[Aptorian]

R3per_Inc, on 17 July 2015 - 07:36 AM, said:

Morgoth, on 17 July 2015 - 07:02 AM, said:

R3per_Inc, on 17 July 2015 - 06:50 AM, said:

Some viewpoints on the SS and the lack of understanding of Nazigermany is really disturbing.

Not entirely surprising though. When I took modern history in upper secondary school I realised what I head learned before had been so watered down and simplified it might as well have been about something else altogether. Happens all the time still, the upper secondary school course was limited too, just slightly less so. It's not bad, the Norwegian School system, but the second world war -- all history really -- is complicated.

Yet it is actually quite easy: Just read "Mein Kampf" and understand that they took each word of this book serious and followed it step by step, word for word. You can't compare the german Nazi's to the everydays racists or fanatics.

Of course you can. People like to think of Nazi Germany as some terrible convergence of hatred and fascism, orchestrated by some sinister inner circle but they were just people. People caught up in the 19th and 20th centuries vast sweeping societal reforms, radical new ideologies powered by science and industrialization. There were fascists, racists and warmongers everywhere back then, in Europe and in the Americas.

This guy was a 20 something year old kid who was doing what was expected of him. What he did was not a crime, it was a civic duty. A belief in the greatness of ones country, wanting to excel, to serve for the greater good. There's plenty of stories of SS officers portrayed as the monsters of the Nazi regime, but seriously, they were just officers. The equivalent of Americas Federal Agents or any other country with various officials or officers of a state with a well developed military office.

There is a big difference between serving you country and out right partaking in crimes against humanity. He himself states that he was shocked and disgusted by the actions of other memebers of the staff at the camp. This alone should indicate to you that this guy was not some monster, not a sadist, not a sociopath or any other picture that has been painted of the leaders of Nazi Germany. He was just some guy. Doing his job. Fanatically loyal to an evil regime? Sure, but who are we to judge what somebody believed in 70 years ago?

I get that we want the people responsible for the warcrimes to be punished but some SS officers who served as a glorifed clerk, is not the one that needs to be punished in this case. Especially not if it is one that objected to the treatment of the prisoners. And especially not 60 years after they got done with the Nuremberg trials.

This post has been edited by Apt: 17 July 2015 - 08:06 AM

[R3per_Inc]

The picture shows, that just by looking like that was a guaranteed sentence for prison and later deathcamp. Somebody like him could never join the SS; so we are again at the point that you can't be by accident in the SS or for better food and clothing etc.

What these people commited, knowingly, can't be redeemed.

[Morgoth]

Apt, on 17 July 2015 - 08:04 AM, said:

R3per_Inc, on 17 July 2015 - 07:36 AM, said:

Morgoth, on 17 July 2015 - 07:02 AM, said:

R3per_Inc, on 17 July 2015 - 06:50 AM, said:

Some viewpoints on the SS and the lack of understanding of Nazigermany is really disturbing.

Not entirely surprising though. When I took modern history in upper secondary school I realised what I head learned before had been so watered down and simplified it might as well have been about something else altogether. Happens all the time still, the upper secondary school course was limited too, just slightly less so. It's not bad, the Norwegian School system, but the second world war -- all history really -- is complicated.

Yet it is actually quite easy: Just read "Mein Kampf" and understand that they took each word of this book serious and followed it step by step, word for word. You can't compare the german Nazi's to the everydays racists or fanatics.

Of course you can. People like to think of Nazi Germany as some terrible convergence of hatred and fascism, orchestrated by some sinister inner circle but they were just people. People caught up in the 19th and 20th centuries vast sweeping societal reforms, radical new ideologies powered by science and industrialization. There were fascists, racists and warmongers everywhere back then, in Europe and in the Americas.

This guy was a 20 something year old kid who was doing what was expected of him. What he did was not a crime, it was a civic duty. A belief in the greatness of ones country, wanting to excel, to serve for the greater good. There's plenty of stories of SS officers portrayed as the monsters of the Nazi regime, but seriously, they were just officers. The equivalent of Americas Federal Agents or any other country with various officials or officers of a state with a well developed military office.

