NEURUPPIN, Germany, Oct 7 (Reuters) - A former SS guard, now 100 years old, hobbled into a German courtroom on a walking frame on Thursday to face charges of helping to send more than 3,000 people to their deaths in a Nazi concentration camp during World War Two.

Prosecutors say Josef S., a member of the Nazi party's paramilitary SS, contributed to the deaths of 3,518 people at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp by regularly standing guard in the watchtower between 1942 and 1945.

Doctors have said that the man, whose full name was not disclosed due to German trial reporting rules, is only partially fit to stand trial: sessions will be limited to just two and a half hours each day.

As the trial began, his lawyer held up a blue folder to conceal his client's face as he was brought into the court in Neuruppin, near Berlin.

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Some people interned in Sachsenhausen were murdered with Zyklon-B, the poison gas also used in other extermination camps where millions of Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

Sachsenhausen housed predominantly political prisoners from all over Europe, along with Soviet prisoners of war and some Jews.

"It's a lot of emotion... I can't really speak," said Antoine Grumbach, 79, before turning abruptly away as he was overcome by tears. His father, a French resistance fighter, died in the camp.

Leon Schwarzbaum, who is 100 years old, sat quietly waiting for the trial to start in the courtroom, showing reporters a photo of him with his parents and uncle, who all died in Auschwitz.

Prosecutors accuse Josef S. of "contributing to cruel and insidious murders" by aiding in "creating and maintaining life-threatening conditions in the camp."

There has been a spate of charges brought against former concentration camp guards in recent years for World War Two crimes against humanity. Last week, a 96-year-old former camp secretary went on the run the day her trial was to begin, but was caught by police a few hours later.

A 2011 court ruling paved the way for these final prosecutions, stating that even those who contributed indirectly to wartime murders, without pulling a trigger or giving an order, could bear criminal responsibility.

Sachsenhausen, opened in 1936 as one of the earliest Nazi concentration camps, acted as a training camp for SS guards who then went to serve elsewhere, including in Auschwitz and Treblinka. Others killed at Sachsenhausen included Dutch resistance fighters and the Nazis' domestic political opponents.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/former-ss-camp-guard-aged-100-start-trial-germany-2021-10-07/

If his only crime was being a tower guard, let him go. Hes not going to live much longer.

The war is over, didn't they get the memo?

Nah. Gas him him. Use zyklon B. Make him stand in the cold naked first.

What's the point?  He's 100.  Not going to be alive much longer. Any punishment he receives is purely symbolic at this point, even if he's executed (which won't happen) it wouldn't make much of a difference. He's not long for this world as it is and clearly isn't a danger to anyone.

Well, if they can go after 16 year old (at the time) secretaries...

I'm about tired of "just following orders" as a get out of jail free card.

There's a lot of people here domestically I hope go on trial one day for "just following orders"

Wasn't he "just following orders" like all the rank and file FBI agents?

While the FBI aren't on the level of Nazis just yet, they also don't execute you for not joining them.

It's strange to think that this dude would have been himself murdered by Nazis 80 years ago for not manning a watchtower and now today they want to murder him FOR guarding a watchtower.

It's funny they're going after anyone that had to do with NAZIs while gearing up for the next round.

So was he on the run for 80 years or did they just decide to drag him in now? Seems strange they'd let him go at the height of it if he had as much to do with it as they are saying.

A fucking parody of justice

NOT only the her contemporary decided she wasn’t guilty, but how can she even defend herself after so long ?

Who are we to judge her now ?

100 years old, eh?   GOT EM

Sounds to me like he got away with it.

Our vindictiveness is relentless. After more than 75 years I think it's time to stop this madness.

Their leaders were imprisoned or executed. The surviving major players hounded to the end of the Earth. I say anyone who wasn't in the control and command structure gets a pass this late in the game.

Next week they will find some camp cooks that didn't go to culinary school.

Are we still going after all of the Japanese guards?

Oh wait...

Germany has some fuck up "laws of war".

They charged and convicted an Iraqi Soldier of murder for having killed an ISIS combatant in combat.

Edit: Here's that news article.
https://apnews.com/article/428c2ad8fdc64d41937f277a5bd558ac

Like the drone pilot who killed those innocent people in Afghanistan last month? He was only following orders.

At least it's better PR than prosecuting child secretaries.

So.....ALL the Germans, then.


Good to know.

There are 10's of thousands of people, in state and federal government who need to face the music.

My thoughts exactly.  That dental plan might not have been worth it after all when the "but I was just following orders" excuse doesn't mean shit. Let it be known that you can be on the run for 80 years and think you've beat the rap.......until it catches up with you.

