Former Nazi concentration camp guard Josef Schuetz
Josef Schuetz, who worked as a guard in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II, has died at the age of 102. June, but was allowed to remain free while his case was being appealed.
Between 1942 and 1945, while serving as a prison guard at the Sachsenhausen camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, Joseph Schuetz was found responsible for at least 3,500 murders as an accessory. He was the oldest person convicted of participating in atrocities during the Holocaust as a result of the verdict.
It always seemed unlikely that Schuetz would ever go to prison, as he remained free while awaiting the outcome of his appeal.
Schuetz had expressed no remorse during his trial and pleaded not guilty, saying that he had done “absolutely nothing”.
After the war, Schuetz was transferred to a prison camp in Russia, where he worked as a farmer and a locksmith, before returning to Germany.
Between 1936 and 1945, over 200,000 people were detained in the Sachsenhausen camp, including Jews, Roma, dissidents and homosexuals.
According to the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum, thousands of prisoners died of forced labor, murder, medical experiments, hunger, or disease before the camp was liberated by Soviet troops.
Germany has been scrambling to bring former Nazi war criminals to justice since a landmark verdict in 2011 paved the way for numerous trials.
A former guard, John Demjanjuk, was convicted on the grounds that he had acted as part of Hitler’s murder machine, although there was no evidence that he had directly killed anyone.
Since then, several former concentration camp workers have been convicted of being an accessory to murder on the same grounds.
However, with the passage of time, many cases have been dropped in recent years after the accused have died or are physically unable to stand trial.
(With inputs from AFP)