Third most-wanted Nazi war criminal passes away

Nazi death camp guard Samuel Kunz, number three on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s most wanted list, has died aged 89, just months before he was due to stand trial, according to German prosecutors.

“Samuel Kunz died on November 18 at 5:30 pm, most likely at his home” in Germany, prosecutor Andreas Brendel, head of the central Nazi war crimes investigation unit, said.

“We have the death certificate,” Mr Brendel added.

Mr Kunz had admitted working at the Belzec extermination camp in German-occupied Poland in 1942-3 and was charged in July with helping murder 430,000 Jews.

He was also charged over the deaths of another 10 Jews in two separate incidents which also allegedly occurred at Belzec. “The court was just about to decide on the opening of the trial. It was set to start in Bonn in February,” Mr Brendel said.

Mr Kunz, whose flat was raided by police in January, denied being personally involved in killing people, prosecutors said at the time of the raid.

Efraim Zuroff, director of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem, said: “The overriding feeling is one of terrible frustration.”

“The only consolation is that he was charged, he was exposed and at least a small measure of justice was achieved.”

The most high-profile case is that of Mr Demjanjuk, 90, whose trial began last November on charges of assisting in the murder of 27,900 people while allegedly a guard at the Sobibor death camp. He denies the charges.