- Charges Against a 98-Year-Old Former Nazi Concentration Camp Guard
- Accusations of Complicity in Homicide for Involvement at Sachsenhausen
- Legal Proceedings Under Juvenile Law Due to Suspect’s Age
For his involvement as an SS guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp between 1943 and 1945, the unnamed suspect could face prosecution.
A 98-year-old former guard at a Nazi concentration camp has been charged with complicity in homicide.
The unnamed German citizen is accused of having “supported the cruel and malicious killing of thousands of prisoners as a member of the SS guard detail,” according to German prosecutors in Giessen.
Between July 1943 and February 1945, he was charged with more than 3,300 counts of complicity in homicide.
A court in the state of Hanau will now determine whether or not to try the case. If so, the suspect will be tried under juvenile law, taking his age at the time of the alleged offenses into account.
Between 1936 and 1945, Sachsenhausen, just north of Berlin, contained over two hundred thousand people.
Tens of thousands of individuals perished as a result of malnutrition, disease, forced labor, and other causes, including medical experimentation.
In SS extermination operations, executions by shooting, hanging, and poisoning were also a leading cause of death.
Based on a psychiatrist’s report, prosecutors stated in October that the suspect is at least partially competent to stand trial.
The case is one of several brought by German prosecutors by a precedent established in recent years, which allows individuals who aided a Nazi concentration camp function to be prosecuted as an accessory to murder.
Eighteen suspects were slain in a shootout in South Africa. There is no requirement for direct proof of their participation in a particular murder.
A 100-year-old former SS officer was tried in 2021 for helping kill over 3,500 people in a Nazi concentration camp.
Exact figures for those murdered at Sachsenhausen range between 40,000 and 50,000, with estimates reaching as high as 100,000.
