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Germany: 100-year-old former Nazi on the “stool” for “complicity in the murder” of 3,518 people

A former prison guard Naziaged more than 100 years is on trial from today, Thursday (7/10) before a court in Germany, the oldest accused of Nazi crimes who has been accountable to the country’s justice.

The story of Joseph S., a former sergeant in the Totenkopf (Death Head) Waffen –SS division, who is accused of “Complicity in the murder” of 3,518 prisoners while incarcerated at the Saxenhausen concentration camp near Berlin from 1942 to 1945.

In 1942 Joseph S. he was 21 years old. It is accused, among other things, that executed Soviet prisoners and that assisted in the gas murder »Zyklon B other detainees.

From 1936, when it began operating until its liberation from the Soviet army on April 22, 1945, some 200,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, Jews and homosexuals, passed through the Saxenhausen concentration camp.

Tens of thousands of them died mainly due to the hard work they were subjected to and the inhuman living conditions, as broadcast by APE-MPE.

Germany: What could be the sentence of the oldest accused of Nazi crimes

The trial comes a week after the postponement of the trial of 96-year-old Irmgard Fourchner, a former secretary at another Nazi concentration camp. Her trial, however, had to be postponed to October 19, since The 96-year-old tried to escape and was arrested a little later. Four former SS have been tried and convicted in Germany in the last ten years.

Theoretically, Joseph S. risks being sentenced to three years in prison, but his sentence will be rather symbolic due to his age. Little is known about his life: after his release in 1947, he lived a quiet life in the state of Brandenburg and worked as a locksmith, according to the Bild newspaper.

“These trials are particularly important for survivors and their descendants. “They want justice to be done,” said Stephanie Bora, a researcher at the Berlin Museum of Terrorism Topography, which is dedicated to Nazi crimes.

In July 2020 a court had imposed Bruno Day, then 93, was sentenced to two years in prison with suspension, a former prison guard at the Stutthof concentration camp.

Eight other former SS cases are currently being heard by various German courts, according to the National Socialist Crimes Bureau.

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