Symbolic verdict in Auschwitz case

German courts seldom pass sentences that are harsher than the prosecution's demands, but in Oskar Gröning's case, this is insignificant. Compared to the offense - being an accessory to the murder of 300,000 people – the sentence comes across as ridiculously mild, be it three and a half or four years.

Moreover, a prison term of a couple of years for a 94-year-old seems absurd, like the illusionary sentences of more than 100 years in jail passed in the United States for repeat offenders or serial murders. And seeing as modern-day Germany maintains a fairly humane penal system, it is highly unlikely that the nonagenarian, whose health is frail, will be incarcerated at all.

Saving the honor of Germany's judiciary

The verdict was purely symbolic and it primarily saves the honor of Germany's judiciary, a system that has not even managed to try merely 100 SS members of the 7,000 who served in Auschwitz. Investigations against Oskar Gröning were opened in 1977 but then dropped in 1985 due to a lack of evidence for adequate grounds of suspicion, as stated at the time by the general prosecutor of Frankfurt am Main.

Yet many Auschwitz offenders were already known by name in the 1960s, and they could have been convicted at a much younger age back then. Many of them, like Oskar Gröning, did not go into hiding, but instead led normal lives in Germany and openly spoke of what they had done and experienced. However, no one in the German justice system wanted to press charges against them.

The phenomenon was explored by the German legal expert Ingo Müller in his book, published in 1987, "Furchtbare Juristen - Die unbewältigte Vergangenheit unserer Justiz" (English edition: "Hitler's Justice: The Courts of the Third Reich"). Müller chronicled the crimes of lawyers under the National Socialist regime and the transgressors' smooth career transition from the Nazi era to civil service in the postwar Federal Republic of Germany. This book has become a definitive work on the subject.

Auschwitz survivors appeared in court

The fact that Oskar Gröning was put on trial - and the events that led to the case – can be partly attributed to a new generation of judges and prosecutors who are now in office. But credit also goes to many retired lawyers who relentlessly pursued National Socialist criminals and also made sure that many more witnesses were heard at Oskar Gröning's trial than required for determining Gröning's guilt.

And herein lies the greatest symbolism of the case: the Auschwitz survivors, now old themselves, provided what will probably be the last official accounts of their suffering in the death camp. This is much more important than any prison sentence.

Never be sure

Oskar Gröning himself also contributed to the symbolism in the trial in a fundamental way. Unlike many of the accused in previous Nazi crimes trials, he did not deny accusations: he clearly admitted to his guilt. "Auschwitz was a place where one should not have been involved," said Gröning in his closing words at the trial – a statement that should ring in the ears of neo-Nazis and Holocaust-deniers.

However, the most important message remains: there is no statute of limitations on genocide or crimes against humanity. Anyone who is implicated in such crimes – and even if only indirectly - should never be allowed to feel exempt from punishment.