Nazi War Crimes Suspect Says He Followed Orders
An 86-year-old Nazi war crimes suspect denied at the opening of his murder trial in Munich that he was responsible for killing 164 Slovak villagers during World War II, arguing that he was acting under orders from German superiors.
Ladislav Niznansky is accused of heading the Slovak section of a Nazi unit that hunted resistance fighters and Jews after the Germans crushed a wartime uprising against Slovakia’s Nazi puppet government.
Prosecutors charged that Niznansky took part in three massacres and personally shot at least 20 people in the village of Ostry Grun on Jan. 21, 1945.
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