The trial of a former German infantry commander for Nazi war crimes took 11 months, and ended in what is nowadays a rare conviction.

The passage of time since the war and the patchy record of governments in pursuing Nazis and their collaborators mean that, while many Nazis have faced justice and been convicted, far more have slipped through the net.

In the 1950s and 1960s, German judge and prosecutor Fritz Bauer estimated there were 100,000 Germans responsible in one way or another for mass killings of Jews during the war. Other estimates suggested a figure as high as 300,000.

The judge also said fewer than 5,000 people had been prosecuted and, while there have been many convictions, there has not been a significantly large addition to that number in the years since.