Auschwitz guard charged

[Von Tonner]

A 93 year old former guard is to be charged though he committed no crimes - he was simply a guard. If his only crime was he aided the Nazi regime through been a guard then the entire German army is likewise accountable.

I fully support never giving up in bringing to justice men or woman of whatever age if they committed war crimes, more so when it comes to the atrocities of the likes of Auschwitz - but an old man of 93 who was a guard billited to Auschwitz at the time. In my opinion that is taking it a little too far.

"Unlike most of the others, Groening has openly talked about his time as a guard and says while he witnessed horrific atrocities, he didn't commit any crimes himself.
But Hannover prosecutors said in a statement on Monday he was a cog in the machinery of destruction during his time at Auschwitz in 1944, noting that he helped collect and tally money stolen from murdered inmates.
He thus "helped the Nazi regime benefit economically, and supported the systematic killings".

http://www.news.com.au/world/breaking-news/former-auschwitz-guard-charged/story-e6frfkui-1227059667571?utm_source=News&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&net_sub_uid=99350214

[Jimbuna]

A hard one to call....I agree he was on the periphery of that awful place and carried out no atrocities but he did take part and aid in certain tasks allied to said atrocities.

There are no statute of limitations for these crimes and simply stating "I was following orders" has never and will never be an acceptable defence.

Also taking into account his age I shouldn't imagine the courts would be too harsh.

[Eichhörnchen]

If you've ever been in a line of military types, expected to take your turn and do something you REALLY didn't want to do, and most of the others probably didn't either (and here I'm only talking about crossing a raging torrent weighed down by a ton of kit, on a little rope which is getting very slack) you'll know how impossible it is to say "I can't do it".

I don't know how guilty this old geezer was, but I think we should cut some slack for some of those guys who knew if they said "no" they'd be the next ones with a bullet-hole in their skull.

[HunterICX]

Or send to the horrors of the Eastern Front for that matter.

Since he was open about it and spoke about the horrors he witnessed I doubt the guy was there on his free will back in the day.:hmmm:

[Betonov]

I don't know, it all seems like a waste of time and money by now. Let him go. Grimm reaper or mosad will take care of him soon enough.

[Wolferz]

I would think that just carrying the memories of that place and time would be punishment enough. Charging him with a count of murder for each and every soul taken by his peers is way over the top. I doubt if he was a supporter of the Nazi regime. Just another unfortunate German citizen who was forced into the military at gunpoint. Now if he joined of his own free will, then he shouldn't be charged with anything more than aiding and abetting. Not 300 million counts of murder. The architects of the holocaust were tried and hung long ago. It's time to leave it all in the past.

[Eichhörnchen]

I agree with all of that.

[Schroeder]

He volunteered of his own free will, he didn't volunteer for the army he volunteered for the SS. That required party membership.

Pretty much everything required party membership.
My great grandfather who would normally not have been drafted because of his age and the number of children he had was given a choice: Join the party or get drafted into the army including a vacation to Russia.... I wouldn't blame anybody to chose to join the party with these odds and stay at home with his family. He chose Russia....

[Von Tonner]

He volunteered of his own free will, he didn't volunteer for the army he volunteered for the SS. That required party membership.

Tribesman makes a good point there. If ALL personnel assigned to the death camps (Auschwitz been one of them) were members of the Nazi party then yes, I would agree, they knew fully well what that they had ascribed to. So it does not therefore matter whether he himself did anything that would be defined as a war crime ... the charge would be he OF HIS OWN FREE WILL subscribed and supported a philosophy/ideology that was in all accounts heinous.

That is, if he was a Nazi. And not knowing all the facts, logic would lead me to believe that the Nazi's would NOT employ ordinary German conscripts to the camps.

And yes, on reconsideration, if he was a Nazi, and a guard at the camp....throw the book at him.

[Eichhörnchen]

Plenty of "low grade" personnel levied from captured territories and often not even European, were dragooned into the SS and given jobs like this. They were not deemed useful as fighting troops by the Nazis so were used for other, often particularly unpleasant, tasks.

If they were all card-carrying members of the Party then it's likely this just came with the uniform...

