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Dortmund prosecutors have launched a formal inquiry into the 105-year-old suspect after the Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in Ludwigsburg referred the case in February, according to a statement from the prosecutor’s office. The man, a former Wehrmacht soldier whose identity has not been released in line with German privacy rules, is accused of accessory to multiple murders by serving as a guard at the camp in North Rhine-Westphalia. Bild newspaper first reported the development, prompting confirmation from authorities that the probe carries the file reference 45 JS 2/26. Michael Otte, deputy head of the Ludwigsburg office, told Bild that the individual in question is already 105 years old, underscoring the advanced age of the last remaining suspects from the Nazi era.
The Senne camp, known formally as Stalag 326 VI K, held between 180,000 and 200,000 Soviet prisoners of war from 1941 until its liberation by American troops on April 2 1945, a memorial at the site states. A broader historical assessment from the same memorial places the overall number of Soviet prisoners taken by German forces at 5.3 million to 5.7 million, of whom between 2.3 million and 3 million did not survive due to malnutrition, disease and forced labour. Estimates for deaths specifically at Stalag 326 range from 15,000 to as high as 70,000, reflecting incomplete wartime records that historians continue to reconcile. Prosecutors allege the suspect’s routine guard duties contributed to the lethal conditions at the facility, which also held smaller numbers of French, Polish, Serbian, Italian and Belgian captives.
A second former guard at the same camp had been under investigation but died before charges could be filed, Bild reported in its coverage of the current case. The Dortmund office has pursued similar inquiries in recent years, including an examination opened in 2025 against a 100-year-old suspect linked to Stalag VI A in Hemer, where Soviet prisoners also predominated and roughly 24,000 perished, according to local prosecutors. Such cases form part of a continuing German effort to address Nazi-era crimes for which there is no statute of limitations on murder charges, the Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes has maintained in public statements.
In a notable precedent, German courts convicted 101-year-old Josef Schuetz in 2022 of complicity in more than 3,500 murders during his service at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, The New York Times reported at the time of the verdict. Schuetz received a five-year sentence although his advanced age and health made imprisonment unlikely, a pattern likely to repeat with the current 105-year-old suspect if charges are brought and upheld. The 2022 ruling reinforced the legal principle that mere presence and service in a camp where systematic killings occurred can establish accessory liability, as the presiding judge explained in that case.
Conditions at Stalag 326 included severe overcrowding, inadequate sanitation and minimal food rations that led to widespread disease and executions for attempted escapes, the Senne memorial’s documentation shows. Guards, drawn largely from territorial security battalions of the Wehrmacht rather than SS units, operated under policies that treated Soviet prisoners with particular brutality compared with Western Allied captives. The current investigation focuses on whether the suspect knew of and supported the murderous regime through his assigned duties, prosecutors stated without providing further specifics on potential evidence.
Authorities have not indicated when or whether the suspect might face trial, citing the need to complete forensic and historical reviews that have become standard in these late-stage prosecutions. The Ludwigsburg office continues to examine archival records, including documents once held by the Red Army, to identify additional living suspects from the Nazi period. With each passing year the pool of potential defendants shrinks, yet officials have pledged to pursue all viable cases regardless of age.
