BERLIN, March 12 (Xinhua) -- The former German SS man Oskar Groening, known as the "accountant of Auschwitz", is said to be dead before his four-year prison term ever started, the German media, Spiegel Online, reported on Monday, quoting a spokesman for the public prosecutors' office in Hannover.

Groening died on Friday at the age of 96, said the Spiegel Online.

The district court of Lueneburg, in 2015, sentenced Groening to four years' imprisonment for aiding murder during the Holocaust.

In December 2017, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany decided that Groening was liable and his punishment must begin. His appeals based on health reasons were dismissed by several courts.

Groening was a German SS member who was stationed at the Auschwitz concentration camp. His responsibilities included counting and sorting the money taken from prisoners, and he was in charge of the personal property of arriving prisoners.

More than 40 years later, he decided to make his activities at Auschwitz public. The recorded accounts he provided to the BBC contributed to the decision and ability to prosecute him.