I think it is worthwhile bringing him to trial and passing judgement, at least so that some portion of the guilt is allocated by a judge in a democratic system declaring that what he did during WW II is reprehensibly evil. I could absolutely live with it if he (or old-timer war criminals in general) were convicted and found guilty, even if no actual jail time or other punishment is passed. A similar conviction was passed by a Czech judge some years ago in the case of an 85 year old woman who participated in a 1951 show trial as a public prosecutor. The ‘defendant’ (Milada Horáková) was sentenced to death and executed. Over 55 years later, the judge convicted the 1951 public prosecutor for participating in the trial but (on repeal, that much is true) her sentencing was revoked. I think it is a good thing that a judge said, on behalf of the state and the victims, that what was done by this woman (the prosecutor) in 1951 was wrong, even if they decided that sending a 85 year old woman to jail was inhuman.
Damn skippy. Dead people are renowned the world over for not committing crimes. Well, for one, he’ll know that we’re coming to get him explicitly to kill him. I would imagine that has a way of getting into one’s mind. The ambiguous “I’ll die one day in the future” doesn’t really seem to have the same teeth as, “Say, good morning. Oh yeah, um, don’t make plans for evening meal.” does.
I’m dubious about the claim that capital punishment is a deterrent, with one small proviso: anyone who’s executed sure as hell won’t be doing whatever again.
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Nah. I think not. Killing him is an entirely specific set of principles we’d be espousing: it’s not okay to kill people generally simply because they exist. It is okay to kill some people whose crimes are so profound that it can’t even be described.
It’s not okay to commit genocide and then go merrily about your life secure in the knowledge that your death is like anyone else’s: undetermined.
It is okay to kill you for your having killed some 29,000 people.
The two aren’t remotely equal. The murder of one person for a specific reason isn’t the same degree of evil for murdering an entire race of people (or at least making a good show of it) merely because they exist.
What can I say? I’m pragmatic; you aren’t.
Only if you’re retarded.
And that’s fair. I wish I had your morals, absolutism must be a sweet place to live. Unfortunately, I dwell in the real world where things aren’t so clear cut at all times.
OK, so I guess you decide when killing is justified and when it isn’t. I’m glad you don’t run my government.
You even say “the same degree” yourself. So you admit you’re doing something evil, but it’s just not to the same degree. Kind of reminds me of the old joke:
“would you sleep with me for… for a million pounds?”
“Well,’ she said, `maybe for a million I would, yes.”
“Would you do it for ten shillings?” he said. “Certainly not!” said the woman “What do you take me for? A prostitute?”
“We’ve established that already,” he said. “We’re just trying to fix your price now!”
Anyway, I think we have hijacked this thread enough and let’s just agree to disagree. I certainly think Demjanjuk should be prosecuted and sentenced to life in jail (with no chance of parole) if found guilty.
You act as though somewhere along the way I’ve said that murdering him is a good thing. I’ve maintained that murder is bad. I’ve equally maintained that sometimes bad things are justified.
I’m glad I don’t run anyone’s government. Since I’m not a citizen where he’d be tried, it’s a non-starter to suggest that the decision is actually mine. Nor is it yours. That’s why we’re here on SDMB instead of sitting as judges somewhere.
But it seems a little unreasonable for you to attack the claim that they’re different in degree. Or to offer it up as some kind of evidence indictment on my morality. That’s a non-starter as well.
While I don’t generally support capital punishment, I think in some instances it’s justified. I also don’t support substituting my own judgment for someone else’s as a general proposition. Yet, with my kids, I do it all the time. Things come in degrees; as I said, I’m a pragmatist.
It’s a generally bad idea to deprive someone of the ability to decide their own course in life. Yet, no parent in the world thinks twice about doing just that because a little usurpation here of their rights to think for themselves is a lesser bad thing than letting them run wild. Deal with it.
No, that’s why there is to be a trial.
I will. I already said I would agree to disagree. I also think we have hijacked this thread enough, so lets get back to the subject at hand:
It seems Demjanjuk lost his case before the German Supreme Court (he claimed that his human rights were violated when he was deported to Germany) and now wants to petition the European Court for Human Rights. No matter what that court decides, his criminal trial in Munich will start sometime this fall. He has already been ruled to be competent for trial by the court in Munich.
