{"id":172332,"date":"2026-01-20T14:47:54","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T11:47:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/172332\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T20:10:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T20:10:49","slug":"supreme-court-to-try-deceased-nazi-war-criminal-on-january-26","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/172332\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court to try deceased Nazi war criminal on January 26"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

January<\/strong> 20,<\/strong> <\/em>Pozirk<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em><\/strong> Belarus\u2019 Supreme Court is set to try another deceased Second World War-era war criminal on January 26, part of a broader campaign to underscore the genocidal scale of Nazi atrocities committed on Belarusian territory between 1941 and 1944.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hans Eugen Siegling, who was born in 1912 and died in Western Germany in 1978, is accused of conducting punitive operations, which killed at least 1,706 people, as commander of a Ukrainian company and 57 Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei<\/em>, SiPo) Battalion, said the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case is a part of a series of trials targeting dead perpetrators of war crimes against Belarusians, following the conviction of Volodymyr Katriuk, an ethnic Ukrainian born in 1921 in the village of Luzhany, and ethnic Pole Konstanty Smowski \u2013 both were accused of involvement in Chaty\u0144 massacre in 1943; Osyp Wynnycky, a Nazi auxiliary police company commander who was born in 1915 and passed away in Canada in 1997; Siamion Sierafimovi\u010d, who was born in Mir, Belarus, and died in the UK in 1997; and Alaksandar Jarmol\u010dyk, who was born in 1915 and died in 1984. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Belarusian government\u2019s persecution of dead Nazi war criminals is primarily politically motivated, said Gundula Pohl, of the Institute of History in Hagen, Germany, in her article published online in January 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt reflects the state\u2019s need to legitimize its authoritarian rule and create a new basis for national identity after the brutal suppression of peaceful civil protests in the summer of 2020.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government started promoting the concept of genocide against Belarusians about four years ago, while then Prosecutor General Andrej \u0160vied personally contributed content for a textbook on genocide for five-graders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alaksandar \u0141uka\u0161enka signed laws providing for the criminal prosecution of the dead and criminalizing the denial of genocide. Denial carries a penalty of five years in prison. Repeated violation of the law may lead to up to 10 years in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Historians and analysts note that the authorities also use the genocide theme to discredit their opponents by tying their symbols to Nazi collaborators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith the newly emphasized genocide campaign, the state seeks to establish a uniquely Belarusian and nationally unifying narrative. Ultimately, by focusing primarily on non-German (Belarusian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian) perpetrators, it aims to deliberately discredit the political opposition and \u201cwestern\u201d states. The concept of genocide serves as its vehicle,\u201d says Pohl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Law No. 146-Z, the term \u201cBelarusian people\u201d refers to all \u201cSoviet citizens who lived on the territory of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) during the Great Patriotic War and\/or the post-war period.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis construction of the term and the isolation of the events on Belarusian soil from the rest of Nazi-occupied Soviet territory establishes the regime\u2019s exclusive claim to the memory of the war and occupation and represents a deliberate distinction from Russia\u2019s stance, despite current foreign policy alignments,\u201d the researcher says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n
\n \"\"