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He Guarded Jews in Birkenau. Disability benefits for camp sentry
The Federal Labor Court announced on Friday, July 7, that the case of restoring veterans' disability benefits to a former guard at the German Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp had not yet been resolved.
The disability benefits for war victims are not related to pensions. The former guard lost the right to a pension after the appropriate legislation was passed in 1998. It denies benefits to persons who violated the principles of humanity and justice under the Third Reich. So far, 150 German citizens have been stripped of their disability benefits in similar cases. Judge Helgel Loytweld stated on Friday that the case is not yet closed and has been sent back to a lower court for reassessment.
Although the court in Kassel ruled that working in a concentration camp violated the principles of humanity, nevertheless the court must still rule whether an 83-year-old German was ordered to act as a guard, and whether he did everything possible to avoid assignment to a death camp. If the former SS man succeeds in proving either of these assertions, he will regain the right to disability benefits of 118 euro per month.
In his case for receiving benefits, the former SS man sought to prove that, while assigned to Auschwitz, he applied for a transfer to the front lines. He applied for the transfer twice, and claims that he did not do so more frequently because his commanders told him he had no chance of being transferred. He also claims that he played no direct role in any atrocities.
He was drafted into the Waffen-SS in 1942 and assigned to sentry duty in Auschwitz. He was also a guard on the ramp in Birkenau where trains full of Jews on their way to the gas chambers arrived. After the liquidation of the camp the SS man was transferred to the front lines in 1945, took part in the fighting for Wrocław (then Breslau, Germany), and lost an eye there. This injury was the basis of his war disability payments. He was incarcerated in Poland until 1952.
