Should German WWII vets be arrested?[W:260]

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

Paleocon said:

As has been pointed out before, coercion and necessity are not defenses to murder.

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This isn't correct. "Murder" is an unlawful killing with malice. Not saying that the actions in question are not crimes, and more specifically 'war crimes'. But that doesn't automatically make them murder. What happens in a combat zone requires a different standard.

As an example: a small unit of soldiers is on a covert operation behind enemy lines, and in the process a enemy combatant surrenders to this unit before they have completed their mission. They can't let the prisoner go and risk him compromising the mission, so they may have to kill that prisoner. Where there are no other options would that be murder in your mind?

The matter of guards killing prisoners well within controlled territory would be a whole other story.

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

Del Zeppnile said:

This isn't correct. "Murder" is an unlawful killing with malice. Not saying that the actions in question are not crimes, and more specifically 'war crimes'. But that doesn't automatically make them murder. What happens in a combat zone requires a different standard.

As an example: a small unit of soldiers is on a covert operation behind enemy lines, and in the process a enemy combatant surrenders to this unit before they have completed their mission. They can't let the prisoner go and risk him compromising the mission, so they may have to kill that prisoner. Where there are no other options would that be murder in your mind?

The matter of guards killing prisoners well within controlled territory would be a whole other story.

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If they intend to inflict death on another person, without justifiable cause, then that is malice sufficient for murder, to which coercion and necessity are not defenses.

Intentionally killing a surrendered prisoner (they're not trying to escape or alert the enemy to your location or the like) is murder. You aren't allowed to kill someone in your custody* based on what you think they might do later.

*Judicially sanctioned executions excepted

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

joG said:

As I pointed out people did resist and many died doing so. They were not responsible for the crimes.

But the man was voted into parliament and hoisted into power by democratic means. He had published his agenda. Everybody could read it and he had demonstrated that he meant what he had written. Anyone who did not resist, but paid loyally and thus enabled the country to do what the Führer had written that he would do was responsible. That he seized power once he was head of the government does not reduce the responsibility of the people.

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Hitler and his party might have been voted in by democratic means. That does not mean that the German people voted him into office. The politicians of the time thought they could hold Hitler down and make him a non-issue by giving him some power.

Also, in a situation of crisis, and Germany was in a crisis like almost no crisis ever before, people follow the leader that promises to deliver them from that crisis. The reasons for the rise of Hitler were both domestic (German situation) as foreign (the way the first world war ended, the crash of 1929). In the only truly democratic elections the Nazi's participated in, they never got more than 33% of the vote.

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

Voltaire X said:

Germany is STILL arresting WW2 vets because they were stationed at concentration camps.

BBC News - Germany arrests three suspected Auschwitz guards

Three men aged 88, 92 and 94 have been detained by German authorities on suspicion of being guards at the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

The homes of a number of men were raided in three German states, months after prosecutors investigating Nazi-era war crimes announced they were recommending charges against 30 people.


Is this fair? The youngest of the three would have been probably born in 1926, making him no older than 19 when the war ended. Additionally, it's not like these guys volunteered for the war, or even to be guards at Auschwitz. They were forced into it; almost every German male of military age was forced into fighting for the Third Reich. I don't think it's right for us to do this. It's ridiculous for a bunch of people lucky enough to be born in the post-war era to go back and persecute these people for things that happened 70 years ago, especially since these people couldn't have possibly hoped to stop anything. What would have happened if they refused to be guards at Auschwitz? They would have probably just been executed on the spot for refusing to obey orders.

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There's probably some whose crimes rise above, but for the most part I don't know what's accomplished by arresting men in their 90s. Unless they are actively still supporting the Nazi cause, which probably isn't the case for the most part.

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

Peter King said:

Hitler and his party might have been voted in by democratic means. That does not mean that the German people voted him into office. The politicians of the time thought they could hold Hitler down and make him a non-issue by giving him some power.

