Oskar Groening dead at 96 – ‘Bookkeeper of Auschwitz’ and former SS man convicted over role in Nazi murder of 300,000 dies in hospital, according to reports in Germany
A FORMER Nazi SS guard dubbed the "Bookkeeper of Auschwitz" has died.
Oskar Groening had been sentenced to four years behind bars in July 2015, for his role in the murder of 300,000 people at a German Nazi death camp established in Poland.
Groening had not started serving his sentence because authorities were said to be worried about his health.
Earlier this month he submitted a fresh request for clemency in a bid to avoid serving his sentence for accessory to murder after a previous one was rejected in January.
But according to German media the 96-year-old died in hospital on Friday.
A spokesman for the public prosecutor's office in Hanover confirmed it had been notified of Groening's death from his lawyer.
His lawyers had always argued he did not kill anyone during his time in Auschwitz and therefore was not guilty.
After the war, Groening, led a normal, middle-class life in Lueneburg Heath in Lower Saxony, working at a glass-making factory until retirement.
He was born in 1921 in Lower Saxony in Germany, and joined the Hitler Youth when the Nazi's came to power in 1933.
His mother died when he was four, but his father was said to be a proud nationalist.
More than one million European Jews died between 1940 and 1945 at Auschwitz, before it was liberated by Soviet forces.
Gröning’s conviction was a landmark in post-war German justice.
Before many cases against former SS guards were dropped if there was no evidence they were directly linked to murders.
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