There is a big difference between serving you country and out right partaking in crimes against humanity. He himself states that he was shocked and disgusted by the actions of other memebers of the staff at the camp. This alone should indicate to you that this guy was not some monster, not a sadist, not a sociopath or any other picture that has been painted of the leaders of Nazi Germany. He was just some guy. Doing his job. Fanatically loyal to an evil regime? Sure, but who are we to judge what somebody believed in 70 years ago?

I get that we want the people responsible for the warcrimes to be punished but some SS officers who served as a glorifed clerk, is not the one that needs to be punished in this case. Especially not if it is one that objected to the treatment of the prisoners. And especially not 60 years after they got done with the Nuremberg trials.

Is that where you want to go now? That officers of SS were simply driven by a love for their country. We shouldn't judge the ethics of the past? Jesus christ, Apt. That's some fucked up revisionist history you keep in your head. People at the time were appalled by what happened at the camps. Germans were horrified by what happened there. This is not a new thing. Also, again, stop with your entirely ignorant attempt to claim that an officer of the SS was the same as a regular bureaucrat of any other nation. It is simply not true.

If the treatment of the prisoners bothered him he could have refused to participate. It's as simple as that. Instead he made the choice to continue aiding the worst example of genocide the world has ever known, and after 70 years of hiding from his crimes he has now been convicted.

[Aptorian]

Morgoth, on 17 July 2015 - 08:16 AM, said:

Apt, on 17 July 2015 - 08:04 AM, said:

R3per_Inc, on 17 July 2015 - 07:36 AM, said:

Morgoth, on 17 July 2015 - 07:02 AM, said:

R3per_Inc, on 17 July 2015 - 06:50 AM, said:

Some viewpoints on the SS and the lack of understanding of Nazigermany is really disturbing.

Not entirely surprising though. When I took modern history in upper secondary school I realised what I head learned before had been so watered down and simplified it might as well have been about something else altogether. Happens all the time still, the upper secondary school course was limited too, just slightly less so. It's not bad, the Norwegian School system, but the second world war -- all history really -- is complicated.

Yet it is actually quite easy: Just read "Mein Kampf" and understand that they took each word of this book serious and followed it step by step, word for word. You can't compare the german Nazi's to the everydays racists or fanatics.

Of course you can. People like to think of Nazi Germany as some terrible convergence of hatred and fascism, orchestrated by some sinister inner circle but they were just people. People caught up in the 19th and 20th centuries vast sweeping societal reforms, radical new ideologies powered by science and industrialization. There were fascists, racists and warmongers everywhere back then, in Europe and in the Americas.

This guy was a 20 something year old kid who was doing what was expected of him. What he did was not a crime, it was a civic duty. A belief in the greatness of ones country, wanting to excel, to serve for the greater good. There's plenty of stories of SS officers portrayed as the monsters of the Nazi regime, but seriously, they were just officers. The equivalent of Americas Federal Agents or any other country with various officials or officers of a state with a well developed military office.

There is a big difference between serving you country and out right partaking in crimes against humanity. He himself states that he was shocked and disgusted by the actions of other memebers of the staff at the camp. This alone should indicate to you that this guy was not some monster, not a sadist, not a sociopath or any other picture that has been painted of the leaders of Nazi Germany. He was just some guy. Doing his job. Fanatically loyal to an evil regime? Sure, but who are we to judge what somebody believed in 70 years ago?

I get that we want the people responsible for the warcrimes to be punished but some SS officers who served as a glorifed clerk, is not the one that needs to be punished in this case. Especially not if it is one that objected to the treatment of the prisoners. And especially not 60 years after they got done with the Nuremberg trials.

Is that where you want to go now? That officers of SS were simply driven by a love for their country. We shouldn't judge the ethics of the past? Jesus christ, Apt. That's some fucked up revisionist history you keep in your head. People at the time were appalled by what happened at the camps. Germans were horrified by what happened there. This is not a new thing. Also, again, stop with your entirely ignorant attempt to claim that an officer of the SS was the same as a regular bureaucrat of any other nation. It is simply not true.

If the treatment of the prisoners bothered him he could have refused to participate. It's as simple as that. Instead he made the choice to continue aiding the worst example of genocide the world has ever known, and after 70 years of hiding from his crimes he has now been convicted.

Have you actually read up om the guy?

If we set aside healthy scepticism that he might be making himself sound more innocent than he really was, his account comes off as the story of just another German person doing his civic duty in a time of war.

