germany:-ex-ss-guard-tells-stutthof-murder-trial-‘i-want-to-forget’

Germany: Ex-SS guard tells Stutthof murder trial ‘I want to forget’

Bruno Dey in court behind perspex screen, 20 May 20Image copyright
AFP

Image caption

Under coronavirus rules Bruno Dey sat behind a perspex screen and wore a face mask

A 93-year-old former Nazi SS guard has told a German court that he “wants to forget” his time at Stutthof death camp and has denied guilt for the crimes committed there.

“I want to forget and not go over that again,” Bruno Dey said when asked if he had told his grandchildren about it.

He is charged with assisting in the murder of 5,230 people at the camp near Gdansk (Danzig) in occupied Poland.

He allegedly assisted the “deceitful, cruel murder” of Jews in the Holocaust.

According to the indictment, those murders took place between August 1944 and April 1945.

“I didn’t contribute anything to it, other than standing guard. But I was forced to do it, it was an order,” he told the Hamburg court on Wednesday.

He is being tried in a juvenile court because he was aged about 17 at the time.

Image copyright
AFP

Image caption

Bruno Dey gave the court an account of his Nazi service

At the trial in January a historian testified that Mr Dey was sent to the camp initially as a Wehrmacht soldier and did not join the SS until September 1944. So, it is argued, he could have asked for a transfer to another unit before becoming part of the SS mass murder machine.

It is expected to be one of the last trials of alleged Nazi war criminals, as both survivors and perpetrators are now very old, and in some cases their memories are failing.

A defence lawyer for Bruno Dey, Stefan Waterkamp, has requested that a psychiatrist examine the defendant’s mental recall.

In line with current coronavirus hygiene rules, Bruno Dey and those present in court wore face masks.

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