Trial begins for Oskar Groning the 'book keeper' of Auschwitz

[weltweit]

Trial begins for Oskar Groning the 'book keeper' of Auschwitz
http://www.itv.com/news/2015-04-20/trial-begins-for-the-book-keeper-of-auschwitz/

This might be the last trial relating to concentration camps given that Groning is in his 90s, but only a small number of the more than 6,000 guards at Auschwitz have ever been tried so there are probably others still at large.

This guy was the accountant if you like, he didn't actually operate the gas chambers but he was fully aware of what was going on. It will be interesting to see how the trial progresses, and what the final verdict is.

 

[agricola]

One would imagine IBM will be watching developments with interest.

 

[CNT36]

Trial begins for Oskar Groning the 'book keeper' of Auschwitz
http://www.itv.com/news/2015-04-20/trial-begins-for-the-book-keeper-of-auschwitz/

This might be the last trial relating to concentration camps given that Groning is in his 90s, but only a small number of the more than 6,000 guards at Auschwitz have ever been tried so there are probably others still at large.

This guy was the accountant if you like, he didn't actually operate the gas chambers but he was fully aware of what was going on. It will be interesting to see how the trial progresses, and what the final verdict is.

I thought it was quite brave of several newspapers to advocate that cogs in the machine responsible for atrocities should be punished.

 

[treelover]

This is the man who in the Auschwitz Documentary series admitted to being the accountant there, also stealing, fraud, etc, and thought he was doing the 'honourable' thing by coming forward so the the "holocaust deniers could not say it didn't happen anymore", I thought then ,how is he getting way with this admission?

 

[Pickman's model]

This is the man who in the Auschwitz Documentary series admitted to being the accountant there, also stealing, fraud, etc, and thought he was doing the 'honourable' thing by coming forward so the the "holocaust deniers could not say it didn't happen anymore", I thought then ,how is he getting way with this admission?

he's on trial - he's hardly getting away with his admission is he?

 

[Throbbing Angel]

Does anyone know what the punishment was for a soldier/whatever who walked off the job because they disagreed with what was going on in the camps? I heard something on this story on the radio earlier which mentioned he had asked on three occasions to be transferred to work elsewhere.

I am assuming he is playing the 'I had no choice' card - is he? Were german soldiers punished/executed for walking away?

I should know more about this anyway, serious question, I'm just unaware

 

[treelover]

he's on trial - he's hardly getting away with his admission is he?

The series was made about five years ago, when did the case begin?

 

[Pickman's model]

The series was made about five years ago, when did the case begin?

tell you what,why not engage brain before posting? these cased don't just build themselves you know

 

[bubblesmcgrath]

Does anyone know what the punishment was for a soldier/whatever who walked off the job because they disagreed with what was going on in the camps? I heard something on this story on the radio earlier which mentioned he had asked on three occasions to be transferred to work elsewhere.

I am assuming he is playing the 'I had no choice' card - is he? Were german soldiers punished/executed for walking away?

I should know more about this anyway, serious question, I'm just unaware

This man was apparently SS. .. so....separate from the German army and not your regular soldier.
Standard punishment for desertion and dereliction of duty was execution often times carried out by the SS.

 

[dylanredefined]

It not as si

This man was apparently SS. .. so....separate from the German army and not your regular soldier.
Standard punishment for desertion and dereliction of duty was execution often times carried out by the SS.

It is not as simple as SS evil nazi scum and Wehrmacht honourable soldier. You could end up being drafted to an SS unit and find yourself posted to a camp. You could request a transfer ,though, probably to a combat unit on the eastern front or elsewhere the system was aware some people couldn't handle the camps. The whole point of gassing people was soldiers just couldn't shoot that many anywhere.
Some were true believers ,some liked it,some saw it as a safe job. Lots of reasons to work in the camps none of them give you an excuse.