[Eichhörnchen]

Fair comment, I didn't know that

[Wolferz]

Leveling these charges on this guy seems excessive. Especially when you consider that every German citizen at that time knew what was going on and did little or nothing to curb it. If we all wished to be anal about it, the general population of 1940's Germany could be named as accessories to murder. Each and every one of them.
Have they all paid penance?
I think they have.:hmmm:

[Aktungbby]

:hmmm: HE's 93 years old..."Unlike most of the others, Groening has openly talked about his time as a guard and says while he witnessed horrific atrocities, he didn't commit any crimes himself." Sounds like a well considered retirement plan to me-ie: "let the state pay for his geriatric costs in a minimum-security institution"?? I doubt his military pen$ion is worth mentioning:03:

[ikalugin]

I would think that just carrying the memories of that place and time would be punishment enough. Charging him with a count of murder for each and every soul taken by his peers is way over the top. I doubt if he was a supporter of the Nazi regime. Just another unfortunate German citizen who was forced into the military at gunpoint. Now if he joined of his own free will, then he shouldn't be charged with anything more than aiding and abetting. Not 300 million counts of murder. The architects of the holocaust were tried and hung long ago. It's time to leave it all in the past.
I appologize for correcting you, but as far as I know less than 300 millions people were murdered in that specific death camp.

[BrucePartington]

Leveling these charges on this guy seems excessive. Especially when you consider that every German citizen at that time knew what was going on and did little or nothing to curb it. If we all wished to be anal about it, the general population of 1940's Germany could be named as accessories to murder. Each and every one of them.
Have they all paid penance?
I think they have.:hmmm:
Exactly what I think. The German people endured terror as the Nazi party rose to power. To openly oppose it or even speak against it would earn you a guided tour to the Gestapo catacombs. Finally, an entire nation was levelled as its population was decimated to the limit.
IMHO, the German people at large paid for sins they did not commit, and then paid for it again.

Let's not forget the White Rose movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose .
Also, please read about Kurt Gerstein, an SS officer who tried to pass information to the allies about the concentration camps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Gerstein

Having said that, I agree all those who activelly pursued to commit genocide should be brought to justice and punished accordingly.

Above all, let's try not to repeat History.

[Wolferz]

Are you ready and willing to make that case against the 20 families bringing the charges?

I would have only one question for them...

"Will it restore anyone to living status again?"


"Revenge is a dish best served cold"
Old Klingon proverb

[BrucePartington]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2580101/Former-Auschwitz-guard-Oskar-Groening-deemed-fit-stand-trial-mass-murder-admits-I-hear-cries-dead-dreams-waking-moment.html

""Groening said memories of the camp occupied his 'every waking moment' - adding: 'I will never be free of them'.

'One time a drunken SS man discovered a crying baby on the platform, he said. 'He grabbed the waif by its legs and smashed its head against the side of a truck. My blood froze when I saw it.
'When I saw this I went to my superior officers and made an application for a transfer to the front, to anywhere. But he refused. Down the years I have heard the cries of the dead in my dreams and in every waking moment. I will never be free of them.
'It was becoming harder and harder to suppress everything I saw. On one night in January 1943 I saw for the first time how the Jews were actually gassed. It was in a half-built farmyard near to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. A gas chamber was built there. We were searching the wood nearby for prisoners who had escaped. (...)

'I again made an application for a transfer and at the end of October 1944 I was shipped to the Belgian Ardennes where I served with a fighting unit until capture.'
Since the war, Groening admitted he has been driven back to Auschwitz because of his 'shame'.""

[Platapus]

Tell that to the 20 co-plaintiffs who are pursuing justice.

Justice or revenge?

Do the plaintiffs even know the difference after all these years?

[BrucePartington]

He complained about the individual excesses, the lax discipline, not the mass murder which he saw as legitimate.

His interview in the german media 2005
What did you think when you found out that Jews were being gassed in Auschwitz?
"That it was a tool of waging war. A war with advanced methods."
But you weren't in the war. You were in a factory where systematic murder was being committed.
"If you are convinced that the destruction of Judaism is necessary, then it no longer matters how the killing takes place. As early as 1939, Hitler said in speech that if the Jews were to force a new war on the Germans, it would mean the end of Judaism in Europe."
Well, all this is speculation on our part. None of us is in acquaintance with the full facts. It's just opinion. We'll have to wait for a court deliberation, and hopefully, a public disclosure of said full facts. Until then we'll have to refrain our thirst for blood.

