The man is accused of “intentionally and knowingly” helping and encouraging the murder of prisoners in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, from January 1942 to February 1945, according to the prosecutor’s office in Neuruppin, Brandenburg.
The charges include involvement in the shooting of Soviet prisoners of war in 1942 and assisting and encouraging the killing of prisoners through the use of poisonous gas Zyklon B, as well as other shootings and the death of prisoners, creating and maintaining hostile conditions in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Sachsenhausen was founded in 1936. Of the nearly 200,000 prisoners who passed through there, it is estimated that about 100,000 died there. During World War II, the population of camp inmates ranged between 11,000 and 48,000 people.
The prosecution considers the man fit to stand trial despite his advanced age, Cyrill Klement, the senior prosecutor at Neuruppin’s court, told CNN.
Klement told CNN that the Neuruppin Regional Court consulted a forensic psychiatrist and found the man able to attend the trial, albeit only for a few hours a day, at intervals.
The court is now considering whether to proceed with the trial. The defendant first has the opportunity to respond to the charge.
German prosecutors are investigating several other cases linked to the concentration camps of Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, Mauthausen and Stutthof, according to the Central Office for the Nazi Crime Investigation.
It is estimated that 6 million Jews were killed in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of Roma and people with physical or learning disabilities also died.
CNN’s Nadine Schmidt contributed reporting.