Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged [Update: Convicted and sentenced]

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TheHammer
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by TheHammer »

Stas Bush wrote:
TheHammer wrote:Why'd you leave out the British?
He did not. He said other nations like the US, not just the US alone.
:roll:
TheHammer wrote:Regardless, I think holding low ranking NCOs and soldiers as criminals for following orders of their superiors is a rather dubious endeavor.
What is dubious in holding members of an organization which was a principal tool of genocide as criminals? Are you an idiot? What is 'dubious' about holding not just a member of said organization, but a member of said organization directly involved in genocide (and not, say, being the part of Hitler's ceremonial units)?
Was membership in that organization (not only to join, but to remain a member) completely voluntary? If it was not, then its not the clear cut choice you make it out to be.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by Fingolfin_Noldor »

TheHammer wrote:
Was membership in that organization (not only to join, but to remain a member) completely voluntary? If it was not, then its not the clear cut choice you make it out to be.
Which was why, if you bothered to read the article Stas posted, the tribunal left out the SS riding units. People were drafted into the SS, especially late war. But early war? Nope.

Mind you, it was the SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, a man who was merely granted an assassination and never made it to trial, who is considered one of the architects of the Holocaust and was the person who chaired the meeting so notoriously known for having espoused the "Final Solution".
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by TheHammer »

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:
TheHammer wrote:
Was membership in that organization (not only to join, but to remain a member) completely voluntary? If it was not, then its not the clear cut choice you make it out to be.
Which was why, if you bothered to read the article Stas posted, the tribunal left out the SS riding units. People were drafted into the SS, especially late war. But early war? Nope.

Mind you, it was the SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, a man who was merely granted an assassination and never made it to trial, who is considered the architect of the Holocaust and was the person who chaired the meeting so notoriously known for having espoused the "Final Solution".
Which doesn't change the question about whether or not membership was entirely voluntary. If it's like the mafia where its voluntary to join, but you only leave in a box then its a situation where someone could easily find themselves in an organization that wasn't what they thought it was, and yet unable to leave it after having joined.

The Subject of the OP stated he requested transfers to fighting units because he found the activities of the camp morally reprehensible. The first of which was denied, and the second of which was granted which is where he ended up until captured. It's possible he is lying, but if so then make the case. I don't believe simply being a member of the organization should be enough to be considered guilty of war crimes - Unless when you signed up it was made explicitly clear that said organization was dedicated to the sole purpose of committing war crimes.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by K. A. Pital »

What the fuck are you even talking about? Most of the SS was a purely voluntary organization; the Waffen-SS branch had conscription from 1940 onwards, but not in large enough numbers to even matter until, I think, 1943 and onwards (which helped the conscripts to avoid prosecution). However, the person in question (Oskar Gröning) joined the SS voluntarily. What is so hard here?
TheHammer wrote:The Subject of the OP stated he requested transfers to fighting units because he found the activities of the camp morally reprehensible.
Voluntarily joining the SS is voluntarily joining a criminal organization, and he did it as early as 1940, idiot.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by Simon_Jester »

It is imaginable that someone would join the SS with no criminal intent, and later realize they had joined a criminal organization, and seek to leave.

However, it is not imaginable that such a person would willingly collaborate in the wrongful killings of hundreds of thousands of innocents, with no criminal intent. Whether they applied for a transfer out of the concentration camp or not.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by K. A. Pital »

Simon_Jester wrote:It is imaginable that someone would join the SS with no criminal intent, and later realize they had joined a criminal organization, and seek to leave.
It is imaginable. However, it was specified by the tribunal that the criminal activities of the SS were so widely known, and the scope of their racial subjugation and extermination program so immense, that it is very unlikely people did not know what sort of organization they were joining.
Simon_Jester wrote:Whether they applied for a transfer out of the concentration camp or not.
The person in question was apparently quite okay with a desk job at the SS. Only after being physically transferred to Auschwitz he was unhappy because he had to confront the reality of extermination with his eyes daily. But even then he remained a firm believer in the racial extermination.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by TheHammer »

Stas Bush wrote:
Simon_Jester wrote:It is imaginable that someone would join the SS with no criminal intent, and later realize they had joined a criminal organization, and seek to leave.
It is imaginable. However, it was specified by the tribunal that the criminal activities of the SS were so widely known, and the scope of their racial subjugation and extermination program so immense, that it is very unlikely people did not know what sort of organization they were joining.
Oh well if the tribunal specified it, then its an unquestioned fact that everyone who joined must have known and been in favor of committing genocide. :roll:
Simon_Jester wrote:Whether they applied for a transfer out of the concentration camp or not.
The person in question was apparently quite okay with a desk job at the SS. Only after being physically transferred to Auschwitz he was unhappy because he had to confront the reality of extermination with his eyes daily. But even then he remained a firm believer in the racial extermination.