Also, in a situation of crisis, and Germany was in a crisis like almost no crisis ever before, people follow the leader that promises to deliver them from that crisis. The reasons for the rise of Hitler were both domestic (German situation) as foreign (the way the first world war ended, the crash of 1929). In the only truly democratic elections the Nazi's participated in, they never got more than 33% of the vote.

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When has it ever been necessary to garner more than 50% of the vote to be considered "voted into office" in a parliamentary style democracy? There seems to be a bit of a disconnect here when you say he was voted into power but he wasn't voted into office. Even if just 33% voted for his policies, that is STILL a frighteningly high number considering the extremity of the rhetoric, and although you somehow with to absolve the German public from responsibility, they still put him in place and still bear the responsibility for doing so.

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

If these men didn't commit murder, then they shouldn't be arrested for murder. Since that isn't what they were arrested for, then I have no problems with it.

They were arrested on charges of accessory to murder. If they were guards there and they knew what was happening, then this is a very reasonable charge to me.

As for their age, I'm sure their victims envy their age.

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

Paleocon said:

If they intend to inflict death on another person, without justifiable cause, then that is malice sufficient for murder, to which coercion and necessity are not defenses.

Intentionally killing a surrendered prisoner (they're not trying to escape or alert the enemy to your location or the like) is murder. You aren't allowed to kill someone in your custody* based on what you think they might do later.

*Judicially sanctioned executions excepted

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My point is that during war there may be justifiable cause for a summary execution of a prisoner. Especially where there are no other options for that mission's success, or a possible loss of life for your own men. And when that enemy combatant is an illegal combatant, all bet are always off.

But that is not what this topic is about. Camp guards cannot execute prisoners.

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

Gardener said:

When has it ever been necessary to garner more than 50% of the vote to be considered "voted into office" in a parliamentary style democracy? There seems to be a bit of a disconnect here when you say he was voted into power but he wasn't voted into office. Even if just 33% voted for his policies, that is STILL a frighteningly high number considering the extremity of the rhetoric, and although you somehow with to absolve the German public from responsibility, they still put him in place and still bear the responsibility for doing so.

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Well, in a lot of parliamentary democracies it is necessary to get over 50% to gain power. Maybe not in the US or countries based on the English voting system, but in a lot of democracies you need a government that can fall back on more than 50% of the votes to come into power.

And if you are starving from hunger, unemployed and seriously looking for someone to look up too that can give you back a bit of pride, feed you and give you a job, you will look at those things first. Nobody in Germany could have predicted this outcome in 1932 when they voted for Hitler.

And all of this is not an issue when it comes to arresting Germans if they have committed war crimes. If that is the case, then they have to be arrested and sentenced for their crimes.

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

Superfly said:

How can they be prosecuted if they were following a direct order from their commanding officer? Honestly, I understand that this was a horrible circumstance, but if these guys are brought to justice, in my opinion, anyway, it'd make more soldiers hesitant about signing up, if they can be prosecuted for following an order they were forced to do.

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Ask yourself a question. If you were ordered to participate in the murder of an ethnic group or a religion etc, would you do it? I would refuse and take whatever consequences that earned. What is your answer?

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

This question should have been asked sixty years ago.

This late in the game, what purpose would it serve?

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

Del Zeppnile said:

My point is that during war there may be justifiable cause for a summary execution of a prisoner. Especially where there are no other options for that mission's success, or a possible loss of life for your own men. And when that enemy combatant is an illegal combatant, all bet are always off.

But that is not what this topic is about. Camp guards cannot execute prisoners.

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Summary executions are not justifiable, legally or morally.

I agree they cannot kill prisoners, even if under coercion to do so.

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

Peter King said:

Nobody in Germany could have predicted this outcome in 1932 when they voted for Hitler.

.

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That is absolute apologist nonsense. The Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 put Nazis on the map, and Germans had a full decade to familiarize themselves with the Nazi points of view.

Why do you make these excuses? I really do not know you at all, so don't know if you are doing so out of sympathy for the National Socialist agenda, out of some misplaced need to divorce Germans from their own history or what?

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

Gardener said:

That is absolute apologist nonsense. The Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 put Nazis on the map, and Germans had a full decade to familiarize themselves with the Nazi points of view.

