Denmark's highest-ranking Nazi, SS officer Søren Kam, has died in Germany with an outstanding Danish murder charge still pending. Kam, who was 93 years old, was wanted in Denmark for the murder in 1943 of BT's former chief editor, Carl Henrik Clemmensen. 
 
 The crime occurred during World War II. Kam admitted to the kidnapping and killing of the anti-Nazi editor, but claimed he was pressured to shoot Clemmensen and only did so after he was already dead. Historians say that the evidence suggests Clemmensen was standing up and very much alive when Kam pulled the trigger. Kam’s accomplice in the crime was executed in Denmark in 1946. 
 
 Germany refused to extradite Kam to Denmark after he was granted German citizenship in 1956. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre listed him as one of the 10 most wanted war criminals from the Nazi era. 
 
 A Nazi to the end 
 
 Kam enlisted as a volunteer in the Waffen-SS as a young man and was sent to the Eastern Front during World War II. In 1945, he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross from Adolf Hitler. 
 
 “He was a fanatical Nazi and one of the highest-profile Danish Nazis during the war,” historian Claus Bundgård Christensen told DR Nyheder. “He was a star that Nazi children and young people looked up to.” 
 
 Nazi youth publications often used pictures of the Bayern resident as propaganda for recruiting young people to the Eastern Front. 
 
 A Nazi rock star 
 
 Christensen said that Kam became an international star who Nazi sympathisers looked up to. They would often ask for signed photos of him as if he were a rock star. 
 
 “He was very active, and it was only in recent years when his health began to fail that he began to retreat from the public eye,” he said. 
 
 READ MORE: Today's date: Germany protects Nazi 
 
 Christensen said that Kam was so highly placed in the Nazi hierarchy that he must have had knowledge of many of the war crimes that took place during World War II. 
 
 “But what exactly he has done, we will probably never know,” he added. ||||| Germany continues to shelter a former SS officer who is wanted for murder and for his alleged role in the deportation of hundreds of Jews to Nazi concentration camps. 
 
 The Daily Telegraph has tracked down former SS-Obersturmfuehrer Søren Kam to the peaceful suburbs of Kempten im Allgäu, a town about 75 miles from Munich. 
 
 Dr Efraim Zuroff, a veteran Israeli Nazi-hunter, will be in Europe next week to mount “Operation Last Chance”, to bring men such as Kam to justice and to expose the role of complacent German judicial authorities in continuing to provide alleged war criminals with safe havens. 
 
 “Kam is on my list because in my estimation he is one of the top 10 Nazis that could feasibly be brought to trial” for war crimes, said Dr Zuroff, who is director of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem. 
 
 The 86-year-old Dane is number eight on the list of 10 “most wanted Nazi war criminals” drawn up by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre. 
 
 But in Bavaria, Kam, a man who met Adolf Hitler, lives openly. By his doorbell is a traditional Bavarian clay plaque, made by his grandchildren, and bearing the family name. 
 
 Kam responded to knocks on his front door by opening his front window and hiding behind the curtains. All that could be seen was his hand, but the voice of the SS man remained clear and dismissive. “I know who you are. I don’t want to talk to you. Leave me in peace,” he said, before slamming the window. 
 
 Kam has been indicted by the Danish government for the murder in 1943 of Carl Henrik Clemmensen, the anti-Nazi Danish newspaper editor. 
 
 Clemmensen’s bullet-riddled body was found by a roadside after he was seized from his home by three men, led by Kam. Denmark’s authorities would also like to talk to him regarding the theft in 1943 of a population register, later used to round up and deport 500 Danish Jews to concentration camps. 
 
 But Kam is protected. Munich courts earlier this year threw out attempts, under a European Union arrest warrant, to deport him back to Denmark. A clear case, claimed Dr Zuroff, of “misplaced German judicial sympathy for a despicable Nazi collaborator who faithfully served the Third Reich”. 
 
 While many of Denmark’s Jews were able to flee the Holocaust to Sweden, others were not so lucky, and hundreds were deported to Terezi­n, in what is now the Czech Republic, en route to Auschwitz and other death camps. 
 
 “Not all the Danish Jews were rescued,” said Dr Zuroff. “Five hundred were sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp and dozens died there due to the awful conditions.” 
 
 Kam’s daughter confronted The Daily Telegraph near his home. “What do you want from my father?” she said. “Can’t you leave my father alone? He is not talking. If you don’t leave immediately we will call the police.” 
 
 Many of Kam’s elderly neighbours seemed to agree and reactions ranged from refusals to talk to indifference.But one young father, who asked not to be named, admitted his shame. “We all know who he is and what he has done,” he said. “I have strong personal opinions on this and I would prefer him not to be my neighbour.” 
 
 Kam was born in Copenhagen on Nov 2 1921 but fled his country after the war to take German citizenship in 1956. 
 
