A former Nazi concentration camp guard has apologised to Holocaust victims as he awaits the verdict in trial over the deaths of 5,230 prisoners.
Bruno Dey, 93, spoke at a court in Hamburg, Germany, earlier today during the high-profile trial over his involvement in the atrocities of the Second World War.
He stands accused of complicity in the murder of thousands of people when he worked as an SS tower guard at the Stutthof Camp, near what was then Danzig, now Gdansk in Poland.
Bruno Dey, 93, (pictured) spoke at a court in Hamburg, Germany, earlier today, during the high-profile trial over his complicity in the atrocities of the Second World War
Speaking from the dock, Dey said: ‘Today I would like to apologise to those who went through the hell of this madness, as well as to their relatives. Something like this must never happen again.’
The court is expected to issue its verdict on Thursday in what could be one of the last such cases of surviving Nazi guards.
Prosecutors have sought three years in jail for the 93-year-old.
But in his summary, Dey’s defence lawyer Stefan Waterkamp asked the court for an acquittal or a suspended sentence, claiming his client ‘would not survive’ jail.
He stands accused of complicity in the murder of thousands of people when he worked as an SS tower guard at the Stutthof Camp, near what was then Danzig, now Gdansk in Poland
The Nazis set up the Stutthof camp (entrance pictured) in 1939 and initially used it to detain Polish political prisoners – but it ended up holding 110,000 detainees, including many Jews
Dey himself has denied any guilt for what happened at the camp and said that the trial had ‘cost a lot of strength’.
‘I would like to stress again that I would never have voluntarily signed up to the SS or any other unit – especially not in a concentration camp,’ he said in his final statements before the court delivers its verdict.
‘If I had seen an opportunity to remove myself from service, I would have done so.’
He added that he only became aware of the ‘extent of the atrocities’ upon hearing witness testimonies and reports.
Prosecutors have sought three years in jail for the 93-year-old. But in his summary, Dey’s defence lawyer Stefan Waterkamp asked the court for an acquittal or a suspended sentence, claiming his client ‘would not survive’ jail
Dey is currently standing trial at a juvenile court because he was aged between 17 and 18 at the time.
Waterkamp, his lawyer, pointed out that such a young man could hardly have been expected to break ranks and that the teenage Dey ‘saw no escape’.
He added that as a mere tower guard, Dey would not have known the extent of the ‘sadism’ and ‘inhumane conditions’ of the camp.
Waterkamp also said that the Nazi crimes were ‘incomprehensible’ and that the witness testimonies had ‘severely shaken’ his client.
The court is expected to issue its verdict on Thursday in what could be one of the last such cases of surviving Nazi guards
The Nazis set up the Stutthof camp in 1939 and initially used it to detain Polish political prisoners.
But it ended up holding 110,000 detainees, including many Jews, with around 65,000 people perishing in the camp.
Dey, who now lives in Hamburg, became a baker after the war.
Married with two daughters, he supplemented his income by working as a truck driver, before later taking on a job in building maintenance.
He came into prosecutors’ sights after a landmark 2011 ruling against former Sobibor camp guard John Demjanjuk on the basis that he was part of the Nazi killing machine.
Since then, Germany has been racing to put on trial surviving SS personnel on those grounds rather than for murders or atrocities directly linked to the individual accused.
Another former guard at the Stutthof camp, now 95, was charged last week with complicity in the murder of several hundred people.
The district court in Wuppertal will have to determine with the help of experts if the accused in that case is fit for trial.