• Germany arrests three suspected Auschwitz guards
    324 replies, posted
Considering they've probably already faced their ethical/moral demons sometime after the war, they're still got what they've done (Unless drafted) in the back of their minds. Its terrible sure, but just let them finish their lives.
[QUOTE=Sgt-NiallR;43995065]Because Justice means different things to different people. Besides, if you believe that the purpose of prison is to protect the general population and to rehabilitate criminals, then you've not a leg to stand on in this case. Locking them up won't make the public any safer, because they're like 90 years old. Rehabilitation is pretty much out of the question for someone that might not even require it, or might be dead before the end of the sentence. The only argument one can make for locking these men up stems purely from vengeance. Vengeance doesn't have a place in the justice system. I know it's hard to swallow the idea of simply letting a criminal go free because they got away with it for x length of time, but that doesn't mean anything. We only find the idea strange because we're so used to the idea of punishment following a misdemeanor; "It's how things are" isn't a very strong argument. [/QUOTE] It's hard to swallow because it's a horribly pragmatistic and preposterous idea and there's a very good reason why your silly version of justice was never actually implemented or adopted. Prison is also not only about making the public a safer place by throwing violent, young criminals into them or rehabilitation. This is why men who have non-violent charges brought against them like tax evasion or fraud for example are also occupying prison cells. They've not endangered the public by doing these things, but they have broken the law. It is as simple as breaking the law and paying with your freedom for it. I don't understand how that's such a difficult concept to grasp. By your logic, crimes should be erased after a certain amount of time. But who gets to decide that? How do we decide the amount of time it takes for crimes to be 'too old' to be and brought to trial? It's a ridiculous concept. This would also give criminals a lot of get out of jail free cards, literally.
[QUOTE=Melnek;43995166]It's hard to swallow because it's a horribly pragmatistic and preposterous idea and there's a very good reason why your silly version of justice was never actually implemented or adopted. [/QUOTE] It has been implemented in Norway. You didn't answer my question before. What is to gain, apart from justice, from punishing those old guys?
[QUOTE=Melnek;43995166]It's hard to swallow because it's a horribly pragmatistic and preposterous idea and there's a very good reason why your silly version of justice was never actually implemented or adopted. Prison is also not only about making the public a safer place by throwing violent, young criminals into them or rehabilitation. This is why men who have non-violent charges brought against them like tax evasion or fraud for example are also occupying prison cells. They've not endangered the public by doing these things, but they have broken the law. It is as simple as breaking the law and paying with your freedom for it. I don't understand how that's such a difficult concept to grasp. By your logic, crimes should be erased after a certain amount of time. But who gets to decide that? How do we decide the amount of time it takes for crimes to be 'too old' to be and brought to trial? It's a ridiculous concept. This would also give criminals a lot of get out of jail free cards, literally.[/QUOTE] What is the purpose of prison, then? Those who commit crimes such as tax evasion and fraud may not have physically endangered the public, but by locking them up you are preventing them from committing that crime again. You can't evade tax in prison. It isn't about letting people go free [I]because[/I] they've gotten away with it for a certain amount of time. It's about whether or not locking them up would serve a purpose. I'd be very careful about suggesting a system like that. This case is about whether or not they should be punished for something that happened ~70 years ago, that they had little actual part in, and that there's zero possibility of them doing it again.
[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;43995188]It has been implemented in Norway.[/QUOTE] You're talking about rehabilitation in Norway, I'm talking about crimes being erased by time. If you commit a crime in Norway you still go to jail. [QUOTE=mdeceiver79;43995188]What is to gain, apart from justice, from punishing those old guys?[/QUOTE] If proven guilty, they have taken part in a genocide and therefore should have their freedom taken away. I don't care about what is to gain from doing that apart from being an actually sane human being, but following this same logic of yours we should let off all war criminals as well because locking them up post-war doesn't [i]really[/i] achieve anything.
