Image copyright AFP Image caption Thousands of victims were murdered daily at Auschwitz

German prosecutors have charged a 94-year-old former SS guard with aiding and abetting mass murder at the Nazis' Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

The case against the German man - not yet named - has gone to a court in Mannheim, western Germany.

He was 19 when, in December 1942-January 1943, he assisted in the murder of some 13,335 people, it is alleged.

He has denied knowing that mass murder was going on. Last month, a convicted Auschwitz guard died in hospital.

Nearly one million Jews were murdered at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex. Tens of thousands of others also died, mainly Poles.

A landmark 2011 court ruling, against John Demjanjuk, enabled German prosecutors to charge a few surviving Nazi SS guards as accessories to mass murder.

Previously, German courts had only prosecuted Nazi war criminals proven to have participated directly in atrocities.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Often victims - mainly Jews - were gassed at Auschwitz soon after arrival

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If the new case in Mannheim goes to court, the suspect will be treated as a juvenile, because he was 19 when he worked as an Auschwitz guard.

A press release from the Stuttgart prosecutors says he was born in Ruma, a town in northern Serbia.

He is accused of "supporting camp operations and thus acts of extermination".

During those two months, 15 rail transports brought victims to the camp in Nazi-occupied southern Poland.

"The prosecutor's office assumes that at least 13,335 of these people were classified as unfit to work and murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau," the prosecutors' statement says.

Fewer than 50 of the estimated 6,500 Auschwitz guards who survived the war were ever convicted.

In 2015, former Auschwitz guard Oskar Gröning was jailed for four years, having been convicted as being an accessory to the murder of 300,000 Jews. But appeals meant that he never began his sentence, and he died last month aged 96.

Last June, Reinhold Hanning, another convicted Auschwitz guard, also died before serving his sentence.</s>The public prosecutor's office in Stuttgart said it had filed charges of accessory to murder with the regional court in nearby Mannheim against the unnamed suspect, a German citizen born in Ruma in today's Serbia.

The then 19-year-old began his training as a guard at the Auschwitz death camp in German-occupied Poland in October 1942 and worked from December 1942 until January 1943 "supporting camp operations and thus acts of extermination", prosecutors said.

"In this time, at least 15 rail transports arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp after which people were immediately 'selected' based on their ability to work," they said.

"The prosecutor's office assumes that at least 13,335 of these people were classified as unfit to work and murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau."

The suspect said through his defence attorney that he was "not aware of the background, intent or procedures behind the killing" at Auschwitz.

The court in Mannheim must now decide if the case should go to trial. If so, the suspect will be tried before a juvenile court because he was a teenager at the time of his alleged crimes.

More than one million people, mostly European Jews, perished at Auschwitz-Birkenau, operated by the Nazis from 1940 until it was liberated by Russian forces on January 27, 1945.

The renewed German drive to bring to justice the last surviving perpetrators of the Holocaust follows a 2011 landmark court ruling.

For more than 60 years German courts had only prosecuted Nazi war criminals if evidence showed they had personally committed atrocities.

But in 2011 a Munich court sentenced John Demjanjuk to five years in prison for complicity in the extermination of Jews at the Sobibor camp, where he had served as a guard, establishing that all former camp guards can be tried.

Three cases against former Auschwitz guards since then have gone to trial in Germany.

Two of the aged defendants, Reinhold Hanning and Oskar Groening, were convicted and have since died while the case against a third, Hubert Zafke, was thrown out in 2016 following complaints that the judges were biased.</s>Prosecutors have charged a 94-year-old man who served as a guard at the Auschwitz extermination camp with complicity in the mass murder of over 13,000 people.

The unnamed Serbian-born former SS man was charged as a juvenile because he was only 19 when deployed to the camp in German-occupied Poland.

He began his training as a guard at Auschwitz in October 1942 and worked from December 1942 until January 1943 'supporting camp operations and thus acts of extermination', prosecutors said.

Using camp records, prosecutors calculate the accused was on duty when 13,335 people were gassed.

The prosecution of the elderly man is yet another late attempt to make surviving death camp personnel answer for their crimes.

Just weeks ago former Auschwitz guard Oskar Groening died before he could serve four years in prison for his role as an accessory to the murder of 300,000 people.

Previous war crime prosecutions in Germany relied on eyewitness testimony about crimes. But now prosecutors say it is enough for people just to have served in death camps in order for them to be charged with genocide.

Prosecutors in Stuttgart said: 'He was supporting camp operations and thus acts of extermination.

'In the time he was there, at least 15 rail transports arrived at the Auschwitz camp after which people were immediately 'selected' based on their ability to work.

'The prosecutor's office assumes that at least 13,335 of these people were classified as unfit to work and murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau.'

Through his lawyer the suspect said he was 'not aware of the background, intent or procedures behind the killing at Auschwitz.'