Why do you make these excuses? I really do not know you at all, so don't know if you are doing so out of sympathy for the National Socialist agenda, out of some misplaced need to divorce Germans from their own history or what?

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No, that is truthful and factual information. The Beerhall putsch was a fiasco. Until his rise to power in 1933 only 240,000 books had been sold. After his power grab many people bought it and not before.

And again, if you are starving and someone offers you a way out, you will say yes first and then ask questions later.

And I am not making excuses, I am stating facts. My country was hit very badly by the Germans and was occupied for almost 5 years and suffered a horrendous hunger winter in which many thousands starved to death even though the allied forces were only miles away. Germany 2014 is not the Germany from 1933 and even the Germany of 1933 could not have predicted the horrors that were to follow. That has nothing to do with my feelings about the Nazi's, I hate everything the nazi's stood for and they were quite rightly removed from power by the allies but that does not mean I have to blame every single German for the crimes of their leadership.

I do not know how it was in those times, with the hunger, poverty, massive unemployment, feelings of betrayal by the Weimar Republic, the punishing repair settlements with the allied forces in 1918, etc. etc. etc. etc. As an occupied nation, we know how little one can truly do against evil oppressors and the Germans who did not like Hitler will have felt the same. There was no-one one could trust, not even your own children who were being brainwashed by the Nazi party in the Hitler Jugend and the Bund for junge madchen. If they talked badly about Hitler they could find themselves betrayed by their children and arrested/threatened by the SA and later the SS. There is no way that we can imagine how Germans who were opposed to Hitler felt in that very oppressive society and we cannot hold an entire population responsible for decisions they did not make.

It was Hitler and his cronies who decided to the "Endlosung" (the final solution) when they had that secret Wannsee conference. A lot of Germans might have been complicit up to a point but blindly blaming all Germans is not OK IMHO. We should forget what happened there, but it is time to forgive the German people because they were not the main perpetrators of the war crimes of the second world war.

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

Del Zeppnile said:

All military orders still require a person to use their common sense and humanity....

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Uh, no, we don't. First of all there's no such thing as common sense. Second humanity has nothing to do with following a lawful order, or disobeying an unlawful order. These soldiers thought their orders were legal. It's how they were raised, it's what their people and their peers expected, so doing flowed naturally when their superior ordered it.

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

Superfly said:

How can they be prosecuted if they were following a direct order from their commanding officer? Honestly, I understand that this was a horrible circumstance, but if these guys are brought to justice, in my opinion, anyway, it'd make more soldiers hesitant about signing up, if they can be prosecuted for following an order they were forced to do.

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It was determined through the Nuremberg trials that the "superior orders" ("we were just following orders" [by a superior officer]) defense was insufficient.

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

RabidAlpaca said:

This has nothing to do with justice, it's about political ass covering. They want to make it look like they're still doing something. Unless a direct crime can be attributed to them, not just crime by association, they should be left alone.



Yes, but we're talking about someone whose sole crime was being stationed at Auschwitz. Imagine you get drafted and sent there, and all you do is man a guard post. If you try to refuse they'll shoot you on site. How can anyone be held responsible for being put in such a situation? The officers in charge making the calls should be prosecuted, the rest not.

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Sorry my friend, but like you, I joined my country's military. And were I ordered to do something that was strongly against my moral code, there was no way I would do it...even if it meant forfeiting my own life (I am not saying you do or do not feel the same way - I do not know).
Not because I am so brave...because I am not. But because I knew that I could never live with myself after it was over if I had just stood by while atrocities took place...let alone aided them by standing guard.


I do not care what pressure they were under or whether their lives were at stake. I would honestly rather die then stand guard while I knew that my superiors were torturing and murdering innocent people.

What is the point in living if the only way to live is as a coward? To me - none.

I realize it's just a line from a movie...but I honestly try and live by it...'It's better to be dead and cool, then alive and uncool.'

