Nazi goes on trial for being an accessory to the murder of at least 300,000 Jews.
147 replies, posted
[IMG]http://media.skynews.com/media/images/generated/2015/4/21/386006/default/v1/cegrab-20150421-111158-189-1-762x428.jpg[/IMG]
[video=youtube;09cv4igT18I]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09cv4igT18I[/video]
[QUOTE]Oskar Groening, 93, stands accused of being an accessory to the murder of 300,000 people at the Nazi death camp during the Second World War. Addressing the courtroom, which was packed with Holocaust survivors and victims' relatives, Groening acknowledged he knew about the killings.
"For me there's no question that I share moral guilt ... I ask for forgiveness," he said.[/QUOTE]
I believe it isn't fair how they turned the information he shared against him, he was trying to dismiss claims that it never happened.
[URL="http://news.sky.com/story/1468990/auschwitz-bookkeeper-begs-for-forgiveness"]Tomato Sauce[/URL]
[URL="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32392594"]BBQ Sauce[/URL] - Apparently better
I wonder how many of these higher-ups were actually following orders versus giving the orders?
He's almost a hundred years old just fucking let it go
Let me guess. "He's old so it doesn't matter". He still comitted the crime and age shouldn't be a barrier between the morals and the law.
[editline]21st April 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;47569235]He's almost a hundred years old just fucking let it go[/QUOTE]
Literally ninja'd but my point exactly
Jesus Christ the guy is 93 and there's a good chance he's going to die within the next year or so.
Just fucking leave him be
[QUOTE=Baron von Hax;47569239]Let me guess. "He's old so it doesn't matter". He still comitted the crime and age shouldn't be a barrier between the morals and the law.
[editline]21st April 2015[/editline]
Literally ninja'd but my point exactly[/QUOTE]
Ya but the problem is at this point they're dragging what were teenage drafted soldiers to the stands, like the last guy that was tried was only 15-16 when he was conscripted, children soldiers of the Nazi war machinr
Not saying this guy was but other cases have been like that
[QUOTE=Sableye;47569253]Ya but the problem is at this point they're dragging what were teenage drafted soldiers to the stands, like the last guy that was tried was only 15-16 when he was conscripted[/QUOTE]
[quote]Groening was 21 years old and by his own admission an enthusiastic Nazi when he was sent to work at Auschwitz in 1942.[/quote]
I know the dude is already over 90 and is about to die in a few years.
But, no matter how much you run from your past, it will always come back and bite you back on the ass.
Regardless you try ignoring Adolf Hitler as a German citizen, you're either in or your a coward. He would have been very young when the propaganda started so he would have been exposed to all this without actually knowing what the other options are.
This guy knew exactly what he was doing and still comitted a crime. It'd be unfair to just let him get away with it just because of his age. He's lived a full life unlike all of those 300000 people he helped to kill. So many Nazi sympathisers, my god.
[QUOTE=Michael haxz;47569244]Jesus Christ the guy is 93 and there's a good chance he's going to die within the next year or so.
Just fucking leave him be[/QUOTE]
The vast majority of these cases don't end in them getting jail time, it ends in the court saying 'Just so everyone knows, he's guilty, but due to extenuating circumstances we won't punish him'. Part of interpreting law is setting legal precedent, the last lines in the article point this out:
[quote]Hedy Bohm, a survivor from New York, said she wanted to see Groening declared guilty but was not seeking vengeance.
"Those who commit crimes today must know they will be held responsible in the future," she said.
"And never again will they be able to just plead: 'I'm a cog in the machinery, I didn't kill.'"[/quote]
The law must apply equally to all citizens when wrongdoing is suspected. You don't get to evade charges just because you're old. Instead it's up to the judge to determine if circumstances around the trial justify leniency in sentencing.
This is Germany we're talking about. Establishing culpability for the crimes of the Nazi regime, even if no substantial punishment is warranted, is a big deal to them.
