Hi Boyne Water,
You are quite right about the offer to decline participation in the killings, I believe that particular c.o. made the offer on more than one occasion, but he was later replaced and the offers to avoid shooting ended. Some men still managed to evade the duty though.
As to the men who did not decline to shoot, they may have felt that they would face scorn from their comrades if they did not shoot. That may seem a poor excuse to shoot somebody, but I daresay they felt the pressure to comply was considerable.
I would say it was a very poor excuse and i don,t think peer pressure could be used as a defense or even as mitigation.
I understand what your saying about it being along time ago and the few left being old men,but the crimes that were comitted by the nazi regime were so monsterous that just prosecutions must continue imho.
I don’t doubt that peer pressure is not admissable as a defence in law, however I think that when assessing whether or not a case should be prosecuted it should be amongst the things considered. Is it reasonable from 60+ years distance to say that an SS private should have been able to avoid an unpleasant or objectionable task in front of his superior officers and fellow soldiers because he found it immoral?
We cannot understand what the victims suffered, but nor do I think we can truly understand how the perpetrators felt.
It is so easy to condemn, sometimes it is best to err on the side of mercy. Whether they did or not.
Each to their own though Sir, of course.
The modern trends and the present ways of thinking, entitle us to pass judgement on everybody and everything. Confortably sunk into his armchair, the modern man acquits or convicts… And he decides who’s good and who’s evil.
But, in doing this, how many try to really consider all the factors that lay heavy over the material executors of that crimes? I really agree with you, heimwher danzig, when you talk about the enormous pressure that they had to face, the dreadful moral dilemma and the fear they couldn’t never see again their families. I’ve been thinking a lot of times, about this kind of things but, honestly, i didn’t find anything. In every war, even the modern ones, there are crimes, sometimes brutals and horrifyings. Probably, the only thing that we are certain is that, from the point of view of the single man, the wae itself is a crime…
Best things to all of you.
I agree that i have never shared the same presure as any kind of soldiier,but im pretty certain i would never become genocidal.
Like everbody else i have my own likes and dislikes but it would never involve the death of millions because they are or think differently from me
by the way. helmwehr danzig,please exuse me for not saying hi in my first response
Thank you Boyne Water, no apology is necessary I assure you. I must say, this forum is a very civilised place!
I agree with you that none of us feel we would ever commit genocide, but war places ordinary men into extraordinary circumstances. This turns some into heroes and some into criminals. Often there was no indication before the war that these men were capable of extremes for good or ill.
My point is that although soldiers must be disciplined and should always act decently towards prisoners, civilians etc, war is also a unique environment where it is possible for the lines between what is acceptable and what is not to become blurred. Those who commit crimes should be held to account, but it is important to do this as soon as possible after the events occurred.
Therefore, as we sit in the comfort of the 21st century, can we really sit in judgement over those men who were unfortunate enough to live in the ‘interesting times’ with which we are so engaged?
From what I’ve read about the men in the Nazi war machine who perpetrated the horrendous crimes of mass murder and torture, they were under no extraordinary, and in fact, surprisingly little, pressure to commit those crimes. The Nazi officials who oversaw these programs of genocide were extremely solicitous of the feelings and mental health of those tasked with repeated murders. Men who felt a moral compunction not to commit these crimes were never forced to do so.
As for the possibility of never seeing their families again, that was something that every soldier in every combat zone around the world faced as a routine. It was not a threat that the Nazi officials held against men who refused to take part in mass murders. There may have been a kind of peer pressure exerted to shame some members of the murder formations into participating in these heinous acts, but that is a feeble and pathetic excuse for doing so.
The real reason most of these men participated is that they saw no moral reason not to; they felt no compassion for their fellow human beings. In short, they exhibited no humanity and no common decency. In my opinion, they are deserving of no consideration whatsoever.
The answer is a resounding YES!!
We have to, otherwise justice has no meaning and the civilized standards we wish to promote will whither and be lost.
I agree that every war criminal regardless of side should be punished and that justice should be done as quickly as possible. But it should be remembered that war crimes are not like most murders which, in the huge majority of cases, are solved and brought to trial within a few weeks or months of the crime. War crimes often languish for years or even decades before evidence can be gathered, evaluated, and acted upon, and this is usually through no fault of the authorities. War criminals routinely hide in third countries under assumed names and try to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. Justice should not be thwarted simply because they have been successful in doing so.
Forgive me sir, but if my commanding officer has just ordered me to participate in an act of mass murder, what ever should give me the idea that a man capable of issuing such an order would have the slightest sympathy for my moral scruples at not wishing to carry it out?
