Ex-SS guard, 93, tells German court ‘sorry for what he did’

HAMBURG: A former SS guard, 93, said he was sorry for his actions as he went on trial in Germany on Thursday for complicity in the murder of more than 5,000 people at a Nazi concentration camp during World War II.

In what could be one of the last such cases of surviving Nazi guards, Bruno Dey stands accused of abetting the murder of 5,230 people when he worked at the Stutthof camp near what was then Danzig, now Gdansk in Poland. While he insisted that he did not join the deadly operation voluntarily, he voiced regret for his actions. “That’s what he said in his interrogation: He felt sorry for what he did,” said his lawyer Stefan Waterkamp. “It was also clear to him that (the inmates) were not in there because they were criminals, but for anti-Semitic, racist and other reasons. He had compassion for them. But he did not see himself in a position to free them. Seated in a wheelchair, Dey wore a hat and sunglasses and hid his face behind a red folder as he entered the courtroom.