Siert Bruins

Siert Bruins (2 March 1921 – 28 September 2015), also known as Siegfried Bruns and nicknamed the Beast of Appingedam, was a Dutch member of the SS and SD during World War II.

[2] During the war both Bruins brothers joined the Waffen SS and fought at the Eastern Front,[2] where Derk-Elsko received the Knights' Cross.

[3] During the last days of WW II Bruins fled to Germany,[4] where he could escape from the Dutch jurisdiction because he was granted the German nationality as a former nazi-soldier[2] on basis of a 1943 law.

He was arrested and placed on trial in Germany, where he was found guilty of being an accessory to the murder of two Jewish brothers, Meijer en Lazarus (Laas) Sleutelberg,[8] in Farmsum,[1] in the north of the Netherlands.

[11] Though Bruins admitted to being present when Dijkema was executed in the night of 21 September 1944 in Appingedam,[3] near the Brons factory,[12] he claimed the shot was fired by his SS superior, Oberscharführer[1] August Neuhäuser.

[1] In January 2014, presiding judge Heike Hartmann-Garschagen ruled that there were too many gaps in the evidence and dropped the case against Bruins.