Former Nazi SS member to face murder charge

A 92-year-old former member of the Nazi Waffen SS is going on trial in Germany on charges that he executed a Dutch resistance fighter in 1944.

Dutch-born German former SS officer Siert Bruins. Picture: Getty

Dutch-born Siert Bruins, who is now German, will appear in court in the western city of Hagen on a charge of murder after being found medically fit for the proceedings.

Bruins, who volunteered for the SS after the Nazis took the Netherlands in 1941, served a prison sentence in Germany in the 1980s after being found guilty over the wartime killing of two Dutch Jews.

His lawyer would not comment on the new charge that he killed resistance fighter Aldert Klaas Dijkema in September 1944.

Bruins is accused of executing Dijkema, then concocting a story with his now-dead accomplice that their prisoner had tried to escape.