A former Auschwitz guard has been deemed fit to stand trial for his role as an accomplice to mass murder at the extermination camp where the Nazis put 1.1 million people to death during the Second World War.

As a S.S. sergeant, Oskar Groening was responsible for guarding the possessions of the doomed arrivals as they stepped off the trains bringing them to the camp in occupied Poland.

He was never punished after the war for his service in Auschwitz - and claims he committed no crimes at the complex.

But now aged 92, prosecutors in Hanover, Germany, have closed their preliminary investigation against him and have judged him fit to stand trial, according to German media.

Groening is one of three men being investigated, but it is understood that two other elderly guards from the state of Lower Saxony are too frail to go on trial.

'The examination of the health status and the ability to negotiate a trial of the three accused is largely completed,' said senior state prosecutor, Thomas Klinge.

Groening worked in the Auschwitz for more than two-and-a-half years, and has lived a comfortable life ever since near the Lueneburg Heath in Lower Saxony.

Ironically, the Lueneburg Heath is the place where S.S. chief Heinrich Himmler was buried in an unmarked grave after committing suicide when he fell into British hands at the end of the war.

Now, Groening has appointed a lawyer who has received notification that the authorities are proceeding against him, according to popular daily newspaper BILD.

dailymail.co.uk