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A 100-YEAR-old former concentration camp guard will today become the oldest person yet to be tried for Nazi-era crimes in Germany when he goes before court charged with complicity in mass murder.
The suspect, identified only as Josef S., stands accused of “knowingly and willingly” assisting in the murder of 3,518 prisoners at the Sachsenhausen camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, between 1942 and 1945.
Allegations against him include aiding and abetting the “execution by firing squad of Soviet prisoners of war in 1942″ and the murder of prisoners “using the poisonous gas Zyklon B”.
German prosecutors are racing to bring the last surviving Nazi perpetrators to justice, and have in recent years increasingly focused attention on lower-ranking Nazi staff.
The case comes a week after a 96-year-old German woman, who was a secretary in a Nazi death camp, dramatically fled before the start of her trial but was caught several hours later.
She too has been charged with complicity in murder. Her trial resumes on October 19.
Despite his advanced age, a medical assessment in August found that Josef S. was fit to stand trial, although hearings at the Neuruppin court will be limited to a couple of hours a day.
The proceedings are expected to last until early January.
“He is not accused of having shot anyone in particular but of having contributed to these acts through his work as a guard and of having been aware such killings were happening at the camp,” a court spokeswoman said.
Thomas Walther, a lawyer representing several camp survivors and victims’ relatives in the case, said that even 76 years after the end of World War II, trials like these were necessary to hold perpetrators to account.
“There’s no expiry date on justice,” he told AFP.
One of his clients is Antoine Grumbach (79) whose father Jean was in the French resistance and was killed in Sachsenhausen in 1944.
He hopes Josef S. will shed light on the methods used to kill people in the camp, but also that the accused “will say ‘I was wrong, I am ashamed’”, Grumbach told AFP.
‘Symbolic’
The Nazi SS guard detained more than 200,000 people at the Sachsenhausen camp between 1936 and 1945, including Jews, Roma, regime opponents and gay people.
Tens of thousands of inmates died from forced labour, murder, medical experiments, hunger or disease before the camp was liberated by Soviet troops, according to the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum.
Little is known about the accused, beyond the fact that he was released from captivity as a prisoner of war in 1947 and went to work as a locksmith in the Brandenburg region of what was then Communist East Germany, the Bild newspaper reported.
The centenarian’s lawyer, Stefan Waterkamp, said his client “has stayed silent” so far on the charges against him.
If convicted, Josef S. could spend several years in jail but Waterkamp said sentences in cases like these are “mostly symbolic”, given that the accused have reached the end of their lives.
Germany has been hunting down former Nazi staff since the 2011 conviction of former guard John Demjanjuk, on the basis that he served as part of Hitler’s killing machine, set a legal precedent.
Since then, courts have handed down several guilty verdicts on those grounds rather than for murders or atrocities directly linked to the individual accused.
Among those brought to late justice were Oskar Groening, an accountant at Auschwitz, and Reinhold Hanning, a former SS guard at Auschwitz.
Both were convicted at the age of 94 of complicity in mass murder but died before they could be imprisoned.
Most recently, former SS guard Bruno Dey was found guilty at the age of 93 last year and was given a two-year suspended sentence.
Prosecutors are investigating eight other cases, according to the Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes.
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What a joke. How could this man have done anything about where he was posted. I never knew the Wehrmacht was a democratic institution where you could choose your posting. Should he have absconded or rebelled against orders and been shot himself? Let’s put every low level bank clerk who contributed to the 2008 financial crash by making a bad decision in the years preceding it into jail shall we?
@Peazel: at least the bankers had a choice about where they worked!
@Peazel: I asked similar below. About being shot for not doing his duty, apparently that’s a myth and that came to light in recent trials. If they knew what was going on and refused certain tasks or posts, they weren’t shot …. can’t remember the full details but definitely read that here in a journal article
@Peazel: comparing the Holocaust to the 2008 financial crash…u stay classy!
@Keith Fay: They weren’t shot. They were just sent to the Russian Front where you were usually frozen, starved and mentally tortured before you were shot.
@Peazel: am I the only one here who would take a bullet over murdering thousands of innocent people?
