# Isn't It Time to Quit Hunting World War II Nazis? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 24, 2014, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909 "2014-07-24T06:03:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2014, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/101 "2014-07-29T05:39:17Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I think I’d argue that being a member of the SS and working in the death camps IS a specific crime. The SS was a criminal organization, and the extermination camps were crimes against humanity, so membership in the one and employment in the other is criminal. That includes the janitor. Could the KKK just as easily be considered a criminal organisation - and all past members now subject to punishment? Like many is thread - I’m not ready to “give a pass” to war criminals, sadists and those who facilitated murder. However, as a practical matter - I don’t see what sort of exculpatory evidence you could be expected to mount as a defence 70 years after the fact. And for this alone - the trial, such as it would be, doesn’t satisfy my idea / concept of due process. Of course - if, for whatever reason, there is strong and incontrovertible evidence that the person is question was indeed a murderer, that’s a different matter - But just a name in a ledger as having been an 18 year old in a guard tower? That doesn’t quite cut it. ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2014, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/102 "2014-07-29T07:48:40Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > No, the point I was making was the exact opposite. If the mentality was _“we have to find somebody to take the blame”_ then they would have found scapegoats long before now. If they were going to pin the crimes on patsies, it would have been easy to do it long ago. It’s making a honest case that can take decades. I believe his point is that perhaps they _did_ find patsies long ago, and now they need new ones. They are Nazi hunters, perhaps they will always need new patsies. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I still feel my point stands. Regardless of whether it’s intentional or self-delusional, any accusations based on false evidence could have been made long ago. You can complete a sloppy investigation in a week. It’s a good careful investigation that can take a long time. So the fact that these accusations are being made after such a long time are evidence that the investigations were conducted carefully. Again, perhaps they did accuse based on false evidence years ago and concluded some sloppy investigations within a week. Now for their own reasons they need to do it again. ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2014, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/103 "2014-07-29T07:51:27Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Right. What if the janitor said that once he became aware of the exterminations, he immediately asked to be transferred and told everyone that they were crazy for doing this. Then the commandant had a little chat with him and told him that if he enjoyed continuing to breathe oxygen, he would mop the floors and keep his mouth shut. What if he actually did get that transfer? He transferred away from the horror and spent the rest of the war smuggling jews out of the country. 70 years later his name is on a piece of paper that says he works at the camp and he doesn’t have anybody left alive that can back up his story. Justice? ---
**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:** [July 29, 2014, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/104 "2014-07-29T09:46:26Z")
> [@bucketybuck](#): > > I believe his point is that perhaps they _did_ find patsies long ago, and now they need new ones. They are Nazi hunters, perhaps they will always need new patsies. > > Again, perhaps they did accuse based on false evidence years ago and concluded some sloppy investigations within a week. Now for their own reasons they need to do it again. Unless we’re getting into denialist territory, why would there be a need for patsies? There were plenty of real war criminals to go around. As for the idea that they’re “doing it again” are there any cases of somebody being accused of war crimes for which somebody else has already been convicted? You seem to be edging into the conspiracy zone where people claim doctors invent diseases and prisons invent crimes in order to justify their existence. And Nazi Hunters invent Nazis for similar reasons. But that’s not how reality works - things like disease and crime and Nazis are all real and people are reacting to them not creating them. ---
**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:** [July 29, 2014, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/105 "2014-07-29T09:57:39Z")
> [@bucketybuck](#): > > What if he actually did get that transfer? He transferred away from the horror and spent the rest of the war smuggling jews out of the country. Sure. And maybe we should consider the possibility that all of the people who died were actually killed by aliens and the Nazis were totally innocent. ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2014, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/106 "2014-07-29T10:41:31Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Sure. And maybe we should consider the possibility that all of the people who died were actually killed by aliens and the Nazis were totally innocent. :rolleyes: It is not a wacky conspiracy theory to suggest that if you are going to be convicting people based on lists of names from almost a century ago, that there may be context to those names that time has erased. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2014, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/107 "2014-07-29T12:31:30Z")
