A 101-year-old man who worked as a guard at a concentration camp in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust claims his innocence in court.
Josef Schütz is on trial accused of taking part in the murders of 3,518 people at the Sachsenhausen camp, located north of Berlin, between 1942 and 1945.
He did so with full knowledge of what was going on, according to the prosecutors, who are demanding five years in prison. He himself says that he did not know anything about the crimes committed in the camp.
“I do not know why I am here,” Schütz said on the last day of the trial, in a swaying voice.
His defense attorney points out that there are no photos of Schütz in SS uniform, or any witnesses left who can tell how it was.
In addition to the personal claim for responsibility, it is stated that new evidence was presented at the trial which shows that Sachsenhausen was an experimental camp, where cruel methods were tried for later use in other camps.