[QUOTE=Baron von Hax;47569273]This guy knew exactly what he was doing and still comitted a crime. It'd be unfair to just let him get away with it just because of his age. He's live a full life unlike all of those 300000 people he helped to kill. So many Nazi sympathisers, my god.[/QUOTE]
It's incredibly petty and childish to [I]still[/I] be going around hunting down ninety years old people for crimes they committed seventy years ago. They got away with it and have reached the point where they're so old they could die by just going to bed, so it's too late to carry out any justified sentence.
Deal with it and move on. People have mourned enough.
[QUOTE=Baron von Hax;47569273]This guy knew exactly what he was doing and still comitted a crime. It'd be unfair to just let him get away with it just because of his age. He's live a full life unlike all of those 300000 people he helped to kill. So many Nazi sympathisers, my god.[/QUOTE]
A crime? In what jurisdiction? Was perfectly legal in Germany.
Trials like this are a fucking sham. No chain of custody, no jursidictional authority. Whether or not the guy was/is a disgusting human being, jurisdiction matters. If you want revenge on this guy, and make no mistake that is what this is, then just shoot him. Don't create some fake trial just so you can throw him in prison where he will die almost immediately so you can feel good about yourself.
The BBC source is better [url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32392594[/url]
He seemed more like a bookkeeper than a traditional guard.
[QUOTE]He described his role of counting money confiscated from new arrivals and said he witnessed mass killings, but denied any direct role in the genocide.
If found guilty he could face three to 15 years in prison.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Baron von Hax;47569239]Let me guess. "He's old so it doesn't matter". He still comitted the crime and age shouldn't be a barrier between the morals and the law.
[/QUOTE]
What moral victory does society achieve by ruining the last handful of years of an old man who was a sodding bookkeeper at a camp? Tell me that. I genuinely cannot figure out how pushing this poor guy through the mud because he did math at a concentration camp nearly 80 years ago.
There is literally nothing to be gained from trying WW2-era Nazis for things they may have done during the war. Doubly so if their 'crime' was simply being at one of the camps. This guy wasn't opening gas valves or digging graves or herding the Jews into the chambers, he merely kept up on finances and such.
Look, we won't have to hear about cases like this in the next decade or so, because everyone involved will be dead.
As catbarf said, it's also legal precedent, and it's happening whether you think trying a 93 y/o man for crimes he committed in his twenties is morally justifiable or not.
Just let the court system do it's thing in this incredibly narrow scope of trials that will never be handled again given another 5-10 years, and take solace in the fact that you yourself won't ever be in that guys' shoes, and if you are, you did something that warranted it (like being an enthusiastic Nazi who assisted in the murder of hundreds of thousands, cog or no cog).
[QUOTE=catbarf;47569259][QUOTE]Groening was 21 years old and by his own admission an enthusiastic Nazi when he was sent to work at Auschwitz in 1942.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
Except that means he was around 12 when the Nazis came to power. That's a bit young to expect him to be able to compete with the volume and quality of propaganda that was thrown at him. Maybe you could argue that adults should not have fallen for it, but a child?
Also, most studies into obedience suggest that most people in this thread would have done the same in the same situation (and most people in that court room).
Come on, just because you're so old you might fall over and die the very next day doesn't mean you're untouchable by the law. This man deserves his punishment (if he is indeed guilty) just as much as when he was younger.
Lets say for instance a guy is 93 and it is proven he killed a man 60 years ago, he will still be convicted. You would all agree, wouldn't you? It doesn't matter when the crime was committed. And if you think you can't compare these two situations, then I think you are wrong because crime is crime.
[QUOTE=martijnp3000;47569352]Come on, just because you're so old you might fall over and die the very next day doesn't mean you're untouchable by the law. This man deserves his punishment (if he is indeed guilty) just as much as when he was younger.
Lets say for instance a guy is 93 and it is proven he killed a man 60 years ago, he will still be convicted. You would all agree, wouldn't you? It doesn't matter when the crime was committed. And if you think you can't compare these two situations, then I think you are wrong because crime is crime.[/QUOTE]
What if it was perfectly legal when he did it?
What if he grew up in a country where, from a very early age, he was taught by his government, his parents, his schooling, his media, his entire world to hate that one guy.