When people argue that enough is enough and once X decades have passed, it’s no longer justifiable to pursue those guilty of serious crimes, I think of the following example: Let’s say a 5-year-old child is kidnapped, abused and murdered. The guilty party is never caught. Fifty years later new evidence is uncovered pointing to a good suspect, who is now aged and in declining health, and has been an apparently upstanding member of the community for a long time. Do you tell the parents/siblings of that child that hey, it’s been so long, we have other fish to fry and let bygones be bygones? There was a case presented on Forensic Files of two young couples that were brutalized by an armed man who was later stopped by police (not knowing what he was wanted for), and who shot both officers to death. He was not tracked down until decades later as an elderly man when he was arrested, tried and sentenced to prison (much to his disbelief and disgust). Now multiply such examples by _millions_ (as in the case of Nazi crimes). How anyone can suggest not following up and prosecuting surviving perpetrators of horrific crimes on the basis of the passage of time and “priorities” is beyond me. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2014, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/108 "2014-07-29T14:03:04Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > When people argue that enough is enough and once X decades have passed, it’s no longer justifiable to pursue those guilty of serious crimes, I think of the following example: > > Let’s say a 5-year-old child is kidnapped, abused and murdered. The guilty party is never caught. Fifty years later new evidence is uncovered pointing to a good suspect, who is now aged and in declining health, and has been an apparently upstanding member of the community for a long time. Do you tell the parents/siblings of that child that hey, it’s been so long, we have other fish to fry and let bygones be bygones? > . What makes you believe that if I think trying a war criminal 70 years later is too late, I would think differently about a child murderer? Especially since a war criminal might well have killed children too. So, yes, I would tell the siblings “it has been too long”. Besides, that’s not a perfect example because my arguments included the fact that lowly guards were hunted down now while their higher ups have been left alone previously. So, a better parallel would be prosecuting 50 years after a minor accomplice in the crime while the actual rapist/murderer hasn’t been prosecuted before despite being known, because, say, he had connections protecting him. Or has been prosecuted and got a 2 years suspended sentence for the rape/murder. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2014, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/109 "2014-07-29T14:52:33Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > What makes you believe that if I think trying a war criminal 70 years later is too late, I would think differently about a child murderer? I was trying to approach this issue on a level of a victim easier to visualize and empathize with than a horde of faceless, anonymous victims. In your case at least, it appears I was expecting too much. And no, I don’t have much patience with the “others got away with it, so leave these criminals alone” excuse. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2014, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/110 "2014-07-29T15:37:50Z")
> [@bengangmo](#): > > Could the KKK just as easily be considered a criminal organisation - and all past members now subject to punishment? Well, of course. Maybe we should have hanged Robert Byrd ;). I’d also agree that this, you were working there, so you are an accessory is definitely “mission creep”. The cynic in me makes me wonder if the bounty hunting lobbyists were pushing for that redefinition. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2014, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/111 "2014-07-29T18:05:52Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Like double posting to message boards, you mean? Relevance to the OP? ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2014, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/112 "2014-07-29T18:09:42Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Also you make much of the difference between death camps and concentration camps. Although the latter is subjectively better in the sense that I would rather be shot than drowned, the guards at the latter would seem to get a free pass even though they imprisoned people in deplorable conditions knowing that thousands would die from malnutrition and overwork. I make much of the difference because you still clearly don’t understand the difference as demonstrated by your absurd attempt at a comparison above. There was exactly one function to the extermination camps: the mass murder of as many human beings in the quickest and most efficient manner possible. There was no other function to the death camps. They were not there to imprison people. Most ‘inmates’ were murdered within hours of arriving at the camps. Nobody was posted to a death camp who didn’t want to be there. > [@jtgain](#): > > This new “standard” is rootless, malleable, is over and under inclusive, and denies everyone accused under it basic due process rights. It only serves to keep the “Nazi hunters” from getting real jobs. Horseshit. This