A 96-year-old German charged with crimes during World War II is too old for trial, the judge finds. There is a good chance that he would have been found guilty of having to pay the legal costs himself.
Harry S. was charged in 2017 for his role in the atrocities at Camp Stutthof in Poland, the first concentration camp set up outside Germany by the Nazis. In the course of the war, some 60,000 people died there from hardship, beatings and executions.
As overseer, S. would have been directly involved in transports to Auschwitz. That is why he was charged with the murder of 600 prisoners.
Very elderly suspects
In recent years, Germany has indicted a handful of elderly SS employees for their role in the Holocaust. In the years immediately after the war, suspects were only prosecuted if there was evidence that they themselves had actually murdered or assaulted people, but nowadays complicity in the destruction machine is enough to bring charges.
Earlier this year there was still a 95-year-old secretary charged for her role in the functioning of Stutthof. Last year, a 93-year-old former SS man a suspended prison sentence for his role in the deaths of more than 5,000 victims.
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