Former SS guard is ‘ashamed’ but says he is innocent

A former Nazi concentration camp guard voiced his shame on Tuesday at having been part of the SS but told a German court he was unaware of the systematic killings at the camp.

Johann Rehbogen, 94, stands accused of complicity in mass murder at the Stutthof camp near what was then Danzig, now Gdansk, in Poland.

In a statement read out by his lawyer, Rehbogen said: “I’m of course ashamed to have been part of the SS. But I still don’t know today if I would have had the courage to do otherwise.”

He said he was forced into joining the SS as “there would have been reprisals against my family if I hadn’t”.

“When I saw the detainees I knew that the SS was wrong, but I didn’t have a choice,” said Rehbogen, who served as a watchman from June 1942 to September 1944 at Stutthof.

He denied knowledge of the gruesome crimes at the camp. “I knew nothing of the systematic killings, I knew nothing of the gas chambers as well as the crematoria,” he told the court.

“I was ashamed of the conditions that the detainees were in, and felt sympathy for them.”

He would have liked to leave but “I did not trust myself to speak with anyone and had no one I could trust”.

“I will only say that I am not a Nazi, I never have been one, and never will be.”

But lead prosecutor Andreas Brendel said there were “ways out” of serving at the camp for guards such as Rehbogen. “We believe that the guards knew a lot more than what has been recounted today,” he said.