A FORMER enlisted SS man, 94, went on trial Tuesday in German juvenile court, charged with being an accessory to murder for crimes committed when he worked as a guard at the Nazis’ Stutthof concentration camp.

Johann Rehbogen, who was under 21 at the time he served as a guard at the camp, is accused of working as a guard at the camp east of Danzig, which is today the Polish city of Gdansk, from June 1942 to about the beginning of September 1944.

Because he was under 21 at the time of his alleged crimes, he is being tried in juvenile court.

There is no evidence linking him to a specific crime, but more than 60,000 people were killed at Stutthof and prosecutors argue that as a guard, he was an accessory to at least hundreds of those deaths.

The former SS Sturmmann, roughly equivalent to the U.S. Army rank of specialist, does not deny serving in the camp during the war but has told investigators he was not aware of the killings and did not participate in them, Brendel said.

Rehbogen’s attorney, Andreas Tinkl, has said his client will make a statement in the trial at the Muenster state court, which is scheduled to last until January, but it was not immediately clear when he would speak.

Rehbogen lives in the western municipality of Borken near the Dutch border. In deference to his age and health, the trial is being restricted to a maximum of two hours a day, with no more than two non-consecutive days a week.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which helped locate some 20 Stutthof survivors for the case to serve as possible witnesses, emphasized that such trials are important, even more than 70 years after the end of World War II. (SD-Agencies)