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Should 90-year-old Nazi death camp guards be punished?

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Should old former Auschwitz guards be jailed?
Yes. They all contributed to the deaths of innocents and all deserve punishment.
35%
 35%  [ 5 ]
Yes, but only the ones who are found guilty of specific crimes as individuals.
42%
 42%  [ 6 ]
No. They're old men now, what's the point?
7%
 7%  [ 1 ]
I honestly don't know how I feel about this stuff.
14%
 14%  [ 2 ]
Total Votes : 14

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David Libra

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 1:30 am
Post subject: Should 90-year-old Nazi death camp guards be punished?Reply with quote

It seems amazing that there are still people actually still around to be jailed, but another one just got sentenced to five years:

http://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/06/auschwitz-conspirator/487676

Quote:
Hanning joined the Hitler Youth with his class in 1935 at age 13, then volunteered at 18 for the Waffen SS in 1940 at the urging of his stepmother. He fought in several battles in World War II before being hit by grenade splinters in his head and leg during close combat in Kiev in 1941.

He told the court that as he was recovering from his wounds he asked to be sent back but his commander decided he was no longer fit for front-line duty, and so sent him to Auschwitz, without his knowing what it was.

Though there was no evidence Hanning was responsible for a specific crime, he was tried under new legal reasoning that as a guard he helped the death camp operate, and thus could be tried for accessory to murder.


I have reasonably strong views on this. But I'm interested to know what the rest of you think.

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Wokko Pisces

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 1:46 am
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If purposefully killing civilians in WW2 is an indictable offence then every allied airman who flew in a heavy bomber over Germany and Japan should be in jail. To single out this one atrocity and round up and punish everyone who played any kind of part in it, no matter how miniscule reeks of politics, revenge and self interest.

What would happen to a member of the Waffen SS (A combat unit) who refused a direct order to report to a camp as a guard? Was he, as a guard, directly responsible with the relevant corroborating evidence of any war crime? The first point would show duress (he didn't want to be at the camp, he wanted to be at the front) and the second would show reasonable doubt.

All that before you take into account that this man is 94 years old, he's already lived his life and had to come to terms with what he was involved in. Putting him in jail serves what purpose? A deterrent to genocide? It's laughable if it wasn't so obviously serious. He'd probably be in an old folks home or hospital at his age anyway, and that's exactly where he'll end up serving this farce of a sentence. If it was some level of commander in the dock I might have a totally different point of view, but it's only the brainwashed kids of the Hitler Youth who are left to hunt down, and I doubt even one of them doesn't realise what they were made to do was wrong and evil.
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David Libra

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 1:49 am
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Can't add anything to that, Wokko – my thoughts exactly.
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schuey07 Aries



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 1:57 am
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David wrote:
Can't add anything to that, Wokko – my thoughts exactly.


Agree with both of you, it really is a joke.
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 2:02 am
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When is [quote] Agree with of you it not a joke?
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ronrat 



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 5:03 am
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Seems pointless. But who knows what forces are at play here. There are still people wandering around with tattooed numbers and they will never forgive. Surely home detention which at his age is all he will be doing is all he will get.

Comparisons to airman are totally irrelevant. They were shot at and if captured faced death. They also were not tpld "Go here and bomb 5 year olds" The Jews and Slavs and Gypsies were not in a position to fight back.

However this case seems a bit over the top.

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 5:06 am
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When were they?
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think positive Libra

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 8:17 am
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Yeah I don't like the comparison to the airmen, any more than I would the oposition pilots, and soldiers, following orders.

But I agree, it seems pointless if this guy was firstly an injured soldier, then just following orders as a prison guard.

If he was one of the mad doctors, or anyone with the power to point a bunch of people at the gas chamber, I'd feel differently. Same if someone like Martin Bryant wasn't caught until he was old, murder is still murder.


