A former concentration camp guard wept in the dock on the first day of his trial where he is accused of complicity in mass murder.

Johann Rehbogen, 94, who worked in the Stutthoff concentration camp in wartime Poland, faces hundreds of counts of being an accessory to murder.

He does not deny serving in the camp east of Danzig — the Polish city of Gdansk today — but told investigators he was unaware of the killings and did not participate in them.

Mr Rehbogen, a retired civil servant, is being tried in juvenile court in Münster because he was aged under 21 at the time of his alleged crimes.

He initially showed no reaction as prosecutors told the court how Stutthoff prisoners were killed by gunshots, starvation or lethal injections of gasoline to their hearts.

But the defendant later wept as the testimony of Holocaust survivors was read out in the court, the DPA agency reported.

One survivor, a woman from Indianapolis, alleged Mr Rehbogen had “helped to murder my beloved mother, whom I have missed my entire life”.

No pleas were entered during Tuesday’s hearing. The trial is expected to last until January.