He didn't hide. He served his time in Britain after the war and was sent home. He was denied the job that he wanted because he had served in the SS. When he learned of the growing support for Holocaust revisionism he, himself, spoke out. He could have just shut up and stayed hidden. Instead he decided to bring more awareness to the topic. In all likelihood from what I gather from various articles I actually think he wanted them to sentence him, while he believes himself morally "innocent", I think he wants to be punished because the sacrifice will serve as a reminder that Auschwitz did happen and it should be punished.

People were appalled by the camps yet but what has that got to do with anything? Like he himself stated, there was a big difference between hearing Jews being exterminated and actually seeing it in the flesh. He didn't join the SS because he had always dreamed of working in a death camp. He wanted to serve his country. He wanted to be a god damn clerk. He wasn't some blood thirsty officer killing gypsies in the forests of Eastern Europe.

I think it's too easy to look back at the time and just dismiss millions of Germans as being evil or criminal. I am not saying the guy is completely innocent. Like you said, it's not like he defected or refused to continue working. He continued his work. But he neither had the responsibility for the Final Solution, nor did he have any power to stop it. He was just one of many who simply followed orders and did what everyone was doing, keeping his head down. As mentioned above, there are plenty of experiments done that show how people behave and react under these circumstances.

History is done a disservice by painting a picture of SS officers and Nazi Germany in general, as something uniquely evil or somehow distanced from other countries, other peoples. What took place in Germany, is taking place across the world today. If we cannot see that any people, any culture is capable of evil, then we cannot learn from history. And just to get back on the topic, punishing this guy 70 years later serves absolutely no purpose. This is the equivelant of punishing the Whisteblower who is reporting on the Company that did the wrongdoing.

[Illuyankas]

"He was only following orders" jesus christ

[Aptorian]

What sentence do you feel would be just in this circumstance, Illy?

[Studlock]

You know who else was just following orders because he loved his country? Hilter...wait shit, I mean Nazism was a fundamentally xenophobic ideology based in racial purity, genocide, and fascism--it was an immoral ideology--and those things weren't by products of it, they were its stated goals. Acknowledging this does not excuse other ideologies which were just as bad, or other countries in which bad things happen, or viewing Nazi Germany as particularly immoral. That being said what happened in Nazi Germany is not happening across the world today. I don't think genocide is something uniquely Nazi quirk, my own people were own the business end of a effective cultural genocide, but what happen in Nazi Germany was a genocide on a scale that was not happened since. This guy worked in a prison camp in which 1 in 6 Jews died during the Holocaust, and while I concede it might be pointless to imprison him at this point in life I do think they should, he was a fucking SS officers that worked in the worst camp during the worlds worst genocide and then he got to live a free life. You don't get to be apart of that and then walk away and say shit like 'I'm innocent', you're not--you were apart of the most ideologically driven military branch of a ultranationalistic state, and you believed there irrational drivel up until the point in which you realized they were serious. It's like running the books for a particularly violent gang, believing what they believed in until they shot someone in front of you and then saying, despite you spending a good part of your life helping these gangsters support their racket, 'I've done nothing wrong--in the most technical sense'.

[Aptorian]

But what you are talking about is a private person doing (What I assume must be illegal) book keeping for a criminal organization. You're talking about somebody doing what is a known illegal action.

In the case of this SS officers, what he was doing was not just legal, it was sanctioned, it was ordered. We're talking about a whole different age, a whole different society, whose cultural understanding of what "us and them" meant. This was a time when people quite literally believed in races. Believed in classes. More importantly an age where a fallen people were told who was to blame and how to fix it. I am not saying that an individual just blindly ate that political propaganda, or that everyone was fanatically political or racist, but we are talking about an atmosphere of righteous hatred, nationalists believing in a war against the people who brought the country low. It's pretty easy to sit here in our nice politically correct societies, judging what people did then and condemning anyone who was in the middle of it. How much pressure do you think any person would have been under to say yes, when they should have said no?

It's nice to say heroic things like, I would have stopped it or I would have refused. It's another thing when it's all around you and you've already been living it for a decade.

