Demjanjuk being deported to face trial in Germany.

[Freiwillige]

Oddly enough the accused Nazi camp guard is not even German but Ukrainian. Demjamjuk claims he was not a guard at all but was held with other soviet prisoners of war in German captivity during WWII. He had already been deported to Israel once and tried for being another famous camp guard, "Ivan the terrible" and was found innocent and returned to the U.S.
Now this as the German government accuses him of accessory to murder in 29,000 cases.

I'm starting to wonder if this isn't some political witch hunt on the German governments part.

Isn't this the third recent topic on this case?
The problem for the suspect appears to be he has kept altering his story and is unable to give a vaugely credible or consistant account of his activities during the period in question and the proscution keeps on piling up loads of evidence against him

I'm starting to wonder if this isn't some political witch hunt on the German governments part.

Not really , he should have been re tried in Israel after the first trial but the original extradition process made that impossible , he certainly should have been re-extradited and re tryed in Israel after the soviet archives were opened , but now that the germans are doing it fair play to them

[Skybird]

Demjanuk was released in Israel by mistake. They had not correctly identified him, thinking he was somebody else. Demjanuk is wanted for assisting in murder in 29000 cases. He was also known for his extraordinary cruelty and brutality.

Witchhunt it is? Maybe you listen again to how I quoted Marcel Reich-Ranicki here:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=151312

Demjanuk was released in Israel by mistake.

It wasn't that he was released by mistake , its that they made serious mistakes in the extradition and trial , they thought they had nazi X when they really had nazi Y

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

It wasn't that he was released by mistake , its that they made serious mistakes in the extradition and trial , they thought they had nazi X when they really had nazi Y

Yes. Nevertheless he was misidentified. If they would have known at the time when the decisions were made whom he was, he would have been in prison, if not being hanged, since long.

In the camps, prisoners who were promoted to ranks of deputy guards often were even more brutal than SS and Lager guards themselves. These so-called "Kapos" were feared, becasue they tried to survive and to escape being degraded again by showing the Nazi-guards what wonderful brutal, determined guards and thugs they were. that way, they hoped to prove their worth as guards to their masters. not all were victims of circumstances, and some of them, due to the inherent flaws of human nature, may have even enjoyed it to be devils - like some Nazi thugs also enjoyed to torture and to kill people for taking satisfaction from the act of torturing and killing itself. Many of these Kapos were indeed Russians, and other Slavic prisoners.

[sunvalleyslim]

John Demjanjuk spent 7 years in prison before authorities found evidence that the Soviets had forged documents, and that he was in fact not Ivan the Terrible. There were 5 eyewitness that stated he was in fact "Ivan" at his trial. The Israeli Courts have said that they would not try Demjanjuk as "another guard at another camp". To do so would "violate fairness and double jeopardy".

Demjanjuk is accused of being a guard at the Flossenberg Camp in Germany where 29,000 inmates died from unsanitary conditions, malnutrition and other atrocities. They are going to have to prove that he was personally responsible for the " death-inducing malnutrition and unsanitary conditions". There are no surviving eyewitnesses

They may have a hard time with this case, but Nazi Hunters are never going to quit until theres no one left alive to hunt.....

[FIREWALL]

When are they going to learn.

" He was shot while trying to escape "

Demjanjuk is accused of being a guard at the Flossenberg Camp in Germany where 29,000 inmates died from unsanitary conditions, malnutrition and other atrocities.

No the main charge relates to his time at Sorbibor not Flossenberg , the big difference being that the latter was just a concentration camp where lots of people died and the other was an actual extermination camp .

[Skybird]

Arived at Munich:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...624243,00.html

(...)
Demjanjuk claims he was a Red Army soldier captured by the Nazis and never harmed anyone. However, German prosecutors say they have documents showing that he served as an SS guard at the death camp.
(...)
Demjanjuk's bid to avoid deportation became increasingly desperate. Dramatic photos last month showed Demjanjuk in apparent pain as he was removed by immigration officials in an early attempt to deport him. However, the US government then released images of him taken only days earlier that showed him walking unaided to his car.
(...)

April 6th, 2009

[SteamWake]

Wonder how much money was wasted in this whole thing...

You can have em, no you cant, yes we can, litigation ad nausieum.

The guy is freakin 89 for cryin out loud. I though for sure he would pass away before this whole ordeal was played out.

If he was an SS-man then wouldn't he have the SS-tattoo? Or had it removed? I have to say though, even though it has been ~65 years, the overall shoddiness of these nazi hunts boggles the mind. Yes, they are working with limited funds and the ex-nazis are hiding in places where they can't be found. It still seems like a bit of mess.

Edit. But just to be sure, if they find him guilty then lock him up. All this age nonsense, they didn't have old age pardons in Auschwitz or any of the nazi camps. Also, many of the people who actually carried out the killings are still with us. People like the average concentration camp guards and former SS-members who maybe only killed one or two people. I say hunt them all down and lock all of them up.

