Four Dutch nationals who voluntarily joined the Waffen SS during World War II will continue to receive a pension from Germany because they are not implicated in war crimes, the Volkskrant said on Thursday.

In total, six former Waffen SS members are among 34 Dutch nationals who are still getting benefits from the German authorities, according to research by current affairs show EenVandaag last month.

That publication led the German authorities to look again at the payments. Four of the SS members will continue to get a pension, one is still being investigated and one was struck off the list earlier because his actual whereabouts are unknown, the VK said.

In 14 cases, the benefits are payed to widows and in 10 cases the recipients are dual Dutch and German nationals. The fund which pays the pensions of a few hundred euros a month was set up in 1950 for people who were injured in service of the Nazis. In the 1990s the rules were tightened up.

According to the Dutch institute for war documentation NIOD, some 25,000 Dutchmen volunteered to join the ranks of the German Waffen SS. This number was not only relatively but also absolutely, the largest contingent of non-German volunteers from all of the Nazi occupied territories.