Nazi susp, 100: Didn’t do a thing
A 100-year-old man who is believed to have worked as a guard at a Nazi concentration camp told a German court Friday that he played no role in the killings of more than 3,500 people during World War II.
The suspect, identified only as Josef S. because of the country’s privacy laws, is facing trial for allegedly working as a Nazi SS guard at the Sachsenhausen camp near Berlin. He faces 3,518 counts of accessory to murder, but he denied the allegations on the second day of trial at the Neuruppin state court.
The accused Nazi said he didn’t even know of the camp — one of many used to torture and murder Jews, political prisoners and other minorities during Adolf Hitler’s reign.
Josef S. arrived at the courthouse Thursday in a wheelchair and shielded his face with a blue folder outside and inside the courtroom. Authorities decided he’s competent to stand trial despite his age, but they have limited the length of each court session to accommodate him.
Prosecutors said the suspect was an enlisted member of the Nazi Party’s paramilitary wing and worked at Sachsenhausen from 1942 to 1945.
“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 on Thursday.
More than 200,000 people were held at the camp between 1936 and 1945, with tens of thousands of them dying of starvation, exhaustion from forced labor, medical experiments and other causes. Many were hanged, shot or gassed.
The exact number of victims is unknown, but there are estimates of as many as 100,000, though scholars believe it was about 40,000 to 50,000.