Josef Schütz, a former corporal of the SS Totenkopf, is accused of “complicity in the death” of 3,518 prisoners at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin between 1942 and 1945.
The trial is taking place in Brandenburg an der Havel, in eastern Germany, in the presence of the accused, who uses a wanderer and is at large. The old man hid his face from the press with a blue folder.
Attorney Stephan Waterkamp said the client would not talk about the charges. “The accused will not speak. He will provide information only about his personal situation, ”he said.
Josef Schutz clearly answered the president of the court when asked about his name and personal situation. He said that he lives in the Brandenburg district near Berlin, that he has been a widower since 1986 and proudly declared that he will “celebrate the 101st anniversary on November 16th.”
The hearing, the first of 22, lasted an hour due to the old age of the defendant, who quickly gets tired. The meeting was devoted to the announcement of part of the 134 pages of the indictment by the prosecutor Kirill Clement.
Schütz was 21 years old when the actions for which he was being tried began. From the opening of the Sachsenhausen camp in 1936 until its liberation by the Soviet Union on April 22, 1945, it received almost 200,000 prisoners. The majority were political opponents, Jews and homosexuals.
Tens of thousands died of starvation caused by forced labor and harsh conditions.
“Something could happen”
The defendant’s desire not to talk about his actions, implying a refusal to ask for forgiveness, irritated those present.
“I am very shocked. Almost 80 years ago I lost my father, and this guy is a bad man, a disgusting person who refuses to accept the possibility of being guilty. ”Antoine Grumbach, 79, whose father, a member of the French resistance, was killed in Sachsenhausen in 1944.
Thomas Walter, lawyer for 11 of the 16 civil sections of the trial, was more optimistic: “For the applicants, the fact that he introduced himself is already a positive thing (…) Something could happen, maybe such a person would come to a conclusion, that before he died, he wanted to explain his past, ”he said.
Leon Schwarzbaum, 100, said he just wants justice to be done.
“I am one of the last survivors of Auschwitz, and I want this man, if convicted, to go to jail,” said Schwarzbaum, who appeared in court with a photograph of his parents and uncle killed in a concentration camp in Poland. …
The trial will take place a week after the failed hearing of 96-year-old Irmgard Furchner, the former secretary of another Nazi concentration camp. The first trial of Furchner was postponed to October 19 after an elderly woman tried to escape on the day the trial began.
Over the past 10 years, Germany has tried and convicted four former SS members, extending the accusation of complicity in the murder to camp guards and other Nazi executors. The purpose of this measure is to demonstrate the rigor of justice, which, however, the victims considered belated.
Josef Schütz “is not accused of shooting someone in particular, but of facilitating these actions with his work as a security guard and knowing that the killings took place in the camps,” explained Iris le, spokeswoman for the Neuruppin State Ministry Claire.
The accused may be sentenced to at least three years in prison, but the sentence will symbolize his advanced age.
According to Stephanie Bohr, a Nazi crime researcher at the Topography of Terror Museum in Berlin, “These processes are especially important for survivors and their descendants. They want justice and crime detection. “
In July 2020, a 93-year-old former Stutthof camp guard Bruno Dey was sentenced to two years in prison with parole. Eight more cases of former SS members are pending in different courts across the country.
