Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Former SS Guard, 94, Will Go On Trial Over Deaths Of Prisoners At Stutthof Camp

(JTA) — A former SS guard, now 94, will go on trial on charges of complicity in the mass murders of several hundred prisoners at the Stutthof Nazi concentration camp.

The regional court of Muenster in western Germany on Friday ordered the unnamed man to be tried before a juvenile court beginning on November 6. He was not yet 21 at the time of the murders.

He is accused of complicity in the murders of several hundred camp prisoners between 1942 and 1945.

This includes more than 100 Polish prisoners gassed to death on June 21 and 22, 1944, and “probably several hundred” Jewish prisoners August to December 1944, the French news agency AFP reported.

Prosecutors say that the man knew about the murders at the Nazi camp the camp and that the guards were essential to the killings.

He must still be determined to be fit to stand trial, according to the report.

The 2011 conviction in Munich of former concentration camp guard John Demjanjuk as an accomplice in the murders of nearly 30,000 Jews in the Sobibor death camp in Poland set a precedent in that being a guard at a death camp was sufficient to prove complicity in murder.

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

A message from our editor-in-chief Jodi Rudoren

We're building on 127 years of independent journalism to help you develop deeper connections to what it means to be Jewish today.

With so much at stake for the Jewish people right now — war, rising antisemitism, a high-stakes U.S. presidential election — American Jews depend on the Forward's perspective, integrity and courage.

—  Jodi Rudoren, Editor-in-Chief 

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.