Oskar Groening: 'Auschwitz book-keeper' jailed for four years over role in murder of 300,000 people - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Bushi;48215930]There's no reason for why prison should be a place strictly for punishment or rehabilitation. It's a place of both, first you serve your punishment, then you get rehabilitated.[/QUOTE] This. Being old should also not be a defense from being charged, whether or not this man is guilty is another story.

How is this a benefit to anyone but irrational naziphobes and deluded moralists?

[QUOTE=General_Lee;48214277]Not only that, but Nuremburg was a farce. We tried to try Admiral Donitz on the grounds of unrestricted submarine, a tactic we used in the Pacific. We tried Commanders on the grounds of War of Aggression, a crime that the Soviets did. We tried them on using prisoner labor, which we also used. No mention of terror bombing, which was disallowed under the Hague Conventions, but was stepped around by deliberate misinterpretation. Nuremberg was simply a tactic to further punish Germany, not uphold the little shreds of justice international law had.[/QUOTE] Holy shit lol way to diminish any culpability of top ranking Nazi officials in the crimes committed by their regime. Nuremberg is as good an example of post-war justice done in the right way as you are ever going to get. A defeated enemy is subject to the will of the victor provided the war was based upon just-terms. You'd be hard pressed to prove World War Two wasn't fought on just-terms by the allies. Unless of course you went the route of Jeremy Bentham and declared it nonsense upon stilts but even then you're flying in the face of how international laws operates. Not to mention it is utterly bizarre to conflate the individuals put on trial as somehow representative of 'Germany'. I'm sure the average German citizen living in the bombed out crater of their former home didn't feel any worse upon hearing the news that some Nazis had been tried and executed. To say the Nuremberg trials were to 'further punish Germany' assumes that the Nazis were Germany and Germany was the Nazis. Something that comes awfully close to mirroring the ideology of the all-compassing National Socialist state that the regime tried to foster for legitimacy. It's complete nonsense

[QUOTE=Furioso;48218182]How is this a benefit to anyone but [b]irrational naziphobes[/b] and deluded moralists?[/QUOTE] Come again?

[QUOTE=Explosions;48218415]Come again?[/QUOTE] Big Judaism's Assault on Honourable 94 Year Old Former Book-Keeper: You Won't Believe The Lengths They Will Go To

[QUOTE=Lonestriper;48218486]Big Judaism's Assault on Honourable 94 Year Old Former Book-Keeper: You Won't Believe The Lengths They Will Go To[/QUOTE] Thread reached a new low, someone will top this.

being the accessory to the murder of 300,000 people should be far harsher than just 4 years but at the same time, he was a book-keeper that had nothing to do with it. I could say that he's 94 to argue why he shouldn't be convicted, but that's irrelevant. If he protested against the murders of the Jews he would have been culled himself. He literally would have had no choice but to work with the (germans) of the time. The Nazi's were absolutely beyond inhumane, and have caused the single worst systematic slaughter in all of history (at the very least it's up there with what the USSR as done, as well as what happened with American Indians, but that's off topic). Only an idiot can justify what they did, but that doesn't mean we have to convict anyone associated with it. Maybe it's not my business and it really was justified, but I'm just going off what I know. It sounds wacky, but I don't blame people for being as pissed about the holocaust as they are.

He's 94. Give it a break. Arresting a frail old man who's likely going to drop dead before the end of the decade likely won't make anyone feel better.

[QUOTE=Furioso;48218182]How is this a benefit to anyone but[B] irrational naziphobes[/B] and [B]deluded moralists?[/B][/QUOTE] I can't believe this is even a word. If you need a reminder as to why people hate the Nazi's I think you may be crazy. [QUOTE=Explosions;48215804]Mob accountants should not be charged with a crime because they weren't really involved and they might have gotten hurt by mobsters if they said no.[/QUOTE] to be fair, this was the entire country doing this, not some giant illegal gang. [QUOTE=SPARLOCK;48218539]He's 94. Give it a break. Arresting a frail old man who's likely going to drop dead before the end of the decade likely won't make anyone feel better.[/QUOTE] I would say that we shouldn't convict people based on age but it did happen more than half a century ago and I mean, he's ninety fucking four. and I guarantee someone would post a rationale explanation as to why it's not OK.

