German prosecutors are investigating a 105-year-old man for allegedly being an accessory to multiple murders at Stalag 326 VI K, a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp in northwestern Germany during World War Two. The case highlights the ongoing difficulties faced by prosecutors seeking to bring perpetrators of Nazi-era crimes to justice, as most remaining suspects are now deceased or extremely elderly; a second suspect in the same case died just months ago aged 99.

Stalag 326 at Senne was one of the largest Nazi PoW camps, holding between 180,000 and 200,000 Soviet prisoners, with approximately one in three Soviet PoWs entering Germany between 1941 and 1945 passing through the complex. Of the 5.3 million Soviet soldiers held in German captivity during the war, roughly half died; conditions at Senne were horrific, characterised by severe mistreatment and malnutrition, with tens of thousands of prisoners buried at the site. Germany has had no statute of limitations for murder or accessory to murder since 1979 to enable prosecution of Nazi crimes, though bringing centenarian suspects to justice remains extremely challenging, with recent cases proving rare successes.