|
Bosnia-Herzegovina1437 Posts
On May 15 2009 01:43 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2009 17:13 zatic wrote:
I just want you to get off the idea that he a) was a soldier b) just followed orders. He was a savage that tortured and murdered because he liked to torture and murder. and I want you and others to get off the idea that people act the same during times of peace as they do during warfare in times of stress and duress. hundreds of thousands of people were in the S.S. I wonder how many committed atrocious acts. as human beings we should not be going on witch hunts. we should not be prosecuting people for things like this. it's fucked up. it's sad that people can't see that. where is the proescution against gitmo guards? nowhere and yet we prosecute an 89 year old man for shit that happened 60 years ago, when he wasn't even a fucking decisionmaker. it's just retarded and distraction from things we REALLY should be focusing on.
You sum this shit up pretty good
|
On May 14 2009 18:12 Ropid wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2009 13:43 travis wrote:On May 13 2009 16:55 zatic wrote:
HamerD: So, following your logic, the one and only responsible person for all war crimes, the holocaust, and crimes against humanity was Hitler himself? Everybody else can't be blamed because they were allowed to do what they did? absolutely not... but you can't convict thousands for the decisions of the few. soldiers are trained to be soldiers. they take orders. they do their jobs. that is what makes them soldiers. not to say it is right... but to be a soldier is not right. but it is the way our civilization works so far. it's really a double standard, is the job of soldiers to take orders or to make their own decisions? would our leaders want soldiers to just take orders, or to make their own decisions? + Show Spoiler + When I was in the army, we had mandatory lessons about our duties and laws and stuff. If I would get an order, it was my duty to know if it's against the Geneva Convention and other laws. It would be illegal to follow it. Prosecutors would not only go after my superior, but also after me.
Sometimes following Geneve Convention is not that easy. Lets make example:
Let say you are with 6 other men (you are leader of that group), you have witnessed brutal executions of civilians and your own side soldiers by enemy soldiers. After brutal fighting 1 or 2 enemy soldiers surrenders (not part of brutal executions). All 6 guys decide to execute those guys right away but you say "no". They still do it, against your orders.
Will you tell your your leader that they brutally killed 1/2 men against your commands? If you tell this most likely all 6 men will deny this thing ever happened. Your leader might say its not that important or "shit happens at war". You might lose your men respect after that and fear that something happens to you.
|
Zurich15365 Posts
On May 15 2009 03:59 Pika Chu wrote:Show nested quote +I am not a judge. He is innocent before the law, not in my eyes.
Also, he has been found guilty previously and sentenced to death in Isreal Lol, are you serious Zatic? So the fact that he's been tried and sentenced in Israel means that it's legitimate to say he was guilty? That's so like how german officers were tried by the soviets. And yes what i mean is that it's so biased that even speaking of this fact makes it be weird.
Yes I am serious. Isreal is and was not Soviet Russia. The fact that the ruling was considered invalid and he got back to the US should tell you that.
If the German court will clear him of any accusations I'll gladly retract my statement. After all as I mentioned several time throughout this thread all I want is him being tried.
|
On May 15 2009 04:52 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2009 04:38 Hawk wrote:On May 15 2009 03:57 travis wrote:On May 15 2009 03:48 Hawk wrote:Please travis, for the love of god, do some reading before you post, if just once. Military service was mandatory in Germany. The SS was an elite unit in the German military—you had to apply, prove your lineage and all sorts of stuff. They ran the camps, ran the police, the gestapo and was the only unit with definite knowledge of the mass murders (since a lot of the general public didn't know what exactly happened) and all that stuff, hence SS members typically being the ones tried with war crimes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SchutzstaffelThe only controversy should be the evidence, since he's been tried several times and keeps coming back because of conflicting evidence dude, what the fuck is your deal I read the first 10 pages before my last post, and only replied to posts that I read. I read that wikipedia page. I also read other pages. WTF are you even trying to say? WTF are you even replying to? You first say there's no difference between the SS and regular soldiers, and then you say 'so what!' no I didn't. Show nested quote +
that he supposedly joined a group that you have to prove yourself capable of extreme hate, murder, deception and all that stuff.
oh really? you know what it took to be in the S.S, mr "do some reading before you post"? even in the wikipedia article that YOU linked to it says nothing about this. and it also says: Show nested quote +
As the Nazi party monopolized political power in Germany, key government functions such as law enforcement were absorbed into the SS, while many SS organizations became the de facto government agencies.
so I suppose the police force must have all been terrible terrible people and besides, his reasons for joining are moot. plenty of people joined armed forces with the intention of hurting people. duh and furthermore, the question isn't even whether his acts were moral, it's whether they were legal. As i said before I don't believe being a solder is moral in the first place. saying "lol" doesn't make it untrue. it's clearly true. anyone with a brain should be able to understand that if he wasn't in that position someone else would have been.
