# Did the Nazis break the law? Did the Nazis follow illegal orders? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 15, 2020, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169 "2020-08-15T11:01:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2020, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/41 "2020-08-18T22:18:46Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > WWII _was_ the war that established crimes against humanity as part of international law, by inspiring the United Nations, since a nation signing the charter explicitly surrenders that part of its sovereignty. I’m surprised nobody caught this one. I was mistaken, it is not the UN Charter which details crimes against humanity, but the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (which has significantly less state parties than the UN Charter). ~Max ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2020, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/42 "2020-08-18T23:08:53Z")
If the Nazis were wrong to intentionally and with malice murder civilians than it was also wrong for the Allies. ---
**Author:** ![UDS1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@UDS1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS1)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/43 "2020-08-19T02:01:19Z")
I’m not sure why you think the rule of law didn’t exist until the 18th century; it plainly did. Regarding your assumption that the Enabling Act, etc was “legal”, I think the question really is whether it was itself a law? Or, perhaps whether anything that came after it was, or could be, a law. The Furherprinzip is the notion that the Leader, and his agents acting on his behalf in executing his will, are unconstrained by any laws, written or unwritten - that the will of the Leader transcends the law and prevails over it. Once this principal was itself recognised by German law, Germany was a state no longer constituted or governed by law - just by the arbitrary exercise of unconstrained power. And therefore it does not make sense to argue that any action of the state or its agents was, or was not, legal; there was no law to constrain the actions of the state and therefore those actions were neither legal nor illegal; the concept had no application to them. We could perhaps say that they were lawless actions. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/44 "2020-08-19T02:19:23Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > If the Nazis were wrong to intentionally and with malice murder civilians than it was also wrong for the Allies. OK. Are you claiming that the Nazis and the Allies were entirely morally equivalent? no difference between them at all? And if not, what’s your point? ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/45 "2020-08-19T02:26:25Z")
What does that even mean? We judge by actions, not intentions. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/46 "2020-08-19T02:34:10Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > We judge by actions, not intentions. Are you really claiming that the actions of the Allies and the Nazis are equivalent? You can pick out isolated actions and claim they are equivalent - bombing of London, bombing of German cities, but are you seriously claiming that _overall_ the actions of the Allies and the Nazis are morally equivalent? Are you claiming that the Allies ever systematically committed genocide? ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/47 "2020-08-19T02:36:19Z")
Soviets? And yes. The bombing campaigns were systematic indirect mass murder. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/48 "2020-08-19T02:36:25Z")
You don’t know what moral equivalence means? And are you saying that the actions overall of the Allies were equivalent to those of the Nazis? ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/49 "2020-08-19T02:42:51Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Soviets? > > And yes. The bombing campaigns were systematic indirect mass murder. I honestly don’t know if this is just ignorance, or arguing for the sake of arguing, or a serious lack of moral values. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/50 "2020-08-20T00:13:41Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > The bombing campaigns were systematic indirect mass murder. “Indirect?” Can’t get much more direct than dropping a firebomb on a city. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/51 "2020-08-20T00:41:55Z")
I’ve heard various apologist for the nazi state say that the trials werent legal because they had no basis and was just for revenge Well if it contributes anything to the discussion the kaiser was charged with war crimes also and was to stand trial but he had fled Germany and lived in a variety of sympathetic places and there wasn’t a strong desire or even an official agency that could arrest him unlike today whereas today the UN could have a squad from the nations of the sec council pick someone up after a warrant was voted on So the notion of war crimes had been around 20-40 years before ww1 and 2 Now my question is say the fuhrer started the war but without the racial angle meaning no holocaust …like he just wanted territory and vengeance for ww1 and Germany loses if he didn’t commit suicide would be of been arrested ? or just dethroned and exiled (or even jailed) ala napoleon? ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/52 "2020-08-20T00:50:53Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I may be mistaken, but I believe Night and Fog involved prisoners of war and therefore contradicted treaties such as the Hague or Geneva conventions. So both the issuance and execution of that order count as war crimes. > > ~Max No, citizens in occupied territory were arrested on suspicion of working with the resistance and never heard from again. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/53 "2020-08-20T01:20:09Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > unlike today whereas today the UN could have a squad from the nations of the sec council pick someone up after a warrant was voted on That’s not how it works. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/54 "2020-08-20T02:10:59Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > yes. The bombing campaigns were systematic indirect mass murder They weren’t genocide. And they weren’t committed on a captive population. They were intended to help make Germany surrender; and did not continue after that happened. That doesn’t make them right. But it does make them not equivalent to the death camps. What you appear to be claiming is a fairly nasty version of the ‘but everybody does it!’ defense. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/55 "2020-08-24T05:05:37Z")
If you find that a leader who wields absolute authority is inherently incompatible with the concept of law, I think you _would_ be hard pressed to find anything resembling the rule of law before the appearance of republicanism in the eighteenth century. We have what, the democracy of Athens, the Roman Republic, the Parliament of England after 1688, the United States of America, the First French Republic…? We’re already into the eighteenth, nearly the ninteenth century. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/56 "2020-08-24T06:00:01Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > We have what, the democracy of Athens, the Roman Republic, the Parliament of England after 1688, the United States of America, the First French Republic…? You could add to that the Republic of Venice, for many centuries. The Doge was elected for life, but had very constrained and limited powers, and no right to name a successor. > **[Republic of Venice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Venice)** > > The Republic of Venice (Italian: Repubblica di Venezia; Venetian: Repùblega de Venèsia) or Venetian Republic,\[a\] traditionally known as La Serenissima,\[b\] was a sovereign state and maritime republic in parts of the present-day Italian Republic that existed for 1,100 years from 697 until 1797. Centered on the lagoon communities of the prosperous city of Venice, it incorporated numerous overseas possessions in modern Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Greece, Albania and Cyprus. The republic grew In ... ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/57 "2020-08-24T06:01:16Z")
I had it mixed up with something else, the Commando order. Regarding Night and Fog (or Nacht und Nebel), I cannot find any violation of existing treaties. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![UDS1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@UDS1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS1)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/58 "2020-08-24T06:05:22Z")
I can’t agree. Look at Henry VIII, for example. He regularly needs to get parliament to enact laws allowing him to do what he wants to do, and he has to scheme actively, and employ a variety of threats, blandishments, bargains and compromises to get parliament to legislate as he wishes. He clearly does not “wield absolute authority” in your terms. Monarchs who did are the exception, not the rule. Don’t confuse demcracy or democratic accountability with the rule of law. Tudor England was in no sense a democracy, but it was a country in which the monarch was constrained by law. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/59 "2020-08-24T06:06:19Z")
I think the question of whether the Republic of Venice is a good example of the rule of law is worth its own thread. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169/60 "2020-08-24T06:11:04Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > If you find that a leader who wields absolute authority is inherently incompatible with the concept of law, I think you _would_ be hard pressed to find anything resembling the rule of law before the appearance of republicanism in the eighteenth century. England didn’t have absolute monarchy between Magna Carta and Charles I dissolving Parliament (and that only lasted just over a decade, and did not end well for him). It very much had rule of law (well, except when it was in civil war) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-nazis-break-the-law-did-the-nazis-follow-illegal-orders/918169.md?page=4)