The chance that the 101-year-old will go to prison is very small. Previously, former concentration camp employees did not have to go to prison because of their advanced age.
According to the prosecutor, Schütz was involved in the execution of Soviet soldiers and the gassing of prisoners. He worked in the camp between 1942 and 1945. After the war, Schütz was briefly imprisoned in a prison camp in the Soviet Union. He was around 21 years old when he worked in the camp.
The German himself claims to be innocent. He denies having worked as a guard in the SS concentration camp. He said he was a farmhand at the time. “I have no idea why I’m here,” Schütz said on Monday. “I haven’t done anything at all.” A German historian has previously provided evidence that he was indeed a camp guard.
Executions were carried out in the concentration camp at Oranienburg, but people also died from medical experiments, forced labour, starvation and disease. More than 200,000 people were held in the camp between 1936 and 1945.
Since 2011, former concentration camp workers in Germany can be prosecuted for complicity or for being part of the Nazi killing machine. Prosecution on these grounds has been possible since camp guard John Demjanjuk was found guilty that year of complicity in the murder of prisoners at Sobibor extermination camp.