Sachsenhausen
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A 101-year old former Nazi death camp guard may get five years in jail after becoming the oldest person charged in Germany with war crimes from the Holocaust.

Prosecutors are asking that Josef Schütz, who pleaded not guilty, be given a five-year prison sentence, The Guardian reported.

In August, Schütz was charged by a Neuruppin district court with accessory to murder in 3,518 cases stemming from his time as a concentration camp guard at Sachsenhausen camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, between 1942 and 1945..

Prosecutors said on Tuesday that the centenarian “knowingly and willingly” partook in the killings at the concentration camp when he was a guard.

During the time he worked at Sachsenhausen from 1942 to 1945, 200,000 people were imprisoned and 20,000 murdered, including Jews, Roma, prisoners of war and opponents of the Nazis. Many died from slave labor, medical experiments and disease.

During cross-examination, Schütz claimed he had no knowledge of what was happening at the camp, and replied that he had done “absolutely nothing.”

The charges against him include being involved in aiding the “execution by firing squad of Soviet prisoners of war in 1942” and the killing of inmates “using the poisonous gas Zyklon B.”

While the prosecution is calling for a five-year sentence, given his advanced age he will reportedly most likely not serve any jail time.

The trial began in 2021, but had to be delayed several times because of Schütz’s health.