I don't care how long it has been or what pressure's they were under...if there is enough evidence to bring these people to trial...it should be done. And if they are convicted, they should be given - imo - the full punsihment that the law demands and the judge/jury ask for.


You obviously feel differently. And I assume I will not change your mind about this. And there is NO WAY you will EVER change my mind about this.

So why don't we just agree to disagree on this and move on?

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

Peter King said:

No, that is truthful and factual information. The Beerhall putsch was a fiasco. Until his rise to power in 1933 only 240,000 books had been sold. After his power grab many people bought it and not before.

And again, if you are starving and someone offers you a way out, you will say yes first and then ask questions later.

And I am not making excuses, I am stating facts.

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No, you are making excuses and displaying a lack of knowledge and understanding. The sale of 240,0000 books is HUGE. You think his having a book that is a BEST SELLER means nobody knew about his politics? Do you think there were no Newspapers reporting upon him? Did people not talk to each other?

Good grief, this notion you are trying to sell here that the German people elected somebody who they knew nothing about is downright laughable.

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

Who should go to jail for the atrocities in North Korea. After what Adolph did in Germany and the lessons we learned there how can we stand by and do nothing while history repeats itself in North Korea? Aren't we now just as guilty as the Average pre 1939 German Citizen for sitting back and doing nothing about North Korea?

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

DA60 said:

Sorry my friend, but like you, I joined my country's military. And were I ordered to do something that was strongly against my moral code, there was no way I would do it...even if it meant forfeiting my own life (I am not saying you do or do not feel the same way - I do not know).
Not because I am so brave...because I am not. But because I knew that I could never live with myself after it was over if I had just stood by while atrocities took place...let alone aided them by standing guard.


I do not care what pressure they were under or whether their lives were at stake. I would honestly rather die then stand guard while I knew that my superiors were torturing and murdering innocent people.

What is the point in living if the only way to live is as a coward? To me - none.

I realize it's just a line from a movie...but I honestly try and live by it...'It's better to be dead and cool, then alive and uncool.'

I don't care how long it has been or what pressure's they were under...if there is enough evidence to bring these people to trial...it should be done. And if they are convicted, they should be given - imo - the full punsihment that the law demands and the judge/jury ask for.


You obviously feel differently. And I assume I will not change your mind about this. And there is NO WAY you will EVER change my mind about this.

So why don't we just agree to disagree on this and move on?

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No, what you don't seem to understand is that they don't have any evidence that these people did anything wrong at all. They're trying them solely because they were stationed in Ausschwitz. That'd be like you getting stationed at Ft. Bragg, then some group of soldiers at Ft. Bragg murder a bunch of people. Then 60 years later, poof, the government calls you up and tries you for being an accomplice to murder simply because you were also stationed in the same place. That's insanely ridiculous.

From the article:

A court decided that by being a worker at a concentration camp he was guilty of being an accessory to murder. This meant that courts did not have to prove active participation in killing to find a suspect guilty of murder, BBC Berlin correspondent Stephen Evans reports.

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And by the way, insubordination in the German military was met with a bullet to the head. So that means if you get stationed at Auschwitz you either die or get charged with murder, there is no 3rd option. That's irrational.

I have this crazy notion that people should be tried for their actions, not their inactions.

Also from this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp#Command_and_control

- There were 7,000 German soldiers stationed in Auschwitz.
- Only about 120 of which operated the gas chambers.

So all 7,000 of those soldiers stationed there, the cooks, medics, paperwork clerks, etc. etc., all deserve to be brought up on murder charges?

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

Peter King said:

Hitler and his party might have been voted in by democratic means. That does not mean that the German people voted him into office. The politicians of the time thought they could hold Hitler down and make him a non-issue by giving him some power.

Also, in a situation of crisis, and Germany was in a crisis like almost no crisis ever before, people follow the leader that promises to deliver them from that crisis. The reasons for the rise of Hitler were both domestic (German situation) as foreign (the way the first world war ended, the crash of 1929). In the only truly democratic elections the Nazi's participated in, they never got more than 33% of the vote.