Please cite support that he was a "firm believer in racial extermination" because that's not been in any of the reports I've read.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by K. A. Pital »

TheHammer wrote:Oh well if the tribunal specified it, then its an unquestioned fact that everyone who joined must have known and been in favor of committing genocide. :roll:
You fucking idiot, the person in question was a hardcore Nazi in 1933, when the NSDAP only started on its path to destruction. Even back then the person believed in purging hostile races. How fucking dumb must you be?
TheHammer wrote:Please cite support that he was a "firm believer in racial extermination" because that's not been in any of the reports I've read.
Why should I cite anything for someone who is not bothered to do the tiniest bit of research on the matter before uttering his bullshit Nazi apologia?
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by Thanas »

TheHammer wrote:Why'd you leave out the British?
I did not, I merely cited the most prominent example. Similar as to how "units like the SS-division Totenkopf carried out genocidal orders" does not exclude any other genocidal units. If you want to, I can full well provide you with a list of nations who I think have a particular hard-on for glorifying genociders.
Regardless, I think holding low ranking NCOs and soldiers as criminals for following orders of their superiors is a rather dubious endeavor.
That is your opinion. You might be interested in the surveillance protocols of wiretapping carried out in POW camps, which do show that even NCOs and soldiers knew of the wrongdoing but in many cases quite willingly carried on with it. Statements like "so we chanced upon some beautiful ukrainian girls and raped them. Good lord, did they cry out" are not out of the norm.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by TheHammer »

Stas Bush wrote:
TheHammer wrote:Oh well if the tribunal specified it, then its an unquestioned fact that everyone who joined must have known and been in favor of committing genocide. :roll:
You fucking idiot, the person in question was a hardcore Nazi in 1933, when the NSDAP only started on its path to destruction. Even back then the person believed in purging hostile races. How fucking dumb must you be?
Proof? Quotes? Something? Anything?
TheHammer wrote:Please cite support that he was a "firm believer in racial extermination" because that's not been in any of the reports I've read.
Why should I cite anything for someone who is not bothered to do the tiniest bit of research on the matter before uttering his bullshit Nazi apologia?
Nazi apologia? Are you fucking serious? Shove your strawman up your ass. The only thing I've said is that blanket declaration of any and all members of the SS as war criminals, without respect to actions they themselves actually took, is fucking asinine. There are almost certainly persons who found themselves members of the SS, later discovered the actions of that organization to be SS, but none the less were in no position to do anything about their membership or change the actions of the organization at that point.

I've done the "tiniest" bit of research to at least discover his contention that he never participated in killings, and had requested transfer out of the unit that was conducting them. You've stated that he was a "firm believer in racial extermination" I therefore concluded you must know of some statement he made or some other evidence to back it up. So present it. It's not that fucking hard. If you can, then any benefit of the doubt I might give the man is gone.
Thanas wrote:
TheHammer wrote:Why'd you leave out the British?
I did not, I merely cited the most prominent example. Similar as to how "units like the SS-division Totenkopf carried out genocidal orders" does not exclude any other genocidal units. If you want to, I can full well provide you with a list of nations who I think have a particular hard-on for glorifying genociders.
Fair enough. It seemed like you were singling out the US there, but if not then its a non issue.
Regardless, I think holding low ranking NCOs and soldiers as criminals for following orders of their superiors is a rather dubious endeavor.
That is your opinion. You might be interested in the surveillance protocols of wiretapping carried out in POW camps, which do show that even NCOs and soldiers knew of the wrongdoing but in many cases quite willingly carried on with it. Statements like "so we chanced upon some beautiful ukrainian girls and raped them. Good lord, did they cry out" are not out of the norm.
I never said that enlisted men were exempt from wrong doing and shouldn't be charged with crimes they commit of their own volition. And yes its my opinion because the idea that an enlisted man should be able to recognize a lawful order from an unlawful one often isn't so cut and dry.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by Thanas »

I think being able to recognize that shooting unarmed civilians is wrong is well within the capability to recognize of any soldier, no matter how dumb or uneducated he is.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by LaCroix »

I think the term "unlawful order" itself is part of the quandary why people like to argue about what the term encompasses - after all, German laws at that time allowed for a lot in regards to "untermenschen". And if it is legal to kill Jews, then it can't be "unlawful".

