A German court on Tuesday sentenced a 101-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard to five years in prison, the oldest person ever in the case. war crime during the disaster.
Josef Schuetz was convicted of having an accomplice to the murder while working as a prison guard at the Sachsenhausen camp in Oranienburg in the north. BerlinBetween 1942 and 1945, said presiding judge Udo Lechtermann.
But despite his sentence, given his age, he is unlikely to be put behind bars to serve a five-year prison sentence.
The Lithuanian-born pensioner, who now lives in the state of Brandenburg, requested acquittal, saying he had done “absolutely nothing” and was not aware of the gruesome crimes being committed at the camp.
Schuetz, the oldest person ever to face Nazi trial, says ‘I don’t know why I’m here’ war crime Committed during the Holocaust, said at the end of his trial on Monday.
But prosecutors told the Neurepin Regional Court, which is being held at a prison sports hall in Brandenburg an der Havel, that Schuetz ‘willfully and voluntarily’ participated in the killings of 3,518 prisoners in the camp and was sentenced to five years in prison. was sentenced. Asked to put behind bars.
Between 1936 and 1945 more than 200,000 people, including Jews, Roma, anti-regime and homosexuals, were detained in the Sachsenhausen camp.
Josef Schuetz was convicted of murdering an accomplice between 1942 and 1945 while working as a prison guard at the Sachsenhausen camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, said presiding judge Udo Lechtermann.
Prosecutors say Schuetz “deliberately and voluntarily” participated in the crimes as a guard at the camp and is seeking a five-year sentence behind bars. Pictured: Holocaust survivor Leon Schwarzbaum holds a photo in the courtroom during trial at Landgerich Nerupin court in October last year
Schuetz said he did ‘absolutely nothing’ and was not aware of the gruesome crimes being committed at the camp. Pictured: Prisoners in the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen in December 1938
According to the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum, tens of thousands of prisoners died of forced labor, murder, medical experiments, starvation or disease before Soviet troops liberated the camp.
Prosecutors said Schuetz aided in the “firing squad execution of Soviet prisoners of war in 1942” and the murder of prisoners using “Xyclone B” poison gas.
At that time he was 21 years old.
During the trial, Schuetz made several inconsistent statements about his past, complaining that his head was getting ‘mixed up’.
At one point, Shatabdi stated that he had worked as an agricultural laborer in Germany for most of World War II, a claim contrary to many historical documents containing his name, date and place of birth.
After the war, Schuetz was transferred to a prison camp in Russia, where he worked as a farmer and a locksmith before returning to Germany.
Schuetz remained free during the trial, which began in 2021, but has been delayed several times due to his health.
His lawyer, Stephen Waterkamp, told AFP ahead of the verdict that he would appeal if found guilty.
More than seven decades after World War II, German prosecutors are racing to bring the last surviving Nazi criminals to justice.
Former 2011 guard John Demjansky was convicted on the grounds that he acted as part of Hitler’s killing machine, setting a legal precedent and paving the way for many of these Twilight Justice cases.
Since then, courts have awarded many guilty verdicts on those grounds rather than on murders or atrocities directly linked to individual accused.
A 101-year-old former security guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp appears in the courtroom ahead of the verdict of his trial at the Landgericht Neruppin court in Brandenburg on Tuesday.
Late judges included Oscar Groening, an accountant in Auschwitz, and Reinhold Hanning, a former SS guard in Auschwitz.
Both were convicted of involvement in the mass murder at the age of 94, but died before going to prison.
A former SS guard, Bruno Dey, was found guilty in 2020 aged 93 and given a two-year suspended sentence.
Separately, in the northern German city of Itzeho, a 96-year-old former secretary at a Nazi death camp is facing trial for his involvement in the murder.
She ran away dramatically before the trial began but was caught several hours later.
While some have questioned the wisdom of chasing convictions related to Nazi crimes so long after the events, Guillaume Mouralis, a research professor at France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), said such a trial was an important signal.
“It is a question of affirming the political and moral responsibility of individuals in an authoritarian context (and in a criminal regime) at a time when the neo-fascist far-right is becoming stronger everywhere in Europe,” he told AFP. ” ,