German Court Orders 96 Year-Old Auschwitz Bookkeeper To Be Sent To Jail

On Friday, Germany's constitutional court refused to overturn a lower court decision and ruled that a ninety-six year-old German man must go to jail for his part in mass murders committed at the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz during World War Two. The constitutional court rejected the argument by Groening’s lawyers that imprisonment at his advanced age would violate his right to life, adding that the gravity of his crimes meant there was a particular need for him to be seen to be punished. The judges wrote, “The plaintiff has been found guilty of being accessory to murder in 300,000 related cases, meaning there is a particular importance to carrying out the sentence the state has demanded."