At the age of 101, Josef Schütz is the oldest person to ever stand trial for Nazi war crimes.
Fabian Sommer / DPA / GettyJosef Schütz is brought to the Neuruppin Regional Court by DRK staff to discover the verdict .
A 101 - twelvemonth - old German man has been found guilty of being an supplement to more than 3,000 murders during the Holocaust , when he serve as a Nazi clique guard for three years . Josef Schütz had claimed he never worked at the Sachsenhausen density encampment , but a Brandenburg - an - der - Havel court found otherwise .
“ The court has derive to the last that , contrary to what you lay claim , you worked in the assiduity camp as a sentry duty for about three years , ” Judge Udo Lechtermann said , according toNPR .
Fabian Sommer/DPA/GettyJosef Schütz is brought to the Neuruppin Regional Court by DRK staff to hear the verdict.
Schütz was accused of aiding and abetting the “ execution by firing squad of Soviet captive of war in 1942 ” and the execution of prisoner “ using the vicious gas Zyklon B. ” He was found shamed of 3,518 counts of accoutrement to murder and condemn to five years in prison house .
“ You were aware that prisoner were kill there . By your front , you supported [ these act ] , ” Lechtermann said . “ Anyone who wanted to flee the coterie was shoot . Thus , every inner circle sentry duty actively participated in the killings . ”
However , in court on Monday , June 27 , Schütz still continued to assert that he had no liaison in the Nazi genocide and that “ everything is false ” that ’s been enounce about him .
Fabian Sommer/DPA/GettyAccused Nazi guard Josef Schütz hides his face as he enters court in May 2022.
“ I do n’t even bonk what I am supposed to have done , ” he enounce in motor inn . “ I have nothing to do with it . ”
The German authorities bureau that search justness for Nazi - earned run average crimes tracked Schütz down in 2018 after get their hands on assiduousness camp phonograph recording that were conquer by the Red Army after World War II . Those records showed that Schütz link the SS just before he turned 21 and dish out at Sachsenhausen between 1942 and 1945 . prosecutor said he even made it to the rank of Rottenführer , the in high spirits in the SS .
Schütz had fuss refuting what prosecutor had found , according toCBS News , arrogate that he worked on a farm for the entirety of World War II and that he never even put on an SS uniform . The documents obtained by prosecutors , however , describe him by name and birth appointment — and clearly put him in the Totenkopf naval division of the SS , working at Sachsenhausen .
The German governance has , in recent twelvemonth , stepped up efforts to bring former Nazis to justice before they all give way out , follow a significant high - royal court ruling in 2016 that maintain the condemnation of Oskar Gröning , the so - called “ bookkeeper of Auschwitz . ”
Gröning was convicted of being an accessory to 300,000 murders at Auschwitz , even though no undivided death could be attributed to him .
Fabian Sommer / DPA / GettyAccused Nazi guard Josef Schütz hides his brass as he put down tourist court in May 2022 .
More than 200,000 dissidents , Jews , homosexuals , and Roma were make at Sachsenhausen , where Schütz made his career , according totheGuardian . ten of thousand died horrifying Death by firing squad , aesculapian experiments , and more .
Investigator Thomas Will secernate theNew York Times , “ We go by the simple principle that murder does not have a legislative act of limitations . It is what ’s correct , and of path , it would have been what was proper 70 year ago . ”
tightness camp subsister Leon Schwarzbaum was transfer to Sachsenhausen from a camp in Poland when the Red Army pressed westward , liberating camps as they went . He was allowed as a carbon monoxide - complainant at the trial , grant to theTimes , but died months before Schütz was convicted .
“ I require that if this man is convicted — and hopefully , he will be convicted , ” Schwarzbaum said before his death , “ he goes to prison . ”
Due to Schütz ’s age and failing health , however , he ’s unlikely to dish out prison clock time . He stand as the oldest person ever to go to trial for complicity in warfare crime during the Holocaust .
After learning about former concentration cantonment guard duty Josef Schütz , register about the trial of former SS officerJohann Rehbogen . Then , get a line aboutTraudl Junge , Hitler ’s personal secretary who lay claim she had no idea the Holocaust was going on .
