German poster campaign launched to find surviving Nazis

[Manter]

It was the refs that i was talking about really, the use that someone who doubted the existence of post-war networks of various types could then follow. I wasn't thinking of Odessa as anything but an escape and short term consolidation plan that other networks could use or filer into. That undoubtedly happened The above is is why plan should not be used to describe this.

sorry, I misunderstood your post. Odessa as a theory is usually used by people who believe there was a shadowy organisation that planned and co-ordinated all the escape routes, had a large funding stream set up (undoubtably a Swiss bank!), an organised leadership structure etc- it seems instead to have been lots of small networks, operating at different times and in different circumstances

 

[ViolentPanda]

There is quite a lot of doubt that Odessa existed as a single global network with the aim to bring about a fourth reich; no doubt at all that thousands of Nazis were helped to escape by a series of organised networks and that there were (and still are) nazis working towards a fourth reich. The beast reawakens is interesting as it is investigative journalism, not history- historians tend to doubt the Odessa theory as it stems from Wiesenthal himself- a genius and moral man inane ways, but also something of a fantasist. Sereny for example, while she did not doubt that nazis were helped to escape by multiple networks, found no evidence for the Odessa overarching, pre planned etc conspiracy- and she spent a lot of time looking

IIRC Perry Biddiscombe, in his book about the Werwolf, mentions that many of the "escape networks" were busked, using the personal contacts of those intending to escape, with civilian and lower Wehrmacht Nazis not having the resources for an "in place" network such as ODESSA.

 

[Manter]

of course the surviving ones should be hunted down. wherever they are and whoever they are. they should never feel that they are safe. and somebody who kills 200 people and throws their bodies in a pit or takes part in illegal experiments on humans, shoots kids and women, without flinching, you think they all just went and led quiet surbuban lives after the war and should be left in peace because they're old. you think that none of them went onto kill after the war, went onto rape after the war, that none of them were involved in activities of illegal nazi groups?

should they fuck. they should never relax. they should always have to look over their shoulder until the end of their worthless lives, they should always be scared that somebody is going to remember them. that somebody knows who they are and is going to find them. they should always go to bed wondering whether today was going to be the day. they should never have peace as long as they live. you don't get a free pass on that shit because you reach your 70th birthday.

imo

spot on!

 

[Sprocket.]

Sorry, but your claims about the German left "in-fighting over minutiae" is Trot-flavoured bollocks.
The KPD could never have worked with the SPD in the much-touted "united front", because the KPD were well-aware that a significant minority of the SPD heirarchy were comprised of people who'd sold the German revolution down the river after WW1, whose organisation was constructed to minimise the power that the membership could exercise over the executive, that was still as full of functionaries, bureaucrats and "party men" in the late '20s and early '30s as it was when it betrayed the revolution.

That was the argument my mate had with Ian Kershaw at Sheffield University, he ended up with a 2.1 for pointing that out.

 

[Manter]

I know. It says so in the OP.
That doesn't mean it can't or won't fulfill that function (which would also allow the Weisenthal Center to move cleanly away from "Nazi-hunting" of the type the man himself was obsessed with once and for all, and concentrate more on modern-day threats without appearing direspectful to the memory of the founder).

Fair enough

Agree on Wiesenthal centre moving on. on the German state though... not so sure. Parts of the EU are having way too much fun putting hitler moustaches on pictures of Merkel...!

 

[ViolentPanda]

some of the archives in Moscow are suggesting there was much less denazification than previously thought (and lots of archives are still under lock and key)- we know lots of nazi interrogators, torturers etc were used by the Stasi and KGB, but it looks like it may have been more widespread than that. We may find out post Putin, but Putin is shutting down access to lots of this stuff again

There's also some suspicion (mostly due to possible shenanigans w/r/t "the Mitrokhin Archive") that the Soviet archives may have been "tinkered" with, where material hasn't been redacted. Always a worry, of course.

 

[frogwoman]

i just can't stand this shit about how if somebody is old it means they aren't a war criminal. The same shit happened with pinochet. "Oh look how old and frail he is, we can't possibly chuck him in jail".

Should have thought of that before he did it then. no sympathy.

 

[Manter]

There's also some suspicion (mostly due to possible shenanigans w/r/t "the Mitrokhin Archive") that the Soviet archives may have been "tinkered" with, where material hasn't been redacted. Always a worry, of course.

yeah, soviet archives are a bit of a nightmare. I looked at some in Kiev for my MA and it was obvious things had been removed- and I wasn't looking at stuff that was *that* sensitive. I imagine there is a lot of stuff we'll never know...

 

[Miss Caphat]

would you say the same about aged child rapists

why would I think child rapists were any worse than Nazis?

 

[frogwoman]

There's no statute of limitations on this stuff. And there should never be any.

 

[Manter]

i just can't stand this shit about how if somebody is old it means they aren't a war criminal. The same shit happened with pinochet. "Oh look how old and frail he is, we can't possibly chuck him in jail".

Should have thought of that before he did it then. no sympathy.

I completely agree. And anyone who drove old men and women into camps where they met inevitable death can't then claim that they deserve compassion because they are old!

 

[ViolentPanda]

That was the argument my mate had with Ian Kershaw at Sheffield University, he ended up with a 2.1 for pointing that out.

