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Originally Posted by Seth8530
guys, im not saying the SS was good at all. Im just more in favor of holding the officers and administrators guilty instead of the people carrying out orders.
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He who orders murder is as guilty as the one carrying out the murder. It's even in modern criminal law codes like thjis. Surely in Germany, and I guess it is not different in the US.
That you are given an order to commit injustice or even barbaric acts, is no excuse at all. War tribunals also repeatedly said that and sentenced people on basis of this.
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Ive also heard that this person was originally captured by the Germans and he is in fact Ukrainian. and then became a part of the prison system. Not saying what the man did is right.. but looking at thigns from more than one point of view can be helpfull ya kno?
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Means what? In what regard is that precious different perspective relativising his guilt?
I think in this case its just an empty phrase, this different perspective thing. Mass murder remains to be mass murder, no matter how you turn it. Torture and sadism remain to be torture and sadism, no matter how you turn it.
P.S. I told this story before, and I tell it again here. Early in the war, the brother of my mum'S father waqs in the army, like her father himself was, too. My grandpa spoke of this only once, and indicated, that his brother - both were servinbf in the Wehrmacht - was approached by the SS for one of those special service jobs the SS did behind the front once a territory was conquered. The SS was picky about personnel for these dirty jobs, they did not want the news to become known to the poublic. Catching Jews, and all that. My grandfather indicated that his brother refused to follow that order or request or approach or whatever it was, and that for that he got shot.
Cowards and courageous guys alike: we always have a choice, even when being confronted with the choice between death and evil only.
A simple but demanding motto from maybe my most favourite book series of my teen years, by Nikolay von Michalewski, in those books the hero of the stories got told by his wife:
Woran Du glaubst, dafür sollst du leben und sterben.