A 101-year-old man was convicted on Tuesday in Germany of more than 3,500 murder charges for serving in the Nazi Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II.
Neuruppin Regional High Court sentenced him to five years in prison.
The man, who was identified by local media as Josef S., had denied working as an SS guard at the camp and had collaborated in the murder of thousands of prisoners.
Josef S sits in a courtroom in Brandenburg, Germany. (AP)
At the trial, which opened in October, the centenarian said that during the period in question he had worked as an agricultural worker near Pasewalk, in northeastern Germany.
However, the court found it proven that he worked in the camp on the outskirts of Berlin between 1942 and 1945 as a recruited member of the Nazi Party’s paramilitary wing, the German news agency dpa reported.
“The court has come to the conclusion that, contrary to what you say, he worked in the concentration camp as a guard for about three years,” Judge President Udo Lechtermann said, according to dpa. He added that in doing so, the accused had collaborated in the mechanism of terror and assassination of the Nazis.
“You supported this mass extermination with your activity,” Lechtermann said. “You saw people being deported and cruelly murdered there every day for three years.”
This undated archive photo shows a call, early in the morning or evening, to the Nazi Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, on the outskirts of Berlin, Germany. (AP)
Prosecutors had based their case on documents relating to an SS guard with the man’s name, date and place of birth, as well as other documents.
The five-year prison sentence was in line with the prosecution’s demand.
Defendant’s attorney had sought acquittal. Defense attorney Stefan Waterkamp said after pronouncing the sentence that he would appeal the verdict, dpa reported.
Germany’s main Jewish group welcomed the decision.
“Although the accused is probably not serving his full prison sentence due to his advanced age, the verdict is welcome,” said Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.
“The thousands of people working in the concentration camps kept the murder machinery running. They were part of the system, so they would have to take responsibility for it,” Schuster added. “It is bitter that the defendant has denied his activities at that time until the end and has shown no remorse.”
For practical reasons, the trial was held in a gym in Brandenburg / Havel, the residence of the 101-year-old. The man was only in a position to be tried to a limited extent and was only able to participate in the trial for about two and a half hours each day. The process was interrupted several times for health reasons and hospital stays.
Josef S, 101, covered his face in German court. (AP)
Efraim Zuroff, the Nazi hunter in charge of the Simon Wiesenthal Center office in Jerusalem, told The Associated Press that the sentence “sends a message that if he commits these crimes, even decades later, he could be brought before justice “.
“And it’s a very important thing because it closes the relatives of the victims,” Zuroff added. “The fact that these people suddenly feel that their loss is being addressed and the suffering of their family that they lost in the camps is being addressed … is a very important thing.”
However, Zuroff expressed concern that S. could serve only part of the sentence or because of his intended appeal and his advanced age.
Sachsenhausen was established in 1936 in northern Berlin as the first new site after Adolf Hitler gave the SS full control of the Nazi concentration camp system. It was intended to be a model facility and training ground for the labyrinthine network that the Nazis built for Germany, Austria, and the occupied territories.
More than 200,000 people were detained there between 1936 and 1945. Tens of thousands of inmates died of starvation, disease, forced labor and other causes, as well as through medical experiments and systematic SS extermination operations, such as shootings, pans and gas.
The exact numbers of deaths vary, with higher estimates of about 100,000, although scholars suggest that the figures of 40,000 to 50,000 are probably more accurate.
In his early years, most of the prisoners were political prisoners or convicted criminals, but there were also some Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuals. The first large group of Jewish prisoners was taken there in 1938 after the so-called Night of Broken Glass, or Kristallnacht, an anti-Semitic pogrom.
During the war, Sachsenhausen expanded to include Soviet prisoners of war, who were shot by thousands as well as others.
As in other camps, Jewish prisoners were selected at Sachsenhausen for especially harsh treatment, and most of those who remained alive in 1942 were sent to the Auschwitz extermination camp.
Sachsenhausen was liberated in April 1945 by the Soviets, who later turned it into a brutal camp of their own.
Tuesday’s verdict is based on a recent legal precedent in Germany that states that anyone who aided in the function of a Nazi camp can be prosecuted for being complicit in the murders committed there.
In another case, a 96-year-old woman was tried in late September in the northern German town of Itzehoe. The woman, who allegedly worked during the war as secretary to the SS commander of the Stutthof concentration camp, has been charged with more than 11,000 murder accessory offenses.