Senne landscape in autumn
Credit: Nikater, Own work
[CC BY-SA 3.0]

The investigation centres on Stalag 326 VI K in western Germany, where between 180,000 and 200,000 Soviet prisoners were held between 1941 and April 1945.

“The 105-year-old suspect is thought to have been a guard at the prisoner of war camp Stalag 326 VI K in the Senne region of western Germany,” prosecutors said. The man is “accused of being an accessory to multiple murders owing to his activities there”.

The investigation was referred to Dortmund prosecutors by Germany’s Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes.

The case follows a series of prosecutions of elderly former Nazi camp personnel, following the 2011 conviction of former Sobibór guard John Demjanjuk as an accessory to the murder of more than 28,000 Jews.

Recent cases have included former Sachsenhausen guard Josef Schütz, who was sentenced to five years in 2022 and died the following year aged 102, and Irmgard Furchner, a former secretary at Stutthof who received a two-year suspended sentence for complicity in murder.

Dortmund prosecutors also opened an investigation last year into a 100-year-old former guard at a PoW camp in Hemer, who is suspected of involvement in prisoner executions between December 1943 and September 1944.

If the latest case proceeds to trial, it could provide further evidence about the treatment of Soviet prisoners in the German camp system. Up to 5.7 million Soviet prisoners were held in Germany, with more than half dying in captivity.