Edit ,nah I wouldn't have even put this guy on trial, although I can understand why the survivors would like him to tell all he knows.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/auschwitz-holocaust-guard-reinhold-hanning-speaks-about-murder-of-170000-people-for-the-first-time-a7007536.html

Same with this guy, (gees what an awful job). I doubt wether they could refuse to do the jobs they had.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/oskar-groening-live-auschwitz-book-keeper-found-guilty-and-sentenced-to-four-years-in-prison-10389677.html

But then I guess you have to look at following orders. Is their a moral, or even a real line where you say no? And at what price?

I'm guessing a lot who said those ones burn, didn't actually flick the switch. Gutless bastards.

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Wokko Pisces

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 10:20 am
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ronrat wrote:
Seems pointless. But who knows what forces are at play here. There are still people wandering around with tattooed numbers and they will never forgive. Surely home detention which at his age is all he will be doing is all he will get.

Comparisons to airman are totally irrelevant. They were shot at and if captured faced death. They also were not tpld "Go here and bomb 5 year olds" The Jews and Slavs and Gypsies were not in a position to fight back.

However this case seems a bit over the top.


The fire bombing of Dresden can very easily be argued as a war crime, they were told to "Go here and bomb 5 olds" it was terror bombing. If 'following orders' isn't a defence against war crimes then flying a bomber over a city and leveling the place (Dresden's city center was targeted, most industry was on the outskirts) is indeed comparable to being a prison guard. In fact one could argue that the airmen are directly responsible for the atrocity that they commit unless they choose not to release their bombs or jettison them.

The civilian population of Dresden was also not in a position to fight back.

I would say the same about Germans involved in the Blitz when they firebombed British cities, how is the life of a Jewish civilian worth any more or less than a British or German one in the eyes of the law? All the main actors and commanders are dead, the only ones left are the kids and I doubt there are many 20 year olds today who would refuse an unethical order given to them by a superior, let alone 20 year olds raised in the Hitler Youth and thoroughly brainwashed.
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Pies4shaw Leo

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 10:44 am
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It's a reasonably hilarious view of criminal justice that some of you seem to have adopted here. This fellow was guilty of 170,000 counts of accessory to murder but you think punishing him now is a little bit harsh! What he was involved in was, as Bruce would say, "just a little bit special".

Of course there is a political aspect to who gets tried and who doesn't and for what crimes against international law. That doesn't make this man "not guilty". A dozen or so of his victims were still alive to testify against him, so it's not yet a mere historical footnote. In any event, it has long been established as a matter of international law that there is no "limitations period" applicable to crimes against humanity.

Here, the punishment for the perpetrator will likely be trivial, in the scheme of things - it is the finding of guilt (and its applicability to future international criminal cases) and the expression of continuing disapproval of such conduct that matters. There are continuing conflicts, official and unofficial, all over the world to which these principles will matter. The "I didn't really kill anyone because I didn't actually pull the trigger myself" defence was always morally bankrupt - but good in law until the last decade, so people who were complicit in the way this man obviously was (and acknowledged at his trial that he was) can only be effectively tried since Demanjuk was dealt with a few years back.
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think positive Libra

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 10:50 am
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Pies4shaw wrote:
It's a reasonably hilarious view of criminal justice that some of you seem to have adopted here. This fellow was guilty of 170,000 counts of accessory to murder but you think punishing him now is a little bit harsh! What he was involved in was, as Bruce would say, "just a little bit special".

Of course there is a political aspect to who gets tried and who doesn't and for what crimes against international law. That doesn't make this man "not guilty". A dozen or so of his victims were still alive to testify against him, so it's not yet a mere historical footnote. In any event, it has long been established as a matter of international law that there is no "limitations period" applicable to crimes against humanity.

