According to a German court, a 100-year-old former guard of a Nazi concentration camp who is charged with helping to kill more than 3,300 captives during World War II could go on trial 80 years after the war’s conclusion.
According to a news release issued by the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt on Tuesday, the defendant worked at the Sachsenhausen camp, located about 25 miles north of Berlin, from July 1943 until February 1945.
Due to German reporting regulations, the guard’s name has not been revealed.
According to the Frankfurt court, the Hanau Regional Court halted proceedings this year after an expert determined that the man was unfit to stand trial, be questioned, or travel after public prosecutors first charged the now 100-year-old accused with aiding and abetting murder in 3,322 cases in the summer of 2023.
After concluding that the expert’s evaluation of the defendant’s health was not supported by enough evidence, the higher court reversed that ruling.
The court further ruled that the expert himself said that the defendant could not be interviewed and that there was no chance for comprehensive mental examination.
A new hearing date has not yet been established.
In 1936, Sachsenhausen opened as one of the first concentration camps, housing over 200,000 prisoners.
Members of the SS, the paramilitary group of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich that oversaw the operation of other concentration camps like Auschwitz and Treblinka in Poland, were also trained in the camp.
Along with political opponents of the Nazi administration and members of groups deemed to be ethnically or biologically inferior, such as Roma and homosexuals, millions of Jews were killed at such camps during the Holocaust.
With numerous prosecutions dismissed in recent years because the accused were either physically incapable of standing trial or had died, there is not much time left to bring justice to the last remaining Nazi war criminals.
The 100-year-old man’s prosecution would not be the first time, decades after the conclusion of the war, that those not directly responsible for the deaths in concentration camps have been tried for aiding and abetting murder.
Josef S. was sentenced to five years in jail at the age of 101 after being found guilty of more than 3,500 charges of accessory to murder for his work as an SS guard at Sachsenhausen.
In 2015, Oskar Grining, dubbed the Auschwitz bookkeeper, was also given a four-year prison sentence for his work as an accountant in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland. Gr ning passed away in 2018 at the age of 96 before completing his term.
Note: Every piece of content is rigorously reviewed by our team of experienced writers and editors to ensure its accuracy. Our writers use credible sources and adhere to strict fact-checking protocols to verify all claims and data before publication. If an error is identified, we promptly correct it and strive for transparency in all updates, feel free to reach out to us via email. We appreciate your trust and support!