[QUOTE=J!NX;48218555]I can't believe this is even a word. If you need a reminder as to why people hate the Nazi's I think you may be crazy.[/QUOTE] [some crazy bullshit about israel and jewish conspiracies and the holocaust being a lie goes here]

[QUOTE=Kommodore;48215451] Which has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not a crime has been committed. Might as well say "He already got away with it."[/QUOTE] That is what I'm saying, based on his role. Putting this guy in prison serves no meaning for anyone

[QUOTE=Explosions;48215804]Mob accountants should not be charged with a crime because they weren't really involved and they might have gotten hurt by mobsters if they said no.[/QUOTE] The mob bosses weren't authority figures from government systematically murdering everyone that showed slight signs of disobedience. Mob accountants voluntarily enter that world.

If, as has been stated previously, prison is a place for punishment and rehabillitation what is the point in sending this guy there? he's had his whole life to deal with the thought of what he did - it is of no benefit to him or anyone else to send him to live out his final days in prison

Charging a 94 year old guy who was most likely drafted by his government, and ordered to do the job he was assigned (As was almost everyone in WW2 in Most countries) or possibly face execution for treason had he refused, 70 years after the fact is just a bit ridiculous.

[QUOTE=fragger0;48219710]If, as has been stated previously, prison is a place for punishment and rehabillitation what is the point in sending this guy there? he's had his whole life to deal with the thought of what he did - it is of no benefit to him or anyone else to send him to live out his final days in prison[/QUOTE] Deciding whether someone is rehabilitated or not along the lines of how long they have had to think about is a terrible metric. So what he's had 70 years to think about it, he could be still be unrepentant after that time (not that he is though)

[QUOTE=TheTalon;48219711]Charging a 94 year old guy who was most likely drafted by his government, and ordered to do the job he was assigned (As was almost everyone in WW2 in Most countries) or possibly face execution for treason had he refused, 70 years after the fact is just a bit ridiculous.[/QUOTE] He wasn't drafted, he [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Gröning#SS_career"]volunteered to the Waffen-SS[/URL]. He never faced execution and when he wanted to be reassigned [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Gröning#Great_Britain"]he got reassigned[/URL]. Does anyone here actually bother to read the fucking thread?

[QUOTE=Rossy167;48219645]The mob bosses weren't authority figures from government systematically murdering everyone that showed slight signs of disobedience. Mob accountants voluntarily enter that world.[/QUOTE] The guy complained about his work and wasn't executed, he eventually asked for a reassignment and got it, and he voluntarily joined the SS. So if your argument for why mob accountants should be held responsible for their actions is 'they wouldn't be killed if they refused, and they joined willingly' then by your own argument Groening should be held accountable too.

Oh fuck off.

[QUOTE=Bushi;48215930]There's no reason for why prison should be a place strictly for punishment or rehabilitation. It's a place of both, first you serve your punishment, then you get rehabilitated.[/QUOTE] Why should punishment be a role? How about for the protection of society around the prison, and to rehabilitate those within? It's why I'm against the death penalty, there's no need to go that far. Same with this case, putting him in prison isn't going to protect society from anything, in fact, you could even call it harmful if you really wanted to, as he was ousted because he was standing up to a holocaust denier.

