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A former SS guard has been sen­­tenced to five years’ jail after he was found guilty of helping murder at least 170,000 inmates at Auschwitz.

Reinhold Hanning, 94, had claimed he never personally harmed anyone at the Nazi camp where at least 1.1 million died.

But rotas showed he was on duty at the rail terminus when 170,000 prisoners, mainly Jews, were selected for gassing between 1942 and 1944.

Sentencing him in Det­­mold, Germany, judge Anke Grudda said: “You were almost two and a half years in Auschwitz and therefore promoted the mass murder.”

Hanning will remain free while any appeals are heard and it is unclear whether he will ever serve time.

Postwar Germany has prosecuted just 29 of the 6,500 people who were on the staff of the camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Last year Oskar Groening, 95, was sentenced to four years for his role in murdering 300,000 people. But he appealed and has so far not served a day. Three more cases are pending.

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Germany’s 11th-hour rush to deal with Nazi survivors is seen as atonement for years of inactivity after the war when many jobs in the police and courts were filled by old party members.

Hanning, who joined the SS aged 20, claimed he worked in a part of Auschwitz away from the gas chambers and crematoria.

But a Third Reich expert testified it was likely he served on the ramp where arriving inmates were sorted into those who would live as slaves and those who would die.

Hanning was confronted at his trial by survivor Leon Schwarzbaum, 94, who looked him in the eye and said: “The older I get the more I think about what happened in Aus­­chwitz. Why don’t you come clean and tell the truth for once about what you and your comrades did?”

(Image: Reuters)

Mr Schwarzbaum, whose parents died in the camp, spoke of the horror of “the worst place on earth” where helpless naked people were transported by lorry to the gas chambers.

He said: “They were screaming, their arms were flailing around and the chimneys were spewing fire as the smell of burning flesh hung over everything.”

Hanning apologized to victims in April, saying: “No-one in my family knew I worked at Auschwitz. I simply could not talk about it. I was ashamed.”

The World Jewish Congress welcomed the verdict. A spokesman said: “This came decades late but we welcome the fact the trial took place and we are glad the court allowed so many survivors to be heard.”