In my opinion, the term should have been "unethical order" or something akin, to support the notion that while doing something may be legal according to current laws, as a decent human being you should be aware that this is blatantly unethical.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by Thanas »

I think Ludwig Beck said it best.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by TheHammer »

Thanas wrote:I think being able to recognize that shooting unarmed civilians is wrong is well within the capability to recognize of any soldier, no matter how dumb or uneducated he is.
What if he is told he is killing saboteurs, spies, and murderers? What if he knows it's wrong, but is under threat that he'll also be shot for non compliance. While I'm sure there are times when its clear cut, its often not the case. I think its not only key to evaluate whether or not a solider should refuse an order, but if he were in position to refuse.
Thanas wrote:I think Ludwig Beck said it best.
This quote?

“It is a lack of character and insight, when a soldier in high command sees his duty and mission only in the context of his military orders without realizing that the highest responsibility is to the people of his country.” Ludwig Beck

I'd agree with that, but the key phrase there is "soldier in high command". Those in a high command are in much better position to refuse. They usually have the option to resign, or otherwise influence decisions and orders that affect them and thus are of more culpability than a front line grunt whose choice is obey or be shot.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by Thanas »

TheHammer wrote:
Thanas wrote:I think being able to recognize that shooting unarmed civilians is wrong is well within the capability to recognize of any soldier, no matter how dumb or uneducated he is.
What if he is told he is killing saboteurs, spies, and murderers? What if he knows it's wrong, but is under threat that he'll also be shot for non compliance.
There is no case of a soldier being shot for refusing to kill civilians. There are plenty of cases of soldiers refusing said orders (same for officers) and being supported by their higher ups.
While I'm sure there are times when its clear cut, its often not the case. I think its not only key to evaluate whether or not a solider should refuse an order, but if he were in position to refuse.
There is no real justification for shooting children in a situation that is not self-defence.

Thanas wrote:I think Ludwig Beck said it best.
This quote?

“It is a lack of character and insight, when a soldier in high command sees his duty and mission only in the context of his military orders without realizing that the highest responsibility is to the people of his country.” Ludwig Beck

I'd agree with that, but the key phrase there is "soldier in high command". Those in a high command are in much better position to refuse. They usually have the option to resign, or otherwise influence decisions and orders that affect them and thus are of more culpability than a front line grunt whose choice is obey or be shot.
Funny that you would chose that quote instead of the far more well-known:
“A soldier's obedience finds its limits where his knowledge, his conscience, and his responsibility forbid to obey orders.”
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by K. A. Pital »

The Hammer wrote:The only thing I've said is that blanket declaration of any and all members of the SS as war criminals, without respect to actions they themselves actually took, is fucking asinine.
Shove your fucking SS apologia where it belongs. Only involuntarily drafted persons and persons who did not take part in crimes are exempt from judgement.
The Hammer wrote:You've stated that he was a "firm believer in racial extermination" I therefore concluded you must know of some statement he made or some other evidence to back it up.
BBC wrote:The young Groening joined the Stahlhelm Youth in the early 1930s, and then the Hitler Youth. He later spoke of taking part in the Nazi burning of books written by Jews and others deemed "degenerate".
Mirror wrote:Groening, who lives at Lueneburg Heath near Hamburg – the place where his SS boss Heinrich Himmler is buried – ­volunteered for the Waffen SS in 1941 at 20, drawn by wartime fervour and “the elegance of the uniform”.

During one interview in Germany, lost in memories, he sang a song from his youth: “And when Jewish blood begins to drip from our knives, things will be good again.”

He said later: “Back then we didn’t even think about what we were singing.” And he told how he saw the ­extermination as “a tool of waging war. A war with advanced methods”.
On the second day of what will be one of the last ever Nazi trials, state prosecutor Jens Lehmann sought to emphasise the extent to which Gröning, who volunteered for the SS at the age of 19 or 20, was an enthusiastic follower of the regime.

He described Gröning’s upbringing with a German nationalist father who encouraged him to join the youth wing of the nationalist paramilitary organisation the Stahlhelm (steel helmet), which was subsequently subsumed into the Hitler Youth.

His brother, Gerhard, had been a Hitler Youth leader before becoming an officer in the Wehrmacht.

