100-Year-Old on Trial in Germany for Accessory To Murder At Nazi Camp

By: AP

A 100-year-old man on trial for his alleged role as a Nazi SS guard at a concentration camp during World War II told a German court Friday that he was innocent.

The trial for the suspect, who was identified only as Josef S. in keeping with German privacy rules, is alleged to have worked at Sachsenhausen between 1942 and 1945 as an enlisted member of the Nazi Party’s paramilitary wing. His trial began on Thursday.

The trial of the defendant who is charged with 3,518 counts of accessory to murder, was held at the Neuruppin state court, which moved the proceedings to a prison sport hall in Brandenburg for organizational reasons.

The suspect’s lawyer, Stefan Waterkamp, told the court that his client did not want to comment on the allegations, German news agency dpa reported. There are no formal pleas in the German legal system.

Authorities say that the defendant is considered fit enough to stand trial despite his advanced age, though the number of hours per day the court is in session will be limited.

More than 200,000 people were held at Sachsenhausen between 1936 and 1945. Tens of thousands of inmates died of starvation, disease, forced labor and other causes, as well as through medical experiments and systematic SS extermination operations including shootings, hangings and gassing.

Exact numbers on those killed vary, with upper estimates of some 100,000, though scholars suggest figures of 40,000 to 50,000 are likely more accurate.

“The defendant knowingly and willingly aided and abetted this at least by conscientiously performing guard duty, which was seamlessly integrated into the killing system,” prosecutor Cyrill Klement told the court.

A survivor of Sachsenhausen, 100-year-old Leon Schwarzbaum, attended the trial as a visitor.

“This is the last trial for my friends, acquaintances and my loved ones, who were murdered, in which the last guilty person can still be sentenced — hopefully ” Schwarzbaum, who also survived the Auschwitz death camp and Buchenwald concentration camp, told dpa.

Two witnesses from France and the Netherlands earlier told the court how their fathers were killed at Sachsenhausen for having been part of the resistance against the Nazis.

Further hearings are scheduled through January.

The opening of the trial comes a week after another the opening of another elderly concentration camp suspect’s trial was disrupted.

A 96-year-old former secretary for the Stutthof camp’s SS commander skipped the opening of her trial at the Itzehoe state court in northern Germany. She was tracked down within hours and proceedings are to resume on Oct. 19.

(AP)