[QUOTE=Melnek;43995166]By your logic, crimes should be erased after a certain amount of time. But who gets to decide that? How do we decide the amount of time it takes for crimes to be 'too old' to be and brought to trial? It's a ridiculous concept. This would also give criminals a lot of get out of jail free cards, literally.[/QUOTE] Well, for cases such as these (in which the accused had no realistic choice in their matters) I think, oh, 70 years is a good amount of time to have forgiven them for their crimes. If they had a reasonable choice in their involvement, then why forget their crimes at all? The issue here is that, if you had a starving family in a war torn country, and had the option to wire up barbed fences or guard a gate, it's not something you can reasonably expect somebody to turn down. With all this considered, as well as the content of my previous post, I think that hunting down and trialing people who fall in to the categories of "I didn't want to help murder those people I had no choice and have lived out most of my life with those demons and society haunting me" is a really terrible thing to do. Especially when it's a case like this, when no evidence is needed and the courts can rule that you were an asset to the murder of those people. The guards of the gates have just as much responsibility and had just as much of a choice as the people who cooked the foods or put up the fences or fixed the plumbing or delivered goods or catered to needs of soldiers or helped a member of the Reich in any way. [I]In the last years of their life, imprisoning them and publicly humiliating them is absolutely redundant for any purpose other than invoking a warped sense of justice. Nothing is accomplished. Society isn't made a better or safer place. A bunch of old men that have since their regretted involvement in the actions of their country and government get slapped around.[/I] (italics to remind you that you have avoided responding to the question this statement came from, just an fyi) A quiet trial is all that would be needed. An acknowledgement. From a ruling body, the discussion of their involvement that is recorded. No news, no fuss, no screwed justice or revenge. If I had it my way, it'd simply be a letter of us acknowleding their crimes and recording it. Even then, it's something I wouldn't feel right about doing. The issue here is that nobody is treating this as gray. The law is black and white. In these very unique, very special circumstances, we are treating these people like we would any other criminal. If a society that has evolved to be more compassionate that any other cannot forgive a bunch of old men of crimes they had no choice but to commit under extremely unique circumstances over half a century after they have happened, then that really is a shame. [editline]Oh wow[/editline] [QUOTE=Melnek;43995282]If proven guilty, they have taken part in a genocide and therefore should have their freedom taken away.[/quote] Damn. I guess we should be locking up a lot more elderly German people than we initially expected. All those people that paid taxes or contributed to the war effort. All those factory workers that supplied ammunition and weapons, all those cooks, all those tailors and engineers. They likely know what they did, and have had a very long time for society as a whole to kick them around, but what the hell. [QUOTE=Melnek;43995166]I don't care about what is to gain from doing that apart from being an actually sane human being[/quote] I must be insane for forgiving these people of crimes they very likely have been punishing themselves for over the past 70 years. Not to mention all the actions various groups around the world have committed. All that societal pressure to agree that everyone in the Reich were horrible horrible people who can never be forgiven. Of course, forgiving people of crimes that they have committed under such extreme circumstances is nothing any sane person would do. Forgive me. I'll check myself in to the nearest institution immediately. [QUOTE=Sgt-NiallR;43995328]I said [U]in the post that you quoted[/U] that I don't support erasing a person's crimes, I support foregoing imprisonment if said imprisonment serves no purpose. In this case, it serves no purpose because of the amount of time since the crimes. Please try to avoid pretending that my argument is something that it isn't.[/QUOTE] I'll have you know it serves plenty of purpose. I get my revenge on these withering old farts by locking them up and humiliating them in the last years of their lives. Isn't that what any sane person would do? This is justice, after all. The law is the law and under no circumstances should it ever (ever) be exposed to and the severity of it's punishment be lowered by extreme circumstances such as a World War. :v:
[QUOTE=Sgt-NiallR;43995246] Those who commit crimes such as tax evasion and fraud may not have physically endangered the public, but by locking them up you are preventing them from committing that crime again. You can't evade tax in prison.[/QUOTE] Yeah but what if they evaded tax 5 years ago? Or maybe 10? What about 20? If they promise not to do it again really really nicely will you just let them off?
[QUOTE=Melnek;43995295]Yeah but what if they evaded tax 5 years ago? Or maybe 10? What about 20? If they promise not to do it again really really nicely will you just let them off?[/QUOTE] Make them pay it back with the interest they gained from it and make sure they pay their taxes from now on. [editline]21st February 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Melnek;43995282] If proven guilty, they have taken part in a genocide and therefore should have their freedom taken away. I don't care about what is to gain from doing that apart from being an actually sane human being, but following this same logic of yours we should let off all war criminals as well because locking them up post-war doesn't [i]really[/i] achieve anything.[/QUOTE] So words aside, we're agreed, locking up these guys doesn't [i]really[/i] achieve anything. So why do it?
