Ex-Nazi Admits Guilt but Offers No Apol­o­gy in Tri­al in Ger­many

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Oskar Grön­ing, 94, acknowl­edged his com­plic­i­ty in the Holo­caust for his work at the Auschwitz con­cen­tra­tion camp, where he col­lect­ed mon­ey from arriv­ing pris­on­ers.

LÜNEBURG, Ger­many — Stat­ing that he could “only ask for­give­ness from the Lord,” a 94-year-old for­mer SS sol­dier who worked at the Auschwitz con­cen­tra­tion camp acknowl­edged again on Wednes­day his com­plic­i­ty in the Holo­caust but dis­ap­point­ed sur­vivors by fail­ing to apol­o­gize for his deeds.

The for­mer sol­dier, Oskar Grön­ing, a book­keep­er at Auschwitz-Birke­nau whose main task was to strip Jew­ish inmates of their cash, made the plea in a state­ment read to a court in this town near Ham­burg where he has stood tri­al since April.

The court, con­vened in a con­vert­ed meet­ing hall to accom­mo­date spec­ta­tors and the media, has charged Mr. Grön­ing with being an acces­so­ry to 300,000 counts of mur­der, almost all Hun­gar­i­an Jews deport­ed in the sum­mer of 1944 to Auschwitz, in Nazi-occu­pied Poland. If con­vict­ed, he could face three to 15 years in prison.

Scores of peo­ple showed up at Wednesday’s hear­ing in antic­i­pa­tion of Mr. Gröning’s state­ment, which he said was inspired by the impas­sioned tes­ti­mo­ny of Holo­caust sur­vivors and the rel­a­tives of vic­tims who have tes­ti­fied since the tri­al opened on April 21.

At that open­ing ses­sion, Mr. Grön­ing riv­et­ed the court with an hour­long account of his life, focus­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly on his ser­vice at Auschwitz-Birke­nau from 1942 to the fall of 1944. He acknowl­edged his “moral guilt” and com­plic­i­ty, but said that it was up to the court to judge his guilt before the law.

His case, brought by state pros­e­cu­tors and 65 plain­tiffs — Holo­caust sur­vivors and rel­a­tives — may well be the last tri­al of a for­mer Nazi com­plic­it in the mass exter­mi­na­tion of Jews. Of the rough­ly 6,500 SS mem­bers employed to admin­is­ter Auschwitz-Birke­nau, only 49 have been con­vict­ed of war crimes.

As on the open­ing day, Mr. Grön­ing shuf­fled into court hunched over a walk­er, and was aid­ed by two med­ical assis­tants. His frailty has increased over the tri­al, but he seemed ful­ly alert once seat­ed between his two defense lawyers.

In the state­ment read by one of his lawyers, Susanne Frangen­berg, Mr. Grön­ing read­i­ly acknowl­edged his com­plic­i­ty in the Holo­caust, although he reit­er­at­ed that his job at Auschwitz pri­mar­i­ly involved col­lect­ing mon­ey from arriv­ing pris­on­ers, and not the exter­mi­na­tion of Jews and oth­ers in gas cham­bers.

“Even if I was not direct­ly involved with these mur­ders,” his state­ment read, “I did, through my activ­i­ties, con­tribute to the func­tion­ing of the Auschwitz camp. I’m aware of this.”

In his open­ing-day state­ment, Mr. Grön­ing described wit­ness­ing two acts of hor­rif­ic vio­lence — a baby being blud­geoned to death by a camp guard, and the gassing of pris­on­ers herd­ed into a hut. Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, how­ev­er, both episodes occurred in 1942, short­ly after his arrival at the camp, and not in the peri­od in 1944 over which he is charged.

On Wednes­day, Mr. Grön­ing said in his state­ment that he had worked spo­rad­i­cal­ly on the ramp where new pris­on­ers were tak­en off incom­ing trains. It was there, he said, that he wit­nessed “ter­ri­ble scenes” that led him to sub­mit three requests for trans­fer from the camp to the war front. This was final­ly grant­ed in the fall of 1944.

Mr. Grön­ing attrib­uted his involve­ment in the atroc­i­ties com­mit­ted at Auschwitz to a form of psy­cho­log­i­cal repres­sion that he still can­not entire­ly explain. “Per­haps it was the habit of accept­ing facts as they appeared, in order to process them lat­er,” his state­ment read. “Or per­haps it was also the com­fort of obe­di­ence with which we were raised, and which did not allow for protests.”

Two oth­er Ger­mans in their nineties have been charged with crimes relat­ed to ser­vice in the Nazi death camps, but their age and frailty make it unlike­ly that they will stand tri­al.

(...no such con­sid­er­a­tions for their vic­tims though-par­ticipo)

The late tri­als — more than 70 years after Sovi­et troops lib­er­at­ed Auschwitz — became con­ceiv­able only after the 2011 ver­dict against John Dem­jan­juk, a for­mer autowork­er in the Unit­ed States who was found guilty of acces­so­ry to mass mur­der at the Sobi­bor camp. He died before his appeal was heard, and thus the prin­ci­ple became estab­lished in Ger­man law that one could try ex-Nazis for atroc­i­ties, even if there was no evi­dence tying them direct­ly to those deeds.

On Wednes­day, a sur­vivor who had pre­vi­ous­ly been unable to appear in court tes­ti­fied to the suf­fer­ing.

The wit­ness, Irene Weiss, now 84, said she was unable to for­give Mr. Grön­ing. “He has said that he does not con­sid­er him­self a per­pe­tra­tor but mere­ly a small cog in a machine,” she said. “But if he were sit­ting here today wear­ing his SS uni­form, I would trem­ble and all the hor­ror that I expe­ri­enced as a 13-year-old would return to me.

“Any per­son who wore that uni­form in that place rep­re­sent­ed ter­ror and the depths to which human­i­ty can sink, regard­less of what func­tion they per­formed.”

Mr. Gröning’s state­ment on Wednes­day con­clud­ed with the reit­er­a­tion of his belief that the enor­mi­ty of his guilt makes it impos­si­ble for him to ask for­give­ness from sur­vivors and rel­a­tives of vic­tims.

“Con­sid­er­ing the dimen­sion of the crimes com­mit­ted in Auschwitz and else­where, I don’t con­sid­er myself enti­tled to such a request,” the state­ment read. “I can only ask for­give­ness from the Lord.”

Thomas Walther, the lead lawyer for the plain­tiffs, expressed dis­ap­point­ment with the state­ment in a tele­phone call after the court ses­sion.

“This is about earth­ly guilt, not guilt before God,” Mr. Walther said. “We’re not at the Last Judg­ment. We’re at the last Auschwitz tri­al on earth.”