Dachau guard faces murder inquiry

Parts of the camp are now a museum

An 87-year-old former guard at Dachau concentration camp could face murder charges, German prosecutors have said.

The man, identified as Horst P, told Bild newspaper he had served at Dachau for two years, but denied wrongdoing.

The paper also published images of a collage of family photos on the wall of his flat next to the hand-written words "mein kampf", which is the title of Adolf Hitler's autobiography.

Prosecutors said they were acting on a tip-off from a Nazi-hunting group.

They said the Simon Wiesenthal Center had provided them with information regarding a serious criminal allegation, but did not elaborate.

Efraim Zuroff from the centre said they had received information on the man after running a poster campaign asking for information on former guards earlier this year.

Both the Nazi-hunting group and the prosecutors said they had not publicised the case and did not know how Bild had got the story.

Bild ran an interview with the man on Friday where he said he had worked as a guard between 1943 and 1945.

He told the paper he had reported prisoners for breaking the rules, and sometimes he would never see them again.

He also said he joined the feared SS group because he was told it was fun.

More than 200,000 people are thought to have been imprisoned in the Dachau camp in southern Germany, and 41,500 murdered.