[Oberon]

Legally I believe that they have a case, he was an accessory to the events at Auschwitz, whether or not he was complicit in them is up to the jury to determine. He has expressed regret and has spoken out against Holocaust denial, those are points in his favour, he might get a light custodial sentence, although at his age, any custodial sentence is probably equivalent to life, perhaps he'll get house imprisonment, or something fairly lenient.
Should he be prosecuted? He is 92, going on 93...it's hard for me to understand what these families will achieve through the prosecution, because I have never been in such a situation. They are more fortunate than their contemparies in Russia, I'm not aware of many instances of people prosecuting gulag members in Russia, although I'm sure it has happened, but certainly not to the scale that occurred post-WWII in Germany and across the world. Romania seems to be moving in that direction, which is good, but I'm not so sure about the other former Soviet countries. Perhaps ikalugin can shed some light on the subject?
And I wonder if Russia will pay any reparations to Ukraine for the Holodomor?

I guess, in a way, the families involved in this case are the lucky ones, they can prosecute, they can bring a case forward...there are hundreds of thousands...if not millions...who cannot.

[Jimbuna]

Legally I believe that they have a case, he was an accessory to the events at Auschwitz, whether or not he was complicit in them is up to the jury to determine. He has expressed regret and has spoken out against Holocaust denial, those are points in his favour, he might get a light custodial sentence, although at his age, any custodial sentence is probably equivalent to life, perhaps he'll get house imprisonment, or something fairly lenient.
Should he be prosecuted? He is 92, going on 93...it's hard for me to understand what these families will achieve through the prosecution, because I have never been in such a situation. They are more fortunate than their contemparies in Russia, I'm not aware of many instances of people prosecuting gulag members in Russia, although I'm sure it has happened, but certainly not to the scale that occurred post-WWII in Germany and across the world. Romania seems to be moving in that direction, which is good, but I'm not so sure about the other former Soviet countries. Perhaps ikalugin can shed some light on the subject?
And I wonder if Russia will pay any reparations to Ukraine for the Holodomor?

I guess, in a way, the families involved in this case are the lucky ones, they can prosecute, they can bring a case forward...there are hundreds of thousands...if not millions...who cannot.

True that :yep:

[Platapus]

The Frau's grandfather sewed uniforms for the SS. Good thing he is already dead or he would also be up on charges of accessory to thousands of murders. :doh:

[Nippelspanner]

Good point , because working as a tailor is exactly the same as working on the arrivals ramp at an extermination camp.
Yep, this.

Tough case though.
Hard to prove he didn't do anything wrong/did something wrong.

Yet, the "I only followed orders!" excuse won't and must not cut it, ever.
This is how things like this happen in the first place.
People behaving like sheep, giving away any self-responsibility.

And no, you didn't get shot for saying "I don't do that!".
The Nazi-German military sure was brutal and ruthless, but not exactly arbitrary and chaotic ("last days" excluded).

[Betonov]

Yeah, he's guilty alright.

Now what. Throw him in jail for life, which is half a year ??
He won't live to see the end of trial and taxpayers will pay for another pointless show.

He lived most of his life, his productive life, a free man, he already avoided punishment. His last year in a cell, not worse than a decaying body he's already imprisoned in.

Waste of time

[Nippelspanner]

Yeah, he's guilty alright.

Now what. Throw him in jail for life, which is half a year ??
He won't live to see the end of trial and taxpayers will pay for another pointless show.

He lived most of his life, his productive life, a free man, he already avoided punishment. His last year in a cell, not worse than a decaying body he's already imprisoned in.

Waste of time
I tend to agree.

[swamprat69er]

Yeah, he's guilty alright.

Now what. Throw him in jail for life, which is half a year ??
He won't live to see the end of trial and taxpayers will pay for another pointless show.

He lived most of his life, his productive life, a free man, he already avoided punishment. His last year in a cell, not worse than a decaying body he's already imprisoned in.

Waste of time

and money.

[Aktungbby]

:hmmm: HE's 93 years old..."Unlike most of the others, Groening has openly talked about his time as a guard and says while he witnessed horrific atrocities, he didn't commit any crimes himself." Sounds like a well considered retirement plan to me-ie: "let the state pay for his geriatric costs in a minimum-security institution"?? I doubt his military pen$ion is worth mentioning:03:

Yeah, he's guilty alright.

Now what. Throw him in jail for life, which is half a year ??
He won't live to see the end of trial and taxpayers will pay for another pointless show.

He lived most of his life, his productive life, a free man, he already avoided punishment. His last year in a cell, not worse than a decaying body he's already imprisoned in.

Waste of time

and money.

