German prosecutors today proposed a five-year prison sentence for 101-year-old former SS officer Josef Schutz, charged with crimes he committed while serving as a security guard at the Nazxenhausen concentration camp.
Schutz is being prosecuted for “complicity” in the killing of 3,518 detainees between 1942-45 in this camp, north of Berlin. However, if convicted, a former Waffen SS officer will not be jailed for his advanced age and fragile health.
Attorney General Kirill Clement noted that “the evidence” was “fully confirmed” by the prosecution, arguing that Soutz not only “reconciled” with the conditions prevailing in the camp but “made a career” in it.
Throughout the trial, which began in October, the age-old defendant insisted that he had never served in Sachsenhausen and that he was a day laborer in those years, although there is evidence to the contrary.
For the prosecutor “there is no doubt that Schutz worked in Sachsenhausen”.
The court ruling is expected in early June.
Over the past decade, Germany has expanded its investigations into Nazi atrocities committed during World War II. Former camp guards and other members of the Nazi machine are being prosecuted for complicity in homicides.
These trials, with defendants at a very advanced age, raise questions about the meaning of such a long delay in the delivery of justice.
The trial of Joseph Soutz was interrupted several times due to the poor health of the accused. In 1942, Schutz was 21 years old. He is accused of shooting Soviet prisoners and aiding Zyklon B “gas killings”.
Sachsenhausen operated from 1936 until its liberation from the Soviet army on April 22, 1945. About 200,000 prisoners, mostly political dissidents, Jews and homosexuals, were taken to the camp. Tens of thousands of them died, mostly due to exhaustion from forced labor and detention conditions.
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