The camp near Krakow was the supreme human killing factory of the Third Reich, where at least a million people, mostly Jews, were murdered before its liberation by the Soviet Red Army in January 1945.

A high court in Mannheim must now green light whether to order a trial for the elderly man.</s>BERLIN -- German prosecutors say they've charged a 94-year-old former SS guard at the Auschwitz death camp as an accessory to murder.

Prosecutors in Stuttgart said Monday the suspect, a German national born in Serbia whom they didn't identify by name, was charged as a juvenile because he was 19 at the time of the alleged offenses.

They say he served as a guard at Auschwitz in late 1942 and early 1943 and estimate that 13,335 people were sent to the gas chambers during that time. According to prosecutors, the suspect has said via his lawyer that he wasn't aware of the background and aims of what was happening, or of details of the killings.

The suspect has been charged on the premise that, as a guard, he helped the camp function.

The charges come about a month after another former Auschwitz guard, dubbed the "Accountant of Auschwitz," died before he could begin serving his 4-year sentence.

Oskar Groening, 96, died in March. He was convicted in Lueneburg in 2015 as an accessory to the murder of 300,000 Jews. The Lueneburg court concluded that although there was no evidence of involvement in a specific killing, Groening knew that Jews were being slaughtered at the German death camp and supported the killings through his actions.

In 2011, former Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk became the first person convicted in Germany solely for serving as a death camp guard without evidence of being involved in a specific killing. Demjanjuk, who always denied serving at the Sobibor camp, died before his appeal could be heard.

In 2016, former SS sergeant Reinhold Hanning was convicted on 170,000 counts of accessory to murder for serving as an Auschwitz guard. He, too, died before he could begin serving his 5-year-sentence.

Hanning apologized for his wartime service, telling Holocaust survivors that "it disturbs me deeply" to have been a part of the Nazis' genocidal machinery.</s>BERLIN (JTA) — A former Auschwitz guard, now 94, has been charged in Germany as an accomplice to 13,335 murders in the death camp.

State prosecutors in Stuttgart announced Monday that the man, from the state of Mannheim, is charged with supporting the genocide through his function as a guard and on-call member of the SS at the camp from December 1942 to January 1943.

The man, whose name has not been released, was charged in youth court since he was 19 years old while working at the camp.

The Mannheim Regional Court must decide whether the charge is admissible, and whether the defendant is in a physical and mental condition to stand trial.

According to the prosecutors, at least 15 transports of prisoners arrived during that period, and 13,335 people were murdered in the gas chambers almost immediately after arrival, having been deemed incapable of working.

The defendant’s attorney reportedly claimed his client had no idea of the genocide taking place at the time.

In related news, State Prosecutors in Kassel announced earlier this month that they have started an investigation into a member of the Einsatzgruppe C mobile death squad for his possible role in the mass murders of Jews on Sept. 29-30, 1941, at Babi Yar, a ravine near Kiev.

Efraim Zuroff, the Jerusalem-based Nazi hunter for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said the move is a result of a list of names the center submitted to the German ministers of justice and the interior on Sept. 1, 2014.

“It is incumbent upon the German judicial authorities to expedite these cases as quickly as possible,” Zuroff said in a statement.

According to the German Press Agency’s Southwest Regional Department, the Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes, based in Ludwigsburg, is currently working on about 12 active preliminary investigations against alleged Nazi criminals.</s>Prosecutors in Stuttgart filed an indictment on Monday against an unnamed former SS Auschwitz guard accused of being an accessory to the murder of more than 13,000 people.



The indictment was filed at a nearby regional court in Mannheim.





Charges faced by the 94-year-old suspect relate to his activities “supporting camp operations and thus acts of extermination” at Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland from December 1942 to January 1943, when he was 19 years old. Due to his age at the time of the alleged crimes, he faces trial in a juvenile court.“In this time, at least 15 rail transports arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp after which people were immediately selected [to live or die] based on their ability to work,” the Stuttgart public prosecutor’s office said. “The prosecutor’s office assumes that at least 13,335 of these people were classified as unfit to work and murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau.”Prosecutors said the German citizen, born in the Serbian town of Ruma, began his military training as a guard at Auschwitz in October 1942 before starting work in December of the same year.The suspect said through his defense lawyer that he was “not aware of the background, intent or procedures behind the killing” at the camp.The legal precedent set by the May 2011 conviction of Sobibor death camp guard John Demjanjuk paved the way for German authorities to seek the prosecution of other former Nazi guards. Since that case, German citizens can be prosecuted on the basis of their role at Nazi concentration camps rather than based on evidence of involvement in a specific killing.Demjanjuk died in March 2012 in a German nursing home after being released pending his appeal against the conviction.The advanced age and failing health of suspected Nazi perpetrators often prove to be a stumbling block for prosecutors.In September 2017, prosecutors threw out the case of a former SS medic accused of 3,681 counts of accessory to murder at Auschwitz after he was deemed unfit to stand trial. A spokesman for the Neubrandenburg regional prosecutor’s office said Hubert Zafke, 96 and diagnosed with dementia, was no longer able to “reasonably assess his interests or coherently follow or give testimony.”In June 2017, Reinhold Hanning, a 95-year-old former Auschwitz SS guard convicted by a German court in June 2016 of being an accessory to the murder of more than 170,000 people, died before entering prison for his five-year sentence.Hanning had appealed the ruling and, at the time of his death, the conviction was not legally binding as his appeal was still pending.Former Nazi guard Oskar Groening, known as the “ bookkeeper of Auschwitz ,” was convicted in 2015 as an accessory to the murder of 300,000 Jews at the German death camp and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment.Groening died in March 2018 without starting his sentence due to a lengthy legal dispute over his health, with his lawyer repeatedly arguing that his age and frail health were grounds for a pardon.</s>A 94-year-old former Auschwitz guard has been charged in Germany with being an accessory to murder.

