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German poster campaign launched to find surviving Nazis

Flavour said:
www.bbc.com

Irmgard Furchner: Nazi typist guilty of complicity in 10,500 murders

Irmgard Furchner, 97, who worked for a Nazi commandant, is convicted in Germany.
www.bbc.com

i mean, honestly, does anything think this is a useful trial? a good use of public money? it just seems like scraping the very bottom of the barrel. a 97 year old woman who was a typist at the Stutthof concentration camp when she was 18-19 is tried (in a juvenile court, no less, as she was so young at the time) and given a 2 year suspended sentence for complicity in mass murder.
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There can't be that many of them left now and a suspended sentence seems a bit toothless also.

Severe shoplifting would get you that sort of sentence (so they said on BBC) implying that it should have been a stiffer sentence despite her advanced years.
 
weltweit said:
There can't be that many of them left now and a suspended sentence seems a bit toothless also.

Severe shoplifting would get you that sort of sentence (so they said on BBC) implying that it should have been a stiffer sentence despite her advanced years.
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Oh come on. No one’s putting a 97 year old in jail for something they did 80 years ago.
 
Spymaster said:
Oh come on. No one’s putting a 97 year old in jail for something they did 80 years ago.
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She was 18 at time when she went work in the camp in 1943. The Nazi party came to power in 1933, so for ten of her 18 years she was subject to relentless anti-Jewish propaganda. Tell people that something is so for long enough, and it becomes so. People who were older and more savvy than her went down that rabbit hole.

I was fortunate enough during my time in Germany to be friends with some older German people, to get to know them well enough to be able to ask about the Nazi era. The answers were pretty much the same, it was a time of madness. Initially, there was huge support for Hitler because he restored German pride after the utter humiliation of Versailles. Simplistic, but by the time people were starting to understand what was happening, it was too late. One old lady put it very bluntly 'If I had protested about the treatment of the Jews, I would have been joining them, I had nothing against the Jews, but was not going to risk my own life by speaking out'.

Over many years I've tried and failed to understand what happened in Germany between 1933 and 1945.

In this particular case, I see no point whatsoever in sending a 97 year old woman to prison.
 
As a rule, I've never been a fan of dismissing cases against Nazis just because it was a long time ago. If anything, I'd be in favour of increased severity as the price of getting away with it all those years

But here I'm asking myself -- what choice would a teenage typist have had if it had dawned on her that atrocities were being committed? If she's worthy of punishment, pretty much everyone who lived through those times is equally worthy.
 
ouirdeaux said:
..
But here I'm asking myself -- what choice would a teenage typist have had if it had dawned on her that atrocities were being committed? If she's worthy of punishment, pretty much everyone who lived through those times is equally worthy.
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You have a point of course.

The German civilians of the town next to the Bergen Belsen concentration camp claimed to the liberating forces that they didn't know what was happening at the camp.

Even if that was a lie, what were they supposed to do about it?
 
The only good reason for punishing a 97 year old for something they did when they were 18 would be if it had some kind of useful deterrent effect.

An 18 year old considering getting involved in some kind of war crime in Ukraine right now - you might hope that in the back of their mind is the idea that they might get put on trial for what they are doing... some time after the war, whenever that is. If that's not enough to stop them doing something - is it plausible that the idea they could still be done for it when they are in their 90s going to swing it for them?
 
teuchter there are plenty of reports of torture rape and killing of civilians in Ukraine it doesn't seem like there is any deterrent from that at the moment from anywhere.
 
I'd have sent her to prison, fuck her, she should have spent her last days alone in a cell not seeing any family or friends. She was 18, married an SS officer, and was secretary in a death camp. No apology from her according to the reports either.
 
teuchter said:
is it plausible that the idea they could still be done for it when they are in their 90s going to swing it for them?
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No.

LDC said:
I'd have sent her to prison, fuck her, she should have spent her last days alone in a cell not seeing any family or friends. She was 18, married an SS officer, and was secretary in a death camp. No apology from her according to the reports either.
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She is 97 now, so would have been younger than 18 when she started in 1943. Anyway, I just think it would be a bit of waste of public money imprisoning her.
 
Flavour said:
No.


She is 97 now, so would have been younger than 18 when she started in 1943. Anyway, I just think it would be a bit of waste of public money imprisoning her.
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Yeah, I get why people are against it, but as waste of public money it's pretty far down my list. And what with her being 97 it wouldn't be a waste for very long I expect!
 
teuchter said:
The only good reason for punishing a 97 year old for something they did when they were 18 would be if it had some kind of useful deterrent effect.

An 18 year old considering getting involved in some kind of war crime in Ukraine right now - you might hope that in the back of their mind is the idea that they might get put on trial for what they are doing... some time after the war, whenever that is. If that's not enough to stop them doing something - is it plausible that the idea they could still be done for it when they are in their 90s going to swing it for them?
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I would assume that people do these things assuming that the orthodoxy they serve will continue indefinitely. So a possibility of comeuppance under a very different regime in the distant future would be unlikely to register.
 
ElizabethofYork said:
I'm just wondering how much responsibility people who work in lowly roles should bear.
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Well, it this case it's about the law. And working in a death camp as a secretary broke that, as she knowingly aided in the death of 10,505 people - and likely many more.

ElizabethofYork said:
I'm just wondering how much responsibility people who work in lowly roles should bear.
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And in the case of a secretary in a death camp she bears responsibility for enabling the mass murder of thousands of people irrespective of the law and I'm not interested in allocating percentages.

Given she also married an ex-SS officer after the war I expect she wasn't very regretful, and all her more recent statements haven't countradicted that likelihood.
 
It'd be interesting to see what the crossover is between people who want a 97 year old who clearly poses no threat to anyone and had little or no choice in her teenage actions, imprisoned; and those who argue that Shamima Begum should be welcomed back to Britain with open arms.
 
Hmmm. Not sure your hypocrisy hunting is going to gain too much traction, whichever thread it's on. First off, 'with open arms'? Nobody's said that. But in my case, I was quite unpopular on here a few years ago for posting that I opposed the prosecution of John Demjanjuk.
 
Seems odd that she’s prosecuted now given denazification was abandoned as soon as the Germans could and having been a Nazi was not a barrier to public office in post war German society AFAIK

Not sure if it was different under DDR / FDR, or indeed if there’s been further change since reunification
 
I still think what I thought about the Demjanjuk case fwiw. Does the German state have the moral authority to prosecute Nazis? I don't think it does. And at this distance in time, justice is impossible.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
Hmmm. Not sure your hypocrisy hunting is going to gain too much traction, whichever thread it's on. First off, 'with open arms'? Nobody's said that. But in my case, I was quite unpopular on here a few years ago for posting that I opposed the prosecution of John Demjanjuk.
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Not mentioning individuals and fwiw, both you and LDC have been consistent on both issues as far as I recall. It's a definite hypocisy trap for a certain type of lefty though. Hopefully someone else will bite.
 
Spymaster said:
It'd be interesting to see what the crossover is between people who want a 97 year old who clearly poses no threat to anyone and had little or no choice in her teenage actions, imprisoned; and those who argue that Shamima Begum should be welcomed back to Britain with open arms.
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Why?

Personally, I'm okay with both of them being held accountable for the actions. In both cases, but for different reasons, I don't particularly trust the authorities to do this though.
 
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