And I thought I was all alone here!:rock:

[swamprat69er]

And I thought I was all alone here!:rock:
Not at all. What is to gain from trying him on these 'crimes' at 93 years old? nothing
What is to lose? Just piss away money on a trial. He has had to live the past 60+ years with the nightmares and memories. Isn't that enough?

[Betonov]

Are these people mentioning that money and time could be used for something better than prosecuting almost dead criminals that have nothing left to loose.

Maybe they are mentioning that putting in prison someone that already managed to escape punishment by living a productive normal life, since imprisonment for destroying lives of thousands is usually meant for punishing one by preventing him from enjoying said life, like the one he prevented others from having.

Maybe some will mention that other examples you gave are about as effective in punishing/preventing said crimes as plowing a field with a hamster.

Maybe some will not think like a lawyer, and will be interested in that their tax money, the one they paid enough to ruin a summer vacation, be used for things that actually matter, like prosecuting corrupt officials that actually have something to loose and will actually be punished if convicted.

And maybe, just maybe, some of us, those that are from parts of Europe that actually seen the mentioned war, just want to forget all about it and not give politicians even more historical ammunition for political division about who's grandfather was who during the war.

And if lawyers and prosecutors would have done their job like they were supposed to, this guard would have rotted away in a cell in the seventies, which would actually be a punishment.

[Platapus]

As the saying goes "there is no business like Shoah business."

[Betonov]

The important thing with the shoah is "Never Forget".
At a time when you have in certain parts of Europe political parties which follow the ideology of the 3rd reich gaining votes. and at a time when we have supposedly normal rational people wanting to strip people of rights solely on the grounds of their ethnicity, forgetting the past is not a very wise thing to do.

In 2009 a shaft full of bones was discovered near Huda Jama, bones from post-war killings by the partizans. The discovery almost caused a civil war, news were filled by it, left and right camps had all the ammunition needed to drag the entire nation down with them. And they did. 50 000 people lost they're jobs in that one single year and all they bickered about was a war that ended 50 years earlier.

WW2 is not mentioned fondly here. Or with pride. We didn't went trough an occupation alone, we started a civil war at the same time. For someone not red or white here, just the mention of that war makes them shout back: ECONOMY, TODAY, STUPID. !!!

The money used to convict an oldtimer could be better spent reforming the country, education and economy, so voters will have no wish voting for the far right/left.

[Von Tonner]

I have to disagree with those who say what is the point. Money wasted, etc, etc.

Let us for example, imagine that Osama bin Laden had NOT been found and executed. He was after all very clever at avoiding capture and had a good support base to ensure that he was not found.

But found he was. And had he not? But found when he was on old man of 99 years, confined to a wheelchair blowing bubbles? Would anyone here in this thread advocate to let him live out his life peacefully and not harm a hair on his head.

Sorry, in my book it is his head I would want stuck on the nearest pole regardless of age.

And if others feel that that makes me vengeful so be it. I can live with it.

[Flamebatter90]

Waste of time and money considering how tiny his role was in the Holocaust. Let him live his last few remaining years in peace.

[u crank]

I think the best possible use for Mr. Oskar Groening's remaining years would be as a living witness against the holocaust deniers. As long as he is alive their case is suspect.

[Von Tonner]

I think the best possible use for Mr. Oskar Groening's remaining years would be as a living witness against the holocaust deniers. As long as he is alive their case is suspect.

You are quite correct. And that is the base on the line "Lest we forget".

It matters not on how low down the pecking order this guy was. As I said in a previous post if he was a card carrying member of the Nazi party he is as guilty as the head honcho of that party.

A trial would keep alive in memory to those following that crimes against humanity will be punished REGARDLESS. And, under the harsh evidence brought to court in the charge, denounce the absurd claims made by some that the holocaust is a figment of imagination.

[Dan D]

No big news here in Germany. I read about it for first time here on subsim and then checked the German media. Seems, the guy's job was to search the luggage of the people at the death ramp for valuable goods. That is aiding to murder in a legal sense, even more so, when you consider that he and his comrades took away the luggage from the ramp so that newcomers would not get suspicious about what is going on. Taking a shower at Auschwitz. That is what the prosecution says.

What speaks in favour of the guy, apart from his age which raises the question, is he even able to understand what is going on in his trial, does his medical state allow to put him in jail or is he better off in a hospice?, is that he himself revealed his knowledge and made and eyewitness-account to historians (and gave interviews to the BBC).