The Hamburg public prosecutor's office has indicted a former SS guard of the concentration camp Stutthof. The 92-year-old is accused of murder in 5230 cases. The "world" had first reported on the indictment.
In the opinion of the Hamburg investigators, the man had prevented during his guard duty in the camp near Gdansk escapes and riots and thus promoted the mass killing, especially of Jewish prisoners. He had contributed as a "cogs of the murder machine" in the knowledge of the "overall circumstances" to implement the highest authority issued killing order. The accused was according to prosecutors at the time of the crime between 17 and 18 years old.
According to the "Welt", he was heard for several hours in the summer of 2018 and did not deny his presence in the camp. The trained baker said that he always kept away from National Socialism. He came as a 17-year-old only to the SS, because he was only "garnisonsverwendungsfähig" because of heart disease and therefore was used as a guard. Before the investigators, he also expressed his sympathy for the victims.
In recent years, there have been several indictments and trials in Germany for Nazi crimes. In some cases, procedures were discontinued because the defendants were not able to negotiate because of their age. The district court of Münster, for example, closed the case against a former SS guard at the Stutthof concentration camp at the beginning of April.
65,000 people died
In the Stutthof concentration camp near Gdansk, the Nazis had, among other things, imprisoned, tortured and systematically killed Polish citizens, Soviet prisoners of war and Jews. According to the public prosecutor's office, inmates of the camp had been systematically killed in a collar and gas chamber since the summer of 1944 on orders from the SS in Berlin. Of the more than one hundred thousand inmates brought to Stutthof, an estimated 65,000 died.
The most recent processes were triggered by a change in the legal concept. German public prosecutor's offices and courts have expressed the view that supportive activities such as guard services are to be regarded in the legal sense as aiding and abetting murder. Before that, mostly only offenders had been prosecuted who held high positions or participated directly in killings.
According to the "Welt" run at the prosecutor in Hamburg and investigations against a former member of the so-called SS Helps Corps, which is said to have guarded a death march of concentration camp prisoners in the final stages of the World War.