Fired Official Gets New Trial 55 Years Late

Decades after losing his job for forging documents to save several thousand Jews from Nazi terror, a state police chief who died in disgrace will receive a new hearing.

The St. Gallen district court on Monday ordered an immediate retrial for Paul Grueninger, who was found guilty 55 years ago of “activities inconsistent with his position.”

The court will decide Thursday whether he should receive a full pardon.

Grueninger, former commander of the St. Gallen canton, or state, police, was charged in 1940 for forging immigration documents to allow Austrian Jews to evade tight Swiss visa restrictions imposed in August 1938 after Adolf Hitler annexed Austria.

Defying government policy, Grueninger allowed Jews to cross the border into St. Gallen in northeastern Switzerland and then backdated immigration papers to prevent their expulsions.

He is believed to have saved some 3,000 Jews from almost certain death in Nazi concentration camps.

After his activities were discovered, Grueninger was stripped of his job and pension rights. He died in poverty in 1972.

Monday’s decision came after a legal professor, Mark Pieth, offered new evidence that the 1938 order to turn back Jews on the basis of their race violated the international law of the time.