BERLIN (AP) – German prosecutors on Tuesday sought a 3½-year prison sentence for a 94-year-old former SS sergeant who served at the Auschwitz death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, saying his role there made him an accessory to murder.
Oskar Groening has admitted guarding prisoners’ baggage after they were unloaded from cattle cars onto the camp’s ramps, and collecting and counting money stolen from the new arrivals and sending it to Berlin.
Prosecutors told the Lueneburg state court in their closing arguments that his role helped the camp function, and he should be convicted of 300,000 counts of accessory to murder for those killed while he was there.
If convicted, the possible punishment ranges between 3 and 15 years in prison.
Court spokeswoman Frauke Albers said that because Groening was previously investigated in the 1970s but authorities then shelved the case, prosecutors also recommended that he have between 14 and 22 months deducted from his sentence because he wasn’t granted a speedy trial.