A 93-year-old former Auschwitz guard has been ruled fit to stand trial next year on mass-murder charges.

Oskar Groening was employed at the concentration camp in occupied Poland in mid-1944, when 300,000 people were killed on arrival. His job was to send valuable possessions of the deceased to Germany.

The former SS officer, who will be tried as an accessory to murder in the northern German city of Lueneburg, was originally charged in September.

In a statement at the time, prosecutors said: “The accused knew that, as part of the selection process, those not chosen for work and told they were going to the showers were really going to the gas chambers where they would be put to death in an agonising manner.”

The court has confirmed that eight survivors or survivors’ relatives have been accepted as witnesses for the trial, which will begin in spring.

The accused has previously said: “'I was an official in the prisoners' possessions administration which basically involved removing the money, jewels and other valuables from the inmates, registering it and sending it back to Berlin.

“They had diamonds and gold worth millions and it was my duty to make sure all of it got to Berlin.

“Down the years I have heard the cries of the dead in my dreams and in every waking moment. I will never be free of them.”