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Former Nazi guard (93) found guilty

Too little to late. Its also overkill to imprison a 92 year old man especially when you consider how other nazis were absolved of their crimes because of who they were. ( Von Braun)
 
Rogue Valley said:
If he was a concentration camp guard, then he was SS. But his age at the time suggests that he could have been a conscript.

There is no statue of limitations for mass murder. At the very least try such individuals in a court of law and render a verdict.

The many thousands of dead demand this modicum of justice.
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It also has to be pointed out that SS conscripts were not simply assigned to concentration camps and death camps against their will.
 
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Jean-s said:
Bruno Dey murdered no-one.
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Would you be for this sentencing if it was proved to your satisfaction that he had personally tortured, brutalized or killed concentration camp internees, Jean-s?
 
Felis Leo said:
Would you be for this sentencing if it was proved to your satisfaction that he had personally tortured, brutalized or killed concentration camp internees, Jean-s?
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That would be different from what happened in this case. It was the policy of the Bundesrepublik to prosecute only those who were proved to bear personal culpability of maltreatment of prisoners but this was changed as a result of Ukrainian-American auto worker John Demjanjuk being accused of having been a guard at several camps although not guilty of any personal crime in 2009. This set a precedent of convicting in a German court on the grounds of being assigned to a Nazi camp alone.
 
Jean-s said:
The degree of responsibility the teenager had for the operation of the camp at Stutthof (near Danzig) was zero. G
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BS

A two year suspended sentence is hardly equal to taking a shower.
 
OlNate said:
I guess I question the point....but at the end of the day, whether he sits in his apartment / nursing home in a chair, or sits in a chair at prison, I don't think this is doing much to a 93 year old man.

It should be noted that a 17 year old entering the German army at the end of the world was literally being assigned to madness as a child - likely a child that had been indoctrinated throughout his entire youth. There would be no way he'd be convicted in today's world.
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Dey will not be sitting in any. prison as the sentence was suspended.

Imo the trial did have a point. A reminded of Nazi atrocities for the old, who already know about them and a lesson for the young, who perhaps do not.
 
Higgins86 said:
Too little to late. Its also overkill to imprison a 92 year old man especially when you consider how other nazis were absolved of their crimes because of who they were. ( Von Braun)
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Dey has not been imprisoned. The two year sentence was suspended.
 
Sweden said:
Dey will not be sitting in any. prison as the sentence was suspended.

Imo the trial did have a point. A reminded of Nazi atrocities for the old, who already know about them and a lesson for the young, who perhaps do not.
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Be in no doubt that all German children are taught about the Final Solution. The courts are not meant to be a substitute for school lessons on history. They are supposed to be about establishing justice which did not happen in this case.
 
Jean-s said:
Bruno Dey murdered no-one.
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It’s rather hilarious that you moan about supposed “American war crimes” while falling all over yourself to defend someone involved in the Nazi death camps.
 
Tigerace117 said:
It’s rather hilarious that you moan about supposed “American war crimes” while falling all over yourself to defend someone involved in the Nazi death camps.
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!7 year-old Bruno Dey was never assigned to a death camp.
 
Jean-s said:
Stutthof was not a death camp. As a 17 year old boy, Bruno Dey was sent to Stutthof against his will having asked to be assigned to a field kitchen because he wanted to be an apprentice baker. He was found to be unfit for combat and was made a camp guard. He never mistreated any inmate nor ever discharged his weapon. He did allow inmates to smuggle a dead horse into the camp for food on one occasion during the few months he was there. This was a kindness that even a boy just out of school knew was the right thing to do and could have got him into trouble. Forgive me but you come across as very hotheaded.
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How do you know any of this happened?
 
Jean-s said:
It has to be wondered what value there is in prosecuting such an old man who had been a schoolboy just before he was assigned as a guard in a concentration camp where he spent a few months at the end of WWII. The degree of responsibility the teenager had for the operation of the camp at Stutthof (near Danzig) was zero. Given that many thousands of ranking SS officers were let off scot free by the West German Bundesrepublik and the American occupation forces, to go after a man in his 90s who had been of so little importance in the Final Solution makes the current German judiciary appear stupidly vindictive. All the more ironic is that Nazi judges and lawyers went on to form the backbone of the West German judiciary after WWII.
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Time doesn't have limits in bringing those to justice that participated in such things.
 
Jean-s said:
!7 year-old Bruno Dey was never assigned to a death camp.
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If this doesn't make it a death camp then I don't know what would. They didn't have prisoners making crafts to fill the idle time were they?


The camp was liberated by the 48th army of the 3rd Belarusian Front on the 9th of May 1945, the last of the major concentration camps to be liberated. In total, around 110 ,000 people were deported to the Stutthof camp and its branches, and at least 65 ,000 of them died there
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Stutthof | Holocaust
 
Sweden said:
Dey will not be sitting in any. prison as the sentence was suspended.

Imo the trial did have a point. A reminded of Nazi atrocities for the old, who already know about them and a lesson for the young, who perhaps do not.
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You're right, I agree with this. I was thinking in terms of the punitive nature of the trial, but of course it's a good teaching opportunity.

Part of what makes this difficult is that they are attempting to judge an 80 year old crime in today's courts. So much has changed, we have learned so much since the Nuremberg trials, both about the specific nature of the situation, but also human psychology in general. It remains one of the most horrific, but also tragic, examples of humanity in modern history.
 
He received a two year suspended sentence. He's on probation. Not exactly severe.
 
Mika-El said:
You clearly have an agenda. How is your statement above even relevant? Do you know? The importance of trying and holding people accountable for war crimes no matter how old they are, is precisely to send a message to current and future war criminals.

You seem to be making a lot of excuses. This man's age or the failure to track down other war criminals does not justify ignoring what he did. He did what he did. You fail to get that. Making an excuse for a war criminal that he is old means what? What is old? Does this mean anyone can commit war crimes and as long as they get to an age you deem old, they get away with it? How do you saying he just wanted to be a baker mean a damn thing? If he just wanted to be a damn baker, does this mean he would be innocent if he put people in ovens? What kind of reasoning is that? He could have also wanted to be a classic musician, movie actor, prolific sex machine, on and on and so?

Since when do we ignore what a person does using the excuse they at one point wanted to be a baker, virgin, saint, or anything else?

Is it you don't get it or do you have an agenda not to get it.

His actions dictated who he was and will always be.

He wouldn't be a war criminal had he chosen to be a baker, or tell someone he would only be a baker.

Go on finish your supposed defense. Provide the evidence that when he killed all these people at NO TIME ever did he do it other than with a gun pointed at his head.

They examined that evidence. The first thing a war criminal investigation considers is the defense of being coerced into committing a war crime. He never raised that as a defense. He could not. The sheer volume and time period in which he carried out his actions rendered that impossible.
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Yet Israel gets away with murder all the time......try harder.

There is really no reason to harass a guy in his 90's with no evidence he did anything but stand a post.
 
Jean-s said:
Be in no doubt that all German children are taught about the Final Solution. The courts are not meant to be a substitute for school lessons on history. They are supposed to be about establishing justice which did not happen in this case.
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I think there was justice. Tempered with mercy, as Dey will not spend any time in prison.
 
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