Gröning’s later wife, who had been engaged to Gerhard before he fell at Stalingrad, had been a member of the Band of German Maidens, the girls’ wing of the Nazi party. Lehmann said Gröning had also followed the request of the Nazi leadership to renounce his membership of the protestant church, effectively switching his allegiance to Hitler and the Nazi party.
I am not sure you understand. But then again, I am also pretty sure you had a torture and war crime apology record on this board, so I do not even expect you understand.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by TheHammer »

Thanas wrote:
TheHammer wrote:
Thanas wrote:I think being able to recognize that shooting unarmed civilians is wrong is well within the capability to recognize of any soldier, no matter how dumb or uneducated he is.
What if he is told he is killing saboteurs, spies, and murderers? What if he knows it's wrong, but is under threat that he'll also be shot for non compliance.
There is no case of a soldier being shot for refusing to kill civilians. There are plenty of cases of soldiers refusing said orders (same for officers) and being supported by their higher ups.
I don't see how you can possibly prove the former in that statement.
While I'm sure there are times when its clear cut, its often not the case. I think its not only key to evaluate whether or not a solider should refuse an order, but if he were in position to refuse.
There is no real justification for shooting children in a situation that is not self-defence.
Well that would be one of the clear cut situations wouldn't it?
Thanas wrote:I think Ludwig Beck said it best.
This quote?

“It is a lack of character and insight, when a soldier in high command sees his duty and mission only in the context of his military orders without realizing that the highest responsibility is to the people of his country.” Ludwig Beck

I'd agree with that, but the key phrase there is "soldier in high command". Those in a high command are in much better position to refuse. They usually have the option to resign, or otherwise influence decisions and orders that affect them and thus are of more culpability than a front line grunt whose choice is obey or be shot.

Funny that you would chose that quote instead of the far more well-known:
“A soldier's obedience finds its limits where his knowledge, his conscience, and his responsibility forbid to obey orders.”
.
The quote I cited was the quote that came up when I searched for him. If you preferred the second quote then you should have included it in your earlier post rather than simply say his name and drop the mic.
Stas Bush wrote:
The Hammer wrote:The only thing I've said is that blanket declaration of any and all members of the SS as war criminals, without respect to actions they themselves actually took, is fucking asinine.
Shove your fucking SS apologia where it belongs. Only involuntarily drafted persons and persons who did not take part in crimes are exempt from judgement.
:finger:
The Hammer wrote:You've stated that he was a "firm believer in racial extermination" I therefore concluded you must know of some statement he made or some other evidence to back it up.
BBC wrote:The young Groening joined the Stahlhelm Youth in the early 1930s, and then the Hitler Youth. He later spoke of taking part in the Nazi burning of books written by Jews and others deemed "degenerate".
Mirror wrote:Groening, who lives at Lueneburg Heath near Hamburg – the place where his SS boss Heinrich Himmler is buried – ­volunteered for the Waffen SS in 1941 at 20, drawn by wartime fervour and “the elegance of the uniform”.

During one interview in Germany, lost in memories, he sang a song from his youth: “And when Jewish blood begins to drip from our knives, things will be good again.”

He said later: “Back then we didn’t even think about what we were singing.” And he told how he saw the ­extermination as “a tool of waging war. A war with advanced methods”.
On the second day of what will be one of the last ever Nazi trials, state prosecutor Jens Lehmann sought to emphasise the extent to which Gröning, who volunteered for the SS at the age of 19 or 20, was an enthusiastic follower of the regime.

He described Gröning’s upbringing with a German nationalist father who encouraged him to join the youth wing of the nationalist paramilitary organisation the Stahlhelm (steel helmet), which was subsequently subsumed into the Hitler Youth.

His brother, Gerhard, had been a Hitler Youth leader before becoming an officer in the Wehrmacht.

Gröning’s later wife, who had been engaged to Gerhard before he fell at Stalingrad, had been a member of the Band of German Maidens, the girls’ wing of the Nazi party. Lehmann said Gröning had also followed the request of the Nazi leadership to renounce his membership of the protestant church, effectively switching his allegiance to Hitler and the Nazi party.
I am not sure you understand. But then again, I am also pretty sure you had a torture and war crime apology record on this board, so I do not even expect you understand.
Ah yes lets continue with the Ad hominem attacks. STAS BUSH SO STRONG DEBATER.

Of all the things you posted, there was but a small subset that actually supported your contention to any extent. The fact that he joined the Hitler youth, burned books, or renounced his church membership had fuck all to do with supporting genocide.