Here, the punishment for the perpetrator will likely be trivial, in the scheme of things - it is the finding of guilt (and its applicability to future international criminal cases) and the expression of continuing disapproval of such conduct that matters. There are continuing conflicts, official and unofficial, all over the world to which these principles will matter. The "I didn't really kill anyone because I didn't actually pull the trigger myself" defence was always morally bankrupt - but good in law until the last decade, so people who were complicit in the way this man obviously was (and acknowledged at his trial that he was) can only be effectively tried since Demanjuk was dealt with a few years back.


I agree, but really, this guy at least, I'm guessing he's had a life time of punishment.

Stick him in a state run nursing home, that's punishment enough

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watt price tully Scorpio



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 10:59 am
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Should 90-year-old Nazi death camp guards be punished?

I didn't realize that the Nazis employed 90 year olds.

He did the crime as a young man. He finally got caught, do the time.

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David Libra

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 11:30 am
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Pies4shaw wrote:
It's a reasonably hilarious view of criminal justice that some of you seem to have adopted here. This fellow was guilty of 170,000 counts of accessory to murder but you think punishing him now is a little bit harsh! What he was involved in was, as Bruce would say, "just a little bit special".

Of course there is a political aspect to who gets tried and who doesn't and for what crimes against international law. That doesn't make this man "not guilty". A dozen or so of his victims were still alive to testify against him, so it's not yet a mere historical footnote. In any event, it has long been established as a matter of international law that there is no "limitations period" applicable to crimes against humanity.

Here, the punishment for the perpetrator will likely be trivial, in the scheme of things - it is the finding of guilt (and its applicability to future international criminal cases) and the expression of continuing disapproval of such conduct that matters. There are continuing conflicts, official and unofficial, all over the world to which these principles will matter. The "I didn't really kill anyone because I didn't actually pull the trigger myself" defence was always morally bankrupt - but good in law until the last decade, so people who were complicit in the way this man obviously was (and acknowledged at his trial that he was) can only be effectively tried since Demanjuk was dealt with a few years back.


The concept of being an 'accessory' is reasonably slippery here as the camps were run with the implicit consent of a great number of German civilians. What moral difference is there, really, between the enthusiastic Nazi voter and the woman who cleans the commander's quarters at Auschwitz? Is merely being there a crime in itself? The analogy of wartime pilots charged with bombing civilians is a good one, and beyond your acknowledgement of the politics of judging war crime, I'd like to know whether you think the pilot in charge of the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima should have been charged by an international court.

Many people who are uncomfortable with these sentences would be perfectly fine with someone being convicted for, say, murdering a schoolgirl 70 years ago. I think the key difference is culpability – such an act would have been against the law and seen as abhorrent by the dominant culture then as now, whereas a Nazi guard was acting within a system that not only tolerated atrocity but demanded it.

This is something bigger than just the Nuremberg Defence; it's the reason why it's considered unjust to punish soldiers for killing other soldiers during wartime. In Gallipoli, Vietnam and Iraq, Australian soldiers have gunned down men simply trying to protect their homeland. We won't punish them now or any time in the future because we understand that, whatever the morality of their actions, the army's authoritarian structure does absolve soldiers of certain responsibilities (so long as you stay within the 'rules of war'). This isn't mere self-defence; it goes equally for snipers or soldiers involved in targeted assassinations. When trying to assess whether an individual ought to be punished, the context matters a great deal.

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think positive Libra

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 11:37 am
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watt price tully wrote:
Should 90-year-old Nazi death camp guards be punished?

I didn't realize that the Nazis employed 90 year olds.

He did the crime as a young man. He finally got caught, do the time.


what crime did he do? he, as a public servant, did as he was told.

he was in a different part of the camp, he was a soldier, he was a prison guard, for all we know he may have been a nice one.

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watt price tully Scorpio



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 11:59 am
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think positive wrote:
watt price tully wrote:
Should 90-year-old Nazi death camp guards be punished?

I didn't realize that the Nazis employed 90 year olds.

He did the crime as a young man. He finally got caught, do the time.


what crime did he do? ....


The one he is being punished for.

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