It’s also interesting to note that he was not extradited to Germany (U.S courts would probably not have allowed an extradition). What actually happened was this: he had his American citizenship revoked by an American court. That made him an illegal alien that could be deported. The U.S. then asked several countries if they would agree to take him. Poland and the Ukraine declined and then Germany accepted to take him, since the D.A. in Munich wanted to prosecute him anyway.
OK, with the benefit of a few hours sleep, I’ve now re-read this thread. Perhaps my objection would have been clearer if I had quoted your post (#51) in which you said:
The reason I brought up the Commissar Order, and why you are incorrect when you continue to assert that “it [asserting a moral equivalence between extra-legal and legal murders] wasn’t the case” is because all the digressions into ex post facto laws are meaningless distinctions, as demonstrated by the actions of those who prosecuted this scum.
The Nuremberg Trials themselves were ex post facto in the larger sense. However, the Allies did not draw a distinction between legal and extra-legal murder. At the main trial, Alfred Jodl was hanged not for facilitating the Holocaust; rather, “the principal charges against him related to his signature of the Commando Order and the Commissar Order; both of which ordered that certain prisoners were to be summarily executed.” Another high-ranking Wehrmacht officer, Erich von Manstein, could at his trial point to his refusal to enforce the Commissar Order as a mitigating factor. At the subsequent High Command Trial of top German military leaders, they were indeed held culpable for their degree of complicity with the Commissar Order, even though the Order had the force of law at the time it was promulgated.
Oh, please, go on. It’s not a digression but your true colours. Aside from getting sick to my stomach reading this, I’m sure, considering the enthusiasm for the recent mass killings in Srebrenica by Serbian forces, on July 11th the anniversary of the tragic event, you will probably have a “plum brandy” party with your Serbian friends and, as a truly blinded top-notch follower, donate some money to the Radovan Karadzic defense fund. Because, as we all know, those teenage boys from Srebrenica, killed with a bullet in the back with their hands tied, had it coming. Just like those Jews in Greece. Don’t let he fact that they were pure innocence distract your twisted bloodthirsty logic.
I got to give it to you, one of the most disgusting posts I ever read here.
I think he’s referring to the Hanjar SS division (1st Croatian) and the Kama division (2nd Croatian). The Hanjar saw anti-partisan duty in Bosnia, and the Kama was was raised too late to do any fighting. Bosniaks also served in various Croatian units, and there were a number of Bosnians in the NDH government, including Dzaferbeg Kulenovic, who was vice president, Mehmed Alajbegovic, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Hilmija Beslagic, Minister of Transportation
This, of course, was not the attitude of all Bosniaks, and during the invasion of Yugoslavia, the leading Bosnian Mullahs issued a fatwa condemning Nazi Germany and calling on the people to resist the invasion. It’s more like you said, that you could find people of all ethnicities on the Nazi side.
So they found another Goon who killed people during the war.
Let’s get this straight - I so not support the killing or the manners in which the Nazi’s did their dirty work.
Who else are you making responsible, if by your own words - Nazi Germany vanished?
Why is it troubleing for Germany to put people of the Nazi Regime on trial?
By your statement, you calling Germans that are in their thirties or fourties Nazi and blaming them for what happened 20-40 before they where even born.
By your argument, no US Citizen could put another US citizen on trial for killing an Indian, since they killed Indians when they settled the US. Let’s say, your Grand-Grand-Grand Pa killed few of them, so I put it in the papers and you on trial for it? Give the Germans a break, they are dealing with it and they haven’t put any one in ovens for the past sixty years.
That’s not what he’s saying. The analogy would be if the government put someone on trial for killing an Indian after it ordered him to kill that Indian. In other words, he’s arguing that it was German policy during World War II to kill Jews, and therefore lacks the legal and moral authority to prosecute people for crimes that were committed on Germany’s orders.
There are some problems with that argument, but that’s the one he’s making.
