101-year-old former Nazi guard sentenced to 5 years in prison for role at camp

The former Nazi guard in court.
(Image credit: Adam Berry/AFP via Getty Images)

A 101-year-old man who once served as a Nazi concentration camp guard was sentenced to five years in prison on Tuesday, after being charged with "knowingly and willfully" aiding and abetting the killing of prisoners at the Sachsenhausen camp between January 1942 and February 1945.

It's estimated that 100,000 prisoners were killed at Sachsenhausen, north of Berlin. The Neuruppin Regional Court found that the man, whose name was not released due to German privacy laws, was an accessory to the murder of 3,518 people during his time guarding the camp. This is likely one of the last trials of its kind, as most former Nazi guards are deceased.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.