[QUOTE=Melnek;43995295]Yeah but what if they evaded tax 5 years ago? Or maybe 10? What about 20? If they promise not to do it again really really nicely will you just let them off?[/QUOTE] I said [U]in the post that you quoted[/U] that I don't support erasing a person's crimes, I support foregoing imprisonment if said imprisonment serves no purpose. In this case, it serves no purpose because of the amount of time since the crimes. Please try to avoid pretending that my argument is something that it isn't.
[QUOTE=Silly Sil;43994601]I'm disgusted reading this thread. Genocide is a buzzword. If someone is no longer a threat the law doesn't apply to him. The law doesn't apply to old people. You people are just fucking crazy. This is not about revenge, it's about justice. The law applies equally to everyone. It doesn't matter that they are old now. There is no point in jailing them, that's true. But if they were accessories to genocide they have to be judged with accordance with the law. Law is the law you can't pick and choose who it applies to or not.[/QUOTE] I'm fairly certain that most concentration camp guards were conscripted Wehrmacht soldiers. They didn't chose to the part of the holocaust, they were forced into it. And they can't just abandon the camp and run away because then they'll get hunted down and shot if they don't escape, and then their family might get shot too, which isn't a very good outcome. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Society has this weird thing where there must be vindication/revenge for the holocaust, which primarily backed by the government of Israel who spew out this garbage ~70 years after the holocaust. Germany has paid the price a long time ago, any further attempts to "make amends" is simply nonsense and needs to be stopped. What does society as a whole gain from putting an elderly person, who probably hasn't committed a crime since the holocaust, through a court case and then prison/fines/house arrest? Nothing, except a lousy attempt at "justice". We need to focus on actual crimes that a relative to the modern day, like gangsters who traffic guns and drugs and other illegal stuff, we need to focus on thieves, we need to focus on actual crimes, not some old men who committed a "crime" ~70 years ago.
[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;43995305]Make them pay it back with the interest they gained from it and make sure they pay their taxes from now on. [editline]21st February 2014[/editline] So words aside, we're agreed, locking up these guys doesn't [i]really[/i] achieve anything. So why do it?[/QUOTE] Well I dunno, it appears we have reached an agreement. All war crimes are now allowed if you can manage to get away with it for a certain period of time. When people do find out about your involvement, don't worry, just use the excuse of being young and that you didn't know what you were doing at the time and you'll get off scot-free.
[QUOTE=Melnek;43995350]Well I dunno, it appears we have reached an agreement. All war crimes are now allowed if you can manage to get away with it for a certain period of time. When people do find out about your involvement, don't worry, just use the excuse of being young and that you didn't know what you were doing at the time and you'll get off scot-free.[/QUOTE] You're still holding onto the idea that we're advocating absolution. We're not.
[QUOTE=Melnek;43995350]Well I dunno, it appears we have reached an agreement. All war crimes are now allowed if you can manage to get away with it for a certain period of time. When people do find out about your involvement, don't worry, just use the excuse of being young and that you didn't know what you were doing at the time and you'll get off scot-free.[/QUOTE] So we should begin imprisoning all WW2 veterans because they might have killed somebody? Get real. Unless these guys are proud and willing volunteers they likely did not have a choice.
[QUOTE=Sgt-NiallR;43995358]You're still holding onto the idea that we're advocating absolution. We're not.[/QUOTE] Then what is it you're advocating, exactly? You said that you don't support imprisonment for crimes committed a long time ago. Which is exactly the same as absolution only a little more convoluted. Essentially though it is the same thing.
