Dutch Nazi war criminal Siert Bruins not convicted

Siert Bruins, SS war criminal, stands trial

On 08-01-2014 a German court in Hagen, Germany, came out with a verdict against the last of the Dutch SS war criminals still alive, Siert Bruins; not guilty of murder. The judge dicided that after all these years there wasn't enough proof of the fact that he had shot a member of the Dutch resistance in the night of the 21^st and 22^nd of September 1944. In that night Siert and a German colleague of him of the SD (SicherheitsDienst: German Secret Service) killed Aldert Klaas Dijkema by shooting him in the back. Because he was at the site he was found guilty of manslaughter, but this crime is barred after 20 years in Germany.

Siert Bruins as a young man

Siert Bruins was born on 02-03-1921 in the little village of Vlagtwedde, just north-east of the city of Groningen, in the north of the Netherlands. At an early age he became a member of the Dutch National-Socialist Movement (NSB) and later on he volunteered for the German SS. After a period of time serving on the eastern front in Russia he joined the German SD in Delfzijl.

After September 1943 all the SS and SD personnel concentrated in the north-east of the Netherlands fleeing from the Allied Forces. The so-called ‘Scholtenhuis’ in the city of Groningen became an important centre for the SD and it’s fight against the Dutch resistance movement. The ‘Scholtenhuis’ was a notorious place during WW-II. Called by locals; the gates of hell. It’s estimated that about 480 people were killed as a result of the activities of the SD in Groningen.

Niedermachungsbefehl

On 30-07-1944 Hitler issued the so-called ‘Niedermachungsbefehl’, which meant that it was allowed to kill people that were suspected members of the resistance, at site. Especially members of the SS and SD were actively involved in executing members or suspected members of the resistance. Also Dutch members of the SD were involved in these actions, like the brothers Faber, Heinrich Boere, Siert Bruins, Abraham Kaper and Peter Schaap. The last two were so-called ‘Jew-hunters’, working for the police in Amsterdam for the ‘Department for Jewish Affairs’, before they went to Groningen.
In the fight of the SD against the Dutch resistance several specific actions were deployed by the Germans, such as the Aktion Silbertanne and the Deppner-Executions. Erich Deppner was a high-ranked official of the SD.

Trials against Siert Bruins

Siert Bruins was already tried just after the war for his crimes committed during the war. In 1949 he was sentenced in absentia, to death. At that time he already had escaped to Germany and lived there in freedom. Years later this sentence was changed to life imprisonment.
His second trial was in February 1980 in the German city Hagen and he was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment for ‘assisting in the death’ of two Jewish brothers, Lazarus and Meijer Sleutelberg in April 1945. He served 5 years in prison before he was released.
His last trial started in September 2013, Siert being 92 years of age. According to the judge he was healthy enough and capable to stand trial. Siert always denied shooting anybody, as did all the Dutch Nazi’s that stood before a court of law in the last years. His colleague fired the shot that killed Dijkema and he didn’t know that it was a planned killing. Well, I’m sure he knew what was coming. It was the normal thing to do for members of the SD, to kill members of the resistance.

In June 2014 the German Justice Department decided to quit the appeal against the verdict of the German court not to prosecute Siert Bruins for murder. So, he stays out of prison definitely.

Siert Bruins at his last trial in 2013

The Bruins family

Siert Bruins was born in a small village in the far north-east of the Netherlands, Vlagtwedde. He was the son of Harm Bruins and Aaltje Nuis, he had 2 older brothers and a junger brother and sister. The whole family were convinced followers of the Dutch National-Socialist Movement (NSB) and it's leader Anton Mussert. They were very pro-German and admired Hitler. The Bruins family was very poor, as were most people in this rural area, very close to the border with Germany.

Just before the war started the 2 older brothers decided to leave the NSB, but both Siert and his younger brother Derk Elsko decided not only to stay members of the NSB but also to join first the WA (uniformed forces of the NSB) and later on the Dutch SS. They both served time at the eastern front in Russia and Derk Elsko received the highest military award for his achievements in the fights against the Russians, the Knight's Cross (Ritterkreuz).

Derk Elsko Bruins in SS-uniform; from a newspaper September 1944

Derk Elsko Bruins in SS-uniform with the Ritterkreuz

Harm Bruins, the father, died in a camp for collaborators just after the war. According to the Bruins family he was beaten to death by the prison guards.
Derk Elsko died in 1986 in freedom in a small German village, proud of all his medals he earned as a SS-soldier and regularly staying in contact with 'die alte Kameraden' of the German SS.