Two former SS officers went on trial for murder last week in the western German city of Duisburg.
Bruno Karl Blach, 71, and Dominik Gleba, 69, are accused of killing at least five Mauthausen concentration camp inmates during a forced evacuation march when the camp was being abandoned in April 1945.
The pair had been guards at Wiener-Neudorf, part of the Mauthausen camp complex in Austria. They allegedly shot inmates who were unable to march because of poor physical condition.
Investigations of Blach and Gleba over the past 40 years were fruitless until four years ago, when an American volunteered fresh evidence against the suspects.
Blach, who lived in California, was extradited to Germany in January 1990. Gleba was arrested in January 1990 in Oberhausen, Germany.
The accused both pleaded not guilty. Their attorneys asked for dismissals on technical grounds.
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