Demjanjuk Convicted for Role in Nazi Death Camp

Prison guards are members of a military and therefore should be treated as any soldier folowing orders would be.

Bloody hell
Then again Seth, you did just say without realising it that you supported the conviction which you were trying to condemn

[MH]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Bloody hell
Then again Seth, you did just say without realising it that you supported the conviction which you were trying to condemn

Not sure it applies to WW2 standards.
Certainly there is a law of illegal orders which is based partly on principles and partly on common sense.

Not sure it applies to WW2 standards.

The best arguement would be that due to the nature of the crimes the declarations in 1915 would come in even without the war crimes rules of the British tribunal.

[CCIP]

I don't doubt that circumstances may well have weighed heavily on Demjanjuk's choice to enlist rather than share the fate of millions of Soviet POWs executed in the very camps. However no matter how hard, it was still a choice, and one doesn't simply end up in that very specific type of SS unit by circumstances alone. So the fact is, there are repercussions to any choice one consciously makes. And he has to face up to them just like everyone else. A mild prison sentence handed to you at the end of your life is a far cry from what he might've faced if he actually was caught on the spot, and would've still deserved.

Complaints about the supposed inhumanity of the sentence from his family here ring about as empty as Bin Laden's sons' complaints about supposed "disrespect" caused to their family by the treatment of his body.

[MH]

Originally Posted by CCIP

I don't doubt that circumstances may well have weighed heavily on Demjanjuk's choice to enlist rather than share the fate of millions of Soviet POWs executed in the very camps. However no matter how hard, it was still a choice, and one doesn't simply end up in that very specific type of SS unit by circumstances alone. So the fact is, there are repercussions to any choice one consciously makes. And he has to face up to them just like everyone else. A mild prison sentence handed to you at the end of your life is a far cry from what he might've faced if he actually was caught on the spot, and would've still deserved.

That sums it up

[Skybird]

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.

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.

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?

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.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by CCIP

Another important thing to point out is that being a "regular prison guard" or "military prison guard" is grossly inaccurate for camps which, even when not designed to exterminate, contained thousands upon thousands of civilians who did not commit any crimes nor participated in any combat. So even if deaths were not a factor, I would consider being accessory to their imprisonment to be a very severe crime indeed.

Originally Posted by CCIP

I don't doubt that circumstances may well have weighed heavily on Demjanjuk's choice to enlist rather than share the fate of millions of Soviet POWs executed in the very camps. However no matter how hard, it was still a choice, and one doesn't simply end up in that very specific type of SS unit by circumstances alone. So the fact is, there are repercussions to any choice one consciously makes. And he has to face up to them just like everyone else. A mild prison sentence handed to you at the end of your life is a far cry from what he might've faced if he actually was caught on the spot, and would've still deserved.

Very good points. I was kind of wishy washy on my feelings on this when I first heard about this event. You've convinced me.

[Sledgehammer427]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Woran Du glaubst, dafür sollst du leben und sterben.

"What do you think, but you shall live and die."

I hope my translation is up to par

I really have nothing to add that hasn't already been, said, disproved, reproved, or otherwise.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Sledgehammer427

"What do you think, but you shall live and die."

Sorry, no, way off target.

For what you believe in, for that you shall live, and die.

[Bakkels]

"For that which you believe in, you must be prepared to live or die"

Is that more close?
Oh I just see you already put a translation there. Well I got close.

[Penguin]

Originally Posted by CCIP

I don't doubt that circumstances may well have weighed heavily on Demjanjuk's choice to enlist rather than share the fate of millions of Soviet POWs executed in the very camps. However no matter how hard, it was still a choice, and one doesn't simply end up in that very specific type of SS unit by circumstances alone. So the fact is, there are repercussions to any choice one consciously makes. And he has to face up to them just like everyone else.

Well said.
The extraordinary circumstances weighted certainly into the judge's decision as they were the main argument of the defence.
One should not forget that these guards were also victims to a certain degree - following the same logic like many rapists were often previously raped before.
For example, after the beginning of Barbarossa, this official doctrine was ordered: "Nichtarbeitende Kriegsgefangene in den Gefangenenlagern haben zu verhungern." (Non working prisoners of war in the prison camps have to starve.) Ordered by General Eduard Wagner, general quartermaster of the army in October 1941.
An inhumane system creates inhumane people. So often the guards or kapos were even more gruesome and brutal than their German Herrenmenschen superiours. The best known example of victims who victimize their own is certainly the jewish police in the ghettos.

And here comes the part of everybody's own conscience into.
It is your own decision to look sometimes the other way, to hand over a cigarette or just some informations about the outside world. Nobody expects them to be gun-waving Arnolds who free the prisoners on their own. Just these little signs of humanity which I mentioned could make a difference. That's what I mean with the thousands of shades of gray.
Sadly, in reality, it was in most cases more successfull for the prisoners to bribe a guard than to appeal to his conscience. The tales of brutal behaviour of the guards are much frequent than reports of humanity.

Just from a legal point of view, it was officially forbidden to do harm to civilians and POWs for German soldiers, so atrocities would have also been theoretically punishable under the laws of Nazi Germany. However I doubt that the so called "Trawnikis", of which Dumjanjek was a part of, ever got issued any codes of conduct.

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Very good points. I was kind of wishy washy on my feelings on this when I first heard about this event. You've convinced me.

It's the sign of a thinking mind to be able to rethink his own positions and not stick to a prefab opinion!