[QUOTE=Melnek;43995350]Well I dunno, it appears we have reached an agreement. All war crimes are now allowed if you can manage to get away with it for a certain period of time. When people do find out about your involvement, don't worry, just use the excuse of being young and that you didn't know what you were doing at the time and you'll get off scot-free.[/QUOTE] I think I've been courteous (for the most part) up until now. But I don't think anybody is advocating absolution. also, this is all in relation to these three old men who are suspected of being Auschwitz guards. For more heinous crimes, people will be less forgiving. At the end of the day, the more involved a person was, the more severe and more important his punishment may be. If we suddenly caught Adolf Hitler, I don't think anyone here would have any issues with locking him up. Please do not take the concept of forgiving these three men and turn it in to "ALL WAR CRIMES ARE FORGIVEN IF YOU HIDE LONG ENOUGH" [editline]jfc[/editline] [QUOTE=Melnek;43995386]Then what is it you're advocating, exactly? You said that you don't support imprisonment for crimes committed a long time ago. Which is exactly the same as absolution only a little more convoluted. Essentially though it is the same thing.[/QUOTE] If nothing is gained from punishment, then there is no point in delivering it. That is different from saying that "don't support imprisonment for crimes committed a long time go." I may not share his views, but I am able to understand them. As I just mentioned, if we found Adolf Hitler and he was a withering 100something year old man that was running an orphanage for abandoned children and running a charity, I would still see him imprisoned for the sheer amount of crimes committed. the people being acknowledged in this thread, however, did nothing that they had any reasonable choice in avoiding.
[QUOTE=teh pirate;43995385]So we should begin imprisoning all WW2 veterans because they might have killed somebody[/QUOTE] Killing your enemy in a war isn't a war crime. Get your definitions straight.
[QUOTE=Melnek;43995394]Killing your enemy in a war isn't a war crime. Get your definitions straight.[/QUOTE] Get your head straight. These men are in their 90s and almost certainly were not willing captors.
[QUOTE=teh pirate;43995411]Get your head straight. These men are in their 90s and almost certainly were not willing captors.[/QUOTE] If you can't prove that then it's an empty statement. Your 'almost certainty' is utterly irrelevant.
[QUOTE=Melnek;43995386]Then what is it you're advocating, exactly? You said that you don't support imprisonment for crimes committed a long time ago. Which is exactly the same as absolution only a little more convoluted. Essentially though it is the same thing.[/QUOTE] I'm advocating letting them live out their lives in peace because: - They do not post a threat to society at large - Rehabilitation is unlikely to yield positive results because they probably don't need rehabilitation, and because they're likely to die of age before the process is complete. This is not the same as letting people go because the crimes were a long time ago.
[QUOTE=Melnek;43995423]If you can't prove that then it's an empty statement. Your 'almost certainty' is utterly irrelevant.[/QUOTE] "Suspected" Auschwitz guards who "may" have committed war crimes is not grounds to imprison three men in their 90s, either.
[QUOTE=Melnek;43995423]If you can't prove that then it's an empty statement. Your 'almost certainty' is utterly irrelevant.[/QUOTE] As is your idea that these people should be imprisoned and punished for the sake of being imprisoned and punished. I would like you to review some of my posts made on this page. I would like to hear your feedback on them.
omg why don't they just shut auschwitz down if they dont like people guarding the place
[QUOTE=teh pirate;43995431]"Suspected" Auschwitz guards who "may" have committed war crimes is not grounds to imprison three men in their 90s, either.[/QUOTE] No shit, that's why we're arguing under the assumption that they are guilty and the argument has been whether or not it's worth imprisoning them or not if such were the case. If they're found innocent then of course they should be let go.
[QUOTE=teh pirate;43995411]Get your head straight. These men are in their 90s and almost certainly were not willing captors.[/QUOTE] There's the concept that any SS man involved with the concentration camps are still complicit in the crime. They may have not committed the crime (they didn't throw the Zyklon B into the chambers or operate the furnaces) but they're still complicit as a cog in the machine that allowed such things to happen in the first place.
[QUOTE=Melnek;43995464]No shit, that's why we're arguing under the assumption that they are guilty and the argument has been whether or not it's worth imprisoning them or not if such were the case. If they're found innocent then of course they should be let go.[/QUOTE] They've already been imprisoned under the assumption that they did it while they await trial. There's no way at this point to prove they personally committed evil and statistically speaking they probably did not.
