The oldest individual to have been found guilty of crimes during the Holocaust passed away at age 102. Josef Schütz was found guilty in June 2022 of helping in the murder of thousands of prisoners between 1942 and 1945 at Sachsenhausen near Berlin.
While he awaited the conclusion of an appeal to the Federal Court of Justice, he served the entirety of a five-year prison term without being locked up. Schütz had consistently denied working as an SS guard in the detention camp.
He was judged responsible for the 3,518 killings that took place. Additionally, he participated in the shooting of Soviet POWs and the use of Zyklon B gas to kill others.
During World War Two, tens of thousands of people perished at Sachsenhausen from malnutrition forced labour, medical experiments, and SS murder.
There were over 200,000 captives, including political detainees, Jews, Roma, and Sinti (Gipsies).
Throughout his trial, Schütz showed little remorse, saying to the German court, “I don’t know why I’m sitting here in the sin bin. In all honesty, I played no part in it.
He said he had not been at the camp and instead worked as a field labourer, despite the fact that his name and birth information had been located on paperwork belonging to an SS guard.
The judge at the time stated, “You willingly supported this mass extermination through your occupation.”
After a historic trial in 2011, in which former SS guard John Demjanjuk was found guilty, Germany has been attempting to prosecute former Nazi war criminals. The search for those who were still alive was sparked by the decision.
Oskar Gröning, the alleged “bookkeeper of Auschwitz,” was sentenced to four years in prison four years later. He passed away in 2018, and like Schütz, he never served a day in prison.
