Ex-Nazi concentration camp guard, 94, goes on trial

MUENSTER, Germany — A 94-year-old former SS enlisted man went on trial Tuesday in Germany, facing hundreds of counts of accessory to murder for alleged crimes committed during the years he served as a guard at the Nazis’ Stutthof concentration camp.

Johann Rehbogen was pushed into the Muenster state court trial in a wheelchair, a wooden cane at his side and briefcase on his lap. He appeared alert and attentive as presiding judge Rainer Brackhane asked him questions, answering in slow, concise sentences.

Rehbogen is accused of working as a guard at the camp east of Danzig, which is today the Polish city of Gdansk, from June 1942 to about early September 1944.

There is no evidence linking him to a specific crime, but over 60,000 people were killed at Stutthof and prosecutors argue that as a guard, he was an accessory to at least hundreds of those deaths.

The retired civil servant showed no reaction as prosecutor Andreas Brendel read the accusations against him, detailing the horrific way prisoners at Stutthof were killed. Some were given lethal injections of gasoline or phenol directly to their hearts, shot or starved. Others were forced outside in winter without clothes until they died of exposure, or put to death in the gas chamber.

“Anyone who heard the screams from outside the gas chamber would have known that people were fighting for their lives,” Brendel said.

Rehbogen, a former SS Sturmmann — roughly equivalent to the U.S. Army rank of specialist — does not deny serving in the camp during the war, but has told investigators he was unaware of the killings and did not participate in them.

No pleas are entered in Germany and Andreas Tinkl, one of Rehbogen’s attorneys, would not comment on his client’s defense. He said Rehbogen would address the court at some point during the trial, which is scheduled into January.

Rehbogen lives in Borken, near the Dutch border. In deference to his age and health, the trial is being restricted to a maximum of two hours a day, on no more than two non-consecutive days a week. At the same time, because he was under 21 at the time of his alleged crimes, he is being tried in juvenile court and faces a maximum 10 years in prison if convicted.

Seventeen Stutthof survivors or relatives of victims have joined the trial as co-plaintiffs, but Brendel said it was unclear whether any would testify in person due to their ages.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which helped locate Stutthof survivors for the case, stressed that even more than 70 years after the end of World War II, it is not too late to pursue justice.

“The passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of Holocaust perpetrators and old age should not afford protection to those who committed such heinous crimes,” said the center’s head Nazi hunter, Efraim Zuroff.

Even though the number of suspects is dwindling, the special federal prosecutor’s office that investigates Nazi war crimes still has multiple cases ongoing.