Josef Schuetz was sentenced to five years in prison for working in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II.
A German court has sentenced a 101-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard to five years in prison.
Josef Schuetz was convicted of assisting in murder while working as a prison guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, from 1942 to 1945, according to presiding judge Udo Rechtermann. said Tuesday in Neuruppin District Court.
The pensioner, who now lives in the state of Brandenburg, has maintained his innocence, saying he “did absolutely nothing” and had no knowledge of the gruesome crimes being committed in the camp.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” he said at the end of Monday’s trial.
However, the prosecutor said he had “willfully and willingly” participated in the murder of 3,518 prisoners at the camp and demanded that he be sentenced to five years in prison.
At the trial, which began last October, Schwetz said he worked as a farm worker near Pasewolk in northeastern Germany during the period in question.
However, a court ruled that he had been proven to have served as a non-commissioned officer in the paramilitary division of the Nazi party in a camp outside Berlin from 1942 to 1945, reported the German news agency DPA. was 21 at the time.
Despite his convictions, given his age, it is highly unlikely that he will end up in prison.
The prosecutor filed a case based on documents relating to the SS guards, including the man’s name, date of birth, date of birth and other documents.
For organizational reasons, the trial took place in the gymnasium of the 101-year-old’s residence, Brandenburg/Havel. The man was only able to stand trial to a limited extent, attending trials for only about two and a half hours each day.
Schutz’s attorney, Stephan Waterkamp, told AFP ahead of the sentencing that he would appeal if convicted.
Sachsenhausen was founded in 1936 as the first new camp just north of Berlin after Adolf Hitler gave the SS full control of the Nazi concentration camp system.
It was intended to be a model facility and training camp for the labyrinthine network the Nazis built in Germany, Austria, and the occupied territories.
Over 200,000 people were imprisoned between 1936 and 1945. Tens of thousands of prisoners died from starvation, disease, forced labour, and other causes, as well as from medical experiments and systematic campaigns against the SS, including shootings, hangings, and gassings.
The exact number of people killed varies, with an upper limit of about 100,000, but scholars suggest a figure of 40,000 to 50,000 is likely more accurate.
Like other camps, Sachsenhausen selected Jewish prisoners for particularly harsh treatment, and by 1942 most of the surviving Jews were sent to the Auschwitz death camp.
Sachsenhausen was liberated by the Soviets in April 1945, who turned it into a grim camp of their own.
Tuesday’s ruling establishes that anyone who helped a Nazi camp function could be charged with involvement in the murders committed there to bring the last surviving Nazi perpetrator to justice. It relies on recent German judicial precedents.
In 2011, former security guard John Demjanjuk worked as part of Adolf Hitler’s killing machine, setting a legal precedent and paving the way for some of these twilight judicial cases. was convicted of
Since then, courts have made several convictions based on these grounds rather than murder or cruelty directly related to the accused.
