A former security guard in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp will soon have to answer in court. The defendant is 100 years old today.
Neuruppin – In the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Oranienburg, which was established in 1936, more than 200,000 people were imprisoned during the Nazi era until 1945. Tens of thousands have been the victims of systematic extermination measures or have been killed through illness, starvation, abuse, medical experiments or the consequences of forced labor. About 30,000 people died on death marches before the end of the war. In April 1945 the last prisoners were freed by Soviet and Polish troops. The Sachsenhausen concentration camp was also an extermination camp and a training location for concentration camp guards and commanders throughout the Nazi area.
Almost 80 years later, a man who worked for three years as an SS guard in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp had to answer before the Neuruppin district court. He is charged with complicity in murder in 3518 cases.
80 years later, security guard in Sachsenhausen concentration camp has to go to court
The 100-year-old man, who, according to a report by the NDR, lives in Brandenburg, is said to have knowingly and willingly provided help for the cruel and insidious murder of camp inmates through his work in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp from 1942 to February 1945. Among other things, it concerns the shooting of prisoners of war from the Soviet Union as well as aiding and abetting the murder of prisoners with the poison gas Zyklon B.
Charges were filed back in February. The Neuruppin Regional Court has now admitted the lawsuit. A medical report affirmed that the 100-year-old man was temporarily able to negotiate. The defendant is said to be able to stand trial for two to two and a half hours a day. The process is scheduled to begin in early October.
Concentration camp guard charged with complicity in murder: direct involvement in killings not necessary
Prosecution for Nazi crimes is only possible in Germany for murder or aiding and abetting. Other conceivable allegations are statute-barred. Guard duty in a concentration camp alone is not enough. Only in the case of death and extermination camps, the purpose of which was the systematic killing of all prisoners, membership of the security team is considered aiding and abetting murder according to German case law. A direct involvement in the killings of the detainees is not necessary. Since a judgment against the former concentration camp guard John Demjanjuk in 2011, the judiciary no longer insists on the often impossible proof of individual guilt. In February, the former secretary in the Stuffhof concentration camp was charged with complicity in mass murder *.
Lawyer Thomas Walther, who regularly represents co-plaintiffs in Nazi proceedings and is now involved in the Neuruppiner trial, considers this to be necessary. He told Welt am Sonntag: “Sachsenhausen was the Nazi leadership at the gates of Berlin, the scene for their delusion of rule over life and death. Many co-plaintiffs are of the same age as the accused and hope for justice. ”(Lrg / dpa) * fr.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
