Nazi guard, 101, faces court verdict

A German court was to give its verdict yesterday in the trial of a 101-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard, the oldest person so far to be charged with complicity in war crimes during the Holocaust.

Josef Schuetz was accused of involvement in the murders of 3,518 prisoners at the Sachsenhausen camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, between 1942 and 1945.

The pensioner, who lives in Brandenburg state, pleaded innocent, saying he did “absolutely nothing” and was not aware of the gruesome crimes being carried out at the camp.

“I don’t know why I am here,” he said at the close of his trial on Monday.

But prosecutors said he “knowingly and willingly” participated in the crimes as a guard at the camp and are seeking to punish him with five years behind bars.

More than 200,000 people including Jews, Roma, regime opponents and gay people were detained at the Sachsenhausen camp between 1936 and 1945.

Tens of thousands of inmates died from forced labour, murder, medical experiments, hunger or disease before the camp was liberated by Soviet troops.

The allegations against Mr Schuetz include aiding and abetting the “execution by firing squad of Soviet prisoners of war in 1942” and the murder of prisoners “using the poisonous gas Zyklon B”. He was 21 years old at the time.

During the trial, Mr Schuetz made several inconsistent statements about his past, complaining that his head was getting “mixed up”.

At one point, the centenarian said he had worked as an agricultural labourer in Germany for most of World War II, a claim contradicted by several historical documents bearing his information. Mr Schuetz has remained at liberty during the trial, which began in 2021 but has been delayed several times because of his health.

Even if convicted, he is highly unlikely to be put behind bars given his age.