Oskar Gröning

Oskar Gröning (10 June 1921 – 9 March 2018) was a German SS Unterscharführer who was stationed at the Auschwitz concentration camp. His responsibilities included counting and sorting the money taken from prisoners, and he was in charge of the personal property of arriving prisoners. On a few occasions he witnessed the procedures of mass killing in the camp. After being transferred from Auschwitz to a combat unit in October 1944, Gröning surrendered to the British at the end of the war; his role in the SS was not discovered. He was eventually transferred to the UK as a prisoner of war and worked as a farm labourer.

Upon his return to Germany, he led a normal life, reluctant to talk about his time in Auschwitz. However, more than 40 years later, after learning about Holocaust denial, he decided to make public his activities at Auschwitz. He openly criticised those who denied the events that he had witnessed and the ideology to which he had subscribed. Gröning was notable as a German willing to make public statements about his experience as an SS soldier, which were self-incriminating and which exposed his life to public scrutiny. In particular, he confessed to stealing jewellery and money from gas chamber victims for his personal benefit.

In September 2014, Gröning was charged by German prosecutors as an accessory to murder in 300,000 cases, for his role at the Auschwitz concentration camp. His trial began in April 2015, after the court had ruled that, at the age of 93, he was still fit to stand trial. The trial was held in Lüneburg, Germany. On 15 July 2015, he was found guilty of knowingly facilitating mass murder and sentenced to four years' imprisonment. Following a number of unsuccessful appeals against the prison sentence, Gröning died on 9 March 2018 while hospitalized before he was set to begin his sentence.

Early life and education Gröning was born in June 1921, in Nienburg in what was then Prussia (today in Lower Saxony), the son of a skilled textile worker. His father, a nationalist and strict conservative, joined Der Stahlhelm – a revanchist ultranationalist ex-serviceman's association – after Germany's defeat in the First World War (during which his father had lost an eye), and his father's anger at how Germany had been treated following the Treaty of Versailles increased as his textile business went bankrupt in 1929 due to insufficient capital.

Return to Germany Gröning was released and returned to Germany in 1947

Until the turn of the 21st century, Gröning was unaware that a second Auschwitz trial took place during the 1960s, headed by West German authorities.

Views on Holocaust denial Gröning led a normal middle-class life after the war. After reading the pamphlet, Gröning returned it with additional notes containing his own commentary, which included the words:

I saw everything. The gas chambers, the cremations, the selection process. One and a half million Jews were murdered in Auschwitz. I was there. Presiding judge Dirk Struß, who later testified in Gröning's own trial, remembered that the witness was stoic while describing the everyday occurrences at Auschwitz's entrance ramp. Struß in particular remembered that when Gröning was asked why he sought transfer from this duty, Gröning responded, "Because it stank". Procedures against Kühnemann were ultimately closed by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1993.

Later comments Gröning did not consider himself guilty of any crime, because he was in no way directly involved in the killing.

Rees writes that Gröning described his time at Auschwitz as if he were talking about another Oskar Gröning at Auschwitz—and as a result, the post-war Gröning spoke more candidly about his time there by segregating the Gröning that contributed to the running of a death camp from the modern Gröning that condemns Nazi ideology.

Gröning's prosecution has been reported to have been a part of Germany's final effort to bring the last Nazi war-crimes suspects to justice. State prosecutors managed to charge the defendant on a legal precedent set in 2011 by the conviction of the former Sobibor extermination camp guard John Demjanjuk by a court in Munich for his presence as a guard at the camp rather than for a specific act of murder.

The trial commenced on 20 April 2015 at Lüneburg Regional Court (Landgericht). In an opening statement, Gröning asked for forgiveness for his mainly clerical role at Auschwitz in the summer of 1944, by saying: "For me there's no question that I share moral guilt", the 93-year-old told the judges, acknowledging he knew about the gassing of Jews and other prisoners. "I ask for forgiveness. I share morally in the guilt but whether I am guilty under criminal law, you will have to decide."

During the trial, several of the 60 "co-claimants" gave evidence.

Eva Mozes Kor, who was 10 years old when she arrived at Auschwitz, testified that she and her twin sister were used for the cruel medical experiments conducted by Josef Mengele and that she had lost her parents and older sisters in Auschwitz. Kor conversed with and embraced the defendant after giving evidence, while other Holocaust survivors in the courtroom protested against this gesture.

That same day, Ivor Perl, an 83-year-old Briton who was born in Hungary into a religious Jewish family, also gave evidence; Perl testified that he was 12 years old when he arrived at Auschwitz and that he and his brother lost their parents and seven siblings in the Holocaust.

Verdict and sentence On 15 July 2015, he was found guilty of being an accessory to the murder of at least 300,000 Jews. Reacting to the sentence, Auschwitz survivor Kor said that she was "disappointed" adding: "I would like the court to prove to me, a survivor, how four years in jail will benefit anybody." Gröning's defence lawyer, Hans Holtermann, reviewed the decision before planning to appeal.

On 28 November 2016, the appeal was declined by the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH). In August 2017, Gröning was judged to be fit for prison. An appeal to the Federal Constitutional Court also failed. The latter court ruled his age was not a valid reason not to send him to jail.

On 15 January 2018, Gröning applied for pardon as a last measure to avoid imprisonment. The pardon was rejected.

On 9 March 2018, Gröning died while hospitalized in Lower Saxony before he was to begin his sentence. He was 96.