@Peazel: Everyone has a choice, every day, between good and evil. The Vatican could learn a lot from Germany about how to deal with abuses committed by its officials. The Vatican has continually, on an organised worldwide basis, obstructed and failed to assist investigations into perpetrators, their enablers and the subsequent cover up, of the most heinous crimes against the most vulnerable. They left it to State officials to investigate bur would not help by sharing all Vatican records. Crass hypoc_risy by so called followers of Jesus Christ.
@Keith Fay: From an army and leadership that committed horrific genocide of 6 million. But wouldn’t shoot their own for objecting….sounds legit.
@Alan McDonald: yup
@Peazel: Also known as the Nuremberg defence
@Peazel: Wasn’t another elderly nazi soldier who worked at concentration camps on trial last year? Even though they had documents he hated it an asked to be transferred 3 times and was refused?
@Peazel: That soundbite doesn’t make any sense. It looks good if you read it fast and dont think about it.Maybe that’s what journal readers want.
If there’s no statute of limitations on what Nazi’s did over 75 years ago, how can there be a statute of limitations on prosecuting British soldiers for what they did less than 50 years ago?
@Jonathan Nolan: different countries different rules
When will Isreali soldiers be brought to justice for war crimes against Palestinians
@Great White Hope: well that’s not really for a German court to decide
@Great White Hope: And by the same token, here’s hoping Hamas and Hezbollah are brought to justice for targeting civilians.
@Great White Hope: when the soldiers in question are centenarians
@Elrond Rivendell: Nonsense. There’s no comparison between the 2. It’s a completely one sided war which the body count attests to. Over 5500 Palestinians have been killed since 2008. Just 250 Israelis have died in that same period. Israel is the aggressor, taking Palestinian lands backed by the money, weaponry and power of the US. What on earth would you expect the Palestinians to do ?
@Declan Doherty: “What on earth would you expect the Palestinians to do?”
Sure why not strap bombs to some brainwashed simpleton and blow up a bunch of children on their way to school.
Israeli strength does not excuse Hamas terrorism.
Hamas exists to destroy Israel, they’re quite open about this. They care little for the lives of the Palestinians.
@Declan Doherty: There is a comparison to be made. Just because one side has better arms, better trained soldiers and inflicts more casualties doesn’t in any way absolve the other from targeting civilians. Hamas’ and Hezbollah both target civilians. A war crime. It’s a fact. This does not condone Israeli actions, it simply points out that both are guilty of war crimes.
These guys were kids back then… I ask you this, what choice did some of these kids have when raging lunatics in their 30s, 40s and 50s were executing any that they perceived to be against their plan.. Granted some of these guys may have indeed been complicit, however branding them all with the same stick 80 years on is not going to fix it.. easy to brand people now, but put yourself in their shoes in a time of propaganda and fear.. Would you have stood up alone while fearing that going against it could end your life??
@Roman Walczak-Sadlowski: That’s why they’re each having their own trials, surely?
@Roman Walczak-Sadlowski: I agree. In 1942 this man was 20/21 years old. The same age as my own grandfather. Thankfully my grandfather has long since past away. He never spoke of his 2 years in the Wehrmacht and what he saw and had to endure. Except once, when I was a young woman and mother in the early 80s. It was just the 2 of us, and he had had a glass too many. I saw an old man crying like a baby, and for over 2 hours words pouring out of him describing a horror that to this day I try to put in a box in my mind not to remember.
No, most of these young lads had zero choice. My granddad stood beside his friend who refused an order and was shot with a revolver by his superior. One of the things he told me. And at the end he said, we had to follow orders or risk dear. But amidst all the horror, we found small opportunities for kindness, even if it was just a crust of bread from our own meagre rations to give to a starving man.
Some of these standing trial (not this guy at a 100) were 17 / 18 and doing guard duty and in the last two years it’s been decided that they now are complicit. Is that right? Literally kids in a machine that were told what to do? Genuine question, I mean, if they knowingly were killing then put them on trial, absolutely and I agree that you’re never too old to face justice for your crimes and all guilty n*zi’s should face justice no matter their age. Again, I’m asking a question, this guy could’ve been a monster for all I know.
At 100 years of age. Is there any point.
