisemitic beliefs stemmed from prolonged exposure to propaganda. This was overturned in cassation on 12 July 1950, when he was sentenced to death.Willy Lages
became head of the Amsterdam office of the Sicherheitspolizei and the Sicherheitsdienst in Amsterdam after the February strike in 1941, as well as head of the Central Agency for Jewish Emigration in Amsterdam. He was responsible for anti-Jewish measures, including roundups and deportations of 70,000 Jews. He also ordered and was involved in executions, including the execution of Hannie Schaft and executions that were part of Operation Silbertanne. He was sentenced to death on 20 September 1949, which was upheld in cassation on 12 July 1950.Ferdinand aus der Fünten
joined the Central Agency for Jewish Emigration in Amsterdam in September 1941. He eventually became deputy chief under Lages, through which he took daily charge of the deportations in Amsterdam. He was also involved in the clearance of various institutions, including.Joseph Kotalla
was appointed as a guard in the Police Prison in Scheveningen in February 1941, where he was considered to be one of the worst. In September 1941, he was moved to Kamp Amersfoort as punishment for mishandling a prisoner in a cell. Nevertheless, Kotalla became head of administration and de facto deputy commander in early 1943. His harsh and violent treatment of prisoners earned him the nickname "Executioner of Amersfoort". He was also involved in 78 executions.He was sentenced to death both at the initial trial and on appeal. During the trial, the question of whether he had diminished responsibility was at issue. He would later be diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder as a result of brain damage suffered at the age of nine.
Commutation to life imprisonment (1951–1952)
Despite public support for the death penalty, the Schermerhorn–Drees cabinet feared that too many executions would negatively impact society. In February 1946, the cabinet adopted secret guidelines for clemency. In January 1947, Minister of Justice Johannes Henricus van Maarseveen included the most serious German war criminals as a category eligible for execution. The clemency policy faced criticism from the judicial branch, Queen Wilhelminawho temporarily refused to approve clemencies in 1947and various parties in parliament.German support
Meanwhile in West Germany, a lobby started for war criminals, which were euphemistically called 'prisoners of war'. This aid was started by the churches, in the case of the Breda Four primarily the Protestant church. Organisations linked to the churches provided legal aid, supported by government subsidies since 1948. In particular, Kirchen-präsident of the Evangelical Church of the Palatinate was active, visiting the prisoners at Christmas 1951 and representing their interest ever since. In 1952, he became a board member of the Stille Hilfe. In March 1952, chair of the Evangelical Church in Germany, Otto Dibelius, protested in a letter to prime minister Willem Drees against the death sentences and asked for commutation to life in prison.In 1949, the West German government formed the to coordinate the legal aid to German prisoners abroad. The West German government tried to prevent the execution of the death penalty. On 25 March 1950, German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer asked the chairman of the Allied High Commission, André François-Poncet, to request that the Dutch government refrain from carrying out the death sentences. Through diplomatic channels, the West German government would continue in the next decades to bring up the release of the German war criminals.
Fischer and Aus der Fünten
In 1948, Juliana ascended to the throne as the new queen. She held conscientious objections to the death penalty and refused to deny some clemency requests. Minister of Justice Teun Struycken reached a compromise with Juliana. The death penalty would be carried out only if both the initial trial and the cassation resulted in a death sentence. Consequently, the sentences of Aus der Fünten and Fischer were commuted to life imprisonment in January 1951, while Julius Herdtmann was executed in exchange.The commutation sparked indignation, particularly among the former Dutch resistance and Jewish organisations. On 22 May 1951, communist parliamentarian interpellated Struycken's successor, Hendrik Mulderije, regarding the clemency policy. Stokvis, along with the Anti-Revolutionary Party and the CHU, criticised the policy. A significant majority, led by KVP and Labour Party, opposed a motion tabled by Stokvis to publish the clemency guidelines. However, a majority supported a motion tabled by Leen Donker, expressing concern about the potential conversion of life sentences into temporary ones.
