‘Accountant of Auschwitz’ on trial for 300k deaths

Former Nazi death camp officer Oskar Groening waits at court for the opening of his trial. Picture: AFP/Getty

As his trial opened, 93-year-old Oskar Groening acknowledged having helped to collect and tally money as part of his job dealing with belongings stolen from people arriving at the camp, earning him the nickname “the accountant of

Auschwitz”.

In his statement to judges, he concluded: “I share morally in the guilt but whether I am guilty under criminal law, you will have to decide.”

He faces 300,000 counts of accessory to murder over allegations that he helped the functioning of the Nazi death camp by serving as a guard between May and June 1944, when 425,000 Jews from Hungary were taken there and at least 300,000 were almost immediately gassed to death.

Groening does not deny serving as a guard but says he committed no crime.

He told reporters as he arrived at the court in Lueneburg, south of Hamburg, that he expects an acquittal.

Groening told the court he volunteered to join the SS in 1940 after training as a banker, and served at Auschwitz from 1942 to 1944. He said he unsuccessfully sought a transfer after witnessing one of the atrocities.

Infamous entrance to Auschwitz I. Picture: Contributed

“I share morally in the guilt but whether I am guilty under criminal law, you will have to decide,” Groening told the panel of judges hearing the case as he closed an hour-long statement to the court. Under the German legal system, defendants do not enter formal pleas.

He could face a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison if found guilty.

“Through his job, the defendant supported the machinery of death,” prosecutor Jens Lehmann said.

In his statement, Groening recalled that he and a group of recruits were told by an SS major before going to Auschwitz that they would “perform a duty that will clearly not be pleasant, but one necessary to achieve final victory”.

He said the major gave no details, but other SS men told Groening that Jews at Auschwitz were being selected for work and those who could not work were being killed.

He described the arrival of transports of Jewish prisoners in detail, and recalled an incident in late 1942 when another SS man smashed a baby against a truck, “and his crying stopped”.

He said he was “shocked” and the following day asked a lieutenant for a transfer, which was not granted.

Groening, who entered the court with a walking frame, appeared lucid as he gave his statement, pausing occasionally to cough or drink water. It is unclear how long the trial will last; court sessions have been scheduled through the end of July.

The trial is the first to test a new line of German legal rulings that have given rise to an 11th-hour wave of investigations of Nazi war crimes suspects.