German court declares 95-year-old former SS sergeant fit for trial

A German appeals court has reversed a lower court’s decision that a 95-year-old former SS sergeant who served as a medic in the Auschwitz death camp is not fit for trial.

The Rostock state court said it concluded after hearing more expert testimony that Hubert Z could stand trial, though possibly with shortened sessions and other safeguards for his health.

The suspect is accused of having served as a medic in an SS hospital at Auschwitz in 1944.

Schwerin prosecutors charged him with 3,681 counts of accessory to murder earlier this year, arguing that by serving as a medic he helped the extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland function.

A lower court in Neubrandenburg ruled in June he was unfit for trial, but prosecutors appealed. No trial dates have been set.