Prosecutors announce prison wishes for ex-Nazi guard

BERLIN - German prosecutors are asking for 3.5 years in prison for a 94-year-old former SS sergeant who served at the Auschwitz death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Oskar Groening has admitted guarding prisoners' baggage after they were unloaded from cattle cars onto the camp's ramps, and collecting and counting money stolen from the new arrivals and sending it to Berlin.

The dpa news agency reported prosecutors said in closing arguments Tuesday that his role helped the camp function, and he should be convicted of 300,000 counts of accessory to murder for those killed while he was there.

When his trial began in April, Groening said he felt moral guilt but it was up to the court to decide if he was legally guilty of a crime.

A verdict is expected this month.

Groening has told the Lueneburg state court in a statement read by his attorney that it was hard today to understand the blind obedience he had to the Nazi system even when witnessing the terrible atrocities perpetrated at the death camp in German-occupied Poland.

"There was a self-denial in me that today I find impossible to explain," Groening said, the dpa news agency reported. "Perhaps it was also the convenience of obedience with which we were brought up, which allowed no contradiction. This indoctrinated obedience prevented registering the daily atrocities as such and rebelling against them."

In his statement, Groening said even though he had known what was going on at Auschwitz, the personal stories of the co-plaintiffs during the trial had brought home the enormity of the atrocities.

"I can only ask my God for forgiveness," he said.