# How far is too far in persuing nazis? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 14, 2017, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125 "2017-03-14T01:35:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/21 "2017-03-14T03:51:33Z")
There is no such thing as “too far.” ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/22 "2017-03-14T04:30:32Z")
I have no problem with him getting whatever little punishment he can at this point but I think it’s safe to say he won. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/23 "2017-03-14T04:59:25Z")
Is this someone who escaped prosecution in the 1940s and has essentially been a fugitive the whole time, or someone who they only decided should be prosecuted after having let him and everyone like him live freely for decades? One of my issues with some of these recent trials is that it feels like the goal is not justice, but obtaining some kind of absolution for the nations holding the trials. If it was about justice for people who did these things, they wouldn’t have waited until this decade to (IIRC) decide that every death camp guard was guilty of murder regardless of their direct actions. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/24 "2017-03-14T06:42:30Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > I understand the idea that going after each and every Nazi but considering the extreme age and the fact that the guy has Alzheimer’s disease […] The Germans have concluded that he is too infirm to stand trial He shouldn’t be tried, then, because he can’t defend himself properly, and that wouldn’t be a fair trial. On top of it, I can’t see how a trial could possibly be fair after 70 years, alzheimer or not. How is he supposed to find witnesses and evidences for his defense after such a long time? > [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > One of my issues with some of these recent trials is that it feels like the goal is not justice, but obtaining some kind of absolution for the nations holding the trials. If it was about justice for people who did these things, they wouldn’t have waited until this decade This too. Too many high ranking, highly guilty people have been left alone to live a nice life or received relatively lenient sentence, then were set free after some years, not even completing this lenient sentence for it to make sense to go after nonagerians who might or might not have been a camp guard forced into chosing between this role or dying of starvation in a soviet prisoner camp (as in one of the last nazi trial). Nazis whose guilt was obvious and undisputable should have been much more harshly punished much earlier, rather than prosecuting lowly underlings whose participation isn’t even sure while their boss, boss’boss, boss’boss’boss and boss’boss’boss’boss had a nice free life, sometimes holding a high level job in post war Germany (or elsewhere). But in this case, it’s not even the problem. The problem is the inherent unfairness of such a trial. One must not forget that he might be innocent, and as such deserve exactly the same consideration as any other defendant. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/25 "2017-03-14T06:54:31Z")
I have two issues with this: 1. If he’s really suffering Alzheimer’s, then he cannot intelligently defend himself in court, and is thus incapable of receiving a fair trial. That’s certainly better treatment than the village of Poles he (likely) wiped out, but we are not and cannot hold ourselves to standards as low as the Nazis. 2. He was a lieutenant, and it appears at least likely that he wiped out the Polish village as a retaliation for another action, and that it’s likely that order came down the chain of command and wasn’t personal initiative. So in effect, he’s one of many thousands of men who served as lieutenant-equivalent rank in the Waffen-SS, and who committed war crimes. However, it was largely decided back when we held initial trials in the de-Nazification of Germany, that we weren’t going to prosecute down to the last man. There were various reasons for doing this, but the allied governments of occupied Germany largely chose to exclude the vast majority of men of such low rank from prosecution. It’s a little distasteful, and frankly, questionable, how in the last few years we’ve kind of reversed that and have taken to prosecuting nonagenarians who were as lowly as camp guards in concentration camps or now lieutenants in an infantry unit. I’m not saying these were not bad men, but basically all of their peers were deemed too junior to be prosecuted in the immediate aftermath of the war, and it feels like we’re only choosing to go after the scattered ones left now because there are so few of them that it can serve some “grand symbolic purpose”, while none of the countries involved wanted the ugly and difficult mess of actually prosecuting the many thousands of such criminals who they had as POWs or could have easily arrested in the immediate aftermath of the war. Certainly, some of the higher ranking Nazis that the Nazi hunters found in the decades after WWII were justly punished. But at this point we’re punishing people that almost certainly (and in fact were not) have been gone after even if they had written a signed letter to the allied occupation government turning themselves in right after the war. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/26 "2017-03-14T10:08:04Z")