[QUOTE=Lonestriper;48218407]Holy shit lol way to diminish any culpability of top ranking Nazi officials in the crimes committed by their regime. Nuremberg is as good an example of post-war justice done in the right way as you are ever going to get. A defeated enemy is subject to the will of the victor provided the war was based upon just-terms. You'd be hard pressed to prove World War Two wasn't fought on just-terms by the allies. Unless of course you went the route of Jeremy Bentham and declared it nonsense upon stilts but even then you're flying in the face of how international laws operates. Not to mention it is utterly bizarre to conflate the individuals put on trial as somehow representative of 'Germany'. I'm sure the average German citizen living in the bombed out crater of their former home didn't feel any worse upon hearing the news that some Nazis had been tried and executed. To say the Nuremberg trials were to 'further punish Germany' assumes that the Nazis were Germany and Germany was the Nazis. Something that comes awfully close to mirroring the ideology of the all-compassing National Socialist state that the regime tried to foster for legitimacy. It's complete nonsense[/QUOTE] International law is nonsense though. It's simply a method to inconsistently apply law to defeated states. If the Nuremberg Trials were done right, there would have been Soviets, Americans, Japanese, and Nazis on the stand. Additionally, just terms? That's as vague and as meaningless as international law. I'm not suggesting the Nuremberg trials were unnecessary, they very much were to remove the Nazi bigwigs. But to suggest they're a good example of law and justice in action is absurd. It's an insult to any lawful justice system to suggest the Nuremberg trials were carried out fairly. Secondly, yes, a nation's leader is representative of the state they represented. It would totally crush the morale of a people if all the household politicians and military leaders were hanging from a rope or tied to a pole about to be shot. The Nazi ideology emblazoned post-Great War Germany. To suggest that post-war Germans would not care one way or another whether their entire government was put through a grinder is insane. Perhaps they would care less about it than rebuilding their life, but it would certainly strike deep into their hearts. Additionally, after the war, it wasn't just politicians that were executed or Nuremberg that demobilized Germany. As with most wars, the entire set of events after the war were designed to demoralize Germany. Germany lost land that it had controlled for centuries (Pomerania and Silesia were not Polish, Konigsberg was not Russian). The forced migrations were tantamount to genocide. The divisions of Germany between the occupying powers nearly destroyed Germany and Europe on the grander scale. The abolition of Prussia and other ancient institutions killed off the old Junker guard. The neutering of the military kept the nation of Germany weak. The plundering of German Industry by the Soviets. And what happened to Germany was on the light side. The worst case was Germany gets partitioned and divided, between neighboring powers, and what was left after partitioning into pre-unification states. This is not the typical post-war scenario. In a normal post-war scenario, land changes hand, maybe the leader gets deposed, some other conditions might be on the peace table, but what happened to Germany was unheard of. Nuremberg, with the rest of the events that transpired after WW2 were not designed to destroy the Nazis, but instead to totally demoralize and destroy Germany. Hence me conflating the Nazis on trial with the German people. On the surface, the post-war conditions, including Nuremberg, were designed to denazify Germany, but they were much deeper than that. The scars from this post war demoralization still exist today; Germany is scared of its own shadow when it needs to be the strongest its ever been to hold the mantle of the EU and prevent the encroachment of Russia into Europe.

[QUOTE=MuffinZerg;48211571] [B]This guy could sabotage the camp, he didnt. Not acting still has conequences[/B] and here they are. 4 years is extremely tame for assisting a murder of 300 00, I dont find the "just a bookkeeper" excuse good enough.[/QUOTE] This is fucking retarded I'm sorry You forgot that we aren't living in a movie

I was going to post my own arguements in this thread, but they closely mirror General_Lee's and his are much better articulated. I'll simply add that I notice a lot of you are commenting in this thread that "He didn't actually object to the murder of jews". Is this the reason he should be made to spend possibly his last years alive in jail? Your surmise of his views you made from a single statement in a report he filed?

Fucking hell, I'm sure he fell asleep every night full of guilt since the war. He's close enough to his deathbed as it is, and people really do need to get over what happened 70-odd years ago and move forward.

The event happening long ago and the criminal being old shouldn't free them from punishment. However this guy just managed the books. Hardly anything. Like shit, the US gave a free pass to people who performed experiments on Humans with a 100% chance of horrific pain and death but nobody ever complains about that.

