The defendant worked in the Nazi concentration camp of Sachsenhausen, near the capital, between 1942 and 1945, and “consciously supported mass extermination” in the performance of his duties, sentenced the Udo Lechtermann, according to the local press.

The defense demanded the acquittal of the accused and appealed to the Supreme Court under the criterion that working as a guard in a concentration camp is not sufficient reason for a conviction.

Some 200,000 prisoners were interned at Sachsenhausen between 1936 and 1945.

According to historians, tens of thousands died of starvation, disease, forced labor, medical experiments and ill-treatment, victims of the SS’s systematic extermination actions. pgh/llp/mem/ehl