[Skybird]

Poland and Kaczynski going crazy - once again.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...626171,00.html

What's wrong with these people? They find it okay to compare Merkel with Hitler, but are pissed at the EU's latest video documentation on the fall of the wall not focussing "enough" on the Polish Solidarnosc, so they claim. And in this guest comment for a german newspaper, the Polish chief editor of Poland's second-largest daily newspaper (an Axel Springer creation...) is arguing here...

http://www.welt.de/politik/article37...er-Europa.html

... that Turkey is about to convince Germany to attack and occupy Poland again, that Poland's glorious future includes Poland to become the central superpower on the continent while Germany already has lost all sympathy and chances, that Poland claims to be all europe's central energy supply- and power-node (taking all europe as hostage they dream, eh?) and that in 20-30 years, according to Polish authors' seriously meant argumentation, Japan will launch a war against the United States again.

With so massive inferiority complexes, instead of EU membership i think a collective psychotherapy would have served their national health much better. I was arguing in the past to treat them with understanding and to give them time, but there is no end in sight to their endless lamentos and poisenous attacks and unacceptable Nazi provocations, and they make good use of their claimed posture of being the eternally misunderstood most prominent victim of all history - and try to win solid gold from that. It really gets annoying, two generations after the Nazis were kicked in the a$$ with all might. A TV report three weeks ago found that despite the political, official level, the climate between Germans and Poles on a private level also is detoriating, and that anti-germanism is spreading massively throughout Polish society. Until some time ago, inter-personal relations between mmebers of both states were said to be much better.

Actually, Germany is hunting war criminals of the Nazi era, until today. Poland wants that to be limited to German nationals only, hiding that a not small number of people from Eastern countries assisted the Nazis - it violates Poland's claim to be victim exclusively. Just months ago, Austria had a hard time to learn - and accept - by new film documents from the era before Hitler annexed Austria, that Nazism already was extremely popular and celebrated in austrian society and towns and villages - long before the first German parade on Austrian streets took place. they also loved to behave as if Hitler was no Austrian, but German. But Austrian politicians and society had the strength to accept its got it, it seems. What's the prolem with Poland? Statements like in that essay, really document a seriously confused, neurotic mind obsessed with trying to be seen as a victim while dreaming megalomaniac dreams at the same time. If that is not a contradiction.

Finding out this part of history has nothing to do with minimising the responsibility of the Nazi regime for the second world war, the injustice taking place, and the horrible crimes. It all is just about learning a more complete picture. But it seems some do not want that kind of completeness if it forces them to have a critical look at their own past, too. Because the truth is that the Nazi'S found willing allies, cooperating military forces and individual assistants for their crimes in all occupied territories, throughout europe, from Norway to the Balkans, from France to Russia, and many of them were convinced anti-semites themselves, and helped the Nazis for personal convictions.

[kranz]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Poland and Kaczynski going crazy - once again.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...626171,00.html

What's wrong with these people? They find it okay to compare Merkel with Hitler, but are pissed at the EU's latest video documentation on the fall of the wall not focussing "enough" on the Polish Solidarnosc, so they claim. And in this guest comment for a german newspaper, the Polish chief editor of Poland's second-largest daily newspaper (an Axel Springer creation...) is arguing here...

There is a Polish proverb, more or less it goes like this: "you try to be more "popish" than the Pope himself". I'm not surprised of that reaction because the explanation is given in the second sentence of that article. PiS(party of Kaczynski brothers)refers to a certain group of people voting for them so nothing impressive for me here. It works like manipulation or sth like this-your refer to fear of some people to reach your aim. It is like placing big tits on the cover of a newspaper or writing "Polish concentration camps" after it was said hundreds of times that they were not "Polish". Coming back to that EU video-are you sure it was about "the Wall"? I mean I heard that it was generally about the changes of that time not about any particular country though I can't find decent article proving it. And actually it wasn't about not focusing enough on Solidarnosc but about the selection of photos in that footage. It is sth like 5 seconds, first showing general Jaruzelski and it ends with a reenactment of polish militia. It is like saying "sorry" to the czechs by showing them Heidrich and burning Lidice. You get what I mean? Other pictures shown do not match with the idea that goes along with pictures concerning Poland.

Originally Posted by Skybird

With so massive inferiority complexes, instead of EU membership i think a collective psychotherapy would have served their national health much better.

I was too young at that time to vote NO for joining EU but please, electroshock our balls, Herr Doktor.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by kranz

I was too young at that time to vote NO for joining EU but please, electroshock our balls, Herr Doktor.

And you are wondering.

[Highbury]

IMO it is good that they are putting him on trial. I found it rather amusing though that on two different websites they had these very conflicting quotes lol

"All the living Nazi war criminals should know that there can be no mercy for them, regardless of their age," Knobloch said in a statement.

"They must be held accountable for their inhumane actions. Because there is no statute of limitations for crimes against humanity."

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/05/12/...juk/index.html

and:

Ironically, a few years ago, Germany passed a law setting a time limitation on the prosecution of German war criminals. Thus Germans, who were primarily the ones responsible for the death camps, cannot be prosecuted, but individuals from other countries, like Demjanjuk, can!

Source: http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op_ed/41895

Those are both just people's opinions... but is it true that law was passed in Germany?