new “standard” is a straw man entirely of your creation. > [@jtgain](#): > > Right. What if the janitor said that once he became aware of the exterminations, he immediately asked to be transferred and told everyone that they were crazy for doing this. Then the commandant had a little chat with him and told him that if he enjoyed continuing to breathe oxygen, he would mop the floors and keep his mouth shut. Again, baseless horseshit that just further demonstrates how ignorant of the topic you are. Please see [post 65](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17580729&postcount=65), your janitor would simply be transferred to a Waffen-SS combat unit. [At the trial of Treblinka camp personnel, it was in fact proven that there had never been a single case in the SS where someone was killed for refusing to carry out an illegal order and that such persons were simply transferred into combat with the Waffen-SS.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-Totenkopfverb%C3%A4nde#Camp_organization) ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2014, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/113 "2014-07-29T18:32:12Z")
Which ones are left alive at this point, anyway? Is there a list out there? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2014, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/114 "2014-07-29T19:47:37Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > When people argue that enough is enough and once X decades have passed, it’s no longer justifiable to pursue those guilty of serious crimes […] The thing is, though, I don’t think anybody in this thread except the OP (who AFAICT appears to have started the thread and then never posted in it again) is arguing that it’s not “justifiable” to continue pursuing suspected Nazis **MERELY** because “X decades have passed”. Rather, it’s the combination of multiple factors (disappearance and degradation of evidence, the broad-brush nature of the indictment in the absence of any sustainable charges of specific crimes, incapacity of many of the suspects to stand trial or even understand the charges being made, circumstantial nature of the evidence put forth to argue for guilt, disparity in the pursuit of low-level suspects now versus high-level ones earlier, etc.) that is making a lot of posters here dubious about the value of the current incarnation of the Nazi-hunting mission. AFAICT, nobody here except the OP ever said simply “Oh well, it was so long ago we should just forget about it now”. Rather, what the posters who disagree with you are saying is “Well, it was so long ago that pursuing the surviving suspects, none of whom is even accused of anything more specific than having some official connection with the death camps, has come to require some pretty severe point-stretching in order to scrape up some last-minute convictions before every possible suspect is dead.” ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2014, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/115 "2014-07-29T20:17:33Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > …Again, baseless horseshit that just further demonstrates how ignorant of the topic you are. Please see [post 65](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17580729&postcount=65), your janitor would simply be transferred to a Waffen-SS combat unit. [At the trial of Treblinka camp personnel, it was in fact proven that there had never been a single case in the SS where someone was killed for refusing to carry out an illegal order and that such persons were simply transferred into combat with the Waffen-SS.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-Totenkopfverb%C3%A4nde#Camp_organization) While your bolded may be technically true (the best kind of true), when the result of defiance is going to be obvious, they aren’t going to defy the illegal order. Do you really thing a guard like [Feodor Fedorenko](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feodor_Fedorenko), a native Ukrainian, Soviet POW, and drafted to be a Treblinka guard, would have lasted a day past telling his Rottenführer that he wasn’t going to do this job anymore? At a minimum, back to the Soviet POW camp he’d have gone. Even in cases of ethnic “Germans” like [Johann Breyer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Breyer)’s, (Sudeten German, in Slovakia) where he told his entire training section in the SS that he couldn’t kill innocent people, or [Oskar Groening](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Gr%C3%B6ning), weren’t transferred immediately to a front line Waffen SS unit, but rather to other camps, or parts of the camp where they didn’t have to deal with prisoners usually. Groening was a clerk for most of his time at Auschwitz. It’s a drastic expansion of our notions of criminal liability to where mere membership in a criminal organization (even one as foul as the SS-TV) constitutes accessory to murder, not proof of individual criminal acts committed by the accused, or not even proof of being in a conspiracy to commit murder. We don’t do that for Mafia members, we don’t do that for KKK members, and we shouldn’t do it here. For both of those groups, we still have to prove that the accused committed criminal acts, even if those acts are as innocuous as those required to prove conspiracy to commit the offense. Prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the guard in question bashed babies heads in on the side of the boxcar, and I’ll be right there with you demanding to hang the son-of-a-bitch, 85 years old or not. But just because he worked with people that did? Or that he didn’t overtly disagree enough with it to get transferred, so long as he didn’t have to do it himself? I can’t justify expanding criminal liability to include him. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/116 "2014-07-30T11:17:19Z")
