Auschwitz Guard Arrested: 93- Year- Old Former "Death's Head" Nazi Guard Arrested In Germany

Auschwitz guard arrested: On Monday, German authorities arrested an alleged former guard of Auschwitz. The guard, 93, was arrested on suspicion he was a guard at the Nazi death camp Auschwitz and charged with complicity in the mass murder of prisoners.

The man was arrested at his home and then "appeared before a judge and was taken into custody", a statement from the prosecutor's office in the state capital Stuttgart said.

"The indictment against him is currently being prepared."

Although authorities did not release the suspect's name, media reports and the Simon Wiesenthal Center have said it was Hans Lipschis. Lipschis allegedly served in the SS "Death's Head" battalion and is one of the Center's "most wanted" Nazis.

Prosecutors said the man is believed to have worked at Auschwitz between the fall of 1941 and when it finally closed in 1945.

Stuttgart prosecutors confirmed to last month that they were working on an investigation launched in late 2012 against a suspect who had worked at Auschwitz in the then-occupied Poland.

Lipschis, who lives in the Baden-Wuerttemberg town of Aalen, reportedly claimed he worked as a cook, not a guard, at Auschwitz. Prosecutors believe that the suspect had broader responsibilities than simply being a cook at Auschwitz.

A spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office told the AFP that the suspect "He took on supervisory duties although he did not only work as a guard," but they will "try to determine concretely when and what he did at Auschwitz." She noted he was not believed to have directly murdered prisoners himself; instead "he abetted the actions of the perpetrators".

The suspect had a medical examination that determined him fit to be taken into custody despite his age.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, in its 2013 report, lists Lipschis as its fourth most-wanted Nazi,. The report notes that he served in the SS-Totenkopf Sturmbann (Death's Head Battalion) from 1941 until 1945 at Auschwitz, and that he "participated in the mass murder and persecution of innocent civilians, primarily Jews".