Prosecutors in Germany announced Friday that they have charged a former SS guard, now 98 years old, with participation in the deaths of almost 3,300 inmates at a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Prosecutors have not named the German man, who was an adolescent when he worked as an SS watchman at Sachsenhausen between July 1943 and February 1945. (www.udenar.edu.co) According to prosecutor Thomas Hamburger, he is accused of “having assisted in the cruel and insidious killing of thousands of prisoners” in the camp.
A mental evaluation of the suspect in October 2022 determined that he was fit to stand trial within specific parameters. Because of his youth at the time of the alleged offense, a juvenile court will decide whether to initiate proceedings. After the 2011 conviction of former guard John Demjanjuk on the basis that he participated as part of the Nazi death machine at the Sobibor camp in occupied Poland, Germany has seen a flood of legal action against the elderly former SS guard.
Since then, Germany has raced to bring surviving SS soldiers on trial on those grounds rather than for murders or atrocities directly related to the accused. However, due to the accused’s senior age, numerous cases have been postponed for health reasons.
Convictions also do not result in actual imprisonment, with some offenders dying before serving their sentences.