89 y/o accused of 29k counts accessory to murder - Page 8

On May 12 2009 19:59 vGl-CoW wrote:
so how many more people are going to be stupid and ignore the fact that he was a volunteer and was actually known for being a complete savage

i think like six or seven

On May 12 2009 20:15 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:


for the record i understood this and responded only to someone saying he was accountable by association since 'he had a choice' or whatever

On May 12 2009 20:23 MoltkeWarding wrote:
There is an unfortunate fad, since the Historikerstreit to dilute the meaning of Nazi Germany by the study of comparitive totalitarianisms.

That Germany's moral and civilizational heritage was different from that of Russia or North Korea, and therefore, inherit a different standard of responsibility, is too often ignored. To compare the Germans of the 40s with the Huns or Scythians is to depict the diversity of human nature with too broad a brush. The Germans were an integral part of Western, Christian civilization. The Germans were the best educated nation of that time, with immense intellectual and cultural prestige. Those who are interested in circumstantial ethics would do better to understand the particular circumstances in which an action is formed, than excuse their laziness by assuming that all actions are explained by their circumstances.

There's a kind of pitiful self-indulgence in our imposition of historical distance from the Nazi regime. The imagination that civilizational progress has outdistanced such crude times is an ironic piece of self-deception considering that virtually all public enjoyments of the modern youth consist of barbaric, civilization-degrading, irrational, impulsive activities.

And Nazism was a young movement.

On May 12 2009 20:47 Flyingdutchman wrote:
if someone orders you to do it, and you don't...you'll probably get shot for treason. So how much choice did he have? It is easy to say you're still acountable from your modern and sheltered point of view, but we are talking about a whole different world back then. Wake up, if you refuse to carry out orders in wartime (in that day and age) you will be executed.

On May 12 2009 10:28 Night[Mare wrote:
It's completly hilarious. Those were war times. War is not pretty. People being prosecuted for war crimes commited more than 60 years ago should be let them be.

IMO war crimes are fucking ridiculous. If you're in a war you're not going to "humanly kill" the opposition. You just want to kill them.

On May 12 2009 11:16 Eldariel wrote:
Punishing row soldiers from an old war is hardly fair. It's not like they had a choice in the first place. Not to mention, that war is done and buried. The guilty (and the "guilty") have been brought to justice (or mostly killed), winners have written the history and there's nothing left there. The crimes are simply too old to punish anyone for anymore; they should merely act as a reminder for the future. This is just dumb.

Oh yeah, and let's not forget that he's done nothing criminal with his life at any point. He's never broken the law in the country he's lived in. He's mostly being punished for having survived.

On May 12 2009 13:07 R3condite wrote:

agreed... vengeance isn't wat we should be seeking

esp since he's already so far in.... just leave him be, i bet if he was a guard he feels bad about it himself

On May 12 2009 12:06 ktp wrote:
This story sounds a lot like "The Reader".

This is the problem with using todays standards to look into crimes commited in the past. Being a Nazi prison guard from todays point of view is considered very evil only because its 60 years later and people are better educated. But back then there was nothing illegal about being a prison guard. So do we have a right to punish them even though back then there was nothing wrong with what they were doing?

Personally I'm ganna go with no on this one. I know for a fact that everyone here is probably doing something that will be considered heinous in 60 years. All that shit talking over the internet we do may seem innocent and fun right now but what if in 60 years its considered a crime punishable by death? Yikes, how the fuck were we supose to know? Standards and morals change so much over time, you can't hold people accountable that lived during a different era.

On May 12 2009 17:11 zatic wrote:
You guys seriously need to get your Nazi facts straight before jumping to conclusions.

- German soldiers were drafted into the Wehrmacht, yes
- Desertion meant death sentence, yes
- It did NOT mean your family ended up in a concentration camp or would be killed too

However, this does all not matter because

Concentration camps were run by the SS and SD, NOT the Wehrmacht. SS and SA were initially armed branches of the party, the NSDAP. You were not drafted into the SS. In fact, it was considered an elite Nazi organization. The Fuehrerprinzip by which the SS was run makes sure that if you advanced there means you were the worst kind of human being on the planet.

The Eastern divisions of the SS that guarded the death camps and were comprised of Fremdvoelker were notorious for their cruelty even among SS circles. I guess if you were not Arian you had to prove more.

This whole romantic idea of an innocent that was forced to help kill the jews is nothing but a legend.

On May 12 2009 11:01 Night[Mare wrote:

Incontrol its not about it. What im trying to say is: this is war. It's fucking hilarious to put up a bunch of "rules" in which you can act or not while in war. They chose to murder brutally for something, call it fear, example w/e. If you want to take a piece of 'em, do it while still in war, not 657357 years later.

and of course, this is because they were on the losing side. I dont see any allied soldier being prosecuted for brutally murdering german captives / tourturing them etc. Just imagine the nazi party winning. Who would be the ones being prosecuted?

On May 12 2009 11:50 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Preposterous. He was a guard, even in the worst of times one always has a choice especially when it comes to morals. He could have chosen not to commit crimes and objected, would he himself have been killed probably or probably not. That is not the discussion. But he did have a choice.

On May 12 2009 22:34 FalliNinLove wrote:
IF I were in death camp and they killed my parents in there, I would kill him even if he was 20minuts away from natural death.

On May 12 2009 17:55 zatic wrote:

Stop bringing up stupid comparisons that don't apply.

Again, get your facts straight before jumping to conclusion. Germany ways a (albeit flawed) democracy until 1933, with one of the most forward constitutions at the time. The first concentration camp opened in 1933. Are you telling me the entire population was brainwashed within weeks to the point they forgot that murdering people might be wrong? Even after 10 years of propaganda there is no excuse like "hey sorry, I just didn't know better".