 

[gosub]

It not as si


It is not as simple as SS evil nazi scum and Wehrmacht honourable soldier. You could end up being drafted to an SS unit and find yourself posted to a camp. You could request a transfer ,though, probably to a combat unit on the eastern front or elsewhere the system was aware some people couldn't handle the camps. The whole point of gassing people was soldiers just couldn't shoot that many anywhere.
Some were true believers ,some liked it,some saw it as a safe job. Lots of reasons to work in the camps none of them give you an excuse.

they could but Heydrich considered it a waste of time and bullets

 

[Throbbing Angel]

This man was apparently SS. .. so....separate from the German army and not your regular soldier.
Standard punishment for desertion and dereliction of duty was execution often times carried out by the SS.

Thanks for that.

 

[weltweit]

One would imagine IBM will be watching developments with interest.

Tell me more about IBM and the camps, I do seem to recall they were involved but don't recall the details.

 

[agricola]

Tell me more about IBM and the camps, I do seem to recall they were involved but don't recall the details.

Edwin Black's superb book explains it all. Basically their German subsidiary, with somewhat murky involvement from the US parent company, provided the solutions (to use the modern term) to conduct the censuses (censii?) in Germany and occupied Europe, sort out Jews, those with a degree of Jewishness and other undesireables under the laws of the time, locate them, and then track them through the death camp system. The parent company then tagged along with the US Army and collected all of its property as the war ended.

 

[BandWagon]

As an aside, I recall that the US car companies had American directors on the boards of their German subsidiaries during the war, and repatriated the profits gained from slave labour working for the German war machine.

 

[bubblesmcgrath]

It not as si


It is not as simple as SS evil nazi scum and Wehrmacht honourable soldier. You could end up being drafted to an SS unit and find yourself posted to a camp. You could request a transfer ,though, probably to a combat unit on the eastern front or elsewhere the system was aware some people couldn't handle the camps. The whole point of gassing people was soldiers just couldn't shoot that many anywhere.
Some were true believers ,some liked it,some saw it as a safe job. Lots of reasons to work in the camps none of them give you an excuse.

Goodness...did I actually say that ???

 

[treelover]

Edwin Black's superb book explains it all. Basically their German subsidiary, with somewhat murky involvement from the US parent company, provided the solutions (to use the modern term) to conduct the censuses (censii?) in Germany and occupied Europe, sort out Jews, those with a degree of Jewishness and other undesireables under the laws of the time, locate them, and then track them through the death camp system. The parent company then tagged along with the US Army and collected all of its property as the war ended.

It does look like an amazing book and tells an incredible but appalling story.

 

[treelover]

As an aside, I recall that the US car companies had American directors on the boards of their German subsidiaries during the war, and repatriated the profits gained from slave labour working for the German war machine.

Right through the war, or until 1941?

 

[treelover]

But IBM's Hollerith punch card technology did exist. Aided by the company's custom-designed and constantly updated Hollerith systems, Hitler was able to automate his persecution of the Jews. Historians have always been amazed at the speed and accuracy with which the Nazis were able to identify and locate European Jewry. Until now, the pieces of this puzzle have never been fully assembled. The fact is, IBM technology was used to organize nearly everything in Germany and then Nazi Europe, from the identification of the Jews in censuses, registrations, and ancestral tracing programs to the running of railroads and organizing of concentration camp slave labor.

Corporate murder.

 

[Manter]

This man was apparently SS. .. so....separate from the German army and not your regular soldier.
Standard punishment for desertion and dereliction of duty was execution often times carried out by the SS.

That's not strictly true. Either about what the SS were or the punishment.

Firstly the SS- they changed over time- towards the end of the war they were a subscription unit just like the Wehrmacht- so you have the Muslim battalion of the SS in Yugoslavia, and the kinder-battalion of the SS as the red army advanced on Berlin. But even earlier in the war it was always a lot more complex and nuanced than the SS being some sort of 'super-unit' distinct from the common soldiers

As for refusing to operate in a particular unit or obey a given order- again, it's complex.
Punishment for desertion was death by firing squad, as it was in most if the armies fighting at that time.
But refusing to operate in the camps was not often categorised as desertion- so you see people being redeployed to the Eastern front (which tbf was often a death sentence) but also plenty being reassigned and it doesn't seem to be a big deal. There are a few famous exceptions- eg the mutiny of the Handschar in France which ended in over 100 being shot- but there are surprising numbers of people who moved between roles. But what that meant varies massively over time and between geographical locations, places in the hierarchy etc

 

[BandWagon]

Right through the war, or until 1941?

