Germany puts two SS men on trial over Auschwitz killings

Two former SS men will go on trial this month for their alleged complicity in the murder of thousands of people at Auschwitz, as Germany accelerates its bid to prosecute ageing Third Reich criminals.

Reinhold Hanning, 93, faces court in the western town of Detmold from Thursday, charged with at least 170,000 counts of accessory to murder in his role as a former guard at the camp in occupied Poland.
 
Hubert Zafke, 95, will have to answer at least 3,681 counts of complicity in killings in separate proceedings in the eastern town of Neubrandenburg from Feb. 29.
 
Zafke was a medical orderly at the camp in a period when 14 trains carrying prisoners -- including the teenage diarist Anne Frank -- arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau where many would eventually be killed in the gas chambers.
 
Holocaust survivor Angela Orosz, who will take the witness stand in the Hanning trial, told AFP that all Auschwitz staff "were part of this killing machine."  

"Without these people and their active support for the Holocaust, what happened in Auschwitz, the murder of 1.1 million people in just a few years, would not have been possible, and perhaps many of my family members would still be alive," said Orosz, who was born in Auschwitz just over a month before it was liberated on January 27, 1945.
 
The defendants face between three and 15 years in jail, but in view of their advanced age and the period required for any appeals, they are unlikely to serve time.
         
Nevertheless, Andreas Brendel, who leads the prosecuting team against Hanning, said Germany "owes it to victims and their relatives" to pursue Third Reich criminals.
 
"Age has no bearing for me," he said.
 
Ronald Lauder, president of the...