Oskar Gröening, ex-Auschwitz guard, charged in 300K deaths

MAINZ, Germany, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- A 93-year-old former Nazi who served as an SS guard at Auschwitz during World War II has been charged as an accessory in 300,000 deaths.

Oksar Gröening was charged Monday in German court with helping operate the notorious Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland during May and June 1944, when 425,000 Hungarian Jews were brought there and at least 300,000 were immediately gassed.

Gröening is reportedly in good health and is one of a group of about 30 Auschwitz guards questioned as part of an investigation by German prosecutors that began last year. His case was opened on the recommendation of Nazi hunters, who presented findings to authorities in Hannover earlier this year.

"This case triggered intensive and historic research in the archives," said Hannover prosecutor Kathrin Soefker.

Gröening is said to have had the job of sorting the belongings of the camp's victims, collecting and tallying money that was found.

"He helped the Nazi regime benefit economically, and supported the systematic killings," prosecutors said.

Gröening is not in custody, and has denied taking part in any of the horrific crimes he witnessed.

"Accomplice would almost be too much for me," he told Der Spiegel in 2005. "I would describe my role as a 'small cog in the gears.' If you can describe that as guilt, then I am guilty, but not voluntarily. Legally speaking, I am innocent." Gröening's is the fourth case investigated by Hannover prosecutors, but the first likely headed for trial; two other suspects were deemed unfit for trial and one case was closed when the suspect died.

In 2011, U.S. autoworker John Demjanjuk was convicted of 28,060 counts of being an accessory to murder while working in a Nazi camp near Sobibór, Poland. He died in March 2012, and since his conviction was pending appeal, he remains presumed innocent under German law.