The 93-year-old has rejected any guilt throughout the trial, but admitted knowing about the gas chambers in the Stutthof concentration camp. Prosecutors said that he choose to "look away" instead of leaving his post.
Image: picture alliance/AP Images/C. Sokolowski
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Prosecutors presented their closing arguments on Monday in the trial of former Nazi concentration camp guard Bruno D, asking for a three-year prison term at the Hamburg court.
The defendant "provided the very definition of accessory to murder," said prosecutor Lars Mahnke.
The 93-year-old is accused of being complicit in the murder of more than 5,000 people at the Stutthof camp during World War II. According to the prosecutor, the former SS guard knew of the crimes committed in the camp, but choose to "look away." He did not take the option of climbing down from the tower, giving up his weapon and saying "I can't do this anymore," Mahnke added.
"When you are a part of a mass-murder machinery, it is not enough to look away," the prosecutor said.
Defendant rejects 'any guilt'
The defenders of Bruno D. said the accused has been a law-abiding citizen since the end of the war, and that he would never have been connected to the crimes had it not been for the broader crimes of the Nazi regime. More than 60,000 people, including Jews, political prisoners, and homosexuals, were killed in the camp near what is now Gdansk, Poland.
During the trial, the former guard argued that he was assigned to the camp because a heart condition prevented him from serving on the front line, and that he never subscribed to the Nazi ideology.
"I don't bear any guilt for what happened back then," D. told Judge Anna Meier-Goering last year at the Hamburg tribunal. "I didn't contribute anything to it, other than standing guard. But I was forced to do it, it was an order."
Bruno D. was 17 and 18 while serving in the Stutthof camp. Despite his now-advanced age, he is facing a juvenile court.
Jewish composers who died during the Holocaust but whose music lives on
Amit Weiner's project "Music in Times of Tragedy" revives the oeuvre of the Jewish composers who were murdered by the Nazis but who created timeless music that has survived.
Image: Yad Vashem
Erwin Schulhoff
Born in Prague in 1894, Erwin Schulhoff was a protege of Antonin Dvorak. "He saw in Schulhoff the next big promise of the European musical scene," said Amit Weiner, who founded the project "Music in Times of Tragedy." His music combined many avant-garde styles with jazz." Schulhoff was a professor of music in Prague before he was murdered in 1942 in a concentration camp.
Image: Yad Vashem
Gideon Klein
The youngest Jewish composer murdered during the Holocaust, Gideon Klein was only 26 when he perished in the Fürstengrube sub-camp near Auschwitz. His oeuvre fuses Jewish themes with modern composition techniques. In 1940, he was offered a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music in London. "This could have saved his life, but he was not allowed to travel from Prague," explained Weiner.
Image: Yad Vashem
Hans Krasa
"I find it very interesting that Krasa's music is always so happy and optimistic. Even the music he wrote in Theresienstadt is very lively," said Weiner about the Czech composer and author of the children's opera "Brundibar," who died in 1944 in Auschwitz. "Even in such dark times and horrible conditions, he saw hope and was optimistic about the future."
Image: Yad Vashem
Ilse Weber
The Czech poet had published several books of fairy tales in German before being transported to Theresienstadt in 1942. Weber started writing songs when she worked in the camp's children's hospital, and her music survived only thanks to her husband Willi, who discovered her songs after the war. Ilse and their son, Tommy, were murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.
Image: Yad Vashem
Mordechai Gebirtig
"He was not a professional musician — in fact, he was a carpenter who did not even know how to read notes. All the songs he composed were written down by his friend, a clockmaker," said Weiner about Gebertig, who, despite being just an avid amateur, remains one of the most popular singer-songwriters in Israel. The Polish composer died in the Cracow ghetto in 1942.
Image: Yad Vashem
Pavel Haas
Prior to his deportation to Theresienstadt, Pavel Haas had written film scores and orchestrations but also destroyed much of his work. "He was very depressed at first, but composers such as Klein or Krasa encouraged him to keep on writing," said Weiner. Paradoxically, the work he created in Theresienstadt surpassed what he had done before the war. He was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.
Image: Yad Vashem
Viktor Ullmann
"If he hadn't been imprisoned and later murdered in Auschwitz in 1944, I am sure he would have become one of the most important musical forces of the 20th century," said Weiner about the Austrian Jewish composer who had been appointed conductor of the Prague State Opera before the war. The three years he spent in Theresienestadt were paradoxically the most prolific years of his career.
Image: Yad Vashem
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Prosecutors argued that his involvement was crucial to the killings because his time in the SS coincided with the "Final Solution" order to systematically exterminate Jews. If convicted, he faces a sentence of a minimum six months and a maximum of 10 years. A verdict is expected later this month.
Race against time
The Nazis set up the Stutthof camp in 1939, initially using it to detain Polish political prisoners.
But it ended up holding 110,000 detainees, including many Jews. Some 65,000 people perished in the camp.
Germany has been focusing on cases against concentration camp suspects in recent years. However court proceedings are difficult to execute due to the advancing age of the suspects.
Another case was dropped because the accused 97-year-old was too ill to appear before the court.
Johannes R. pleads not guilty
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kw/rc (AFP, epd)
Editor's note: Deutsche Welle follows the German press code, which stresses the importance of protecting the privacy of suspected criminals or victims and urges us to refrain from revealing full names in such cases.