It's a tenable argument.

Some people seem to believe that the ideological and historical differences between the KPD and SPD were something along the lines of those between the ILP and the LP, but they weren't. The KPD existed because of the SPD's choice to betray it's own social-democratic principles and any adherence to ideas of either socialism or revolution that it had.
That the SPD tacitly endorsed the "removal" of opposition to the left of the SPD was also hard for the KPD to forget or forgive as well.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I completely agree. And anyone who drove old men and women into camps where they met inevitable death can't then claim that they deserve compassion because they are old!

True. But why would you wish to judge your own actions by their standards?

 

[frogwoman]

why would I think child rapists were any worse than Nazis?

and some sex offenders are also perfectly capable of raping people up until their 90s. of course they should fucking well be locked up.

 

[ViolentPanda]

i just can't stand this shit about how if somebody is old it means they aren't a war criminal. The same shit happened with pinochet. "Oh look how old and frail he is, we can't possibly chuck him in jail".

Should have thought of that before he did it then. no sympathy.

TBF, Pinochet shouldn't have been put in jail.

He should have been stripped naked, smeared with the scent of a bitch in heat, and then locked in a room full of dogs.
After all, what's sauce for the goose...

 

[butchersapron]

True. But why would you wish to judge your own actions by their standards?

What an odd thing to say.

 

[Manter]

True. But why would you wish to judge your own actions by their standards?

The 'but we're better than them' argument? .... we are, we try people, they have the right to a defence, if they are found guilty they will have a chance to appeal, they are imprisoned not killed (er, except if Israel gets hold of them), they are able to see their families etc- I simply don't buy the 'I'm old, afford me compassion I never showed' argument. It means you can do anything and get away with it if you evade justice for long enough.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'm uneasy about this because any judgement would not be coming from their peers. Their peers are mostly dead. Too late, imo.

 

[frogwoman]

We are better than them that's why we want to track them down and punish them, because we think their crimes are worth more than just a shrug of the shoulders and "well he'll be dead soon, and it was a long time ago". Because we think that lining up thousands of innocent people and shooting them, that taking part in an industrial murder factory where thousands, millions of innocent people were gassed, needs to be punished, because we think the victims and their lives were worth something and they do NOT.

they treated their victims like they were nothing better than animals. We wouldn't be any better than them if we treated what they'd done like it was nothing. and just let them get away with it and said "it's OK mate, it was like a long time ago and that"

 

[Treacle Toes]

This poster campaign is just as unpalatable as the anti-immigrant truck driving around encouraging people imagine every foreigner as an illegal immigrant IMO.

 

[DotCommunist]

why would I think child rapists were any worse than Nazis?

I don't see what age has to do with it then. To say 'I was a different person then' and for it to be true, for you to mean it, does not mean that you were a literally a different person then. You did what you did and you must pay for it.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

What an odd thing to say.

That you think they would not show you compassion is not a reason for you not to show compassion.

 

[butchersapron]

That you think they would not show you compassion is not a reason for you not to show compassion.

This is what you said:

True. But why would you wish to judge your own actions by their standards?

Who is judging their own actions by the standards of nazis? They're judging them by their own standards which are, by definition, not nazi.

 

[ViolentPanda]

True. But why would you wish to judge your own actions by their standards?

"Vengeance is mine"?
Pour encourager les autres?

 

[Manter]

I'm uneasy about this because any judgement would not be coming from their peers. Their peers are mostly dead. Too late, imo.

my grandad is still alive. He'd happily serve on any jury to try nazi war criminals. If its about peers, I'm sure we can find enough 90 year old men who saw the aftermath

 

[ViolentPanda]

That you think they would not show you compassion is not a reason for you not to show compassion.

You're at least consistent in your contemptible hippiedom.

 

[frogwoman]

I'm uneasy about this because any judgement would not be coming from their peers. Their peers are mostly dead. Too late, imo.

Their peers resisted them. Their peers fought to the death to stop them. Thousands of people resisted the Nazis, the SS and the collaborators in Germany and elsewhere. Don't make this some cultural relativist shit.

The SS were not conscripts. They wanted to do it and they did it.

Don't let them get away with this.

 

[Pickman's model]

this poster campaign, however well intended, has destroyed my belief in the clinical efficiency of the germans.

 

[Manter]

That you think they would not show you compassion is not a reason for you not to show compassion.

We are showing compassion. We aren't rounding them up, shooting any who resist, herding them onto cattle trucks, transporting them halfway across Europe, locking them up in inhuman conditions, performing experiments on them, herding them into gas chambers... the posters on here (and the Weisenthal foundation) are suggesting that they are given a trial, with access to full judicial process, if sufficient evidence that they committed war crimes can be found.

 

[frogwoman]

We are showing compassion. We aren't rounding them up, shooting any who resist, herding them onto cattle trucks, transporting them halfway across Europe, locking them up in inhuman conditions, performing experiments on them, herding them into gas chambers... the posters on here (and the Weisenthal foundation) are suggesting that they are given a trial, with access to full judicial process, if sufficient evidence that they committed war crimes can be found.

yep.

and even if we showed no compassion to the guilty based on what they had done we would still be better than them.

because our lack of compassion is based on a desire to see them pay, theirs was based on hatred and money.