A 101-year-old man was sentenced to five years in prison on Tuesday in Brandenburg for being an accessory to the murder of thousands of prisoners in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In the trial before the Neuruppin district court, the man had denied to the last that he had been a guard in the concentration camp.
He was accused of having aided and abetted the murder of more than 3,500 inmates in the concentration camp from 1942 to 1945.
The process began in October last year. He had to be suspended several times because the accused was ill and was at times even completely on the brink. For organizational reasons, the trial is being conducted at the defendant’s place of residence in Brandenburg/Havel and not in Neuruppin.
Prosecutors asked for five years in prison for the man. Co-plaintiff representative Thomas Walther had pleaded for a prison sentence of several years, which should not be less than five years.
The defense, on the other hand, had asked for an acquittal on Monday. According to the case law of the Federal Court of Justice, being on guard duty in a concentration camp alone is not sufficient for a conviction, said defense attorney Stefan Waterkamp. Concrete acts of aid were not proven to the accused.
The elderly defendant had denied to the last that he had even worked in the concentration camp in today’s Oranienburg north of Berlin. On the other hand, the prosecution relies on numerous documents with the name, date and place of birth of the accused and other documents.
