Reporting from DETMOLD, Germany — A 94-year-old former SS sergeant who served as a guard at Auschwitz has been found guilty of more than 170,000 counts of being an accessory to murder for helping kill 1.1 million Jews and others at the Nazi death camp.
The Detmold state court sentenced Reinhold Hanning to five years in prison, though he will remain free while any appeals are heard.
Hanning showed no reaction as the judge, Anke Grudda, read her justification for the verdict and sentence. During his four-month trial, Hanning admitted serving as an Auschwitz guard. He said he was ashamed that he was aware Jews were being killed but did nothing to try to stop it.
“You were in Auschwitz for two and a half years, performed an important function. ... You were part of a criminal organization and took part in criminal activity in Auschwitz,” she said.
Several elderly Auschwitz survivors testified at the trial about their own experiences, and were among 58 survivors or their families who joined the process as co-plaintiffs as allowed under German law.
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Delegations and survivors make their way to lay candles at the Birkenau Memorial during the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in Oswiecim, Poland, on Tuesday. (Christopher Furlong / Getty Images)
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German President Joachim Gauck, left, puts a candle on a memorial for Auschwitz victims. (Janek Skarzynki / AFP/Getty Images)
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A giant screen displays a picture of a Holocaust survivor as survivors and dignitaries sit in a tent erected in front of the entrance of the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau during the main ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp on January 27, 2015 in Oswiecim, Poland. (ODD ANDERSEN / AFP/Getty Images)
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Auschwitz survivor Michal Habas, left, attends the main remembrence of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. (JACEK BEDNARCZYK / EPA)
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Auschwitz survivor Miroslaw Celka walks out the gate with the sign saying “Work makes you free” after paying tribute to fallen comrades at the “death wall” execution spot in the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Oswiecim, Poland. (ODD ANDERSEN / AFP/Getty Images)
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A watch tower stands along a barbed wire fence at the site of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp in Oswiecim, Poland. (ODD ANDERSEN / AFP/Getty Images)
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The gate to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp still stands with the words “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work makes you free”) in Oswiecim, Poland. (Joel Saget / AFP/Getty Images)
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A barbed wire fence surrounds the former Nazi concentration camp in Oswiecim, Poland. Events will be held to mark the 70th anniversary of its liberation. (Sean Gallup / Getty Images)
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A watchtower still stands at the site of the former Nazi death camp, which was liberated by the Soviet army on Jan. 27, 1945. (Joel Saget / AFP/Getty Images)
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At the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, a photograph taken clandestinely by a prisoner in summer 1944 shows the bodies of prisoners being burned next to crematorium V. (Joel Saget / AFP/Getty Images)
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Visitors walk between detention buildings at Auschwitz. A decade ago, 1,500 Holocaust survivors traveled to the death camp to mark the 60th anniversary of its liberation. This year, organizers expect 300 survivors to attend, the youngest in their 70s. (Alik Keplicz / Associated Press)
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Visitors walk between barbed wire fences at the Nazi death camp in Oswiecim, Poland. The aged sign warns of an electrified fence. (Alik Keplicz / Associated Press)
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Holocaust survivor Mordechai Ronen is overcome as he arrives at the former concentration camp in Poland. Ronen, who now lives in the U.S., was 11 when he was sent to the camp; his mother and sister died there. (Odd Andersen / AFP/Getty Images)
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Holocaust survivors pray upon arriving at Auschwitz for commemoration ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. (Czarek Sokolowski / Associated Press)
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Johnny Pekats, who arrived as a prisoner at Auschwitz when he was 14, walks through the former Auschwitz I concentration camp. Pekats later moved to New York and became a barber. (Sean Gallup / Getty Images)
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Jack Rosenthal points to the identification numbers the Nazis tattooed on his arm. Rosenthal, who was born in Romania and imprisoned at age 14 in Auschwitz and other concentration camps, returned to Auschwitz for the 70th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. (Sean Gallup / Getty Images)
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Rose Schindler, 85, who was imprisoned at Auschwitz-Birkenau, and her husband, Max, who was held in the nearby Plaszow camp, show their tattoos. The two met as refugees in Britain after the war. (Sean Gallup / Getty Images)
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Igor Malitski, who was imprisoned at the Auschwitz complex, speaks to journalists. (Sean Gallup / Getty Images)
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Ukrainian Holocaust survivor Igor Malitski walks past a photo in one of the old camp barracks, at Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Oswiecim, Poland. (Odd Andersen / AFP/Getty Images)
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Miriam Ziegler, 79, holds out her tattooed arm just as she did when she was photographed with other children at Auschwitz when she was 9 years old. She is second from left in the photograph. (Ian Gavan / Getty Images)
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Miriam Ziegler, 79, left, Paula Lebovics, 81, Gabor Hirsch, 85, and Eva Kor, 80, pose on Jan. 26 with an image of them as children taken at Auschwitz at the time of its liberation in 1945. (Ian Gavan / Getty Images)
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A visitor walks past a display of prisoners’ shoes at the memorial and museum now on the site of the former Auschwitz complex. (Janek Skarzynski / AFP/Getty Images)
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Shoes of children imprisoned are displayed in an exhibit at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. Well over a million people were killed at the concentration camp complex. (Sean Gallup / Getty Images)
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Suitcases confiscated from Auschwitz prisoners lie in an exhibition display at the former concentration camp. (Sean Gallup / Getty Images)
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Guard towers and barbed wire fences stand at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau complex. (Sean Gallup / Getty Images)
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Leon Schwarzbaum, a 95-year-old Auschwitz survivor from Berlin, said he does not want Hanning to go to prison and is happy that he apologized, but had hoped that he would provide more details about his time in Auschwitz for the sake of educating younger generations.
