Unable to stand trial: 99-year-old ex-Wehrmacht soldier will not appear in court

A suspected guard at a Wehrmacht prisoner of war camp does not appear in court in Berlin. The 99-year-old was “permanently unable to stand trial for health reasons,” said the Berlin Regional Court on Friday.

The Berlin public prosecutor had accused the man of aiding and abetting atrocious murder in at least 809 cases. As a young man, he is said to have been deployed from the end of November 1942 to March 20, 1943 in the Vladimir-Wolynsk camp in what is now western Ukraine, where Soviet soldiers were held under inhumane conditions. Many prisoners starved to death or died of disease.

According to the public prosecutor’s office, the accused, as a member of a state rifle battalion of the Wehrmacht, was responsible for guarding the prisoners of war housed there, among other things. He was also said to have worked as a private in the camp’s internal administration. He had a dedicated insight into what was happening in the camp. He was also aware that through his activities he “supported the smooth running of the ordered mass extermination,” according to the prosecutor’s charge in the May 5, 2022 indictment.

In mid-August, the district court said that the public prosecutor’s office had commissioned follow-up investigations. A court spokeswoman said that due to the age of the accused, the public prosecutor’s office had obtained an expert opinion on the question of his ability to stand trial. An expert had come to the conclusion that the now 99-year-old was not fit to stand trial and that no improvement was to be expected. The court “followed these statements in full,” it said.

A youth chamber of the district court was responsible for the case because the accused was under 21 at the time of the crime. According to today’s criminal law, he is therefore considered an adolescent. Prosecutors have yet to comment on the decision. It’s still too early for that, a spokeswoman said.

Following the 2011 conviction of security guard John Demjanjuk for aiding and abetting thousands of murders, lower-ranking security guards are also being prosecuted. According to this changed legal practice, simple guard duty in a concentration camp in which people were systematically murdered is considered an accessory to murder. At the end of June, a former guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Brandenburg was sentenced to five years in prison for aiding and abetting the murder of thousands of prisoners. The judgment is not final.

Broadcast: rbb24 Inforadio, November 4th, 2022, 1:00 p.m