So lets get to the subset shall we?
During one interview in Germany, lost in memories, he sang a song from his youth: “And when Jewish blood begins to drip from our knives, things will be good again.”

He said later: “Back then we didn’t even think about what we were singing.” And he told how he saw the ­extermination as “a tool of waging war. A war with advanced methods”.
And even that's pretty thin by any objective standard.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by K. A. Pital »

And even that's pretty thin by any objective standard.
What is 'thin' there, idiot? Do you know anything about the Nazi ideology? It included subjugation and annihilation of lower races in racial warfare, which was the key idea and what separated Nazism from fascism, its older brother. The guy was a consistent believer in the Nazi case, to an extent where he kept joining every Nazi organization and doing everything necessary to keep advancing in the Nazi ranks, until finally he got to voluntarliy join the SS (a criminal organization and a Nazi genocide tool in entirety), and in the very end got to be a part of the racial war he believed in. Of course, the direct view of extermination probably bothered him, but it was the logical consequence of all his actions in life.

Now, you seem to be rationalizing his guilt away and comparing him to those who were not a part of the SS, never joined the Hitler Youth or NSDAP and were in general, perhaps, not very supportive of the Nazi cause. Know what? You're just a despicable piece of shit.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by Patroklos »

Stas Bush wrote: You fucking idiot, the person in question was a hardcore Nazi in 1933, when the NSDAP only started on its path to destruction. Even back then the person believed in purging hostile races. How fucking dumb must you be?
He was a hard core Nazi when he was 12?
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by The Duchess of Zeon »

Patroklos wrote:
Stas Bush wrote: You fucking idiot, the person in question was a hardcore Nazi in 1933, when the NSDAP only started on its path to destruction. Even back then the person believed in purging hostile races. How fucking dumb must you be?
He was a hard core Nazi when he was 12?
Yes actually. He joined the youth organization, as has been repeatedly stated in this thread.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by K. A. Pital »

Bear in mind that his family already put him on the wrong track by glorifying militarism and fascism. But even if we chalk everything in his school years up to bad family influence - he kept advancing in the Nazi ranks with vigour, as opposed to just ignoring the Nazi organizations, and there is ample evidence that SS was very strict with taking in volunteers before late into the war. Those volunteering must have been firm believers in the Nazi cause and already had exposure to and support for the ideas of racial purity and racial warfare. As stated already in the Nuremberg Trial, being unaware of Hitler's goals and the criminal activities of the SS was, frankly, plain impossible if one volunteered for the SS, considering their scope and scale.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by Fingolfin_Noldor »

Let's put up an article for examination. I mean, hey, even the guy admits his guilt. So others trying to whitewash a guilt admitted by the person, hey, I have idea what to make of their moral relativism so often found around these days.
The Guardian wrote:A former SS guard expressed remorse for the role he played in the Holocaust when he went on trial charged with complicity in the murder of 300,000 Jews.

In a lengthy speech, Oskar Gröning, 93, referred to as the “accountant of Auschwitz”, recounted the two years he had spent at the extermination camp after volunteering for the SS, the Nazi party’s protection squadron.

Survivors of the Holocaust, many of whom have travelled from the US, Canada and Hungary in the hope of seeing justice done for their relatives who were murdered after a wait of 70 years, listened intently as Gröning spoke in court in Lüneburg, northern Germany.

“It is without question that I am morally complicit in the murder of millions of Jews through my activities at Auschwitz,” the retired bank clerk said, clutching his notes and looking directly at the bench. “Before the victims, I also admit to this moral guilt here, with regret and humility. To the question as to whether I am criminally culpable, that’s for you to decide.”

His statement came at the end of a detailed 50-minute account of his time at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which included how he was initially sent there and his attempts to get transferred elsewhere because of the atrocities he had seen, including seeing an SS colleague bashing a baby to death against the side of a lorry.

What will be one of the last Nazi trials in Germany is being watched closely by historians, Holocaust experts and human rights lawyers around the world.

Judge Frank Kom Pisch said for everyone present it was “anything but an easy event”. “Without exaggeration … this trial will attract a lot of attention and cause many emotions to be released, but we must remember that it is a criminal trial, albeit one with its own historical context,” he said.

