These Guards were born between 1919 and 1926, that means today they are between 94 and 87 years of age. In 1945, they were 26 and 19 years of age. They "Crime" was being a Guard at a death camp. No accusation that they did anything in the camp (and given how the camps were run, they did nothing in the camps) other then man guard posts or patrol the perimeter of the camp. No evidence that they volunteer to be a guard at a Death Camp (but they they agreed to be a guard at a camp, anything from a POW camp to a Criminal Camp, it is doubtful they were ever told what type of Camp they were assigned to till they arrived at the death camp).
In fact they are AVOIDING any guard at any camp that actually were in Germany proper, thus the Guards are most likely, like Demjanjuk, NON-German Citizens. The guards in the older Concentration Camps were Germans,
Schrimm's office plans to focus on the death camps Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek and Treblinka. He noted that there are no plans to broaden the investigation to include concentration camps such as Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and others because, although tens of thousands of people died in those places, they were not established solely for the purpose of extermination, making the application of the Demjanjuk precedent doubtful.
Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek and Treblinka were all in Poland and except for Majdanek, death camps from day one. Majdanek started out as a POW camp, but was later converted to a Death Camp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belzec_extermination_camp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che%C5%82mno_extermination_camp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treblinka_extermination_camp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majdanek_concentration_camp
Dachau and Bergen-Belsen were NOT Death Camps, but Camps with German Guards for prisoners of the Third Reich, some of which were later transferred to one of the above death camps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_concentration_camp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen-Belsen_concentration_camp
So if any of the Guards in the above camps were Germans, they are NOT going to be prosecuted for the camps they guarded were technically NOT death Camps (even through they were in Germany), but since the Guards in the Death Camps tended to be ex-Soviet POWs, who opt to Volunteer for SS duties rather then die in the POW camps the Germans had for the Russians, they will be prosecuted (Even through the camps were in Poland and thus Poland should have jurisdiction over them or maybe the Ukraine given most Guards in the Death Camps were Ukrainians).
Now, we know there was some interaction between the Guards and the prisoners (the reports of Ivan the Terrible shows if a Guard wanted to by nasty to the prisoners in a Death Camp, he could be) but as a general rule little or no interaction between the Guards and the inmates. This was by design, the SS leadership that ran both the Concentration and Death Camps did not want the Guards to interact with the prisoners, thus the killing in the death camps were done by inmates of the camp NOT the guards and NOT the SS officers. Please note after WWII it was determined the real killers were the Officers that set up the Death Camps, not the Guards and not the inmates. Thus no real push to prosecute the Guards or the Inmates for their role in the Killing in the Death Camps, but a real push to get the pencil pushers who set up the system (but most got off with light sentences or no sentence, since it was deem important to keep them loyal to NATO and against the Russians after WWII).
Sorry, in my opinion, this is to little, to late. All it is people trying to show they are NOT Nazis by going after people who were themselves NOT Nazis. In fact many of these prosecutors, if you trace who their grandfather and Great Grandfathers were, served in the German Army and some may even have been SS officers. In many ways this is "I am not my Grandfather, through one of the reasons I am who I am by the fact who he was during WWII, for he used those connections to help himself and then my father, who used his connections with other people who served the Nazis to help me get to where I am".
I am sorry, we are going after rear ranking privates, who did only what they were required to do, nothing more, nothing less. We are NOT dealing with anyone who could have changed anything, especially the Ukrainians who the Nazis did not think much more of then the Jews (i.e. be a Guard or die in this POW Camp).
Sorry, sooner or later you have to say enough time has passed to leave these rear ranking privates die of old age. No one went after them in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and even the 1980s for the simple reason they were still some high ranking German officials who had served in the Nazi Party and questions would have been asked, why the Privates but not the Officers? It is only after the Officers are long dead, does Germany decide to go after the Guards (and then only non-German Guards, given which Camps there are restricting themselves to). Sorry it is to little to late, go after the people who could have done something, and rarely includes Guards or other privates in the rear ranks.
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