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33 percent for the man that wrote that book, those articles, that had the SA beat people in the streets, that said, what he did in his speeches? I mean, have you read that stuff? He said he was going to exterminate lebensunwertes Leben and get rid of Untermenschen. He was going to take the Lebensraum in the East. And the others let him become chancellor!

Of course there are different levels of criminality involved. There is a difference between paying for the extermination of people with Down syndrome and other handicaps from your taxes and actually pulling the trigger (and yes I know they were not usually shot but got a shot of air in a vein). But either way it seems criminal to me.

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

rocket88 said:

There's probably some whose crimes rise above, but for the most part I don't know what's accomplished by arresting men in their 90s. Unless they are actively still supporting the Nazi cause, which probably isn't the case for the most part.

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Punishment is mostly thought of as retribution for the evil someone did. Actually that is not what makes punishment a rational social instrument. It is a good instrument because people see that the behavior is punished and therefore tend not to miss behave. If you know you will always be robustly punished, you will not man the next concentration camp in the next country nor shoot at demonstrators calling for the autocrat's dismissal....not vote for someone that promises to exterminate the handicapped.

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

RabidAlpaca said:

No, what you don't seem to understand is that they don't have any evidence that these people did anything wrong at all. They're trying them solely because they were stationed in Ausschwitz. That'd be like you getting stationed at Ft. Bragg, then some group of soldiers at Ft. Bragg murder a bunch of people. Then 60 years later, poof, the government calls you up and tries you for being an accomplice to murder simply because you were also stationed in the same place. That's insanely ridiculous.

From the article:


And by the way, insubordination in the German military was met with a bullet to the head. So that means if you get stationed at Auschwitz you either die or get charged with murder, there is no 3rd option. That's irrational.

I have this crazy notion that people should be tried for their actions, not their inactions.

Also from this link: Auschwitz concentration camp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

- There were 7,000 German soldiers stationed in Auschwitz.
- Only about 120 of which operated the gas chambers.

So all 7,000 of those soldiers stationed there, the cooks, medics, paperwork clerks, etc. etc., all deserve to be brought up on murder charges?

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Oh come on man. Every case is different. You know perfectly well that in every crime perpetrated by numerous individuals that there are always degrees of guilt.

Was every one who was involved in the My Lai massacre guilty? Of course not. Every case has to be looked at individually.

Just as every case on this subject needs to be looked at individually.

AND...

'I don't care how long it has been or what pressure's they were under...if there is enough evidence to bring these people to trial...it should be done. And if they are convicted, they should be given - imo - the full punsihment that the law demands and the judge/jury ask for.'

It is where I stand on this and NOTHING you say will probably change that.


I said let's agree to disagree...but you just won't let it go. So I will.

I am done here with you on this subject for now.


Good day.

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

Voltaire X said:

Germany is STILL arresting WW2 vets because they were stationed at concentration camps.

BBC News - Germany arrests three suspected Auschwitz guards

Three men aged 88, 92 and 94 have been detained by German authorities on suspicion of being guards at the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

The homes of a number of men were raided in three German states, months after prosecutors investigating Nazi-era war crimes announced they were recommending charges against 30 people.


Is this fair? The youngest of the three would have been probably born in 1926, making him no older than 19 when the war ended. Additionally, it's not like these guys volunteered for the war, or even to be guards at Auschwitz. They were forced into it; almost every German male of military age was forced into fighting for the Third Reich. I don't think it's right for us to do this. It's ridiculous for a bunch of people lucky enough to be born in the post-war era to go back and persecute these people for things that happened 70 years ago, especially since these people couldn't have possibly hoped to stop anything. What would have happened if they refused to be guards at Auschwitz? They would have probably just been executed on the spot for refusing to obey orders.

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It depends if it can proven they committed crimes against humanity or not.

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

Navy Pride said:

It depends if it can proven they committed crimes against humanity or not.

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Would you say that preventing Jews from running away was a crime against humanity?

Re: Should German WWII vets be arrested?

The justice seeking politics of Deutchland still at work even after 70 years never seize to amaze me. If only Serbia went after its war criminals with this much volition.