I don't recall, it was some time ago that I read it. I do recall that the profits were repatriated after the war.

 

[Manter]

It not as si


It is not as simple as SS evil nazi scum and Wehrmacht honourable soldier. You could end up being drafted to an SS unit and find yourself posted to a camp. You could request a transfer ,though, probably to a combat unit on the eastern front or elsewhere the system was aware some people couldn't handle the camps. The whole point of gassing people was soldiers just couldn't shoot that many anywhere.
Some were true believers ,some liked it,some saw it as a safe job. Lots of reasons to work in the camps none of them give you an excuse.

Again, sort of, but not quite. The documentation on concern for soldier's welfare when faced with mass murder was not from the camps (and it's also worth noting that the camps were quite diverse- from work, punishment, containment, relocation, prisoner d war, reeducation, death etc. Of course the outcome was overwhelmingly death, but that wasn't the intention of a number of the camps, though they changed over time) it was from the Eastern front and those working with the death's head units: it was complaints from the einsatzgruppen that precipitated the development of new methods of mass murder. Similarly the idea of gassing people was initially used as part of the euthanasia programme against genetic undesirables: then, in response to einsatzgruppen complaints they developed mobile gas trucks aimed to alleviate the stress in those divisions. The first static gas chambers (and the explicit development of a final solution after the wannsee conference) weren't opened until 1942- and, chillingly, it was a financial decision, not an ideological or pastoral one. It was considered to be cheapest and most efficient to ship Jews to static sites to be gassed- and so the death camps were born

 

[ViolentPanda]

Does anyone know what the punishment was for a soldier/whatever who walked off the job because they disagreed with what was going on in the camps? I heard something on this story on the radio earlier which mentioned he had asked on three occasions to be transferred to work elsewhere.

I am assuming he is playing the 'I had no choice' card - is he? Were german soldiers punished/executed for walking away?

I should know more about this anyway, serious question, I'm just unaware

The punishment for refusing a lawful order was death - often summary execution by a senior officer. the punishment for desertion was also death, although often commuted to service in a strafbattalion (lowest survival rate of any infantry formation, basically used as cannon fodder).

 

[Throbbing Angel]

The punishment for refusing a lawful order was death - often summary execution by a senior officer. the punishment for desertion was also death, although often commuted to service in a strafbattalion (lowest survival rate of any infantry formation, basically used as cannon fodder).

thanks for that

 

[weltweit]

British Auschwitz survivor preparing to testify at trial of Oskar Groening
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ng.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

When Susan Pollack thinks back to the person standing before her, scanning the lines of girls, stick in his hand, she remembers a tall, confident, charismatic man.

He was handsome, she said, and dashing in his military uniform. The girls all made sure to stand up straight, walk correctly, and pinch their cheeks to give themselves a healthy glow before taking their turn.

Because the man with the stick was Josef Mengele, the high-ranking Nazi known as the “angel of death”.
......

 

[Bakunin]

Guilty.

Sentenced to four years as an accessory to 300,000 counts of murder.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/o...w&hootPostID=a70bdbf5aab16da92010a077b7961486

 

[frogwoman]

good, hope he rots in hell.

 

[extra dry]

I do not know how to think of this, it is important to punish wrong doers but does anyone feel that 'yes we got the nazi bastard'

 

[Pickman's model]

I do not know how to think of this, it is important to punish wrong doers but does anyone feel that 'yes we got the nazi bastard'

yes, we've got the nazi bastard. but it feels like 65 years too late.

 

[Pickman's model]

Guilty.

Sentenced to four years as an accessory to 300,000 counts of murder.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/o...w&hootPostID=a70bdbf5aab16da92010a077b7961486

7' 1" per victim.