[7][8] The trial opened on 7 October 2021, when Schütz was 100, in the Neuruppin Regional Court in Brandenburg, during which he was charged with 3,518 counts of being an accessory to murder.
[9] The 17 co-plaintiffs were represented by Thomas Walther, who had previously won a conviction against former Ukrainian-American Waffen-SS guard John Demjanjuk a decade earlier in 2011.
[13] Instead, he stated he worked as a "farm laborer near Pasewalk in northeastern Germany during the period in question", a claim which the court rejected.
[3] Testimonies of survivors were also heard, including from Leon Schwarzbaum, who showed a picture of his family who had died in the camp.
[14] Schütz was sentenced to five years in prison for the crimes; when he arrived in court in a wheelchair to hear the verdict on 28 June 2022, he hid his face from the press with a folder to avoid being recognized.