Former SS guard, 98, charged as accessory to murder at Nazi concentration camp

A 98-year-old man has been charged in Germany with being an adjunct to homicide as a guard on the Nazis’ Sachsenhausen focus camp between 1943 and 1945, prosecutors stated Friday.

The German citizen, a resident of Important-Kinzig county close to Frankfurt, is accused of getting “supported the merciless and malicious killing of 1000’s of prisoners as a member of the SS guard element,” prosecutors in Giessen stated in a press release. They didn’t launch the suspect’s title.

He’s charged with greater than 3,300 counts of being an adjunct to homicide between July 1943 and February 1945. The indictment was filed on the state courtroom in Hanau, which can now must determine whether or not to ship the case to trial. If it does, he will probably be tried below juvenile legislation, taking account of his age on the time of the alleged crimes.

Prosecutors stated {that a} report by a psychiatric professional final October discovered that the suspect is match to face trial at the very least on a restricted foundation.

Greater than 200,000 folks have been held at Sachsenhausen, simply north of Berlin, between 1936 and 1945. Tens of 1000’s died of hunger, illness, pressured labor, and different causes, in addition to by means of medical experiments and systematic SS extermination operations together with shootings, hangings and gassing.

Precise numbers for these killed fluctuate, with higher estimates of some 100,000, although students counsel figures of 40,000 to 50,000 are seemingly extra correct.

Legislation permits trials of surviving SS personnel   

German prosecutors have introduced a number of instances below a precedent set in recent times that enables for individuals who helped a Nazi camp operate to be prosecuted as an adjunct to the murders there with out direct proof that they participated in a selected killing.

Prices of homicide and being an adjunct to homicide aren’t topic to a statute of limitations below German legislation.

However given the superior age of the accused, many trials have needed to be cancelled for well being causes.

Convictions additionally don’t result in precise imprisonment, with some defendants dying earlier than they might even start to serve their jail phrases.

Amongst these discovered responsible in these late trials have been Oskar Groening — a former Nazi loss of life camp guard dubbed the “Accountant of Auschwitz” — and Reinhold Hanning, a former SS guard on the identical camp.

Each males have been discovered responsible for complicity in mass homicide at age 94 however died earlier than they could possibly be imprisoned.

An 101-year-old ex-Nazi camp guard, Josef Schuetz was convicted final 12 months, changing into the oldest to date to be placed on trial for complicity.

He died in April whereas awaiting the result of an enchantment in opposition to his five-year jail sentence.

And a 97-year-old former focus camp secretary, Irmgard Furchner, became the first woman to be tried for Nazi crimes in a long time in December 2022, the BBC reported. She was discovered responsible of complicity within the murders of greater than 10,500 folks at Stutthof camp, close to town of Danzig.

AFP contributed to this report.