> [@bengangmo](#): > > Could the KKK just as easily be considered a criminal organisation - and all past members now subject to punishment? Sure, why not? But I’m not talking hypothetically here. I’m not saying that being a member of the SS during the war should be illegal. I’m saying it is illegal. For instance, from the decision at the Nuremburg war trials: > [@](#): > > The SS was utilised for the purposes which were criminal under the Charter involving the persecution and extermination of the Jews, brutalities and killings in concentration camps, excesses in the administration of occupied territories, the administration of the slave labour programme and the mistreatment and murder of prisoners of war. The defendant Kaltenbrunner was a member of the SS implicated in these activities. In dealing with the SS the Tribunal includes all persons who had been officially accepted as members of the SS including the members of the Allgemeine SS, members of the Waffen SS, members of the SS Totenkopf Verbaende and the members of any of the different police forces who were members of the SS. The Tribunal does not include the so-called SS riding units. The Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsfuehrer SS (commonly known as the SD) is dealt with in the Tribunal’s Judgment on the Gestapo and SD. > > Tribunal declares to be criminal within the meaning of the Charter the group composed of those persons who had been officially accepted as members of the SS as enumerated in the preceding paragraph who became or remained members of the organisation with knowledge that it was being used for the commission of acts declared criminal by Article 6 of the Charter or who were personally implicated as members of the organisation in the commission of such crimes, excluding, however, those who were drafted into membership by the State in such a way as to give them no choice in the matter, and who had committed no such crimes. The basis of this finding is the participation of the organisation in war crimes and crimes against humanity connected with the war; this group declared criminal cannot include, therefore, persons who had ceased to belong to the organisations enumerated in the preceding paragraph prior to 1st September, 1939. Breyer was a member of an organization that was put in charge of genocide, that had genocide as its main purpose, and he worked at a facility created for the purpose of genocide, and people are saying it’s unfair to accuse him of genocide? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/117 "2014-07-30T13:29:57Z")
Emphasis added: [QUOTE=Captain Amazing’s cite] Tribunal declares to be criminal within the meaning of the Charter the group composed of those persons who had been officially accepted as members of the SS as enumerated in the preceding paragraph who became or remained members of the organisation with knowledge that it was being used for the commission of acts declared criminal by Article 6 of the Charter or who were personally implicated as members of the organisation in the commission of such crimes, excluding, however, those who were drafted into membership by the State in such a way as to give them no choice in the matter, and who had committed no such crimes. [/QUOTE] So I don’t see how this cite supports your point. Breyer was not guilty of a crime simply by being a member of the SS. Whether he committed a crime is something that would have to be decided in court. And, as has been pointed out several times, there is reason to doubt that a fair trial with a clear charge and sufficient data to make a ruling is possible at this stage. ---
**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:** [July 30, 2014, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/118 "2014-07-30T13:45:17Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > Your first point I see, but the second I disagree with. I think it can discourage other regimes from following a genocidal policy if all their minions realize they’ll be hounded to their graves for their actions. This would be my points (well done suranyi!). I was listening to a piece on NPR yesterday about documented war crimes in Syria and I found myself thinking, "I’m glad we’re still chasing Nazis. The people who commit such acts need to know, deep in their hearts, that we will pursue such people forever. Not ‘for a while’ but forever. At no point will they be entirely safe from capture and imprisonment. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/119 "2014-07-30T17:00:43Z")
Which means, of course, that we should prosecute any other soldier who participated in the killing of civilians in Vietnam or Korea- even though those guys are now 70 or 80 years old and even if they acted under orders. We sort of have a lousy record of meaningful prosecution of our own old dated war crimes. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909/120 "2014-07-30T17:12:25Z")
