A German court sentenced former death camp commander Josef Schwammberger to life imprisonment Monday for killing at least 25 Jews and participating in the murder of another 640, in what was likely to be the last major Nazi crimes trial.
Several jackbooted neo-Nazis shouted "Freedom for Schwammberger" as presiding Judge Herbert Luippold delivered the life sentence.Dozens of ultra right-wingers also distributed leaflets outside the court protesting the trial.
Schwammberger, 80, was found guilty of killing at least 25 concentration camp inmates and par ticipating in the killing of at least 640 others.
The judge said Schwam-mberger committed the crimes between 1942 and 1944, when he commanded the Rozwadow and Przemysl concentration camps in Poland, where the majority of inmates were Jews.
Schwammberger was initially accused of killing 45 people and partipating in the killing of about 3,000 others.
Dozens of witnesses who appeared since the trial started in June 1991 had described in painful detail the numerous acts of savagery that placed the former SS lieutenant on Simon Wiesenthal's list of the 10 most wanted Nazis.
"There are still plenty of Nazis left, thousands of anonymous killers, but none with the status of Schwammberger," said Marvin Hier of the Wiesenthal Center, an organization dedicated to tracking down Nazi criminals.
Witnesses described how Schwammberger took pleasure in letting his Alsatian dog maul Jewish camp inmates or how he forced a group of women and children to run into a burning barn.
Moshe Reiter, 70, recalled in a shaky voice how "little children were smashed against walls because he (Schwammberger) did not want to waste bullets on them."
Several witnesses broke out in tears and choked on their words as they brought back the painful memories. Many of them said this was the first time they spoke of the horrors they experienced in the death camps.
"Schwammberger was not a human being, but a sadist, a maneater," said David Szigler, one of the dozens of Holocaust survivors flown in for the trial.
Schwammberger, who stared blankly at the ceiling as evidence was given, denied any wrongdoings and said he could not remember any of the people who stood in the witness box or the incidents they described.
Once, as a witness described a cruel killing, the judge stared incredulously at Schwammberger. "He is smiling. Why he is smiling, I have no idea," he said.
Schwammberger was extradited from Argentina in May 1990, 42 years after he escaped from detention by the French military authorities who had arrested him in 1945, when they found him carrying eight sacks filled with diamonds and gold teeth.