Former concentration camp guard convicted in Germany

A German court has convicted a 93-year-old former SS private of being an accessory to murder at the Stutthof concentration camp, where he served as a guard in the final months of World War Two.

Bruno Dey was given a two-year suspended sentence by the Hamburg state court, news agency dpa reported.

He was convicted of 5,232 counts of accessory to murder, equal to the number of people believed to have been killed at Stutthof during his service there in 1944 and 1945, and one count of accessory to attempted murder.

Because he was only 17, and later 18, at the time of his alleged crimes, Dey’s case was heard in juvenile court.

Prosecutors had called for a three-year sentence and the defence for an acquittal.

“How could you get used to the horror?” presiding judge Anne Meier-Goering asked as she announced the verdict.

The trial opened in October, and in deference to Dey’s age, court sessions were limited to two, two-hour sessions a week.

Additional precautions also were taken to keep the case going through the height of the coronavirus pandemic.