Reinhold Hanning, a former SS sergeant who served as a guard at Auschwitz, has died at 95.

Hanning was convicted of 170,000 counts of accessory to murder in a German court in June last year for his role as a guard at the Nazi death camp.

He died on Tuesday, according to his lawyer Andreas Scharmer.

Hanning was sentenced to five years in prison, but never served time behind bars because his conviction was under appeal.

The verdict was hailed as a landmark decision.


While there was no evidence Hanning directly participated in the killings at Auschwitz, he was convicted as an accessory for helping the concentration camp function.

Image: The Pope visits Auschwitz where more than one million Jews were murdered

He served at the camp in German-occupied Poland during the Second World War between January 1942 and June 1944.

He oversaw the selection of prisoners for labour, and those sent to gas chambers, his four-month trial heard.

It is believed Hanning was also aware of the regular mass shootings of inmates, as well as the systematic starvation of prisoners.

He told the court:"People were shot, gassed and burned. I could see how corpses were taken back and forth or moved out. I could smell the burning bodies, I knew corpses were being burned."

His trial heard from witnesses - survivors and their descendants - who gave harrowing accounts of the notorious death camp, where more than one million Jews were murdered.

Hanning told the court he was "truly sorry" for his behaviour.

"I have been silent all my life I want to tell you that I deeply regret having listened to a criminal organisation that is responsible for the deaths of many innocent people, for the destruction of countless families, for the misery, distress and suffering on the part of victims and their relatives," he said.

"I am ashamed that I let this injustice happen and have done nothing to prevent it."