Germany: Prosecutors seek 5 years for 101-year-old ex-Nazi guard

German prosecutors in Brandenburg state are in search of 5 years in jail for a former Nazi focus camp guard, now aged 101.

He has pleaded harmless however is nonetheless the oldest individual to be charged with complicity in conflict crimes throughout the Holocaust.

He is charged with involvement within the murders of three,518 folks on the Sachsenhausen focus camp within the Berlin suburb of Oranienburg between 1942 and 1945.

Brandenburg state prosecutors nevertheless declare he “knowingly and willingly” participated in state-sponsored homicide whereas working as a guard at Sachsenhausen. A courtroom spokeswoman informed AFP that the prosecution additionally believes that “the evidence put forward in the indictment has been fully confirmed.”

Prosecutor Cyrill Klement mentioned in courtroom on Tuesday, addressing the accused: “You accepted the dehumanization of the victims and put up with that. I do not believe this ‘we did not know anything’ story.”

What is Sachsenhausen?

Over 200,000 principally Jewish folks but in addition members of the Roma group, regime opponents and homosexual folks have been imprisoned at Sachsenhausen between 1936 and 1945 for no cause apart from their non secular and ethnic id or political views.

Tens of hundreds died from compelled labor or as the results of unethical medical experiments, starvation and illness, along with the acts of mass homicide that passed off there. Six million Jewish folks have been murdered throughout the Holocaust.

Soviet troops arrived first to liberate the camp in 1945.

What has the defendant mentioned in regards to the allegations in opposition to him?

While beneath cross examination, the 101-year-old mentioned he did “absolutely nothing” on the Sachsenhausen focus camp and denied data of the huge crimes that passed off there.

Allegations in opposition to him embrace collaborating in “execution by firing squad of Soviet prisoners of war in 1942” and the deployment of “poisonous gas Zyklon B” within the Sachsenhausen focus camp’s gasoline chambers.

He has been on trial since October in Neuruppin state courtroom. Hearings within the case have been held within the close by jap metropolis of Brandenburg.

He has remained free for the length of his trial. If convicted, it’s extremely unlikely he will probably be jailed given his age.

A verdict in his case is anticipated early subsequent month.

Uptick in prosecutions since 2011 precedent

More than 75 years for the reason that finish of World War II in Germany, prosecutors are bringing the final attainable instances in opposition to residing Nazi perpetrators and conflict criminals to trial because of the superior age of potential defendants.

The current instances are the results of a 2011 precedent-setting case the place it was deemed that oblique assist of and participation in such crimes might additionally result in a conviction, fairly than having to reveal direct involvement in particular deaths or mistreatment, as was the case up to now.

In addition to the 2011 precedent-setting case in opposition to John Demjanjuk, German prosecutors have additionally dropped at trial Oskar Gröning, an accountant at Auschwitz, and Reinhold Hanning, an SS guard at Auschwitz.

Gröning and Hanning have been 94 years outdated when convicted however died earlier than spending any time behind bars.

In 2020, Bruno Dey was discovered responsible on the age of 93 and given a two-year suspended sentence.

ar/msh (AFP, AP, dpa)

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