My maternal grandparents’ entire extended families were entirely wiped out by those bastards. After 70 years of freedom, fuck him. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/27 "2017-03-14T11:38:00Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > Is this someone who escaped prosecution in the 1940s and has essentially been a fugitive the whole time, or someone who they only decided should be prosecuted after having let him and everyone like him live freely for decades? One of my issues with some of these recent trials is that it feels like the goal is not justice, but obtaining some kind of absolution for the nations holding the trials. If it was about justice for people who did these things, they wouldn’t have waited until this decade to (IIRC) decide that every death camp guard was guilty of murder regardless of their direct actions. You know, the answer to your question is right in the article in the **OP** : > [@](#): > > The investigations in Germany and Poland began after AP’s story in June 2013, which established Karkoc was a commander of the unit and then lied to American immigration officials to get into the United States a few years after the war. > … > AP’s initial investigation found that Karkoc entered the U.S. in 1949 by failing to disclose to American authorities his role as a commander in the SS-led Ukrainian Self Defense Legion. The investigation found that Karkoc was in the area of the massacres, but did not uncover evidence linking him directly to atrocities. So he lied to get in the USA, and his actual identity wasn’t established until 2013. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/28 "2017-03-14T11:41:15Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I have two issues with this: > > 1. If he’s really suffering Alzheimer’s, then he cannot intelligently defend himself in court, and is thus incapable of receiving a fair trial. That’s certainly better treatment than the village of Poles he (likely) wiped out, but we are not and cannot hold ourselves to standards as low as the Nazis. > > 2. He was a lieutenant, and it appears at least likely that he wiped out the Polish village as a retaliation for another action, and that it’s likely that order came down the chain of command and wasn’t personal initiative. So in effect, he’s one of many thousands of men who served as lieutenant-equivalent rank in the Waffen-SS, and who committed war crimes. However, it was largely decided back when we held initial trials in the de-Nazification of Germany, that we weren’t going to prosecute down to the last man. There were various reasons for doing this, but the allied governments of occupied Germany largely chose to exclude the vast majority of men of such low rank from prosecution. > > It’s a little distasteful, and frankly, questionable, how in the last few years we’ve kind of reversed that and have taken to prosecuting nonagenarians who were as lowly as camp guards in concentration camps or now lieutenants in an infantry unit. I’m not saying these were not bad men, but basically all of their peers were deemed too junior to be prosecuted in the immediate aftermath of the war, and it feels like we’re only choosing to go after the scattered ones left now because there are so few of them that it can serve some “grand symbolic purpose”, while none of the countries involved wanted the ugly and difficult mess of actually prosecuting the many thousands of such criminals who they had as POWs or could have easily arrested in the immediate aftermath of the war. > > Certainly, some of the higher ranking Nazis that the Nazi hunters found in the decades after WWII were justly punished. But at this point we’re punishing people that almost certainly (and in fact were not) have been gone after even if they had written a signed letter to the allied occupation government turning themselves in right after the war. Did the government of Poland, whose citizens he’s accused of massacring, have any say in the decision not to prosecute down the field officer level? Or was it just the major Allied powers? If Poland wants to go after Nazis who murdered their own civilians, I don’t see where the USA really gets to tell them they’re wrong for doing so. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/29 "2017-03-14T12:21:08Z")
Lock him up. He’ll wind up being the leader of the skinhead group. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/30 "2017-03-14T12:22:36Z")
> [@Mithras](#): > > I hope he is aware and lives long enough to realize he’s inflicted lifetimes of shame upon his descendents. I hope you don’t really believe his descendants bear any shame for his actions. ---
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/31 "2017-03-14T12:48:01Z")
> [@ckalli1998](#): > > I have no sympathy for that old fuck. There is no statute of limitations murder, especially not the mass murder of millions of Jews, which this prick knowingly aided and abetted. Throw the book at him. Don’t forget the mass murder of millions of slavs, Romani, homosexuals, and disabled people. Each of those groups also suffered thousands or millions of killings at the hands of the Nazis. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/32 "2017-03-14T13:26:07Z")
