Interesting WW2 article

[PaidInFull24]

Found this interesting article on foxnews today:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/10/05/hundreds-nazi-cases-reopened/

 

[AmateisGal]

Found this interesting article on foxnews today:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/10/05/hundreds-nazi-cases-reopened/

I don't know...

I asked my grad school advisor about this once (going after Nazis even though they were in their 80s or 90s). He lost family in WW2 (he is Jewish) and is a Holocaust historian. His take on the matter? To leave them alone.
So I'm sort of torn on all this...

 

[ButteMT61]

I don't know...

I asked my grad school advisor about this once (going after Nazis even though they were in their 80s or 90s). He lost family in WW2 (he is Jewish) and is a Holocaust historian. His take on the matter? To leave them alone.
So I'm sort of torn on all this...

I'm with you. Seems that it's for who at this point. Not taking away one iota of blame/disgust for those monsters, but at some point, it's a dog and pony show going after 80+ year old men (and I suppose women)
But I don't have a dog in this hunt. Maybe if I had family that was destroyed by all of that I'd feel differently...

 

[Edward]

I'm inclined to agree. I have no quarrel whatever with the lack of a statute of limitations in criminal law, however in terms of pressing problems for society now it seems to me there should be higher priorities for the system. Sure, if one of these guys falls into their laps, have at him, but the reality is that no "justice" system has an unlimited budget, and there are always at this juncture going to be more pressing issues that affect current society to a much greater degree. I'm not one for being overly lenient, but equally I'm always very uncomfortable with demands for a legal system to be based on vengeance rather than justice, which is what we hear of all too often here. He who fights monsters, and all that. Certainly I might well feel otherwise had I had some direct connection with the atrocities committed by these men and women, but then again this is why we have (or should have, at least) an impartial system of justice, not revenge.

 

[thecardigankid]

I feel after 70 years the only person that could judge them now is their maker.

 

[Chas]

^^ You're assuming that there is such a thing. Suppose their "maker" has left the laboratory and couldn't give a toss?

Fudge that. There is no statute of limitations on murder, and these filth of humanity are no less guilty than they were back in the day. I say ship them back to Germany and let them stand trial. The clock is ticking and there's no guarantee that there is justice meted out to the dead. I don't feel the least bit sorry for them. They threw in with the NAZIs and a lot of them enjoyed their work.

If any of them had an iota of self respect or honor (which 99.99999% of them don't), they'd stand up, admit what they did and take their punishment. We were all young and impressionable once, and we've all done things that we're ashamed to think of. That doesn't absolve, it behooves one and all to be accountable to ourselves and to the world in general.

 

[ButteMT61]

So, execute them? I'd rather they die slowly with internal strife and hopefully a wide assortment of illnesses myself.
Also, at this point, you just bring further disgrace upon descendants that had nothing to do with it all.
Not excusing them, just don't see the point at this stage, and my thing is that they deserve to suffer here in case there is not "there".

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

It is interesting to note that a significant percentage of the notorious Einsatzgruppen were drawn from the Polizei (which was subsumed by the SS in 1936). And sadly, except for a few of the leaders, most of these invisible executioners were overlooked by the Allies and the postwar German government and were never charged with war crimes. In fact many resumed their police careers after the war.

 

[AmateisGal]

It is interesting to note that a significant percentage of the notorious Einsatzgruppen were drawn from the Polizei (which was subsumed by the SS in 1936). And sadly, except for a few of the leaders, most of these invisible executioners were overlooked by the Allies and the postwar German government and were never charged with war crimes. In fact many resumed their police careers after the war.

Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning does, I believe, address the Einsatzgruppen. One of the most compelling books I've ever read.

 

[dr greg]

I'd like to point out that there's a definite cultural imbalance here, is as much money and effort being expended on hunting the individual perpetrators of say Srebrenica, or countless crimes in Rwanda, let alone Syria etc etc etc, yes justice should be seen to be done, but it always seems a bit selective to me.

 

[Chas]

Not necessarily. They've gone after ppl like Milosevic and his ilk. There are trials going on at the Hague fairly frequently, but they're not reported on much.

Genocide trials don't make sexy news, I guess.

I saw a rather interesting doco once on the Gestapo. In one city (can't recall which) there were only 50 full time Gestapo officers, but they sent thousands of ppl to the gas chambers from this one city. The NAZI system of terror relied almost exclusively upon informants. If you didn't like somebody, or perhaps they dated your ex or something heinous like that you could rat them out and have them sent to Belsen. The climactic moment in the film had the filmmakers confronting a woman who was in her twenties during the war, and who had informed on her neighbour who's crime against the German people was that she was deemed "antisocial". She went to the gas chambers, and the neighbour who had ratted her out tried to explain that "everybody was doing it in those days'.

The interesting (and downright perverse) thing about it was that the NAZIs wrote it all down and kept meticulous records. Every criminal thought they ever had, acted upon or planned to act upon was written down somewhere. In the words of one of the American Nuremburg investigators "we had enough evidence to hang half the damn country".

 

[1961MJS]

Hi

While there's no statute of limitations on Murder, there is a practical limitation on convicting them. In general, a jury on a murder trial will want witnesses, or good forensic evidence. It's been 60 plus years, there are almost certainly no witnesses, and the forensic evidence would be rotted away.

Nazi's, the best uniforms on the worst people...

Later

 

[DNO]

I feel after 70 years the only person that could judge them now is their maker.

I figured I may as well contribute my two cents. Evil is evil. Hound them to the grave. As far as those who perpetrated similar crimes in Rwanda, Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia...the same holds true. Find them, prosecute them, imprison them.

 

[Giftmacher]

Not my find. It's from northern Bohemia. Seems he died at the age of 74 in 1998.
http://detektorweb.cz/index.4me?s=show&lang=1&i=44101&mm=3&xb=1&vd=1

 

[Giftmacher]

That guy is looking for a family of that soldier. It would be great if someone could help. I think they would appreciated it.

 

[filfoster]

Justice delayed is still justice. Will there ever be a fair accounting in this realm for men (and to be fair, some women?) who participate in genocidal murder?

Who has gone after the minions who served under Stalin's pet murderer, the Guinness World Record-holding murderer Vasili Blokhin, who headed the wonderfully named Kommandatura Branch of the Administrative Executive Department of the NKVD, and led by example by performing personal murders on Stalin's direct orders? Tens of thousands of murders, administered one by one,with a pistol, (he had a large collection), up close and very personally. This was a Company sized outfit who took up his slack. No one prosecuted after Stalin's death and denunciation? No, not one. Nice pensions.

Just an example of selective prosecution.

By the way, something for all those who now think Stalin is tres chic, to think about.

 

[Giftmacher]

It seems he already found them.

 

[filfoster]

Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning does, I believe, address the Einsatzgruppen. One of the most compelling books I've ever read.

Not to overstay my welcome in this thread, but that is indeed a great book.

 

[Phantomfixer]

Hi

While there's no statute of limitations on Murder, there is a practical limitation on convicting them. In general, a jury on a murder trial will want witnesses, or good forensic evidence. It's been 60 plus years, there are almost certainly no witnesses, and the forensic evidence would be rotted away.

Well put 1961.

 

[cuthbert]

I find it hilarious that some people here think that jailing a 91 years old man is "justice"...it's not: these people committed their crimes in their 20s or 30s and they lived almost all their lives as free men. Let's face it: they got away, even if they spend their last months or years behind the bars, at this point they have nothing to lose, and a trial would serve just to give the impression that justice was done

The real question is: why they didn't catch them forty or fifty years ago?