This is why, following an armed conflict, you charge the top echelon officers of the enemy force for war crimes and absolve and repatriate the soldiers.
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;47569291]It's incredibly petty and childish to [I]still[/I] be going around hunting down ninety years old people for crimes they committed seventy years ago.[/QUOTE]
So what if he weren't just a cog in the machine? Maybe a high-ranking SS officer? Suppose Hitler himself, or Mengele, or Goebbels, escaped Germany and only got caught decades later? When's the cut-off date, what's the statute of limitations on genocide, how mild do an individual's actions have to be for decades-after-the-fact trials to be unjustified?
Maybe there would be a trial to determine culpability and whether punishment is warranted?
I don't know what you're expecting, like some bureaucrat in the judicial system has the right to say 'Nah, been too long, we're not going to press charges' and on his own decide a case just like that. The whole point of having a legal system is to take these kinds of shades-of-grey decisions out of the hands of individuals and entrust it to a structured system that can present evidence, law, and precedent. If you think he shouldn't be punished for a crime that occurred decades ago under a different government, that's the point of the trial to decide. If you think he's too old now and was manipulated by the Nazi regime from a young age, that's up to a judge and a jury of his peers, not some random bureaucrat deciding not to prosecute.
The fact that he is going to trial does not mean that guilt is presumed and punishment inevitable. It means that there is a question of legal transgression that needs to be settled in public and provide a precedent for further legal decisions. If he gets pardoned by the judge, it could mean the end of Nazi-hunting in Germany.
Prosecuting people over 80 years of age for some thing they did more than half a century ago is a waste of time and money. Nothing is gained.
This bit's kind of important
[quote][B]In 1985, German prosecutors chose not to pursue a case against Groening and dozens of other concentration camp workers.[/B]
At the time they decided there was[B] no causal link between their actions and the killings that took place at Auschwitz.[/B]
A subsequent request for prosecution was again [B]denied only two years ago.[/B]
But the prosecutors in Hanover disagree and have pursued the case, emboldened by the trial of Ivan Demjanjuk in 2011.
Demjanjuk was convicted of being an accessory to mass murder [B]despite there being no evidence of him having committed a specific crime[/B] while working at the Sobibor camp.[/quote]
He's been let off twice, they're only going at it a third time because they're sure they can have him convicted without any evidence
He couldn't have stopped the killings. If he did, he would have been executed. Also, he fucking 93.
They might as well start digging out the rotting remains of Nazis that went by unpunished by the law. Gotta have some more of that sweet justice.
Oh Facepunch, never change.
[QUOTE=GunFox;47569371]What if it was perfectly legal when he did it?
What if he grew up in a country where, from a very early age, he was taught by his government, his parents, his schooling, his media, his entire world to hate that one guy.
This is why, following an armed conflict, you charge the top echelon officers of the enemy force for war crimes and absolve and repatriate the soldiers.[/QUOTE]
It was never perfectly legal, i'm pretty sure the Polish (or whatever country's) government didn't sign the go ahead with the gassing and/or torture of her citizens?
He worked in a goddamn human meat grinder, anyone who had anything to do with those camps should not just be pardoned.
[QUOTE=Heisenburgers;47569454]He couldn't have stopped the killings. If he did, he would have been executed. Also, he fucking 93.[/QUOTE]Even if he could, would he? It was relatively normal to kill subhuman jews.
He was very young when the Nazis came into power, the propaganda must've got to him
If he had refused to work for the Nazis he would've got into trouble
He has had years to ponder on his deeds and that may have tortured him
He might be living his last months
Just let him go. If your government was a dictatorship and it wanted you to work for them, refusing is a bad choice. We would all have done the same.
He was probably just trying to get by without getting in trouble. He wasn't even the one killing people.
He's even openly stating that he is guilty and he's trying to combat holocaust deniers. He seems like a chill and good person; why would you try to ruin his last few months to feel good about something so shallow?
Discriminating against someone and charging them for a crime from 70 years ago that they barely had a part in?
What a bunch of Nazis.
Convicting someone without evidence? seriously that is allowed?
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