I’ll chase him round the moons of Nibia and round the Antares maelstrom and round perdition’s flames before I give him up! Kidding aside, as long as he’s aware of his own history, I don’t think it matters how frail he has become; he should be made to answer for his crimes. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/33 "2017-03-14T14:00:36Z")
This guy wiped out a village in Poland? What did the guys who firebombed Dresden get? A medal? Sorry, I hate Nazis as much as the next red-blooded American, but this is just some prosecutor trying to make a name for himself in a culture of spite. This mindless centenarian is just a tool. I can’t really get behind this sort of witch hunt. There are plenty of young, able-bodied neo-Nazis walking around today, actually causing harm. Let’s fill the jails with _those_ bastards before we start topping the prisons off with invalids. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/34 "2017-03-14T14:10:17Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > Did the government of Poland, whose citizens he’s accused of massacring, have any say in the decision not to prosecute down the field officer level? Or was it just the major Allied powers? If Poland wants to go after Nazis who murdered their own civilians, I don’t see where the USA really gets to tell them they’re wrong for doing so. While I don’t believe they were one of the “major occupying powers”, the major Allies set up the trials and largely came to a consensus on what to do. Poland was basically part of the Soviet Empire by that point, so one could argue its interests were “represented” albeit unwillingly, by the USSR. At least in the present tense to extradite someone, the U.S. courts would have to take into consideration the man’s age and medical condition and the fact he has Alzheimer’s suggests it is probably improper for him to be extradited. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/35 "2017-03-14T14:18:24Z")
Whatever his crimes the utility and optics of prosecuting and locking up a mentally incapacitated 98 year old man _today_ will not make anyone look like a hero in this. He’s basically a sack of brain dead flesh at this point, putting him on a pole and carting him around town is not going to accomplish much. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/36 "2017-03-14T14:30:47Z")
_Pour encouragez les autres._ Part of it is punishment of the guilty. Another part is reminding those contemplating such things in the future that the world will never stop hunting you. Never. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/37 "2017-03-14T16:33:30Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > _Pour encouragez les autres._ > > Part of it is punishment of the guilty. Another part is reminding those contemplating such things in the future that the world will never stop hunting you. Never. But at the same time, what message does it send if the civilized world tries an ancient man suffering from Alzheimer’s who probably wouldn’t be deemed capable to stand trial for anything else? Plus, there’s the very pertinent point that **Martin Hyde** brings up, namely that there were decisions 72 years ago about how prosecution of Nazi war criminals would proceed, and who they’d prosecute, etc… They generally didn’t go after jr. officers or enlisted men, partially probably because there were millions of them, and partially because at those low levels, the opportunity for individual initiative is pretty low. Now it seems like they’re going after these really old men in spite of that. What I want to know is why now? Why not in 1955? 1975? 1995? ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/38 "2017-03-14T16:48:38Z")
Well unlike some other publicity seeking prosecutions, such as Oskar Goering, they at least have a specific action he did. I have no problem with trying him if he is fit to stand trial under normal criminal standards. I do have an issue with as people have said, going after a class of people it was decided back in the 1940’s not to prosecute; and FYI [Poland did try Nazi criminals including junior officers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_National_Tribunal), back in the 1940’s. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/39 "2017-03-14T17:01:47Z")
> [@bump](#): > > what message does it send if the civilized world tries an ancient man suffering from Alzheimer’s who probably wouldn’t be deemed capable to stand trial for anything else? Don’t commit war crimes. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125/40 "2017-03-14T17:06:57Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > _Pour encouragez les autres._ > > Part of it is punishment of the guilty. How do you know he’s guilty? And assuming he is, of what exactly and to which extent? He’s seemingly unable to defend himself, and even if he were in good mental health, after 70 years, his ability to mount a defense would be severely impaired. How then could a trial give a satisfying answer to these questions? It’s obvious that the many “let’s throw him to the wolves” posts take as granted that he’s guilty, and base their decision to make him stand trial despite the circumstances on this presumption of guilt. Which is begging the question. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-is-too-far-in-persuing-nazis/782125.md?page=3)