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Defendant Johann Rehbogen appears at the regional court in Muenster, Germany, on Tuesday. Getty Images says his face has been pixelated in accordance with short orders.
Friedemann Vogel / Getty Images
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Friedemann Vogel / Getty Images
Defendant Johann Rehbogen appears at the regional court in Muenster, Germany, on Tuesday. Getty Images says his face has been pixelated in accordance with short orders.
Friedemann Vogel / Getty Images
A 94-year-old train SS guards went to trial in a juvenile court for alleged complicity in the mass murder of a Nazi concentration camp more than 70 years ago.
Johann Rehbogen is one of the most influential writers at the Stutthof Camp just east of the Gdansk, Poland, in the early 1940s. "NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports from Berlin.
Because Rehbogen was under 21 at the time of his alleged crimes, he was being tried at a juvenile court in Muenster, Germany. The defendant was brought to the courtroom in a wheelchair, and because of his health, the trial is being limited to two hours a day.
Rehbogen was tracked down to a concentration camp paper trail, using documents such as "to deduce those persons who worked as guards," Daniel Stenner, spokesman for the court, told Deutsche Welle.
Jens Rommel of Germany's Central Office for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes, told the broadcaster that it's no longer necessary to link to the Nazi directly to individual murders.
"The charges assume that they are supported by a concentration camp by being part of the personal camp," Rommel said. This increased latitude for prosecutors is intended to provide a measure of responsibility.
The indictment against Rehbogen details the atrocities at Stutthof, according to Deutsche Welle:
"Several hundred prisoners who were not able to get to grips with the back of the neck while they were receiving a medical examination. Silenced pistol was mounted in the next room.
"SS doctors and paramedics also murdered prisoners in the sick bays, including many Jewish women and children, 'by injecting gasoline and phenol directly into their hearts.' "
Some 65,000 people died at the concentration camp, according to the International School for Holocaust Studies.
If convicted, Rehbogen could face a 15-year prison sentence, though it is unlikely to serve that time because of his advanced age, Sarhaddi Nelson reports.
Rommel, who has been referred to the lead "Nazi hunter," says prosecuting accused Nazis is becoming increasingly challenging.
"The crimes were committed 70 years ago," Rommel told Deutsche Welle. "Overall, it has been said that the two suspects have been brought to justice, that many perpetrators have been punished too much and that many trials have come too late."
