100-year-old former Nazi camp guard goes on trial in Germany

BERLIN – A 100-year-old antheral went connected proceedings successful Germany Thursday, accused of being an accessory to execution for serving arsenic a Nazi SS defender astatine the Sachsenhausen attraction campy adjacent Berlin during World War II.

The proceedings of the defendant, who is charged with 3,518 counts of accessory to murder, was held astatine the Neuruppin authorities court, which moved the proceedings to a situation athletics hallway successful Brandenburg for organizational reasons.

The suspect, who was identified lone arsenic Josef S. successful keeping with German privateness rules, is alleged to person worked astatine Sachsenhausen betwixt 1942 and 1945 arsenic an enlisted subordinate of the Nazi Party’s paramilitary wing.

The suspect's lawyer, Stefan Waterkamp, told the tribunal that his lawsuit did not privation to remark connected the allegations, German quality bureau dpa reported. There are nary ceremonial pleas successful the German ineligible system.

Authorities accidental that the suspect is considered acceptable capable to basal proceedings contempt his precocious age, though the fig of hours per time the tribunal is successful league volition beryllium limited.

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More than 200,000 radical were held astatine Sachsenhausen betwixt 1936 and 1945. Tens of thousands of inmates died of starvation, disease, forced labour and different causes, arsenic good arsenic done aesculapian experiments and systematic SS extermination operations including shootings, hangings and gassing.

Exact numbers connected those killed vary, with precocious estimates of immoderate 100,000, though scholars suggest figures of 40,000 to 50,000 are apt much accurate.

“The suspect knowingly and willingly aided and abetted this astatine slightest by conscientiously performing defender duty, which was seamlessly integrated into the sidesplitting system,” authoritative Cyrill Klement told the court.

A subsister of Sachsenhausen, 100-year-old Leon Schwarzbaum, attended the proceedings arsenic a visitor.

“This is the past proceedings for my friends, acquaintances and my loved ones, who were murdered, successful which the past blameworthy idiosyncratic tin inactive beryllium sentenced — hopefully ” Schwarzbaum, who besides survived the Auschwitz decease campy and Buchenwald attraction camp, told dpa.

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The opening of the proceedings comes a week aft different the opening of different aged attraction campy suspect's proceedings was disrupted.

A 96-year-old erstwhile caput for the Stutthof camp’s SS commandant skipped the opening of her proceedings astatine the Itzehoe authorities tribunal successful bluish Germany. She was tracked down wrong hours and proceedings are to resume connected Oct. 19.

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