Source : Perth Now news
Prosecutors in the German city of Dortmund are investigating a 105-year-old man suspected of having served as a guard at a prisoner-of-war camp during World War II.
The investigation concerns suspected accessory to murder on multiple counts, a spokeswoman for the authority said on Friday.
The man is alleged to have been deployed at Stalag 326 prisoner-of-war camp in Stukenbrock-Senne near Bielefeld.
The Wehrmacht camp on the edge of the Teutoburg Forest served primarily to receive Soviet prisoners of war, who were then redistributed for forced labour.
The prisoners suffered from hunger, disease and catastrophic living conditions.
Tens of thousands died.
According to historians, more than 300,000 prisoners of war passed through the camp in total between 1941 and 1945.
A memorial at the site today commemorates the victims.
The investigation was initiated by the Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in Ludwigsburg, which collects and examines evidence of Nazi crimes and prepares investigations against suspected perpetrators.
The case was passed to the Dortmund public prosecutor’s office in March, which opened a formal investigation, the spokeswoman said.
The Dortmund public prosecutor’s office serves as the central office for the prosecution of Nazi crimes across the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
German authorities continue to pursue cases against elderly suspects who worked at concentration camps or other facilities during the Nazi era.
Courts have ruled that service at such a facility can, under certain circumstances, constitute accessory to murder if an individual knowingly and willingly supported systematic killings.
There is no statute of limitations for murder or accessory to murder under German law, meaning investigations and trials over Nazi-era crimes remain possible more than 80 years after the end of World War II.