The trial marks the second attempt to bring Gröning to court. An investigation that began in 1978 collapsed seven years later with prosecutors ruling that unless it could be proven that Gröning was directly responsible for the deaths of prisoners, he could not be put on trial. But since the 2012 conclusion of the trial of John Demjanjuk in Munich, in which judges ruled he was an accessory to mass murder simply by working at the Sobibor extermination camp, a change of practice has taken place, in which an individual’s mere presence at a concentration camp coupled with the knowledge they knew what was happening there, is sufficient to secure a conviction.

Gröning, who entered court pushing a walking frame, appeared calm and to take an active interest in the proceedings. Clutching a black battered briefcase containing his notes and wearing gold-rimmed glasses and a sleeveless pullover, he initially spoke to acknowledge his name, date of birth, that he was widowed, and a pensioner. Asked how old his children were, there was a long pause, before he answered: “Sixty-five and 70”.

He appeared deeply concentrated as Jens Lehmann, the state prosecutor, read from the 85-page indictment, in which he detailed Gröning’s tasks at Auschwitz-Birkenau, including taking the suitcases from prisoners as they arrived at the camp and were selected into groups of those who would work and those who would be sent to their deaths.

He said he had also been responsible for collecting the money in an array of currencies that was found in prisoners’ clothing and luggage, for recording it in a ledger, keeping it in a steel safe, and at various intervals taking the money to the Reich headquarters in Berlin. “Already on his first day the accused was informed by a colleague that those who were not chosen to work would be sent to their deaths,” Lehmann said.

Prosecutors have concentrated the charge on the period between May and July 1944, the time of the mass deportation of Hungary’s Jewish community during which 137 trains brought 425,000 people to Auschwitz, of whom at least 300,000 were killed in the gas chambers.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by TheHammer »

Stas Bush wrote:
And even that's pretty thin by any objective standard.
What is 'thin' there, idiot? Do you know anything about the Nazi ideology? It included subjugation and annihilation of lower races in racial warfare, which was the key idea and what separated Nazism from fascism, its older brother. The guy was a consistent believer in the Nazi case, to an extent where he kept joining every Nazi organization and doing everything necessary to keep advancing in the Nazi ranks, until finally he got to voluntarliy join the SS (a criminal organization and a Nazi genocide tool in entirety), and in the very end got to be a part of the racial war he believed in. Of course, the direct view of extermination probably bothered him, but it was the logical consequence of all his actions in life.

Now, you seem to be rationalizing his guilt away and comparing him to those who were not a part of the SS, never joined the Hitler Youth or NSDAP and were in general, perhaps, not very supportive of the Nazi cause. Know what? You're just a despicable piece of shit.
I just don't see evidence that he was the enthusiastic supporter of genocide that you do. He never participated in the killings himself (as far as any evidence has been presented), and the fact that he tried to transfer out of the units doing the killings, a relatively cushy job, to a war front speaks that he wasn't of the same mindset of such people. He also freely admitted his role and expressed remorse over it. Not exactly the actions of a proud genocider.

In short, the problem is in treating one SS member the same as another when there were so many shades of grey. But apparently everything is black and white in Stas Bush world. Such are the views of the simple minded.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by K. A. Pital »

No idiot, he was a 'proud genocider' (as a believer in Nazi racial purges) before he was confronted by the reality of genocide. Once again: he believed in racial war, and he got to take part in it as an SS-man serving at the place where nothing but genocide was conducted. He was also fine with being a clerk in the SS before he got stationed at Auschwitz physically and witnessed genocide with his own eyes. After that he was no longer proud, but he remained, and will remain, an accessory to genocide.
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Re: Ex-Nazi bookeeper charged with 300,000 accessories to mu

Post by Napoleon the Clown »

Not, but, see, if you feel bad later then all is forgiven, especially if you were just following orders! Ordered to shoot a baby in the face? Well, you're just following orders so there's nothing wrong with that! Ordered to mow down a bunch of civilians cowering in a corner? Nothing morally wrong with doing it, you were ordered to! If your commanding officer tells you to do something, no matter how heinous it seems, it's no longer morally wrong to do it. Because you were ordered to!


Honestly, I don't think there's a possibility of convincing an unabashed authoritarian that sometimes you need to tell authority figures to fuck off.


Saying "I feel bad and am so sorry!" doesn't negate being involved in mass murder. Claiming a guilty conscience doesn't absolve you of being involved in vicious, pointless torture.

I don't really believe he "feels bad" about it. If he really felt so bad about it, he would have turned himself in decades ago. Instead, he's 93 years old. He knows he's unlikely to live much longer. He has nothing to lose at this point. So pardon me if I don't think he genuinely feels remorse for being involved in crimes against humanity.
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