Germany Investigates 105-Year-Old Former Nazi Guard for Complicity in POW Murders
Prosecutors are examining the alleged role of an ex-guard at the notorious Stalag 326 VI K Senne camp, where thousands of Allied prisoners of war died.
German prosecutors have opened an investigation into a 105-year-old former Nazi-era prison camp guard for alleged complicity in the mass murder of Allied prisoners of war. The investigation focuses on the man's alleged role at the Stalag 326 VI K Senne camp in western Germany, a facility that saw more than 300,000 prisoners pass through its gates.
Prosecutors suspect the former Wehrmacht soldier of "complicity in multiple murders through his guard duties in Senne." The camp, located about 13 miles southeast of Bielefeld in North Rhine-Westphalia, was known for its appalling conditions, including starvation, disease, beatings, and forced labor. Estimates suggest that between 15,000 and 70,000 prisoners died at Stalag 326. The majority of those imprisoned were captured Soviet troops, though French, Polish, Serbian, Italian, and Belgian servicemen were also held there.
US troops liberated the camp on April 2, 1945, shortly before Nazi Germany's surrender and the end of the war in Europe. Despite the passage of over 81 years, German authorities continue to pursue individuals suspected of involvement in Nazi crimes.
The investigation was initiated after Germany's Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in Ludwigsburg referred the case to prosecutors in Dortmund in February. A second former guard from Stalag 326 had also been investigated but has since died. Michael Otte, deputy head of the Ludwigsburg authority, confirmed to the Bild newspaper that the suspect is 105 years old, potentially making him one of the oldest criminal suspects ever investigated by German prosecutors.
While the man's extreme age does not automatically preclude prosecution, any trial would hinge on his medical fitness to participate. In Germany, murder and complicity in murder carry no statute of limitations. Dortmund prosecutors are also independently investigating another former Wehrmacht guard, who was 100 years old when an inquiry began into his alleged role at a prisoner-of-war camp in Hemer.
Germany has a history of prosecuting elderly suspects decades after the Holocaust. In December 2022, Irmgard Furchner, a 97-year-old former secretary at the Stutthof concentration camp, was convicted of complicity in 10,505 murders and five attempted murders. She received a two-year suspended juvenile sentence, as she was between 18 and 19 years old at the time the crimes were committed.