Germany sentences former Nazi guard, 101, to 5 years in prison

The Neuruppin Regional Court in Germany sentenced a 101-year-old former SS guard to five years in prison on Tuesday, marking the end of one of the last Nazi trials in the country. 

Josef Schuetz was a member of the Nazi’s paramilitary SS and was stationed at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, north of Berlin, where he was a watchtower guard between 1942 and 1945. During his time as an SS guard, he indirectly assisted in the murder of 3,518 people. 

The trial, which opened in October, took nine months because Josef, whose full name was not disclosed, was partially fit to stand trial, and sessions could only last two and a half hours. 

The Sachsenhausen concentration camp mainly housed political prisoners from Europe, Soviet prisoners of war and some Jews. More than 200,000 people were held there between 1936 and 1945. 

While many inmates died of starvation, disease, and forced labor, others were murdered with Zyklon-B, the poison gas that was used to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust. 

In recent years, several SS guards have been tried for crimes against humanity committed during World War Two. This was due to a court ruling in 2011, which allowed those who contributed indirectly to wartime murders to be criminally tried. 

Schuetz is the oldest person to go to trial for war crimes during the Holocaust. However, because of his age, he is unlikely to be put behind bars. 

Josef’s lawyer, Stefan Waterkamp, said they would appeal Tuesday’s ruling and will seek to take the case to a higher court to determine whether “general guard service without concrete participation” is enough to be sentenced. 

Throughout the trial, Josef pleaded innocent, claiming that he never worked in the camp and was only an agricultural laborer nearby during that time period. However, prosecutors presented documents showing that Josef had been enlisted in the SS and stationed at Sachsenhausen when he was 21.

"For three years, you watched prisoners being tortured and killed before your eyes," said presiding judge Udo Lechtermann. "Due to your position on the watchtower of the concentration camp, you constantly had the smoke of the crematorium in your nose.”

"Anyone who tried to escape from the camp was shot. So every guard was actively involved in these murders," he added.