[QUOTE=General_Lee;48223084]International law is nonsense though. It's simply a method to inconsistently apply law to defeated states. If the Nuremberg Trials were done right, there would have been Soviets, Americans, Japanese, and Nazis on the stand. Additionally, just terms? That's as vague and as meaningless as international law. I'm not suggesting the Nuremberg trials were unnecessary, they very much were to remove the Nazi bigwigs. But to suggest they're a good example of law and justice in action is absurd. It's an insult to any lawful justice system to suggest the Nuremberg trials were carried out fairly.[/quote] International law as applied in the trials is, in part, the articulation of natural law theories onto state actors. The same theories which underpin much of the rest of our legal system. When I say 'just-terms' I really just refer to the provisions natural law makes for waging a just war, which boils down to a system of transgression-retribution. In the same system you have the provision where a defeated transgressive enemy is totally subject to the will of the just victor because they, by virtue of their flouting of the laws of nature, lose their freedom. Anyway calling international law meaningless ignores its actual use as a system of justice internationally. I don't even necessarily disagree that it is ultimately meaningless, it's just a complete red herring when it is being used as a cogent system of law in real life, as evidenced in the Nuremberg trials. Further, taking the route of calling it a farce is a weasel-word way of declaring that you just don't like the results of its implementation. The scope of the trials was to determine the guilt of German officials for the crimes they committed. The fact that everyone else didn't face justice has nothing to do with that. So maybe the results weren't fair, but the trials were a quintessentially legal endeavor. [quote] Secondly, yes, a nation's leader is representative of the state they represented. It would totally crush the morale of a people if all the household politicians and military leaders were hanging from a rope or tied to a pole about to be shot. The Nazi ideology emblazoned post-Great War Germany. To suggest that post-war Germans would not care one way or another whether their entire government was put through a grinder is insane. Perhaps they would care less about it than rebuilding their life, but it would certainly strike deep into their hearts. Additionally, after the war, it wasn't just politicians that were executed or Nuremberg that demobilized Germany. As with most wars, the entire set of events after the war were designed to demoralize Germany. Germany lost land that it had controlled for centuries (Pomerania and Silesia were not Polish, Konigsberg was not Russian). The forced migrations were tantamount to genocide. The divisions of Germany between the occupying powers nearly destroyed Germany and Europe on the grander scale. The abolition of Prussia and other ancient institutions killed off the old Junker guard. The neutering of the military kept the nation of Germany weak. The plundering of German Industry by the Soviets. And what happened to Germany was on the light side. The worst case was Germany gets partitioned and divided, between neighboring powers, and what was left after partitioning into pre-unification states. This is not the typical post-war scenario. In a normal post-war scenario, land changes hand, maybe the leader gets deposed, some other conditions might be on the peace table, but what happened to Germany was unheard of. Nuremberg, with the rest of the events that transpired after WW2 were not designed to destroy the Nazis, but instead to totally demoralize and destroy Germany. Hence me conflating the Nazis on trial with the German people. On the surface, the post-war conditions, including Nuremberg, were designed to denazify Germany, but they were much deeper than that. The scars from this post war demoralization still exist today; Germany is scared of its own shadow when it needs to be the strongest its ever been to hold the mantle of the EU and prevent the encroachment of Russia into Europe.[/QUOTE] What you bring up are separate issues which have little to do with the scope of the Nuremberg trials. They were nasty things to do, sure, but the Allies were well within their rights to do so (except in the case of the forced migrations). Regardless I fail to see how the trials were a means to punish Germany further. It was an extraction of justice against the officials who formerly ran the country. Germany didn't suffer as a state because of the trials (though it did in the partition etc.)