We have discussed the offer to avoid such duties in Police Battalion 101, as far as I know this was a unique case of an understanding officer and not common practice.
True, men like Bach-Zelewski were concerned about the mental health of the Einsatzgruppe personnel, but even if this were to extend to transfering those who could not face the killings, how many men would feel able to raise the matter with their superiors.
I feel there will have been many tragic cases (and I use that term deliberately) of perfectly decent men, who felt they had no choice but to follow orders, even when they were abhorrent to their conscience.
We can count ourselves very fotunate indeed not to have faced the same choices.
These events occurred, and they were wrong. Some of those responsible died in the war, others were brought to justice and some were not. Still remaining are a tiny handful of those who played only the most tiny parts in these events, we bring none of the dead back to life by the pursuit of frail old men for the crimes of over half a century ago.
The matter, this is my humble opinion, isn’t to decide if we would do it or not… I’m pretty sure that i would never kill innocent people, exactly like you boyne_water. The question, not very easy to answer, is " does it still make sense to bring an old man to court, for a crime that was committed about seventy years ago?" And about the poor victims, his supposed conviction wouldn’t never bring back to life… And, someone thinks that the revenge has really a good taste?
Best regards.
Forgive me sir, but if my commanding officer has just ordered me to participate in an act of mass murder, what ever should give me the idea that a man capable of issuing such an order would have the slightest sympathy for my moral scruples at not wishing to carry it out?
this is only part of the post do not read it out of context,please read above
your on moral wellbeing
my reply was only to the above
There were men who questioned the orders for mass murder and were not punished or threatened as a result; that should give others a pretty good idea that negative consequences would not be severe.
What do you mean by “a tiny handful of those who played only the most tiny parts in these events”? Do you mean, they simply pulled the trigger a few times? Or only once? Or that they only ordered the doomed victims to disrobe? Or that they only drove the trucks, or shoveled the dirt over the dying victims? It’s for a jury to decide their individual degree of guilt and an appropriate punishment.
Any man who killed innocent victims, or assisted those who did, or who enabled the murderers, should be tried. There is no statute of limitations on murder, so it doesn’t matter if it has been ten years or fifty years since the crime; justice still waits yto be done.
So where do you draw the line?
If the perpetrator is able to avoid justice for 70 years, he get’s off scot free? Of course, prosecuting the perpetrator will never bring the victim back to life, it never does, but does that mean we should not attempt to render justice? Of course not. Should a man escape justice and due punishment simply because he is now old? I don’t see any logic in that reasoning.
If you don’t do justice simply because the perpetrator is now old or because of the realization that no act will bring the victim back to life, when will justice be done? Forgiving is one thing, but it should only be done once the perpetrator has acknowledged his crime, been punished, and asked for forgiveness.
Right. And just as important punishment is also to send a message. In this case to would-be tyrants that no matter what, no matter where you go, no matter how long you hide, THEY WILL FIND YOU.
And that is why Hitler, Goering, Himmer, Goebbels, and others took the suicide route. They knew what was instore for them and saying, “I was only following orders” would not cut it.
Deaf
I think we should also bear in mind how these things get going. It is not something you do on your first day out of Bad Tolz, this is something into which a man can be inexorably drawn, and it is very difficult to extricate oneself once enmeshed in this way.
Consider, an SS man enters a village with his unit. His c.o. orders all men of military age and all communists etc to be shot. He explains they are a security risk, and must die so German troops will be safe. True, they are unarmed, but you assume he may be right, so you pull the trigger.
The next day, he orders you to shoot the young women. Why? Under the wicked bolshevik system a woman can be a soldier too, so these are not like our German women, they are a risk. Well, maybe he’s right, so you pull the trigger a second time.
Then on the third day, he orders you to shoot the old and the children. Why? The children will grow to be avengers, and the elderly, it is kinder to shoot them than let them starve. This is too much, so you ask to be releived…but you are already a murderer he tells you. You have killed defenceless men and women already, because you beleived in your superiors. You are trapped.
If the killers were as cold and brutal as assumed, why did they need to be fortified with drink, why did they suffer mental breakdowns?
I daresay that if such horrors had occurred to my family I would probably agree that age should be no barrier, but would I truly be after justice, or revenge?
-
I’m with Wizard and Deaf Smith.
-
heimwehr danzig
I understand your reasoning from the ‘it’s all too long ago - let it be - what is gained from persecuting old people’ modern viewpoint.
