German poster campaign launched to find surviving Nazis

[Pickman's model]

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

oh dear. oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. i do not know if this reflects your effete and ineffectual liberalism or too many listens to the famous song 'lonely man of spandau'.



either way it does you no credit.

 

[Belushi]

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

It would never have happened under the Fuhrer!

 

[Pickman's model]

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

ffs we gave them enough of a head start

 

[Sprocket.]

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

I had the good fortune to work with a fella back in the 70's who was one of the troops to liberate Bergen Belsen.
He was 22 at the time, he would be 100 now and if still alive I know he would have crawled over broken glass to slot the fuckers.

 

[butchersapron]

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

Peers when? Their peers are people alive now, citizens. Not people who were alive in one period of the accuseds life. Peer doesn't mean people who thought like them and experienced what they did 70 years ago. It means people who are alive now, not old people who are just alive, but people who make up society now. Second odd post.

 

[Pickman's model]

It would never have happened under the Fuhrer!

quite

 

[Pickman's model]

I had the good fortune to work with a fella back in the 70's who was one of the troops to liberate Bergen Belsen.
He was 22 at the time, he would be 100 now and if still alive I know he would have crawled over broken glass to slot the fuckers.

at that advanced age you would have hoped he'd pay more attention to his health and safety than to crawl over broken glass. what's wrong with crawling round it, which might not be quicker but would certainly be quieter and leave less of a trail.

 

[ViolentPanda]

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

This is happening in Germany.
Post-WW2, Germany has a rather excellent criminal justice system that solicits information on a far wider basis than, say, the British or American criminal justice systems, when deciding whether to charge. That means that testimony is solicited from peers as well as from historians and the like. In effect, any accused person will get a markedly better brand of justice than anything the dictatorship's courts promulgated or dispensed, and the quality of evidence will be far higher than the hearsay on which some people were consigned to the likes of the hanging chamber at Plötzensee.

 

[Pickman's model]

I had the good fortune to work with a fella back in the 70's who was one of the troops to liberate Bergen Belsen.
He was 22 at the time, he would be 100 now and if still alive I know he would have crawled over broken glass to slot the fuckers.

if he was 22 in 1945 he was born in 1923. so he'd be 90 today. arithmetick fail.

 

[Manter]

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.

One small caveat- towards the end of the war, there were conscripts to the SS- mainly because it absorbed other units, and on the Eastern Front, (ie other units on eastern front 'became part of' SS units- and some Germans were conscripted to the Eastern Front and by default were dumped in SS units) but that's one of the reasons why due process/investigation is so important. Completely agree with you up to '44 though

 

[butchersapron]

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

Think about this, you're saying they should not be prosecuted because the only people who can judge them are their nazi peers. Who are all dead.

(and i'm not sure this peers stuff is even in german law)

 

[ViolentPanda]

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

The Simon Weisenthal Center is a US-based charity, so you can rest peacefully knowing that your belief is intact.

 

[butchersapron]

Paging johnny cancuk

 

[Pickman's model]

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.

iirc in hans boll's autobiography 'what's to become of the boy' he says something along the lines of a member of every german family had to join a party formation, the sa, ss etc etc. so presumably there were *some* people in the ss (allegemeine as opposed to waffen) who had gone in for other reasons than wanting to gas, shoot or otherwise extinguish jews and other 'anti-social' elements.

 

[Pickman's model]

The Simon Weisenthal Center is a US-based charity, so you can rest peacefully knowing that your belief is intact.

 

[Pickman's model]

Paging johnny cancuk

you mean Johnny Canuck3

 

[Sprocket.]

at that advanced age you would have hoped he'd pay more attention to his health and safety than to crawl over broken glass. what's wrong with crawling round it, which might not be quicker but would certainly be quieter and leave less of a trail.

He always took the shortest route to a conflict.
He was in his late sixties when he was arrested in a punch up with the local NF candidate back in the early eighties, the barmy sod.

 

[Miss Caphat]

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.

hmm? I'm not quite sure you understand my argument.
and also I'm not sure I understand yours...do you mean a child rapist who is in their 90's and actively raping children? If so, that's different. they're clearly a danger to society and should be locked up.

My initial argument was that it could be argued that someone was almost a different person, literally, because of discoveries made about the nature of the human mind.

Also anyone alive now who was a Nazi had to have been very young at the time...early 20's.

as I said,it just strikes me as being a bit too late. it would be a hollow victory. something should have been done years ago. going after some senile old guys doesn't make up for what wasn't done in terms of bringing people to justice and providing closure for the world.

