Ex-prison guard, 99, could be last surviving Nazi to stand trial over Holocaust

26 September 2023 , 18:55

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99-year old Gregor Formanek could be the last surviving Nazi to stand trial for Holocaust crimes (Image: Newsflash)

A 99-year old former prison camp guard could be the last surviving Nazi to stand trial for Holocaust crimes after he was charged with being an accessory to murder during World War II.

Charges were brought against Gregor Formanek after the Giessen Public Prosecutor's Office officially linked him to the deaths of more than 3,300 people between July 1943 and February 1945. Local media revealed Frankfurt resident and former SS guard, Formanek, was born in Romania as the son of a German-speaking tailor. He served in the Sachsenhausen Guard Battalion, at the Sachsenhausen Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany.

Established in 1936, the camp mainly held political prisoners throughout the war including the highly prominent son of Joseph Stalin, Yakov Dzhugashvili. The facility was a training ground for Hitler's mass extermination horrors before closed in April 1945, shortly before the Allies defeated Nazi Germany. It is believed that more than 100,000 prisoners perished at the site.

Formanek has been officially linked to 3,300 deaths at Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp (Newsflash)

Giessen Public Prosecutor's Office spokesperson, Thomas Hauburger, said: "He [Formanek] is accused of aiding and abetting murder in over 3,300 cases between July 1943 and February 1945." Prosecutors, meanwhile, claimed the ex-guard "supported the cruel and treacherous killing of thousands of prisoners" over a two-year period. A document by the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) added: "Formanek was a member of an SS guard battalion in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp from 1943 to 1945. There he continued to kill prisoners."

Formanek was previously sentenced to 25 years in prison for "crimes against humanity" and "espionage" by a Soviet military court in 1947, and reportedly served 10 of those in Bautzen, Germany. Owing to his limited ability to stand trial as a result of his age, Hanau Regional Court must now decide whether to admit the charges against him. If the trial does goes ahead, however, he will appear before a juvenile court due to his age at the time of the conflict.

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Investigations into two more prisoner-of-war camps, as well as two camp guards - believed to be a man and a woman - are also underway, meanwhile. The pair are said to be too infirm to stand trial, however, meaning Formanek could prove to be the last to ever stand.

Formanek's charges come after another prison guard, Josef Schuetz, was handed a five-year sentence for complicity in war crimes at the same camp. Schuetz died earlier this year at the age of 101 and was the oldest person ever to be tried and convicted for Nazi war crimes in Germany.

Alan Johnson