[QUOTE=Lonestriper;48226573]International law as applied in the trials is, in part, the articulation of natural law theories onto state actors. The same theories which underpin much of the rest of our legal system. When I say 'just-terms' I really just refer to the provisions natural law makes for waging a just war, which boils down to a system of transgression-retribution. In the same system you have the provision where a defeated transgressive enemy is totally subject to the will of the just victor because they, by virtue of their flouting of the laws of nature, lose their freedom. Anyway calling international law meaningless ignores its actual use as a system of justice internationally. I don't even necessarily disagree that it is ultimately meaningless, it's just a complete red herring when it is being used as a cogent system of law in real life, as evidenced in the Nuremberg trials. Further, taking the route of calling it a farce is a weasel-word way of declaring that you just don't like the results of its implementation. The scope of the trials was to determine the guilt of German officials for the crimes they committed. The fact that everyone else didn't face justice has nothing to do with that. So maybe the results weren't fair, but the trials were a quintessentially legal endeavor.[/QUOTE] I would argue that war on "just terms" have little to do with the actual enforcement of international law on the grand scale. From a theoretical textbook standpoint, they make sense, but in practice, they're only applied when the winners want to apply them. Additionally, there have been many unjust wars that don't necessarily lead to the dismemberment of the state, even if the unjust side lost. Ultimately, the school of thought of just and unjust wars is just that, a school of thought and not a universal truth. Not to distract from the issue, but it would seem that the events after WW2 were not based on just cause, but instead on pragmatic means. The official stance was one of punishing unjust war, but in reality, it was what all nations do after war to the losing side. Limit the defeated nation's power. My thoughts on international law are similar to what I stated above in that they're only used when they suit the winning actor. Some international laws such as the Geneva Convention or the Hague Conferences make sense, but they can be compromised by uneven enforcement which detracts from their integrity as laws. The UN as both a legislative and enforcing body is even worse in that respect. Due to its international scale and the power of the permanent members of the security council means that the enforcement of UN international law is only used when it's convenient. Of course one can't expect perfect enforcement, and from a pragmatic standpoint, it would be silly to burn out China for its human rights violations at risk of alienating it as a relatively friendly global power, but I digress. In my opinion, however, treaties and international organizations are best between nations with aligned goals or within regional groupings. The different, independent organizations would stay at each others throats and would internally enact treaties that would be relevant to member states. Additionally, they allow for closer contact in terms of alliances, defensive pacts, and trade treaties. I would much rather have many different EU and NATO-esque organizations in the world than one large UN. Finally, I won't contest the fact they were legal endeavors, they very much were, but they were not fair and just legal endeavors, which strikes me as hypocritical on the part of the Western Allies. [QUOTE]What you bring up are separate issues which have little to do with the scope of the Nuremberg trials. They were nasty things to do, sure, but the Allies were well within their rights to do so (except in the case of the forced migrations).[/QUOTE] In a vacuum they have little to do with each other, but on the grander scale they were quite interconnected. Nuremberg cut off the head, the partitions cut off the limbs, and the abolition of the older institutions tore out the heart of Germany. I would argue the destruction of one's government by a foreign power is one of the most disorganizing, demoralizing, and humiliating events that could occur to a nation second only to mass partition and annexation. Not only is the government, an organization that is typically held as a stable representation of the state and people, gone, but it is replaced by a government with intentions that support an alien, foreign power. The Allies were also in their right to do, a victor can enact whatever they want from the defeated, but that doesn't mean they're immune to any criticism.

It seems you have a gripe with International Law more than the Nuremberg trials themselves. Which is fine. It's only as good as it's implementation, which doesn't bode well for it as a system. Regardless, the base is fundamentally sound. The fact that pragmatism often supersedes its true intention is a shame. At the same time though, there's always something gained when it [I]is[/I] implemented. A little is always better than none and I think the Nuremberg trials demonstrate that.

[QUOTE=ScumBunny;48219823] Does anyone here actually bother to read the fucking thread?[/QUOTE] Do you even bother to listen to other peoples arguments or are you in a continual blind revenge-fuelled tirade?? Just because YOU think he should be held accountable doesn't mean he should - the fact you have no ability to accept that someone is extremely remorseful of his actions (that he did in a nation under extreme propaganda, of which the party were DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED) and act accordingly shows that you're after nothing but revenge against this man. By your logic, anyone who voted in the nazis should be held accountable because they voted voluntarily for that party - which is ridiculous.

[QUOTE=fragger0;48228848]Do you even bother to listen to other peoples arguments or are you in a continual blind revenge-fuelled tirade?? [/QUOTE] I really don't think that pointing out, repeatedly, that the arguments being used to justify his actions are totally wrong constitutes a 'revenge-fueled tirade'. Make an argument for why he ought to get let off but if you want, but if you're gonna be the hundredth person to say 'oh he had no choice and they'd have killed him' when the evidence clearly shows that he [i]had[/i] a choice (and was quite enthusiastic about it) and they [i]wouldn't[/i] kill him (since he complained about efficiency with no repercussions, and eventually transferred), don't expect a lot of respect for that uninformed opinion.

[QUOTE=catbarf;48228912] Make an argument for why he ought to get let off but if you want, but if you're gonna be the hundredth person to say 'oh he had no choice and they'd have killed him' when the evidence clearly shows that he [i]had[/i] a choice (and was quite enthusiastic about it) and they [i]wouldn't[/i] kill him (since he complained about efficiency with no repercussions, and eventually transferred), don't expect a lot of respect for that uninformed opinion.[/QUOTE] I've made about 5 different posts with reasons why he shouldn't sent to prison and not once have I said he was forced to do what he did. He's unwilling to listen to these reasons because clearly he's never going to change his mind about this man. Have you even read my previous posts on the topic?