The German national, who was born in Serbia and has not been named, was charged as a juvenile because he was 19 at the time of the alleged offences.

German prosecutors say he served as a guard at the Nazi concentration camp in late 1942 and early 1943, a period in which they estimate 13,335 people were sent to the gas chambers.

According to prosecutors, the suspect has said via his lawyer that he wasn't aware of the background and aims of what was happening at the camp, or of details of the killings.

The suspect has been charged on the premise that, as a guard, he helped the camp function.

Last month, a man known as the "Bookkeeper of Auschwitz" died at the age of 96 - shortly before he was due to begin a four-year prison sentence.

Oskar Groening was convicted in 2015 of being an accessory to the murder of 300,000 Jews at the concentration camp.

The former SS guard said during his trial that he oversaw the collection of belongings from those killed at Auschwitz or used as slave labour.

He then ensured that valuables and cash were separated to be sent to Berlin.

There were several occasions when he was assigned to "ramp duty", which involved processing new arrivals.

While he admitted witnessing individual atrocities, Groening did not acknowledge participating in any crimes.</s>German prosecutors say they've charged a 94-year-old former SS guard at the Auschwitz death camp as an accessory to murder.

Prosecutors in Stuttgart said Monday the suspect, a German national born in Serbia whom they didn't identify by name, was charged as a juvenile because he was 19 at the time of the alleged offenses.

They say he served as a guard at Auschwitz in late 1942 and early 1943 and estimate that 13,335 people were sent to the gas chambers during that time. According to prosecutors, the suspect has said via his lawyer that he wasn't aware of the background and aims of what was happening, or of details of the killings.

The suspect has been charged on the premise that, as a guard, he helped the camp function.</s>BERLIN (Reuters) - A 96-year-old German convicted over his role in the murders of 300,000 people at the Auschwitz death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland has filed a plea for clemency, a regional justice spokesman said on Monday.

Oskar Groening, known as the "bookkeeper of Auschwitz", was sentenced to four years in prison in 2015 for being an accessory to murder at Auschwitz. But he has not yet started his sentence due to a dispute about his health.

 In December Germany's constitutional court ruled Groening must go to jail, rejecting arguments from his lawyers that imprisonment at his advanced age would violate his right to life.

 Christian Lauenstein, spokesman for the justice ministry in the northern state of Lower Saxony where the 2015 trial took place, said Groening's plea for clemency had been passed on to public prosecutors.

 He added: "A plea for clemency does not have a delaying effect such as on starting the prison sentence."

 The public prosecutor's office was not immediately available to comment.

 Groening's court battle was seen as one of the last major trials related to the Holocaust, during which some 6 million Jews were murdered by Adolf Hitler's regime.

 Prosecutors said Groening - who did not kill anyone himself while working at Auschwitz - had helped support the regime responsible for mass murder by sorting bank notes seized from trainloads of arriving Jews.

 Groening admitted he was morally guilty for the work he carried out at Auschwitz, which included sending bank notes he found in Jews' luggage to SS offices in Berlin, where they helped to fund the Nazi war effort.

 

 (Reporting by Michelle Martin; editing by Mark Heinrich)</s>The suspect is a German national born in Serbia whom they didn't identify by name. He was charged as a juvenile because he was 19 at the time of the alleged offenses.

Authorities say he served as a guard at Auschwitz in late 1942 and early 1943 and estimate that 13,335 people were sent to the gas chambers during that time.

According to prosecutors, the suspect has said via his lawyer that he wasn't aware of the background and aims of what was happening, or of details of the killings.

The suspect was charged on the premise that he helped the camp function.
German prosecutors charge an unidentified 94-year-old ex-Auschwitz guard with aiding and abetting 13,335 murders when he was nineteen.