Josef Schütz was convicted on Tuesday of aiding and abetting murder while working as a jailer at the Sachsenhausen camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, between 1942 and 1945. Schütz had said that he did “absolutely nothing” and that he was unaware of the crimes being committed in the camp. “I do not know why I am here,” he said at the end of the trial on Monday. However, prosecutors said Schütz “knowingly and willingly” participated in the killings of 3,518 detainees in the camp as guards, although he was not charged with any active part in the killings. More than 200,000 people, including Jews, Roma, regime opponents, and homosexuals, were held in Sachsenhausen between 1936 and 1945. Tens of thousands of prisoners were killed or died from forced labor, medical experiments, starvation, disease the Sachsenhausen Monument and Museum. Prosecutors said Schütz aided and abetted the “execution by firing squad of Soviet prisoners of war in 1942” and the killing of prisoners “using the poison gas Zyklon B”. He was 21 years old then. Schütz made many inconsistent statements about his past during the trial, complaining that he was “confused” and that there had never been a guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Instead, he said he had worked as an agricultural worker in Germany for most of the war, a claim that contradicts many historical documents that identify an SS guard who bore his name, date and place of birth. Given his age, the centenarian is very unlikely to be put behind bars, despite his conviction and sentence. His lawyer, Stephen Waterkamp, said before the verdict that he would appeal if found guilty. Citing a decision by the federal court in Karlsruhe, the lawyer said that working as a security guard in a concentration camp alone was not enough for a guilty verdict.
