Man, 101, convicted of crimes at Nazi concentration camp

A 101-year-old man was convicted in Germany of more than 3,500 counts of accessory to murder on Tuesday for serving at the Nazis’ Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II.

The Neuruppin Regional Court sentenced him to five years in prison.

The man, who was identified by local media as Josef S., had denied working as an SS guard at the camp and aiding and abetting the murder of thousands of prisoners.

In the trial, which opened in October, the centenarian said that he had worked as a farm laborer near Pasewalk in northeastern Germany during the period in question.

However, the court considered it proven that he worked at the camp on the outskirts of Berlin between 1942 and 1945 as an enlisted member of the Nazi Party’s paramilitary wing, the German news agency dpa reported.

“The court has come to the conclusion that, contrary to what you claim, you worked in the concentration camp as a guard for about three years,” the presiding judge, Udo Lechtermann, said, according to dpa. He added that, in doing so, the defendant had assisted in the Nazis’ terror and murder mechanism.

“You willingly supported this mass extermination with your activity,“Lechtermann said. “You watched deported people being cruelly tortured and murdered there every day for three years.”

Prosecutors had based their case on documents relating to an SS guard with the man’s name, date and place of birth, as well as other documents.

The five-year prison sentence was in line with the prosecution’s demand.

The defendant’s lawyer sought an acquittal. Defense attorney Stefan Waterkamp said after the pronouncement of the sentence that he would appeal the verdict.

Germany’s leading Jewish group welcomed the ruling.

“Even if the defendant will probably not serve the full prison sentence due to his advanced age, the verdict is to be welcomed,” said Josef Schuster, the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s office in Jerusalem, told The Associated Press that the sentence “sends a message that if you commit such crimes, even decades later, you might be brought to justice.”

MICHELE TANTUSSI/AP The accused Nazi war criminal identified as “Josef S.” covers his face at the court in Brandenburg, Germany, where he was convicted of more than 3,500 counts Tuesday and was sentenced to five years.