Does he even know where he is?

The difference is that our domestic “friends” chose that life, it’s a bit different when your own life is on the line I imagine.

If he was Waffen SS in 1942, pretty sure he was a NAZI and a volunteer.
Later in the war and with manpower shortages, they got draftees, and they were not indoctrinated to the same level.
But no, he would not have been shot for not joining the Waffen SS.

And as for the article, the Waffen SS was not paramilitary, those were the brownshirts  / SA.
The SS was the armed and military branch of the NAZI party.

Just picking nits here.
Nothing to see...move along.

What justice is there to dispense to him? He has lived his life. They won't put him to death. All that will come from this is he will have government paid for room and board til he dies.

Thank you Germany, very cool. Maybe the Israelis won’t demand more reparations now.

I'm ok with the guards being charged.

Oh well.

If he was a murderer, they should have got him when younger.

That said, there should be no statute of limitations on murder. Their country, their rules.

It’s the ultimate virtue signal for Germany.

Someone is trying to set an example.

As I get older I start to realize that 50 60 80 years isn't all that long.

And if anyone deserves to be chased until the end of time it's a Nazi

push him down a flight of stairs and call it even

His sentence is…he’s a hundred fuckin years old, lol.

Alright, fair point.

I remember when they went after all those elderly Bolsheviks, Red Guard, Cheka, Stazi, KGB officers and executed them for tens of millions they murdered.

Oh wait, that never happened... 'cause communists get a free ride.

Well, that's the thing, right?  As long as they can keep prosecuting some random motherfucker who got stuck in a guard shack or some 16 year old secretary, they don't have to acknowledge that particular bit of reality.

Don't forget everyone pulling guard duty anywhere near the drone control shack..... they're all just as guilty, too!

Get a rope

I await the day when someone puts me on trial for getting an ER on an aircraft that directly killed terrorists. I wear that bomb lanyard daily as a prize.

I’ll never walk into a courtroom for those actions. [shrug]

ETA: Just reread and see your point is different than how I took it.

The German reunification transition government classified all the Stasi files and let the motherfuckers go free…

Wasn't post-WWII the first time that soldiers and guards were prosecuted for following orders?  I thought before that the officers and national leaders were responsible and grunts weren't expected to decide which orders to follow and which orders were illegal.

So we've reached the point in clown world where the people prosecuting the Nazis are now worse than the actual Nazis they persecute.  They did the same thing to some lady recently who was a typist at a camp.  She was 14 when the war started.  This is all about propaganda.  They want the specter of "Nazis" in the news so they can call anyone who opposes them "Nazis."  

The idea that standing guard or typing a letter merits punishment 76 years after a war is such a perversion of justice it shows the rotten core of our current legal and political regime.  

Attached File

I don't know, prosecuting a tower guard is pretty darn lame.....I mean what, did they take his hours on post and divide them by the number of dead that accumulated during those particular hours?

Damn, only the squareheads would math like that.

He contributed to murders in a concentration camp, he deserves prosecution and a punishment appropriate to his level of participation.

Other cases have no bearing on if this is right or wrong.

I’m OK fucking with a legit participant of the Third Reich’s twisted dreams, regardless of how cool their uniforms were.

Fuck him good

Sentence him to VA health care system

I wonder if 80 years from now some 100 year old that checked IDs from people walking into Camp Alpha is going to be prosecuted by the American Branch of the World
Caliphate of the Prophet.

If that is the case, sure.

What if he was some dude told to walk around the outside of the fence and shoot anyone that got over the fence and ran.
Is he guilty if he never shot anyone?
Is he guilty of all that went on in the camp?
Is he guilty only if he shot someone that escaped?
If the people he shot escaping were actually bad, like some child molester that got rolled up and put in a camp for being gay or Jewish, is it a war crime?

Is he only guilty if it was a Nazi camp?

If he was a Japanese internment camp guard walking around outside the fence on American soil is he a war criminal for shooting someone that tried to escape?  A Japanese American guilty of no crime whatsoever that just could not stand being in a camp and ran for it.  Is the guard that shot him a war criminal?


Every single one of us is descended from a group of people that did horrible things to another group of people.

What were the guards guarding?

Keeping those to be killed inside the camp

And

Keeping those that want to stop the killing from coming in.

Fuck that guy.  He can spend the rest of his days in prison.  It will still be a nicer ending than what his prisoners faced.

If he was an adult…no fucks given, gas him.  A kid indoctrinated by an evil society…let it be, he’ll explain it to his maker soon enough.