And I might add, I am not stating that out of principal, this guy shouldn't have served time if he'd been sent to Nuremberg during the post war clean up. Hell maybe they should all have hanged. Then. But now? Who would you be punishing? I am in my thirties now, I certainly do not identify with all the things I did or said when I was twenty. Imagine another 70 years of age going by.

This isn't a prominent Holocaust denier or Neo-Nazi figurehead. This is a proponent of understanding and remembering the Holocaust.

I just don't see the point.

This post has been edited by Apt: 17 July 2015 - 11:49 AM

[Illuyankas]

IF you'd been complicit and aiding in the mechanised murder of millions then yes absolutely you should be identified with your actions at that age.

It needed to be done sooner. It is understandable that he chose to be a coward and stay rather than at the least becoming a conscientious objector (no matter the consequences to yourself you won't be assisting with killing hundreds of thousands of people) but that doesn't give me a free pass for even this delayed and lessened-in-effectiveness gesture. Not a token gesture, but not as symbolic as if it had been done closer to the time.

[LinearPhilosopher]

Morgoth, on 17 July 2015 - 06:32 AM, said:

Apt, on 16 July 2015 - 08:06 PM, said:

I think this is bullshit.

From what I gather from the article he was the equivalent of a public servant, doing the states paper work during war time. By his own account he condemned the actions of his own fellow Nazis. One does not become a warcriminal just by association.

He's 90 years old. Even if he was a rabidly xenophobic uber nazi 70 years ago are to believe a person does not change in such a time frame? The person he was then is not who he is now. I don't care how horrible Auschwitz was, 70 years is a life time of change.

I am not saying that the guy, shouldn't or couldn't have served time, for being associated with the running of the camp. However if a punishment should have been dished out it should have taken place 70-60 years ago.

For one thing, an SS officer is not the equivelant of a public servant. The SS were the military branch of the Nazi party, not just a branch of the army. They had numerous requirements for being accepted, including ideological purity.

And to reference another post; better clothes and food? Really? What kind of place do you imagine Germany was before the war?

BalrogLord, on 17 July 2015 - 03:52 AM, said:

Studlock, on 17 July 2015 - 02:49 AM, said:

But he did act, he signed up for the SS and keep the books for them--I'm really surprised anyone would defend his actions--he is assessor to thousand of murders and he served barely anytime--he got to live a full and long life, and no matter what his motives were he was apart of the most successful industrial genocide ever. The crime was being a Nazi and participating in genocide (he only regretted his actions after he heard the screams from the gas chambers and not before--its not as if Auschwitz was peaches & cream before they started gasing people).

By virtue of what i stated earlier, signing up for the SS does not make you a criminal. People didnt know about the camps till the war was over. Auschwits became a sort of beogeyman for the children in the later years of the war. He did his best to leave, but what else could he have done? (bear in mind milgram and stanford experiments before you make your reply)

This is simply not true. Knowledge of the camps were widespread and, in this particular case, the guy worked at Auschwitz. Maybe he couldn't have done anything for the prisoners, but he could have refused to take part, as many did. Even the Nazis didn't execute people for refusing administrative duties. He could have been demoted, dismissed, or moved somewhere else.

http://www.dailymail...e-chivalry.html

I recall reading this book and when the holocaust came up, most germans simply didn't know the camps were around. Knowledge of the camps was only widespread after the war has ended. Wasn't aware that admin people could step down without getting shot, at which point ill concede that merely applying for a transfer doesn't count as doing enough

[D'rek]

I think there's a lot of merit in Apt's argument. Sure, we can point out all the bits of evidence that we feel indicate that knowledge of the Nazi camps was widespread, but since none of us were actually there at the time how do we really know how prominent those particular articles were, how the Nazi party's propaganda influenced the perception of it, etc.

For comparison, look at the interviews and articles that have come up in the last handful of years about the USA hiring groups like the Sons of Iraq to kill people in Iraq. The government/military orders label them as just concerned Iraqi citizens defending their towns against Al-Qaeda, but there's plenty of articles from journalists and US soldiers discussing how they are actually organized militia groups and how they've killed entire Iraqi towns.

It's far from genocide on the same scale as the Holocaust, but if the UN eventually recognizes these acts as war crimes, will we be putting the US Army military financing clerk who processed paying those militias on trial? After all, [s]he chose to join the most militaristic branch of the US government, [s]he surely must have known (given all those articles we see talking about it) what was really going on behind that government/military doublespeak, and it's not like the US executes clerks who quit/desert so [s]he should have resigned as soon as they were given that job, yes? Since [s]he didn't, [s]he should be tried as an accessory to mass murder, right?