On May 14 2009 14:58 travis wrote:
I think the S.S. were clearly soldiers. If you don't, fine. I'm not here to argue semantics. Replace the word soldier in my post with the word "guard" and my point still stands.
lol
and I love your logic—he joined to prevent someone else from joining and killing the jews instead of him!
|
if you think that quote means that "the S.S. were the same as regular soldiers" then you completely fail at reading comprehension.
|
Zurich15365 Posts
travis I really don't think you know what you are talking about. Even after you said you read the thread you repetitively bring up the comparison to stressed soldiers in war, where your reasoning really makes sense, I fully admit. But we are not talking about soldiers in war.
|
On May 15 2009 05:09 Hawk wrote:
and I love your logic—he joined to prevent someone else from joining and killing the jews instead of him!
saying that they are clearly soldiers, and saying that there is no difference between them and regular soldiers - two different statements
stop trying to put words in his mouth
|
Germany / USA16648 Posts
Stop quoting humongous quoted quoted quoted quotes just to put one sentence below it, seriously
|
mine is all nested, or are you talking to hawk?
|
Germany / USA16648 Posts
Both of you. Posting huge quotes with not much to say on your own is a terrible way to discuss things, please avoid it. I don't want to further derail this thread with a discussion about quoting, if there's anything else please PM me.
|
Bosnia-Herzegovina1437 Posts
Yeah, I was so confused of the quotes I almost had a seizure.
|
wasn't he just following orders?
|
On May 15 2009 05:28 zatic wrote:
travis I really don't think you know what you are talking about. Even after you said you read the thread you repetitively bring up the comparison to stressed soldiers in war, where your reasoning really makes sense, I fully admit. But we are not talking about soldiers in war.
I think that claim is just silly semantical play. It's the same difference.
In my opinion, they are soldiers. And in my opinion, it was war. The definitions of both words fit the situation perfectly.
war
1 /wɔr/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [wawr] Show IPA noun, verb, warred, war⋅ring, adjective
–noun
1. a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation; warfare, as by land, sea, or air.
2. a state or period of armed hostility or active military operations: The two nations were at war with each other.
sol⋅dier
/ˈsoʊldʒər/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [sohl-jer] Show IPA
–noun
1. a person who serves in an army; a person engaged in military service.
2. an enlisted man or woman, as distinguished from a commissioned officer: the soldiers' mess and the officers' mess.
3. a person of military skill or experience: George Washington was a great soldier.
4. a person who contends or serves in any cause: a soldier of the Lord.
5. Also called button man. Slang. a low-ranking member of a crime organization or syndicate.
seems to me that all of these definitions of either word fit into the scenario.
|
Zurich15365 Posts
This is exactly why I don't think you know what you are talking about. If you seriously think that the holocaust fits that definition of war then the only explanation is that you just don't know anything about it and you clearly need to read up on some history before making the wild claims from this thread.
|
On May 15 2009 05:52 zatic wrote:
This is exactly why I don't think you know what you are talking about. If you seriously think that the holocaust fits that definition of war then the only explanation is that you just don't know anything about it and you clearly need to read up on some history before making the wild claims from this thread.
No, you evidently just have this preconceived idea of what qualifies as war. The holocaust is hardly the only example of genocide in warfare.
How are you even arguing this? I just posted the definitions of the words. Argue the definitions if you want to argue this.
I am of the opinion that all warfare is horribly, horribly wrong. The fact that people can become so deluded that they think it's a good idea to take guns and shoot other people disgusts me. And some war is worse than others. But soldiers are soldiers, orders are orders, and war is war.
There are a plethora of examples other than the holocaust where innocents were slaughtered during wartime. And guess what, those were acts of war. It's how it has always worked. Doesn't make them right but it should protect the ones following orders from witchhunts like this.
|
Zurich15365 Posts
Please you really don't know what you are talking about.
The holocaust had almost nothing to do with WW2 except that the war that was happening at the same time made for the need to accelerate it. In fact, it hurt the entire war effort in that the resources that were put into exterminating ones own population (=not war) could have been needed in actual fighting and/or exterminating the enemy's population (=war).
To make it really simple to you: The holocaust could have happened perfectly well without any world war 2, or any war at all. Although probably at a slower pace.
|
No doubt my last post pisses you and countless others off. But it's only because you have this elevated status of wrongness that the holocaust fits into.
Yes, the holocaust was very, very, very bad. But in the military, the ones giving orders need to be held accountable, not the ones taking them. You can't see the flaw in doing otherwise?
|
On May 15 2009 06:14 zatic wrote:
Please you really don't know what you are talking about.
The holocaust had almost nothing to do with WW2 except that the war that was happening at the same time made for the need to accelerate it.
I have trouble believing this but I really don't know either way. But it's irrelevant. The holocaust was warfare.
Government ---> military ----> soldiers -----> actions
that is how warfare works. the top gives orders and it moves down to the bottom and becomes actions.
|
Zurich15365 Posts
On May 15 2009 06:17 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2009 06:14 zatic wrote:
Please you really don't know what you are talking about.
The holocaust had almost nothing to do with WW2 except that the war that was happening at the same time made for the need to accelerate it.
I have trouble believing this but I really don't know either way. But it's irrelevant. The holocaust was warfare. Government ---> military ----> soldiers -----> actions that is how warfare works. the top gives orders and it moves down to the bottom and becomes actions.
This is not a definition of war and it is not even applicable to the holocaust although you might again call this off as semantics. By any conventional definition of war, the one you previously quoted included, the holocaust was not war.
All the unspeakable things that happened on the Eastern front, the mass executions, the Einsatzgruppen, the whole Vernichtungskrieg you can call war and war crimes. The holocaust was not.
Edit: I don't want to go all diggitian on this discussion but I would much rather talk about something else than explaining the difference between 3rd Reich, WW2 and holocaust.
|
Its topics like this that show how important having a good understanding of history really is. It saddens me that so many seem to blow it off as a worthless subject.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