War crimes…isn’t it always the winner who writes the history?
Where is the conviction of the people who droped a Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima or Nagasaki?
The crews of these Bombers where following orders aswell, unless they did it on there own accord. They killed thousands of people by the push of a button - following orders.
These where not Nazi’s, these where US Soldiers, but I have never seen someone gotten on trial for that. Should we put them on trial aswell? Tell the whole world, what monsters their daddy was?
The thing is, it is not as clear cut as it may be, to just say : " Your German, you lived during the Nazi time, so you are a Nazi - let’s kill you now"
Not every Guard that was working for the Nazi’s was willing to do so, but would YOU rather count the dead or get counted? If you do have a choice, that is…since lot’s of the “inmates” where Germans aswell.
Lot’s of people tried to whack Hitler, including Germans, but failed. Stalin killed multiple times more people than the Nazi’s did in the concentration camps, but yet we do not see trials for that.
Also are the nations that denied emigrants from Germany entry to blame for the murder of these people that got turned away? So do we prosecute the Soldier from the Swissborder control for murder? Since he was clearly condeming people to death, while following orders and turning people away?
I think there’s a presumption that the concentration camp guards acted voluntarily. If Demjanjuk wants to claim that he was coerced into working there and doing the things he did, he can, but the burden of proof is on him.
He would still have lied on his initial application for admission to the U.S. about the nature of his military service, which is the essence of the reason why his citizenship was revoked.
Trust me, the burden of proof for stripping someone of U.S. citizenship is pretty damn high and difficult to meet. When I worked for the Office of the Immigration Judge, I read through the evidence for several cases like Demjanjuk’s (although not for his). The evidence came in boxes from the Office of Special Investigations. And trust me, those guys were thorough.
The Office of the Immigration Judge came into play after the war criminals had already been stripped of their U.S. citizenship in U.S. District Court, so the burden of proof re: lying on refugee applications, naturalization applications, whereabouts/activities during WWII, etc. had already been met in Federal court.
There are scores more cases analogous to Demjanjuk’s that never really made the news, because the former Nazis basically plea-bargained; knowing that they were screwed anyway, they would make an agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s office that they would leave the U.S. and never return, in exchange for which they would avoid further public humiliation. Sadly, or not, this meant that I never got to see a case like that go forward in person; it would have been a difficult decision not to spit on the people when they came up the front desk on the hearing date.
(I understand that these people, if one can call them that, are still eligible for their German military pensions. And there are certainly worse places in the world to end up than Germany.)
Eva Luna, former interpreter/court clerk, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review, Office of the Immigration Judge (1991 - 1994)
Actually quite a few Nazi officials and military have written their own memoirs/accounts of the war. Albert Speer, for example, one of Hitler’s ministers and member of his inner circle.
One might also ask why no convictions for the firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden. Or for massive German bombing of London and other British targets where civilians were inevitable casualties. Or the rape of Nanking by the Japanese. As dimly as we view these horrors today, deliberate attempts to exterminate an entire race of people, however, have been treated as particularly awful.
Did you deliberately set out to create the most ridiculous straw man possible?
Sorry, your tu quoques don’t fly.
Back sometime around the '70s Sixty Minutes did a feature on attempts to deport from the U.S. a former Nazi (I’m almost certain it was Demjanjuk - and yes, the case against him has been brewing, with fits and starts, for decades). What struck me most about the program was a group interview with some of his neighbors, who were resentful that the guy was being “persecuted”. I still remember the look of obstinate hostility on one woman’s face. “It was years ago, he’s a good man now, why can’t we forget that stuff etc. etc.” Yeah, it was nobody I knew, why pick on this poor misunderstood man. :rolleyes:
Will the last Nazi war criminal please turn out the lights? 
He’s not German.
Leave the personal insults out of Great Debates. (And a defense of "I was stating a hypothetical does not work in this forum.)
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If you feel the need to writer a diatribe against another poster, do it in The BBQ Pit, not here.
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State v. Pontius Pilate?
No problemo. But I think it would prove rather difficult to say that it’s a hypothetical situation, but it wasn’t directed at anyone here. But okay.