It's easy to look back decades later and say that everyone from so-and-so time ago should have had the clear sight to not follow the same government and ideology that every single other person around them seemed to be following, and I expect people 70 years from now will be heavily criticizing the west's involvement in the Middle East in the very same way we look at the WW2 era today. But it is obviously not actually so easy for the people living in that time to distance themselves from their own upbringing and cultural immersion, or else Hitler would never have risen to power and held it in the first place, and George Bush's invasion of Iraq would never have happened either, right?

So where does that leave us? Well, in this fellow's particular case, he's already admitted to being morally guilty and he's already in some ways trying to atone by spreading his story and speaking out against Holocaust denialism. What does sentencing a 90-year old to 3 years in prison gain the state or its people? I don't necessarily agree that he should be even legally guilty, but if the judge has decided it is so why not sentence him to 1000 hours of community service going to schools and events and continuing to tell his story - wouldn't that do far more for the state and people in preventing future genocides?

[Macros]

Guilty by association, he knew what was happening, and by assisting it in any form he became part of the crime.
'Just following orders' doesn't cut it, some part of his brain had tk know the systematic extermination of millions of people was not an acceptable course of action.

[QuickTidal]

This is an interesting discussion with multiple viewpoints.

I'll add my two pieces of change.

An SS Officer refusing orders would have been put down. It sounds like this guy had two choices. Do what he was being told to do, or being killed for daring to go against the ruling government. There was, as far as I've understood German WWII-era history, no middle ground. This was a place and a time where listening to the wrong music got you dragged out of your bed in the night. It certainly doesn't excuse what he did, but it's an important distinction in the discussion of what he could have done.

Now, that said, I agree with Studlock. This guy joined the SS, so he knew what he was getting into, and it sounds like his ideologies fell totally in line with the Nazi Views, so he's not at all blameless.

And as far as knowing what was going on...he worked AT the camp. No one working at one of those camps was unaware of what was going on. No one could ever claim that with a straight face. He knew EXACTLY what was going on. He was a party to sending people to their deaths. A punishment is deserved. It should have come years ago yes...but I don't feel that just because he's 94 that he should get off. Whether that is jail time, or community service I don't know. I feel like D'rek has a point about community service used to inform people about what he did, and why it was wrong ect. might be more useful in the longrun than jail time to a man his age? Not entirely sure where I come down on that.

But yeah, he knew what he was doing. He's not blameless.

[Calm's Peace]

I was privileged enough to know a soldier who was there at the freeing of one of the death camps. What he saw in those couple of days was enough to almost break the man and he was just at the freeing of the camps. He suffered from nightmares until the day he died. The extent of the inhumanity he saw at the camps, he was never able to walk away from.


This man was able to go on to live a long and happy life. 4 years is too much to ask? 4 years for sitting by and watching families be torn apart and murdered..4 years for knowing about the abuse that went on inside the camps..medical experiments, rapes, starvation..4 years at the end of the long life he got to spend with his family..


I understand he's likable and you can sympathize with his situation, but that was the SS recruited. It wasn't just murders and psychopaths, they were normal mediocre citizens..Most were well liked in their community. It is probably the scariest thing about the SS. Today we have to live with the knowledge that normal mediocre people are capable of unforgivable crimes when they convince themselves they are better than another group of people.

As far as orders, Himmler knew how to organize his men. If you weren't right for the job you were relocated or assigned to other duties. The people who worked at the camps were picked because they were right for the job. There are very few cases of SS refusing orders and there is a reason for it. You didn't make it into the SS without the right set of "virtues". Take the case of Han Delmotte, who worked as a doctor at Auschwitz. He initially refused orders and was not executed, instead they gently worked to persuade him that what he was going to be going wasn't wrong. This persuasion was not at gun point, it didn't need to be. Delmotte committed suicide after the war.

I find to hard to believe he is truly sorry. He's alive to this day. More likely he feels sorry for himself and the shame his family has had to suffer because of his past..If your looking for injustice, I think you can find a better example than an SS coward.