 He has the dubious distinction of being the highest decorated Nazi Dane after being awarded the Knight’s Cross for his leadership of Danish SS men against the resistance of his countrymen. 
 
 The former obersturmfuehrer — a senior lieutenant — has remained a controversial figure, active on the far-Right and has regularly attended veterans’ rallies of SS men. 
 
 He has also been closely associated with Heinrich Himmler’s daughter Gudrun Burwitz and her network Stille Hilfe [Silent Aid], set up to support arrested, condemned or fugitive former SS men. 
 
 Until 1999, Kam denied any role in the Clemmensen murder. Of the two other Danish SS men involved, Knud Flemming Helweg-Larsen, was executed in 1946 solely for his role in the murder. The other culprit disappeared after the war. 
 
 Mona Clemmensen, a teenager in 1943 remembers her father’s death. “He was afraid and covered his face with his hands. I was told that they shot through his hands to kill him,” she said. 
 
 Miss Clemmensen believes that Kam’s prosecution is of wider historical importance. “It is always important that somebody who has done what he did is put to justice. Furthermore it is of great importance today to serve as an example for genocide cases in Yugoslavia and Africa,” she said. 
 
 But earlier this year, Munich courts rejected the allegations of the Danish government and believed the former SS man’s claim that he was acting in self-defence when the unarmed Clemmensen was killed. The offence of manslaughter or accidental death expires under Germany’s statute of limitations, meaning Kam’s peaceful Bavarian life could continue. 
 
 Erik Høgh Sorensen, a Danish journalist and Nazi-hunter, who has compiled detailed evidence of Kam’s alleged war crimes, claims that the Bavarian courts showed a clear bias. Officials from Germany’s Justice Ministry have refused to comment “on judicial proceedings”. ||||| COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - A Danish former Nazi officer and a war criminal on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's most wanted list has died, according to a death note in the German paper Allgauer Zeitung published at the weekend. 
 
 The notice, drawn up by his children, said 93-year-old Soren Kam died on March 23, little more than two weeks after his wife passed away. 
 
 Kam was the fifth-most wanted war criminal by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an organization that fights to bring former Nazis to justice and protects Jewish rights. 
 
 The Dane had been a volunteer officer in the SS-Viking division and was judged to have been involved in the murder of Danish anti-Nazi newspaper editor Carl Henrik Clemmensen. He also fought on the Eastern front and was highly decorated. 
 
 A Danish court case conducted straight after the war convicted him in absentia of the murder, together with another man who was executed. Kam had fled to Germany where he obtained citizenship in 1956. 
 
 Germany had refused to extradite him to Denmark several times, according to Danish media. 
 
 "The fact that Soren Kam, a totally unrepentant Nazi murderer, died a free man in Kempten (Germany), is a terrible failure of the Bavarian judicial authorities," the center's chief Nazi hunter, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, said in the statement. 
 
 "Kam should have finished his miserable life in jail, whether in Denmark or Germany. The failure to hold him accountable will only inspire the contemporary heirs of the Nazis to consider following in his footsteps," Zuroff said. 
 
 Zuroff later said by telephone Kam had been on the center's list for the Clemmensen murder and not for giving Nazis a registry of Danish Jews to help forces deport them to concentration camps, an accusation Danish authorities could find no evidence for. 
 
 He said the center's most-wanted list, which now contains the names of eight men, is based on a realistic hope the accused can be brought to justice and is not a list of the most notorious Nazis.
– In what a top Nazi hunter calls a "terrible failure of the Bavarian judicial authorities," one of Denmark's most-wanted Nazis has died a free man at the age of 93. Soren Kam, one of the highest-profile Danish Nazis during World War II, was wanted in his homeland for the 1943 kidnap and murder of anti-Nazi newspaper editor Carl Henrik Clemmensen, the Copenhagen Post reports. He fled to Germany after the war and the country refused to extradite him back to Denmark after he was granted citizenship in 1956. Kam—who died on March 23, around two weeks after his wife, according to a death notice—also fought on the Eastern Front with the Waffen SS and was granted the Knight's Cross medal by Adolf Hitler in 1945. Kam, who was the Simon Wiesenthal Center's No. 5 most wanted war criminal, "should have finished his miserable life in jail, whether in Denmark or Germany," Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff tells Reuters, calling him a "totally unrepentant Nazi murderer." "The failure to hold him accountable will only inspire the contemporary heirs of the Nazis to consider following in his footsteps," Zuroff says. Kam successfully fought extradition attempts by claiming that he feared for his life and only shot Clemmensen after he was already dead, reports the Telegraph, which tracked Kam down to his home in a peaceful Munich suburb in 2007 and was confronted by his angry daughter. (Archaeologists recently found a hidden Nazi lair deep in the jungle.)