Berlin, April 27, (dpa/GNA) – A 102-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard who was convicted for aiding and abetting the murder of more than 3,500 prisoners has died, officials close to the case told dpa on Wednesday.
The man was given a five-year prison sentence last year for his participation in the murders at the Sachsenhausen Nazi concentration camp near Berlin during World War II.
Throughout his trial the accused denied that he had been a guard at the camp during the period in question, 1942 to 1945.
He claimed to have been working as a farm labourer in Pasewalk, 100 kilometres to the north-east of Sachsenhausen.
The court did not consider his testimony credible. The prosecution had produced documents identifying a Nazi SS guard with the accused’s name, date of birth and place of birth, among other evidence.
However, at the time of his death the prison sentence was not yet legally binding. The June 2022 verdict by the Neuruppin Regional Court had been appealed to the Federal Court of Justice.
Defence lawyer Stefan Waterkamp had argued that, to date, the Federal Court of Justice had not considered activity as a concentration camp guard to be sufficient to convict someone for aiding and abetting Nazi crimes.
In accordance with Germany’s strict privacy laws, dpa is not naming the individual.
More than 200,000 people were imprisoned at Sachsenhausen between the summer of 1936, when it was built, until the end of World War II in 1945.
Among them were political opponents of the Nazi regime, as well as members of groups persecuted by the National Socialists such as Jews, Sinti and Roma.
Tens of thousands of prisoners died of hunger, disease, forced labour, medical experiments and mistreatment as part of a systematic extermination plan.
GNA