German investigation raises hope of new Nazi prosecutions

BERLIN (AP) " German prosecutors are investigating a suspected former member of Adolf Hitler's mobile killing squads for involvement in massacres carried out by the "Einsatzgruppen."

The investigation centers on 95-year-old Wilhelm Karl Friedrich Hoffmeister, a former corporal in the Nazi SS who is suspected of serving with one of the death squads in Ukraine.

The case is the third of its kind opened in recent months, raising hopes among Nazi hunters that it's the start in Germany of a new wave of prosecutions

The German federal prosecutors' office for Nazi war crimes says it has established that Hoffmeister was in Ukraine with the unit around the time it shot nearly 34,000 people over two days in 1941.

Prosecutors in Braunschweig say Hoffmeister denied involvement in war crimes and said he served in a successor to the unit.