Reinhold Hanning, a former SS sergeant whose conviction last year on 170,000 counts of accessory to murder for serving as an Auschwitz guard was hailed as a long-overdue victory for Holocaust victims, has died. Hanning died on Tuesday, his attorney Andreas Scharmer told The Associated Press on Thursday without providing further details. In a statement to the court, Hanning said he didn't know what Auschwitz was at the time but quickly found out. That argument was first successfully used in 2011 in Munich to convict former Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk on allegations he served as a Sobibor death camp guard. The argument was also used in the 2015 conviction of former Auschwitz guard Oskar Groening, whose appeal was rejected last year by a top court, firmly establishing the precedent.

Source: ABC News June 01, 2017 09:39 UTC