German prosecutors on Tuesday said they were seeking three and a half years' jail time for a former SS officer known as the "Bookkeeper of Auschwitz".

Oskar Groening, 94, stands accused before a court in the northern city of Lueneburg of 300,000 counts of "accessory to murder" in the cases of deported Hungarian Jews sent to the gas chambers between May and July 1944.

Public prosecutor Jens Lehmann said in closing arguments that his sentencing request was based on the "nearly incomprehensible number of victims", mitigated by "the limited contribution of the accused" to their deaths.