Former Nazi guard, age 100, charged as accessory to murder

BERLIN — German prosecutors have charged a 100-year-old man with 3,518 counts of being an adjunct to homicide on allegations he served throughout World Warfare II as a Nazi SS guard at a focus camp on the outskirts of Berlin, authorities mentioned Tuesday.

The person is alleged to have labored on the Sachsenhausen camp between 1942 and 1945 as an enlisted member of the Nazi Occasion’s paramilitary wing, mentioned Cyrill Klement, who led the investigation of the centenarian for the Neuruppin prosecutors’ workplace.

The person’s title wasn’t launched in keeping with German privateness legal guidelines, Regardless of his superior age, the suspect is taken into account match sufficient to face trial, although lodging could need to be made to restrict what number of hours per day the court docket is in session, Klement instructed The Related Press.

The Neuruppin workplace was handed the case in 2019 by the particular federal prosecutors’ workplace in Ludwigsburg tasked with investigating Nazi-era warfare crimes, Klement mentioned.

It comes after prosecutors within the northern city of Itzehoe introduced accent to homicide prices final week towards a 95-year-old lady who labored throughout the warfare as the secretary of the SS commandant of the Stutthof focus camp. That case and the fees towards the 100-year-old man each depend on current authorized precedent in Germany establishing that anybody who helped a Nazi camp perform will be prosecuted for accent to the murders dedicated there.

That was established in 2011 with the conviction of former Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk as an adjunct to homicide on allegations that he served as a guard on the Sobibor dying camp in German-occupied Poland. Demjanjuk, who steadfastly denied the allegations, died earlier than his enchantment may very well be heard.

A federal court docket subsequently upheld the 2015 conviction of former Auschwitz guard Oskar Groening achieved with the identical line of reasoning, solidifying the precedent.

Earlier than that, German courts had required prosecutors to justify prices by presenting proof of a former guard’s participation in a particular killing, usually a near-impossible job given the anonymity of most guards to the prisoners, coupled with the paucity of witnesses and the passage of time.

“The core of this case follows the choice of Demjanjuk and Groening, that being a part of the functioning of this equipment of dying is enough for an adjunct to homicide conviction,” Klement mentioned.

The state court docket in Neuruppin, northwest of the city of Oranienburg the place Sachsenhausen was situated, now wants to guage the case and the health of the defendant, then set a trial date, Klement mentioned.

Sachsenhausen was established in 1936 simply north of Berlin as the primary new camp after Adolf Hitler gave the SS full management of the Nazi focus camp system.

It was meant to be a mannequin facility and coaching camp for the labyrinthine community that the Nazis constructed throughout Germany, Austria and occupied territories.

Greater than 200,000 folks have been held there between 1936 and 1945, and tens of hundreds died of hunger, illness, compelled labor, and different causes, in addition to via medical experiments and systematic SS extermination operations together with shootings, hangings and gassing.

Actual numbers on these killed differ, with higher estimates of some 100,000, although students recommend figures of 40,000 to 50,000 are seemingly extra correct.

In its early years, most prisoners have been both political prisoners or legal prisoners, but in addition included some Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuals. The primary giant group of Jewish prisoners was introduced there in 1938 after the Night time of Damaged Glass, or Kristallnacht, anti-Semitic pogrom.

Throughout the warfare, it was expanded to incorporate Soviet prisoners of warfare — who have been shot by the hundreds — in addition to others.

It had particular services for politically distinguished prisoners, together with the previous Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg, who opposed Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria, anti-Nazi pastor Martin Niemoeller, and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s eldest son, who died there in 1943.

Like in different camps, Jewish prisoners have been singled out at Sachsenhausen for notably harsh remedy, and most who remained alive by 1942 have been despatched to the Auschwitz dying camp.

Hundreds of Jews have been introduced again in later in 1944 to deal with labor shortages for work particulars that included clearing the streets of rubble within the German capital in addition to in warfare manufacturing in regional factories.

Sachsenhausen was liberated in April 1945 by the Soviets, who turned it right into a brutal camp of their very own.