Nazi camp guard: authorities push for trial

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December 4, 2024
2 min read

Nazi camp guard: authorities push for trial

Authorities in Germany are pushing to bring a former guard at a Nazi concentration camp to stand trial, nearly 80 years after the end of the Second World War. The higher regional court in Frankfurt said that it had overturned a decision from a lower court which found the suspect unfit to stand trial.

Gregor Formanek has been charged in 2023 with aiding and abetting murder in 3,322 cases while he worked at Sachsenhausen concentration camp near the German capital from July 1943 and February 1945.

Over 200,000 people, including Jews, Roma, opponents of the regime, and gay people were detained between 1936 and 1945. Tens of thousands of them died from forced labour, medical experiments, hunger, murder, or disease, before Soviet troops liberated the camp.

An expert in February however determined that Formanek was not fit to stand trial due to the 100-year-old’s physical and mental condition. The court in Hanau declined to open proceedings against him.

The court in Frankfurt however said that the expert’s decision was not based on “sufficient facts.”

“The expert himself stated that it was not possible to interview the defendant and that the opportunity for extensive psychiatric testing was not available,” it said.

Germany has recently been hoping to bring ay surviving Nazi war criminal to justice ever since the 2011 trial of John Demjanjuk who was convicted for being part of the nation’s wartime atrocities. In the years since, former camp workers have been found guilty of being accessories to murder in similar manners. But as time runs out, many of the accused have died or been unfit to stand trial.

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