BERLIN — A German court has determined that a 93-year-old man who served as an SS sergeant at the Auschwitz death camp is fit to stand trial on charges of accessory to the murder of at least 170,000 people during his tenure there, as the country presses on with efforts to bring Nazis to justice for their role in the Holocaust.
The Detmold state court on Monday gave defense lawyers and state prosecutors two weeks to respond to a doctor's finding that the former guard, Reinhold H., whose full name was not released for reasons of privacy, is physically and psychologically healthy enough to withstand trial sessions of up to two hours. A court will then rule on whether to open a trial against him.
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Germany has moved in recent years to bring aging guards to trial as part of efforts to atone for World War II-era crimes. In July, a court in Luneburg found another former SS soldier, Oskar Groening, 94, guilty of complicity in the murder of 300,000 Hungarian Jews during his time at Auschwitz.