90-year-old SS hitman given life

[Dave_LF]

That is actually an interesting (if off-topic) question: do brutes end up in power because at some deep level people prefer things that way, or does their brutishness allow them to achieve power whether other people like it or not?

[JewelSong]

To Lucasta, Going to the Wars
by Richard Lovelace ca, 1649

TELL me not, sweet, I am unkind
That from nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more.

[vison]

That is actually an interesting (if off-topic) question: do brutes end up in power because at some deep level people prefer things that way, or does their brutishness allow them to achieve power whether other people like it or not?

I think it's a combination of both things.

As you pointed out earlier, evolution leads to survivors.

But there is another aspect: humans have survived because we are social creatures and we co-operate and care for each other. Brutality alone will not do that. We have had to "fight" for the bare means of existence - in the past.

It seems to me that there are faint glimmerings of hope that humans might realize that we no longer have to do that. There IS enough to go around.


That Korean tyrant did not seize power on his own, he inherited it. He would not have survived for ONE second if it hadn't suited the men around him. This is true for his heir, whoever it winds up being.

Fratricide is an old tradition in the ruling elites.

[Túrin Turambar]

An update to mention that another war crimes suspect, 97-year-old Laszlo Csatary, was last week located in Budapest. An article on the BBC asks if he is worth prosecuting. Again, I'm on the fence, as are a number of Holocaust historians. There are obviously justice considerations around conducting a trial on 70-year-old evidence when the actual witnesses to the events are usually dead. These were probably considerations in the acquittal last year of Sandor Kepiro, whose circumstances were similiar. Still, these charges should be properly investigated. In the meantime, protestors seems to have set themselves up outside Csatary's flat.More here.

[Túrin Turambar]

Three men arrested in Germany on suspicion of being guards at Auschwitz

I have to admit that this troubles me a bit, as our standards for WWII war crimes seem to have broadened as time went on. Thousands of members of the SS and concentration camp guards were taken into Allied custody at the end of the war. But simply being a guard at an extermination camp was not grounds for a war crimes prosecution. Now it appears that it is. The reason, obviously, is that there are many fewer such people today. But I tend to take the view that, if their actions were known in 1945 and they were not prosecuted for them then, they should not be prosecuted now.

The entire thing is complicated by the fact that all of the major extermination camps were in Occupied Poland, and as such all were liberated by the Russians. I understand that it was standard procedure in the Red Army to summarily execute anyone captured wearing an SS uniform*. And their record-keeping was not particularly good at the best of times. So it is hard to know who was captured and what happened to them.

*The Armies of the Western Allies have also been linked to the extrajudicial executions of members of Nazi organisations, and it seems to have had some tacit authorisation, although they weren't quite so systematic about it.

[Túrin Turambar]

Just using this thread for all news related to Nazi war crimes trials:

Oskar Groening, who worked as a bookkeeper at Auschwitz, has been convicted of being an accessory to murder and sentenced to four years in prison.

This is a decision of which I am very critical of for a couple of reasons. One is that we knew about these types of people in 1945 but didn't prosecute them then. Prosecuting everyone who played some role in the massive project of identifying, rounding up, transporting and then killing Europe's Jews would have involved tens of thousands of defendants in a dozen countries. It seems that the simple fact that these people have lived a long time (Groening is 94) makes them guiltier now than they were back then, when almost the entire German state (and sizeable minorities in other countries such as Hungary) bore some collective responsibility for the Holocaust.

The bigger reason, though, is that I think it is inappropriate in Groening's particular case. Groening could have escaped any consequences for his time in the SS had he kept quiet. He chose to break his 40-year silence in the 1980s in order to publically challenge and discredit the works of Holocaust deniers. His eyewitness testimony has been highly-effective in combating Holocaust denial. This is the sort of thing which, I think, we should encourage rather than discourage. Given Groening's very advanced age, minor role in the Holocaust and his more significant role in providing valuable historical knowledge and showing the falsehood of the claims of Holocaust deniers, I would have left him alone.

[Alatar]

Have to say, I agree with you Lord_M.

[Beutlin]

I respectfully disagree, Lord_Morningstar.

I believe that if a person played a voluntary part in running Auschwitz he deserves a conviction. From what I have read, Mr. Gröning sincerely regrets his actions back then, and even the acting judge told Mr. Gröning today that he deserves respect for facing the trial and not escaping his fate through vial denialism. But that does not excuse what transpired seven decades ago. Mr. Gröning got four years, and he will likely not spend any time in prison at all (as he is probably not “haftfähig” – fit for prison).

Of course, it is true, that all this is too little, too late. And that it can only happen now when most perpetrators have long passed away; that the images of old, fragile men in court hardly resemble what we perceive as true justice, and that many people, who bore much greater guilt than Mr. Gröning, were never convicted and lived a merry life after the war. All this, and much more, can and should be pointed out on days such as this one (and there won’t be that many in the future), but for the individual case, I think, it matters little.

Is that "justice"? Who knows (I am not a student of law). In German there is a saying "Recht ist nicht gleich Gerechtigkeit" which very roughly translates to "Justice (as in law) does not equal justice (as in fairness/justness). In my opinion, at least the former was served today.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Well said, Beutlin. While I can see where Lord M and Alatar are coming from, I agree with you.

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

[Nin]

There is also the fact that judgments like this set precedents for convictions in genocides which tool place long after the Shoa, where they can be taken before the implied persons are so old. He has been convicted for hat is called in German: "Beihilfe zum Mord" (Assisting in murder?) which according to the article I read was a new accusation in cases of genocide and it is important that in the contexte of a genocide, a person can be convicted for that.

[Impenitent]

Two separate issues here, I think. One is his culpability - whether, indeed, he was involved, to what extent, and how the law judges it. He, himself, as admitted guilt, and so for justice to be served, the law must be seen to be followed. The second issue is mitigation, and I'd say that the fact that he stepped forward, that he's fought holocaust denial, that he's admitted guilt and contrition, all these are considered in the judgement.

If he's convicted but spends no time in gaol, that also would be justice.

Also, as Nin pointed out, process sets precedent for the future, and that is also important.