Any jackass who would even ask such a moronic question has clearly no understanding of what crime is, especially war crimes and crimes against all of humanity! What these monsters did is not something that you simply ignore because much time has passed. Before you ever even think of something this idiotic again, take your head out of your ass and think again! If you had family who were murdered by these monsters would you be so quick to want to question whether or not there should be some kind of time limit on hunting down mass murderers!?!?!
Yes, the witness testimony is worthless and the documents are poor. The recent convictions seem to be along the lines of “that crime is so horrid someone must pay” conviction.
So yeah, sure- if we were certain the dude really is a Nazi war criminal, prosecute them. But I think those dudes are all long dead.
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I agree that we need to agree to disagree on the other points because we are simply at an impasse as to where criminal liability should attach. However, Germany passing these laws strikes me as odd.
These individuals, in the early 1940s, were acting in full compliance and with the blessing of the authorities in Germany. Does Germany not agree with the concept that no ex post facto law should be passed?
While the SS started out as an elite, all-volunteer outfit, they later turned to conscription as the war dragged on and manpower shortages became critical. That means a lot of SS members weren’t there of their own free will. I suppose it could be argued that they had a moral obligation to desert or something, but bear in mind that Germany executed thousands of men for desertion during the war.
Many of those camp guards were there under duress. Some volunteered for camp guard duty to avoid combat duty, some really believed in the “cause,” some were conscripted. Alcoholism and suicide rates were high among the guards.
So we have a guard who was conscripted for prison camp duty. He hates it, but he’s afraid he’ll be shot if he deserts or be sent to the eastern front if he tries to transfer out. He’s never shot anyone, though there were a few times he’s had to aim the machine gun in the tower, and a number of times when he’s struck prisoners. He’s in his guard tower every day, he does his best to ignore what goes on in the “special” part of the camp, and drinks until he passes out almost every night.
What punishment, if any, would you give this man? Would the fact that he was under duress, that all his options were pretty bleak, make any difference to you? And are you quite sure you would have had the courage to behave better in the same circumstances?
Arts and Crafts?
You’re asking me personally? Execution, or failing that, life in prison.
No.
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t. If they said to me, hey, you’re drafted. Go guard the death camps. Otherwise, we’ll execute you or send you to the Russian front or something, I’d probably stand up and say, "Sounds good. Guarding the death camps works for me.
Well, I don’t pretend to be an exceptionally brave man either, and I’d probably go with the flow, accepting whatever duty that involved the least risk. I like to think I’d have the guts to desert and take a seven or eight chance in ten of getting caught and executed by firing squad, but I don’t know.
But the fact that you make no distinction between the big shots who made the decisions and had the power to carry them out and the small fry who didn’t really have much choice bothers me, possibly because I can identify with the small fry a lot more than the big shots. It seems to me that accountability is commensurate with power and authority (though of course the small fry who showed too much enthusiasm for their jobs also deserve a very special place in Hell).
Today we have Israeli troops accused of massacring civilians in Gaza. Are all troops belonging to the Israeli Defense Forces to be considered guilty of these crimes and punished accordingly? After all, the IDF are accused of genocidal intent, and if such is the case, then everyone involved with the IDF is, by your reasoning, directly responsible for genocide. What sentences do you believe they should receive?
For that matter, should everyone involved in Al Capone’s organization have been held directly responsible for the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre? Even the bootleggers and speakeasy operators who were just selling the hootch?
Then, of course, we have the Irish Republican Army. Using your logic, everyone who belonged to the IRA ought to be held responsible for the bombings and assassinations carried out in the name of Irish freedom, since all of them knew that violence was the chief aim of the organization. Surely we must not rest until each and every one of them has been brought to justice. Same goes for the Ulster Defense Association.
For that matter, what about the Confederacy? Documents issued at the beginning of the war by most if not all of the Confederate states explicitly stated they would fight to preserve the institution of slavery. Moreover, many considered service in the Confederate army tantamount to treason. Should every man in the Confederate military, down to the lowliest privates, have been sentenced to hanging or life imprisonment? President Lincoln didn’t think so. He thought such extreme measures would make impossible the healing of a shattered Union. For that matter, Grant at Appomattox not only allowed the defeated rebels to keep their firearms and return home in peace, he ordered his cooks to issue rations to the men of the defeated army. Is it not at least possible that insisting on perfect justice would have resulted far greater evil than good?
And then there’s Rwanda. Let us imagine for a moment that someone has called for every Hutu who had participated directly or indirectly in an atrocity absolutely must be brought to justice even if it took seventy years. It seems unlikely to me that Rwanda would remain a peaceful and prosperous country for long.
Or let us suppose that Gandhi had insisted Indian Muslims must pay for unjust repression and atrocities committed against the Hindu majority over the centuries. Would India be the world’s largest democracy today? Would India after independence from the British empire have been more violent or less violent?
Perfect justice is not possible, and the demand for perfect justice is likely to create more evils than it cures.
Such a claim would also be inaccurate as well as unjust. Most South Asian Muslims are (mostly) descended from native converts, and have no particular ancestral association with the Turco-Persian conquerors who actually conquered India, other than happening to share a common religion.
I’m not saying all that. And, I don’t think that, say, all Germans alive during WWII, or even all members of the German army during WWII deserved punishment. There are, as you say, degrees of culpability, degrees of guilt. But I think there comes a point, somewhere, where you have to draw a line, where you have to say, "If you’ve done this, you’re culpable. Even if you did it because you felt threatened, even if you felt bad afterwards, you need to be punished. And for me, that’s a death camp. You don’t get to serve in a death camp…a camp that’s set up for no other purpose than murdering innocent people, and then just walk away afterwards, like nothing ever happened. This isn’t about perfect justice, but it is a call for some sort of justice. It’s the cry of the innocent dead, of the victims from the grave calling out for punishment for their killers.
Genocide, planned, organized, deliberate genocide using the resources of a modern, mechanized state, is a thing outside the average experience. For an average murder, you can say “You shot that person, you’re guilty”, and culpability is easy. For something like the Holocaust, it’s not that easy, because behind every person who actually took a life there were a lot of people, an army of people, who made the killings possible, even if they never actually shot, gassed, or starved anyone. It seems unjust to say, “You’re guilty because you pulled the trigger or you dropped cyanide pellets in the gas chamber”, but “You’re not guilty because you were the one who made sure the victims kept quiet while the authorities decided who to kill” or “You’re not guilty because you were the one who made sure the cyanide pellets were available.”
The thing is, of course, and maybe there’s a little bit of irony in this and in us having this discussion now, that you probably won’t see any more people put on trial for the Holocaust. Enough time has passed that pretty much everyone who served in the camps are now dead, many of them never having had to pay any price for their actions at all. Trust me, I know that perfect justice is impossible. Sometimes, even simple justice is impossible.
I’d support this. There were many hearings of war crimes against the Japanese which were largely unreported. I doubt if the proceedings would stand in a trial these days - but they gave no justice to the victims.
We remember Nuremburg and the trial of Tojo etc but there were many others. Unfortunately too many got away.
However, in saying all this at some stage we can’t hang on. The Germans / Nazis were in a horrific war of their own making. So was Japan- yet nothing seems to be done about those who were involved.