 

[Pickman's model]

hmm? I'm not quite sure you understand my argument.
and also I'm not sure I understand yours...do you mean a child rapist who is in their 90's and actively raping children? If so, that's different. they're clearly a danger to society and should be locked up.

My initial argument was that it could be argued that someone was almost a different person, literally, because of discoveries made about the nature of the human mind.

Also anyone alive now who was a Nazi had to have been very young at the time...early 20's.

as I said,it just strikes me as being a bit too late. it would be a hollow victory. something should have been done years ago. going after some senile old guys doesn't make up for what wasn't done in terms of bringing people to justice and providing closure for the world.

i'm glad you agree it's a victory.

 

[Sprocket.]

if he was 22 in 1945 he was born in 1923. so he'd be 90 today. arithmetick fail.

No key fail, he was born in 1913 and was 32! sorry.

 

[Manter]

iirc in hans boll's autobiography 'what's to become of the boy' he says something along the lines of a member of every german family had to join a party formation, the sa, ss etc etc. so presumably there were *some* people in the ss (allegemeine as opposed to waffen) who had gone in for other reasons than wanting to gas, shoot or otherwise extinguish jews and other 'anti-social' elements.

there may have been, but you had to jump through a fair few hoops to join- proof of background, racial purity etc- so I don't think anyone casually joined. Though, because this period of history is an interestingly murky one, it may be more complicated than that.... SS racial purity laws seem to have been ignored at times- certainly later, during the war when they just needed as many psychopaths as possible, but even early on, there are loads of marriage applications that don't have completed paperwork behind them so were *technically* illegal- no idea how much that spread into initial membership applications though.

which is a long winded way of saying dunno but doubt the SS was where casual followers on ended up

 

[Ted Striker]

For you, ze inocontinence und amnesia in ze ol volks home is over

 

[Miss Caphat]

i'm glad you agree it's a victory.

I don't actually.
whatever floats your boat though, I guess.

 

[Pickman's model]

I don't actually.
whatever floats your boat though, I guess.

oh dear. you seemed to a minute ago:

it would be a hollow victory.

 

[ViolentPanda]

iirc in hans boll's autobiography 'what's to become of the boy' he says something along the lines of a member of every german family had to join a party formation, the sa, ss etc etc. so presumably there were *some* people in the ss (allegemeine as opposed to waffen) who had gone in for other reasons than wanting to gas, shoot or otherwise extinguish jews and other 'anti-social' elements.

Lots of the police, for example, joined before membership of the SS became compulsory/a fait accomplit after Himmler's subsumption of all policing powers to the Reichsfuehrer SS. They did so because, like NSDAP membership before it, it was a boost to chances of promotion, whether they agreed with Nazi ideology and practices or not.

 

[Pickman's model]

Lots of the police, for example, joined before membership of the SS became compulsory/a fait accomplit after Himmler's subsumption of all policing powers to the Reichsfuehrer SS. They did so because, like NSDAP membership before it, it was a boost to chances of promotion, whether they agreed with Nazi ideology and practices or not.

yeh. but acab.

 

[Manter]

as I said,it just strikes me as being a bit too late. it would be a hollow victory. something should have been done years ago. going after some senile old guys doesn't make up for what wasn't done in terms of bringing people to justice and providing closure for the world.

if they're senile, they won't stand trial as will be considered unfit under German law.

Its not ideal, I grant you- they should have been dealt with decades ago. But I agree with @Frogwoman- there is no statute of limitations on crimes against humanity, and they should never reach a point when they have 'got away with it' just because they have managed to live a certain number of years without coming to court.

 

[ViolentPanda]

For you, ze inocontinence und amnesia in ze ol volks home is over

It is nappies and Nintendo mind games in Stammheim for you!

 

[littlebabyjesus]

as I said,it just strikes me as being a bit too late. it would be a hollow victory. something should have been done years ago. going after some senile old guys doesn't make up for what wasn't done in terms of bringing people to justice and providing closure for the world.

Yep, agree with this. There are also massive practical difficulties with any prosecution at such a distance of time.

 

[Miss Caphat]

oh dear. you seemed to a minute ago:

oh dear. you seem to not understand that when you put an adjective in front of a noun sometimes it
alters the noun's meaning.
this isn't a fucking competition.
some people believe this is closure. I don't. we can agree to disagree.