Former Nazi SS Guard Goes on Trial at Age 93 for 5,230 Counts of Accessory to Murder
HAMBURG, Germany) — From his post as a teenage SS private in a watchtower in Nazi Germany’s Stutthof concentration camp, Bruno Dey could hear the screams of Jews dying in the gas chamber. And, Dey later told investigators, the carting of their lifeless bodies to the camp’s crematorium was a daily sight.
More than seven decades later, Dey went on trial Thursday on 5,230 counts of accessory to murder in Hamburg state court. Pushed into the courtroom in a wheelchair, accompanied by one of his daughters, the 93-year-old wore a wide-brimmed hat and held a red folder in front of his face to shield it from the cameras.
After they had gone, he dropped the cover to reveal a full head of neatly combed white hair and a mustache. He answered basic questions from Presiding Judge Anne Meier-Goering, such as his date and place of birth.
As prosecutor Lars Mahnke then detailed how Jews were gassed, shot and starved to death as part of the “systematic killing” in the camp where he stood guard 75 years ago, he showed little expression but appeared to be listening attentively.
