The man, whose identity cannot be identified for legal reasons under German law, was convicted of 3,518 homicide cases Tuesday in the Neruppin District Court in Brandenburg. He had denied that he worked as an SS guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg between 1942 and 1945 and that he aided and abetted the killing of thousands of prisoners. His lawyers argued that there was no evidence that he had actively assisted in the killings. He had denied ever working in the camp, but prosecutors presented several documents containing his name, date and place of birth to prove he did. The accused is said to have been a recruited member of the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, the German news agency dpa reported. “The court concluded that, contrary to what you claim, you worked in the concentration camp as a guard for about three years,” said presiding judge Udo Lechtermann, according to the dpa, adding that in this way, the accused had assisted in the mechanisms of Nazi terrorism and assassination. “You willingly supported this mass extermination with your activity,” the judge added. Defendant had told the trial, which began in October, that he was a farm worker near Pasewalk in northeastern Germany at the time. Due to his age, he could only take the test for about two and a half hours each day. The procedures were postponed several times for reasons of health and hospital stay. Tens of thousands of prisoners died in the camp The Sachsenhausen was an early Nazi concentration camp founded in 1936 just north of Berlin after Adolf Hitler gave the SS full control of the confinement system. It was intended to be a model facility and training camp for the Nazi-built network throughout Germany, Austria and the Occupied Territories. More than 200,000 people were held in the camp between 1936 and 1945, according to the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum website. Tens of thousands of detainees died of starvation, disease, forced labor, and other causes, as well as through medical experiments and systematic SS extermination operations, including shootings, hanging, and gassing. The exact numbers for the dead vary, with higher estimates being around 100,000, although experts suggest figures from 40,000 to 50,000 may be more accurate.