@Dave Barrett: yes there is
@John Black: yes, the point is to bring shame on the innocent famalies and relatives…trial should be held behind closed doors.
With all respect to the victims, survivors and the descendants of one of the darkest atrocities in recent history but nobody on here or a very small minority at least can fully understand what went on under this regime. That said, a young boy, in his mid to late teens can only have been a very brainwashed pawn in the whole process. Complicit by association, following the orders of undoubted maniacs,where to stand against them meant certain death. A pointless flex of bureaucratic muscle to assuage a guilty conscience.
No statute of limitations is one thing, but statute of limitations for what?
Are they now going after every soldier, guard, accountant, telephone operator, and pretty much anyone who was over the age of 10 in 1945?
What’s even the point of such an exercise, other than overcorrection, political posturing and attempting to rectify the unrectifiable?
People tend to forget EVERYONE in Germany lived under a dictatorial regime between 1933 and 1945 (and half the country continued to do so until 1989). Pure Arians of course had it much better than “undesirables”, but one little mistake or act of defiance could send anyone behind bars or worse. Almost no one was immune, even nuns or field marshals. Remember Rommel and sister Restituta?
Remember Sophie Scholl and her brothers? They were executed by the for distributing leaflets against the regime. They were students. And putting myself in the shoes of the concentration camp victims’ relatives… Forgiving in those cases is impossible. It’s a very difficult decision.
Germany has a policy of pursuing these people no matter how long it takes
Compare that to the British government who want to bring an end to any recourse for justice for events that took place in northern Ireland by members of the British forces.
It would appear an Irish life has no value then , when Boris wants to end trails of those that died in the troubles , to Protect British Military and would happily not prosecute paramilitaries to do this
Ridiculous virtue signalling.
@Raymond Barry: yeah it’s ridiculous PC culture you can’t even commit genocide anymore, it’s gone too far.
@Raymond Barry: too many wokes have infiltrated Germany’s judicial system.
The kind of people who’d swear to you that between pointless sacrifice and compliance with a “plan” that would go on regardless, they chose the former. Which they can, since they’ll never be actually faced with that decision and you can’t call their bluff…
@Raymond Barry: Blame the Holocaust deniers.
Everyone is aware of what the Germans did. There are many docs and movies about it. But the same happened all over the world during WW2. The Japanese did worse than what the Germans did. Just lookup all the civilians murdered in China and all the islands they invaded. They were brutal. After the war very few if any Japs were brought to Justice. It was all swept under the carpet and even soldiers coming back were not allowed talk about what happened in the east. There was too much money to be made by the US, Brits and the French. The talked about freedom but then were brutal colonisers before during and after the war. There was a famine in India during the war and Britain shipped all the food out while millions died but sure it was only Indians. How many wars were fought subsequently by the winners of WW2. With these Nazi trials there is always a political agenda.
All those victors of the war have blood on their hands and were equally as bad in other situations but I guess the life of one European is worth more than 1000s of Chinese, Indians and Asians.
@Diarmuid O’Braonáin: The Japanese were brutal oppressors but they were not worse than the Nazi’s. They may have equalled them in some aspects. They were both examples of extreme nationalism and racism.
Despite their brutality, the Japanese were not driven to single out their own mentally and physically handicapped citizens for extermination or any one particular race or creed for absolute extermination including the women and children. There are varying estimates of Japanese atrocities against civilians varying from 5 to 13 million.
There is concrete evidence for 17 million victims of Nazi Germany but the figure may be as many as 20 million so I don’t see how you can say the Japanese were worse as the figures say different.
https://www.statista.com/chart/24024/number-of-victims-nazi-regime/
I think we will mark your “equally bad ” and other claims as gish-gallup and hyperbole and about as accurate as your inaccurate claim about the Japanese.
@Diarmuid O’Braonáin: as well as our country Ireland ,inslaved then starved to death over a million irish people as well as forcing 1.1/2 million more to Emigrate, then all the innocent people the British army murdered during the troubles..
It never ceases to amaze me how long these people have lived! Both survivors and perpetrators. It must have been the harsh conditions at the time.
Only on the journal would there be people in the comments literally defending nazis lolol
Johnny Mercer is on his way.
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