I wanted to state upfront that I both highly respect your knowledge and highly regard your opinions on historical and military related matters. This is just something we are probably going to still have a difference of opinion on in the end. > [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > While your bolded may be technically true (the best kind of true), when the result of defiance is going to be obvious, they aren’t going to defy the illegal order. Do you really thing a guard like [Feodor Fedorenko](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feodor_Fedorenko), a native Ukrainian, Soviet POW, and drafted to be a Treblinka guard, would have lasted a day past telling his Rottenführer that he wasn’t going to do this job anymore? At a minimum, back to the Soviet POW camp he’d have gone. > > Even in cases of ethnic “Germans” like [Johann Breyer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Breyer)’s, (Sudeten German, in Slovakia) where he told his entire training section in the SS that he couldn’t kill innocent people, or [Oskar Groening](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Gr%C3%B6ning), weren’t transferred immediately to a front line Waffen SS unit, but rather to other camps, or parts of the camp where they didn’t have to deal with prisoners usually. Groening was a clerk for most of his time at Auschwitz. If I can go back a second to earlier when you asked > [@Gray Ghost](#): > > Assuming you have the right Heinz though, what specific acts can you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this guy did? Do you have an account of him shooting or otherwise mistreating Jews? Or is just manning a guard tower enough? As far as I’m concerned, just manning that guard tower is enough, regardless of whether Heinz even ever fired his rifle or not. His job in manning that guard tower was to keep the prisoners in the camp where mass murder was being conducted; the very act of performing that job makes one complicit in those mass murders regardless of if it can be proven or if he in fact did or did not personally shoot or mistreat any Jews or other “racial undesirables”. The same can be said of the camp commandant, and as far as I’m concerned the quartermaster and the baker as well. Regarding specific individual cases you mentioned, Johann Breyer’s story sound incredibly fishy based upon what’s in wiki; “In 1942, at age 17, he enlisted in the Waffen SS and was assigned as a guard at Buchenwald and Auschwitz. He acknowledged serving as an armed guard and escorting prisoners to their work sites and denied any personal role in or witnessing of any atrocities.” The rest of his story may very well be true but he is clearly lying in claiming that yes he served as an armed guard at Buchenwald and Auschwitz **but that he never witnessed any atrocities**. I think you will agree that is simply not possible unless he were quite literally blind. Oskar Groening’s job sounds innocent enough as a clerk, but what did it actually [entail](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Gr%C3%B6ning#Tasks)? > [@](#): > > Gröning’s responsibilities included sorting and counting the multitude of currencies taken from arriving deportees and sending it to Berlin, and attending the selection process – not to decide who was to be killed but to guard the belongings of arrivals until they were sorted.[9] He said he was astonished to learn of the extermination process,[10] but later accepted his part in it, stating that his work became “routine” after several months.[9] His ‘objections’ to performing genocide were rather half-hearted and don’t come across as terribly noble either: > [@](#): > > After witnessing this[a baby having its head smashed against the side of a truck], Gröning went to his boss and told him that he wasn’t able to work at Auschwitz any more, stating that if the extermination of the Jews is necessary, “then at least it should be done within a certain framework”.[11] The superior officer denied Gröning’s request.[11] > [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > It’s a drastic expansion of our notions of criminal liability to where mere membership in a criminal organization (even one as foul as the SS-TV) constitutes accessory to murder, not proof of individual criminal acts committed by the accused, or not even proof of being in a conspiracy to commit murder. We don’t do that for Mafia members, we don’t do that for KKK members, and we shouldn’t do it here. For both of those groups, we still have to prove that the accused committed criminal acts, even if those acts are as innocuous as those required to prove conspiracy to commit the offense. Prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the guard in question bashed babies heads in on the side of the boxcar, and I’ll be right there with you demanding to hang the son-of-a-bitch, 85 years old or not. But just because he worked with people that did? Or that he didn’t overtly disagree enough with it to get transferred, so long as he didn’t have to do it himself? I can’t justify expanding criminal liability to include him. It’s not our (American) notion of criminal liability though; its Germany’s. There are laws against holocaust denial and the display of Nazi regalia in Germany that would never make it past the first amendment here. I’ve watched neo-Nazis march and as odious as it and they are they have a protected constitutional right to political speech which I believe they should have and as repugnant as they are would defend their right to. At the same time, given its history I don’t have a problem with Germany making the Nazi party or any neo-Nazi party illegal in ways that would be constitutionally unacceptable here. In any event, it’s not mere membership in a criminal organization that is being constituted as proof of accessory to murder under this legal theory; it’s not that they were members of the SS-TV. It’s that they were members of the SS-TV posted to a death camp where tens or hundreds of thousands of human beings were murdered while they were there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-to-quit-hunting-world-war-ii-nazis/693909.md?page=7)