Kotalla
Following Kotalla's trials, additional psychiatric evaluations were conducted, which diagnosed him with obsessive-compulsive disorder. As a result, Mulderije decided in December 1951 to reduce Kotalla's sentence to life imprisonment due to diminished responsibility.Lages
Lages had been sentenced in cassation in July 1950, after which he directly requested clemency. Both courts opposed clemency, but it took the Special Court of Cassation until September 1951 to reach this conclusion. The delay was attributed to the head prosecutor delaying the processing of the request and using Lages for his investigation into abuses in camps for political detainees. Juliana also opposed his execution, while Mulderije refused to approve the clemency, threatening to resign. Because neither gave in, a decision was postponed until after the 25 June 1952 election. In the new second Drees cabinet, Donker became minister of Justice.The long time between his sentence and the execution became the main reason for Donker to commute Lages' sentence to life imprisonment on 29 September 1952. The decision to commute Lages' sentence sparked social unrest, with a protest on 12 October 1952 in Amsterdam involving 15,000 to 20,000 demonstrators opposing the commutation. Donker made the reservation in parliament that, as far as he was concerned, there would be no question of a second commutation in this exceptional category. He also said that in his opinion ministerial accountability applied to clemency decisions. This meant that such a decision would be influenced by parliament and thus society.
The last four (1960–1965)
Since the introduction of the in 1886, a life sentence in the Netherlands had never not been commuted. Former Minister Struycken later stated that he expected the commuted death sentence to mean a maximum of 20 years in prison. In addition, the Dutch government wanted to leave the war behind through clemency, amongst others to avoid controversial debates about Dutch collaboration. This led to the release of the last German war criminals except for the Breda Four in 1961. This included the five other German prisoners initially sentenced to death, who were released between December 1958 and May 1960 in relative silence.There were a few reasons why the Breda Four were not released. Their cases had stirred the public opinion since directly after the war. Their first commutation had already led to public outcry and a parliamentary resolution against a further commutation. The public interest in the Second World War increased in the early 1960s, with the Eichmann trial, the release of Jacques Pressers book and the broadcasting of Loe de Jongs television series .
Unsuccessful requests
During a debate in 1959, Minister of Justice Albert Beerman said the Four would qualify for clemency and emphasised that clemency was a prerogative of the Crown. Encouraged by Beerman, progressive criminal law experts and pleaded in in 1963 for the release of the four prisoners. The publicity backfired and led to public outrage, which made Beerman refrain from clemency.Former chairs of the Foundation Supervision of the Political Offenders and Jaap le Poole wrote a reaction in support of Pompe's and Van Bemmelen's article a month after its publication. Le Poole, who had been active in the resistance and was a former PvdA MP, continued behind the scenes to convince influential individuals of clemency. He introduced Stempel to various Dutch journalists and politicians.
A month after Van Bemmelen and Pompe, the bishop of the Diocese of 's-Hertogenbosch,, also publicly argued for a pardon. In September 1964, the auxilary bishop of Cologne met with Beerman's successor Ynso Scholten to ask for the release of the Breda Four at some point on behalf of the German Episcopate. Although Scholten believed they could not remain in Dutch prison for the rest of their lives, he saw insufficient parliamentary support and rejected their clemency requests on 24 October 1964.
Le Poole had some success with Ivo Samkalden, who had started as Minister of Justice on 14 April 1965. He rejected collective clemency, but was open to individual clemency, in particular for Kotalla given his psychiatric evaluations. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court also changed its advice on clemency for Kotalla, from negative in 1960 to positive in 1962 and 1963. Public opinion and the view from National Institute for War Documentation historian that release might hinder the prosecution of war criminals in Germany and Austria, prevented Samkalden from giving clemency. Samkalden also wanted to wait until after the controversial marriage between queen Beatrix and the German Prince Claus of the Netherlands in March 1966.