Ex-Nazi Death Camp Guard Arrested in Germany

According to published reports, the fourth most wanted Nazi war criminal, an Auschwitz guard, was arrested in Germany. Hans Lipschis, a 93-year-old former Nazi soldier, was arrested by German authorities on “compelling evidence” that he was complicit in murder while working as a guard at the Auschwitz concentration camp from 1941 to 1945. Lipschis admitted to a German newspaper that he was assigned to an SS guard unit at Auschwitz but says he was a cook and denied any involvement in war crimes. Charges have not been filed.

Claudia Krauth, a spokesperson for the Baden-Württemberg, Germany, prosecutor’s office, said Lipschis immigrated to the United States in the 1950s but was deported in 1983 after the Office of Special Investigations found evidence that he was lying about his Nazi past. A judge determined there was enough evidence to grant the prosecutor’s request for an arrest warrant. Formal charges, which are similar to a grand jury indictment in the United States, will take another two months. Prosecutors are investigating Lipschis’ role at the death camp.

A doctor determined that Lipschis is in good enough health to be kept in detention. The alleged former death camp guard does not have an attorney and has not yet been assigned a public defender. There is no evidence linking him to specific war crimes. While it is impossible to bring charges against him under previous German laws, the case will be pursued on the same legal theory that was used to prosecute John Demjanjuk, an Ohio autoworker who died last year while appealing a 2011 conviction of accessory to murder on the grounds that he served at the Sobibor concentration camp as a guard. The theory holds that an accessory charge can be brought because the camp’s function was to kill people. Demjanuk’s conviction is not legally binding because he died while his appeals were still pending. According to the German prosecutors’ office that deals with Nazi crimes, there are 50 other people who are being investigated under the same category.

Simon Wiesenthal Center Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff said in an interview, "This is a very positive step, we welcome the arrest. I hope this will only be the first of many arrests, trials and convictions of death camp guards."

Lipschis told the German newspaper Die Welt that he witnessed no atrocities as cook, but had “heard about” what was happening at the camp. Between 1940 and 1945, more than 1.5 million people were killed at the Auschwitz camp.