Germany preparing charges against suspected death camp guards

The German prosecutor's office charged with investigating Nazi war crimes said its probe of 50 suspected former guards at Auschwitz is nearing completion. Prosecutor Kurt Schrimm said more than 40 suspects have been found to still be alive and his office plans on recommending charges against most of them, Germany's Tageszeitung newspaper reported. Schrimm said the suspects live all over Germany and state prosecutors are reviewing their cases to decide whether there is sufficient evidence to press charges. The first indictment could be handed down in Stuttgart where the local prosecutor has set mid-September to complete an investigation of a 93-year-old man, identified only as Hans L., suspected of being a former Auschwitz guard. He emigrated to the United States after the war but was expelled in 1982 after his past came to light. Some 6,000 members of the German SS were employed at the Auschwitz death camp between 1940 and 1945. The vast majority of them are deceased.