However, it is fallacious because it is based on ignoring the historical fact that Nazism advocated and committed various forms of crimes against humanity which were repugnant to the philosophical outlook and the social and political systems in the Allied nations, even if the Allied nations were found wanting in various degrees in their own observance of their high-minded principles. The Allied social and political views were subsequently enshrined as internationally agreed humanitarian standards only a few years after the war by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as a direct response to the evils perpetrated by the Nazis, which confirmed the international condemnation of the Nazis’ crimes.
We may be able to understand how people involved in abominable acts and or criminal organisations, be they the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazis or my local Vietnamese / outlaw bikie / Lebanese / whatever drug importers and dealers and merciless thugs, are products of their personal history and circumstances.
But the fact remains that they chose that course and they bear the consequences when required to answer to the law, which represents the values of ordinary decent people and their condemnation of outrageous crimes.
As for it being too long ago, I live in a city which has perhaps the greatest proportion of Holocaust survivors outside Israel. If you know any of them, you know that every day they still suffer from the actions of Nazi, and others such as some French and Polish and Hungarian etc bastards, under the anti-Semitic umbrella of the Nazis. I don’t see why the bastards who caused that suffering, who generally are about the same age as those still suffering who were adults or late teenagers at the time of the crimes, shouldn’t face the proper justice they denied their victims.
You’re assuming that they left Bad Tolz as poor little innocents reluctant to do anything nasty until forced to by evil commanders.
They didn’t join the SS because they were strident opponents of Nazism who just happened to be converted to killing people they didn’t like by small steps.
One of the pre-requisites for joining the SS was adherence to National Socialist beliefs. Which included a slew of beliefs about Aryan (i.e. German) racial superiority; anti-Jewish on every front; the Jewish-Communist conspiracy; the Communist, notably Russian, threat; anti-Catholicism; and generally hatred for and elimination of everyone who wasn’t like them.
(Bad Tolz wasn’t the best example you could have used. It was a school for SS officer candidates. They were going to be the ones giving the orders to men, not the supposedly good men obeying them as they were slowly drawn into badness.)
I don’t care all that much.
Revenge is something the individual rarely gets to wreak upon the wrongdoer, but I’m all in favour of it if someone gets the chance. Naturally I have to pay lip service to the evils of vigilante justice, but if I got the opportunity to put a bullet into the head of some bastard who had done the same to someone close to me I’d reckon it was a great day and too good an opportunity to let pass. If there was any justice, I wouldn’t be prosecuted for it
In the meantime, what we call the justice (but really is only a legal) system has to do.
Not that I find this thread uninteresting, but arguing points here ad nauseum seems a tad silly. Whether or not men whom were of lower rank participated in atrocities should be prosecuted for said atrocities (if possible) is one thing. But I think such prosecutions have been rare as even higher ranking SS commanders largely got off after well document massacres of British, American, and Canadian POWs, including the perpetrators of the Malmedy Massacre who were released Scott-free after being ‘victimized’ by their U.S. Army C.I.C. investigators unprofessional and ill advised conduct–which even at its worst never approached their ad hoc machine-gunning and bayoneting of defenseless men. So the arguing of hypothetical as relevant here seems clap trappish to me. Few if any “brave, heroic” older SS veterans have ever been prosecuted for whatever War crimes they may or may not have committed. So I don’t see why it would even be an issue at this point in history. Even in the instance of the La Paradis Massacre of British Tommies near Dunkirk, only the senior SS bastard was hanged, not the individuals who did most of the actual murdering…
Ha, touche sir!
heimwehr,
They danced with the devil and they thought there would be no consequences.
Some may have the ‘excuse’ they followed orders to shoot men, then women, and later sort of blackmailed into shooting children and the elderly.
But you will find in a court of law, even in the U.S., where the prosecution has to prove beyond a ‘reasonable doubt’, that once you have admitted you did the deed, then it’s the defendant who has to prove they had a justification (it’s called affirmative defense.)
And I most sincerely doubt the ex-SS killers would be able to prove they were blackmailed.
And it’s more than revenge (though revenge does have therapeutic value.)
It’s a) making sure they offenders never offend again,
b) give society a sense of justice, and
c) send a message to all would-be killers that what happened to the ones caught would happen to them, sooner or later.
And in fact that is pretty much what most criminal law is about.
Rehabilitation? Hah! Prisons are very poor places for that (more like training grounds for hardened criminals.)
But, all the above must happen or society will break down into lawlessness.
Deaf