Really, Germany?

[ignoramus]

Fascinating psychology... Am I getting this right?
The German defending the Jews and the other bloke Defending the Germans?

[Alex K]

If you want to call that defending the Germans. I call it something else.

[abaris]

Actually there were several recruitment pools for SS-guards. First and foremost, the very frst concentration camp at Dachau. After Theodor Eicke became commander, he set up a rulebook for every concentration camp. And he set up incentives that actually encouraged violence. For shooting a fugitive, the SS man got leave, money and special rations. Eicke was considered a madman by some of his superiors. His man called him Papa.

In fact, many of the later camp commanders started out there. Such as Rudolf Höss. But also Adolf Eichmann was there for a time.

A second pool were the euthanasia Institutes predating the start of the Holocaust. They were manned by police officers, nurses, medics, orderlies and doctors, who learned to kill there. Again, many moved on to the Holocaust. Most infamour among them Franz Stangl. later commander of Treblinka and originally a police captain. And another police captain named Christian Wirth, who became instrumental in organising the killings behind the frontlines. But also the aforementioned Josef Klehr came from there.

Last, as the war moved on, the SS recruited Ukrainians as camp guards. John Demjanjuk, who made headlines a few years ago, came from that pool.

According to original German news reports from march 2015, this Hubert Zafke was a career SS-man. Signed up at 19 and spent nearly his whole career at Auschwitz. He also wasn't an orderly but a medic and a seargent, going by military rank. So he left the stage of grunt at some time for something.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Yeah, Cap'n....

However we didn't go after every single german nazi for prosecution so I'm going to assume there is a good basis behind it.

Best not to delve too deeply into it.


http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/wernher-von-braun/101/

In the closing days of the war, von Braun and a group of his rocket scientists surrendered to American forces. Although he had been a member of the German SS and had used slave labor at Mittelwerk, the Nazi underground rocket facility, von Braun and his colleagues were embraced by the United States government and began working for the Army on rocket technology. In 1960, von Braun became the first director of NASA’s new Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

It's not a pretty picture.

Not to mention Patton's leniency in his area of operations post-war.

[Dystopia]

I think the question is not if this person committed the crimes, but whether or not we should actively put people with dementia in jail considering they will not understand what is happening like a "normal" criminal.

Of course, some crimes, due to its evil nature, can be prosecuted at any time and there isn't any statutory period that once finished the crime is no longer valid for prosecution - Murder and terrorism, etc, are some of those crimes.

[abaris]

I think the question is not if this person committed the crimes, but whether or not we should actively put people with dementia in jail considering they will not understand what is happening like a "normal" criminal.

None of them will actually go to jail. That's not a third world country, that's a country where they actually investigate if the man in question is fit to stand trial or fit to serve jail time.

And that's not the point of the trial either. Apart from the fact that I found no mention of him suffering from dementia in the German news reports. only that he told authorities, he didn't know anyone was murdered at Auschwitz.

Same with Oscar Gröning. He got his four years last july and now things are on the backburner, when it comes to determine if he's actually fit to do time. In hopes, nature will take it's course before anything is decided.

[Brian37]

I don't know, they still were party to it, and even in the states there is no statute of limitations on murder. Now if they simply were not planning it and simply followed out of fear, that would be a better case. But yea, seems to lack pragmatism. I am sure it would be a harder case to make to a German Jew to say "Hey they are too old to do that to them" if you are a German Jew who survived or had family you know died. But add the Dementia in yea, seems pointless.

Having said that I do hate Israeli Jews milking the Holocaust to justify land grabs. As insightful as Ann Frank was, I doubt she would agree with everything modern Israel does.

If the Nazis were so intent on eliminating the Jews why were there so many survivors?  Why did they bother building concentration camps and stocking them?  Heck, the US kept people in concentration camps three years after the war ended.

Really? Please tell me you are not a Holocaust denier?

I really hate black and white thinking. Using slavery of your captured has happened since humans started organized war in antiquity. The slave labor was free so it freed up money for other resources. If the Germans had had the resources at a bigger scale and had not had a inept dictator, they would have killed as many as they could. Fortunately for Europe and Jews and the west, we had more power and he ended up committing suicide in a bunker.

No, while our camps were a result of our own bigotry and fear of the Japanese, which certainly was also bad, they were not death camps nor forced labor camps to produce weapons . They were internment camps. No excuse for those either, but not the same as what Hitler did to Jews.


http://la8period3.pbworks.com/w/page/259...nt%20Camps

[abaris]

Why do you even grace him with a reply? Some things are simply not worth bothering with. History has already left a big fat footprint smack in the middle of their faces. Them not learning their lessons just makes them more of an idiot.

But for anyone interested, take it from the horse's mouth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yi9hT8ES2g

[Wyrd of Gawd]

If the Nazis were so intent on eliminating the Jews why were there so many survivors?  Why did they bother building concentration camps and stocking them?  Heck, the US kept people in concentration camps three years after the war ended.

Really? Please tell me you are not a Holocaust denier?

I really hate black and white thinking. Using slavery of your captured has happened since humans started organized war in antiquity. The slave labor was free so it freed up money for other resources. If the Germans had had the resources at a bigger scale and had not had a inept dictator, they would have killed as many as they could. Fortunately for Europe and Jews and the west, we had more power and he ended up committing suicide in a bunker.

No, while our camps were a result of our own bigotry and fear of the Japanese, which certainly was also bad, they were not death camps nor forced labor camps to produce weapons . They were internment camps. No excuse for those either, but not the same as what Hitler did to Jews.


http://la8period3.pbworks.com/w/page/259...nt%20Camps

Didn't you know that we also put Jews in our concentration camps as prisoners?

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Why do you even grace him with a reply? Some things are simply not worth bothering with. History has already left a big fat footprint smack in the middle of their faces. Them not learning their lessons just makes them more of an idiot.

But for anyone interested, take it from the horse's mouth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yi9hT8ES2g

That's as good as the shroud of Turin.