EJP

Adolescent court charges elderly German ex-guard for World War II killings  

Prisoners in the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen, Germany, in December 1938. Picture from Wikimedia Commons.

The man allegedly committed his crimes as a teenager, so the unnamed 98-year-old will not face trial as an adult.

By JNS

The Nazis imprisoned 200,000 people at Sachsenhausen, where tens of thousands died through starvation, medical experiments and outright murder.

Now the German government has started prosecution against a man alleged to have worked at the concentration camp as a guard from July 1943 and February 1945 while a youth. He is charged with assisting in the mass killing of 3,300 inmates. However, since the crimes were allegedly committed before becoming an adult, the case will be tried in a juvenile court.

The 98-year-old lives in Main-Kinzig in Central Germany.

Last year, 101-year-old Josef Schuetz received a sentence of five years for his complicity in 3,500 deaths at Sachsenhausen. Schuetz died this past April.

Prisoners built Sachsenhausen in 1936. It would become a central training facility for the SS and was intended as a model for other concentration camps. During the war, most of the camp’s Jewish inmates were sent east to other camps, including Auschwitz, though a gas chamber was nevertheless installed in 1943.

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