[QUOTE=DeeCeeTeeBee;43995435]As is your idea that these people should be imprisoned and punished for the sake of being imprisoned and punished. I would like you to review some of my posts made on this page. I would like to hear your feedback on them.[/QUOTE] Most of your posts consist of 'they had no choice' which is, as I've said, not proven which is why I didn't address them. [quote]Damn. I guess we should be locking up a lot more elderly German people than we initially expected. All those people that paid taxes or contributed to the war effort. All those factory workers that supplied ammunition and weapons, all those cooks, all those tailors and engineers. They likely know what they did, and have had a very long time for society as a whole to kick them around, but what the hell.[/quote] This statement not only completely ignores the fact that the holocaust wasn't even a 'thing' people knew about only towards the end of the war, but it also fails to differentiate between a war and a genocide which is why all the 'factory workers' and the 'cooks' that contributed to the war effort didn't necessarily contribute to the genocide they didn't even know was happening. [editline]21st February 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=teh pirate;43995486]They've already been imprisoned under the assumption that they did it while they await trial. There's no way at this point to prove they personally committed evil and statistically speaking they probably did not.[/QUOTE] Incarceration is not the same as conviction. There are a lot of ways to prove their guilt based on documentation, possible testimonials and an assortment of legal historical study to determine whether or not they can be proven guilty. The very fact they're being brought to trial shows there is already a substantial amount of evidence to work with.
[QUOTE=DeeCeeTeeBee;43995290]Damn. I guess we should be locking up a lot more elderly German people than we initially expected. All those people that paid taxes or contributed to the war effort. All those factory workers that supplied ammunition and weapons, all those cooks, all those tailors and engineers. They likely know what they did, and have had a very long time for society as a whole to kick them around, but what the hell.[/QUOTE] Except the Nazi regime forcefully employed prisoners, from both the concentration camps and POW camps at various stages of the war (see: Organisation Todt and "extermination through work").
I think there are several arguements going on here. The arguement of not punishing because it serves no purpose other than revenge, is not in any way affected by if did it willingly or not. That said You have no way to prove if they complied willingly or were coerced. So you have no way to prove they were guilty of crime (if it was a crime working there, then there were victims who were also coerced into working there) If you have no way to prove a crime then why are they being punished. They are innocent till proven guilty after all.
[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;43995633]I think there are several arguements going on here. The arguement of not punishing because it serves no purpose other than revenge, is not in any way affected by if did it willingly or not. That said You have no way to prove if they complied willingly or were coerced. So you have no way to prove they were guilty of crime (if it was a crime working there, then there were victims who were also coerced into working there) If you have no way to prove a crime then why are they being punished. They are innocent till proven guilty after all.[/QUOTE] The subject of employment within concentration camps is a complicated subject though. [QUOTE=mdeceiver79;43995633]You have no way to prove if they complied willingly or were coerced.[/QUOTE] In the case of the SS and the Kapos the view that they complied is generally accepted because any vocal disapproval of the "Final Solution" within the SS was rare, as were any requests for transfers away from the camps (mainly because the other option was to fight on the Eastern Front but the SS men knew they could easily make their life comfortable within the concentration camps). The use of drafted SS men in the camps was also remarkably rare, with the bulk of draftees only being employed by the Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht to defend Germany from the rapid advance of the Allied armies in 1944-45 (even then, the draftees were mainly the Volksturm and Hitler Jugend). [QUOTE=mdeceiver79;43995633]So you have no way to prove they were guilty of crime (if it was a crime working there, then there were victims who were also coerced into working there)[/QUOTE] SS men willingly chose to work there due to their commitment to the organisation. The SS that operated the camps weren't conscripted, they all signed up for the organisation and were bound to their duties. They were also seen as vital cogs of the machine and therefore deemed completely complicit in the process (from the administration to the top brass). Prisoners were made to work because they would eventually be killed, the Sonderkommando were a prime example of this (the use of such units was also permitted as to reduce the stress experienced by any SS men working on the extermination process). The Sonderkommando rose up against the SS on a few occasions, such events were punished with severity as to keep them in line. The prisoners didn't have a choice because it was believed that they would all eventually be killed in the camps, others did what they had to do to survive within the camps.
You sound like you know your stuff about the camps. I am curious though, on the previous page someone stated that SS weren't the only "soldiers" posted as guards, is that true?
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.