Prosecutors in Germany indict 2 alleged ex-Nazi SS guards at camp

BERLIN — German prosecutors said Wednesday that they have indicted two former Nazi SS guards in their 90s on charges of being accessories to murder while at a World War II concentration camp.

Both men served as guards at the Stutthof concentration camp, near what is now the Polish city of Gdansk, said Dortmund prosecutor Andreas Brendel.

The indictments were filed against a 93-year-old man from Borken who served in Stutthof from June 1942 to September 1944 and a 92-year-old man from Wuppertal who was there from June 1944 to May 1945.

The charges were filed last week at the state court in Muenster but only announced Wednesday because the defendants first had to be notified. Both deny they had any knowledge at the time of killings at the camp, Brendel said.

About 65,000 people died at Stutthof. Some were put to death in gas chambers or shot, while others died from malnutrition or froze to death.

The men, who have not been named, both served as guards and also watched over prisoners who were taken outside the camp to work. During the time they were at Stutthof, hundreds of killings occurred.

Members of the SS killed more than 100 Polish prisoners and some 77 Soviet prisoners of war in the camp’s gas chamber in 1944. An unknown number of Jews also were gassed there in late 1944.