he was facing charges of aiding in the killing of 216,000 jewish men , women and children at a nazi death camp .
writing over the gate reads : " arbeit macht frei " ... ( associated press ) johann breyer died tuesday night at a philadelphia hospital , attorney dennis boyle said wednesday , the same day that u.s. magistrate timothy rice approved the extradition request .
" no statute of limitations offers a safe haven for murder , " he wrote .
the us judge also said : " given breyer 's role as an elite ss armed guard at a camp designed and operated almost exclusively as a killing center for jews , germany has established probable cause of breyer 's complicity in the mass murders at auschwitz . "
rice had found probable cause that " breyer , the individual before this court , is the same person sought for aiding and abetting murder in germany . "
in a case that had been building for years , german authorities issued a warrant for breyer claimed he was unaware of the massive slaughter at auschwitz and then that he did a nazi war crimes suspect from philadelphia has died a day before a judge approved his extradition to germany , his lawyer says .
us magistrate timothy rice said in the order on wednesday approving a request for breyer to be extradited to germany .
u.s. marshals arrested him in june outside his home in northeast philadelphia .
philadelphia ( ap ) — an 89 - year - old nazi concentration camp auschwitz i , poland , which was liberated by the russians in january 1945 .