Trial of Reinhold Hanning, former Auschwitz guard, in Detmold, Germany

A 94-year-old former guard at Auschwitz lowered his eyes as he arrived at a German court on Feb. 11, 2016, to be tried as an accessory to the murder of at least 170,000 people in what is likely to be one of the last few Nazi war crimes trials.

Reinhold Hanning was 20 years old in 1942 when he started serving as a Waffen SS guard at the death camp in occupied Poland, where more than 1.1 million Jews were killed by the Nazis.

There was a heavy police presence around the court in the western town of Detmold as Hanning walked in, wearing glasses and a dark brown tweed jacket and looking at the ground, for a session limited to just two hours due to his age.

Prosecutors said Hanning had joined the Waffen SS, the armed wing of the Nazi party, voluntarily at the age of 18 and fought in eastern Europe during the early stages of World War Two before being transferred to Auschwitz in January 1942.

Accused by the prosecutor's office in Dortmund as well as by 38 joint plaintiffs from Hungary, Israel, Canada, Britain, the United States and Germany, Hanning will hear the testimony of former camp inmates in court. (Reuters)

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