“It is a just verdict, but he should say more, tell the truth for the young people,” Schwarzbaum said.
“He is an old man and probably won’t have to go to jail, but he should say what happened at Auschwitz. Auschwitz was like something the world has never seen.”
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Hanning had faced a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. His defense attorneys had called for an acquittal, saying there is no evidence he killed or beat anyone; prosecutors sought a six-year sentence.
Hanning said during his trial that he volunteered for the SS at age 18 and served in Auschwitz from January 1942 to June 1944. But he maintained that he was not involved in the killings in the camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
I am ashamed that I saw injustice and never did anything about it, and I apologize for my actions.
— Reinhold Hanning, former Auschwitz guard
“It disturbs me deeply that I was part of such a criminal organization,” he told the court in April. “I am ashamed that I saw injustice and never did anything about it, and I apologize for my actions.”
Despite his age, Hanning has seemed alert during the four-month trial, paying attention to testimony and occasionally walking into the courtroom on his own, though usually using a wheelchair.
Hanning joined the Hitler Youth with his class in 1935 at age 13. He said he volunteered for the Waffen SS in 1940 at the urging of his stepmother. He fought in several battles in World War II before being hit by grenade splinters in his head and leg during close combat in Kiev in 1941.
He told the court that as he was recovering from his wounds he asked to be sent back into combat but his commander decided he was no longer fit for front-line duty, so he was sent to Auschwitz, without his knowing what it was.
Though there is no evidence Hanning was responsible for a specific crime, he was tried under new legal reasoning that as a guard he helped the death camp operate, and thus could be tried as being accessory to murder. The indictment against Hanning is focused on a period between January 1943 and June 1944 for legal reasons, but the court has said it would consider the full time he served there.
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A man enters the Sachsenhausen Nazi death camp through the gate with the phrase “Arbeit macht frei” (“work sets you free”) in Oranienburg, Germany. International Holocaust Remembrance Day marks the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp on Jan. 27, 1945.
(Markus Schreiber / Associated Press)
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A group of visitors gather inside the Holocaust Memorial on International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Berlin.
(Markus Schreiber / Associated Press)
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Soldiers hold a wreath at the former Auschwitz Nazi death camp in Oswiecim, Poland.
(Czarek Sokolowski / Associated Press)
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Holocaust survivors walk with others through the main gate of the former Auschwitz Nazi death camp in Oswiecim, Poland, on the 71st anniversary of the death camp’s liberation by the Soviet Red Army in 1945.
(Czarek Sokolowski / Associated Press)
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Visitors stand next to a ramp at the former Nazi German concentration camp KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau during a ceremony in Oswiecim, Poland.
(Czarek Sokolowski / Associated Press)
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Former Nazi German concentration and death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. (Andrzej Grygiel / EPA)
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Visitors look at photographs of the “March of the Living” exhibition, part of the ceremonies marking the 71st anniversary of the liberation of the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
(Andrzej Grygiel / EPA)
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Inmates of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp stand behind barbed wire in this photograph taken by the Soviets.
(Yad Vashem / AFP / Getty Images)
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Russian liberators march German uniformed prisoners past mass graves at the Auschwitz concentration camp during the 1945 liberation.
(Yad Vashem / Associated Press)
The same reasoning being used in Hanning’s case was used successfully last year against former SS sergeant Oskar Groening to convict him of 300,000 counts of being an accessory to murder for serving in Auschwitz. Germany’s highest appeals court is expected to rule on the validity of the Groening verdict sometime this summer.
Groening, 95, was sentenced to four years in prison but will remain free while his case goes through the lengthy appeals process, and he is unlikely to spend any time behind bars, given his age.
The precedent for the Groening and Hanning cases was set in 2011, with the conviction in Munich of former Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk on allegations he served as a Sobibor death camp guard. Although Demjanjuk always denied serving at the death camp and died before his appeal could be heard, it opened a wave of new investigations by the special prosecutor’s office in Ludwigsburg responsible for Nazi war crime probes.
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The head of the office, Jens Rommel, said two other Auschwitz cases from that renewed effort are still pending trial — another guard and also the commandant’s radio operator, contingent on the defendants’ health, which is currently being assessed — and a third is still being investigated by Frankfurt prosecutors.
Rommel’s office, which has no power to bring charges itself, has also recommended charges in three Majdanek death camp cases, and has sent them on to prosecutors, who are now investigating.
Meantime, the office is still poring through documents for both death camps, and is also looking into former members of the so-called Einsatzgruppen mobile death squads, and guards at several concentration camps.
Rommel said even though every trial is widely dubbed “the last” by the media, his office still plans on giving more cases to prosecutors, and politicians have pledged to keep his office open until 2025.
“That seems to me to be the outside boundary,” said Rommel, who’s not related to the famous German general of the same surname. “If the cases will make it to trial, that’s hard to say. You can’t really look into the future — but we have the mandate to keep investigating as long as there’s still the possibility of finding someone.”