from the just-the-bookkeeper-is-no-longer-a-defense dept.
The BBC reports that the 2015 conviction of 95-year-old Oskar Groening, the so-called "bookkeeper of Auschwitz," has been upheld on appeal. Groening's case marks a significant change in prosecution policy, since he was neither a leading Nazi figure who ordered executions, nor did he apparently commit any murders (or other violent acts) directly. Nevertheless, Groening was sentenced last year to four years in prison as an accessory to the murder of 300,000 people:
The verdict overturns a 1969 ruling that being a staff member at Auschwitz was not enough to secure a conviction. Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff said it was the biggest change in years. [...] For decades, thousands of ex-Nazis who took part in the Holocaust escaped conviction. Monday's ruling sets a precedent for pursuing suspects, now in their nineties, accused of serving in death camps.
Last year, when Groening's trial was getting started, the New Yorker ran an extended piece by Elizabeth Kolbert on the history of Nazi trials. She described the "three waves" of prosecutions, where each held different standards of culpability. The first were the prominent public trials at Nuremberg: "The initial phase was the one scripted for the movies. The villains were demonic, the rhetoric stirring, and at the end came the satisfying snap of the hangman’s noose." The next involved lower ranking Nazis, but a line had to be drawn for prosecutions. As Groening himself said in an interview: “then where would you stop? Wouldn’t you also have to charge the engineer who drove the trains to Auschwitz? And the men who ran the signal boxes?”
Eventually, the standard settled upon in the "second wave" was to merely prosecute those who actually committed murders, and specifically those whose actions went beyond the mere bureaucratic functions of the camps into sadistic or excessive behavior. Reading beyond Kolbert's article, I have learned this standard was partly justified by new psychological research conducted in the 1960s and 1970s, such as the Milgram experiments (whose results were first released around the time of trial of Adolf Eichmann) and the Stanford Prison Experiment. The first experiment claimed that most ordinary volunteers were willing to convey apparently lethal shocks to an unseen (but heard) participant in a "learning" exercise (actually an actor), merely because it was the given experimental protocol. The latter involved a wide variety of spontaneous bullying, intimidation, and even sadistic behavior that emerged in ordinary participants who were randomly divided to be "guards" and "prisoners" in a simulated "prison"; the experiment was designed to continue for 14 days but was abruptly shut down after 6 days because of ethical concerns about the level of abuse that was occurring. (Interestingly, dramatized versions of both of these experiments were released as films in the past year: Experimenter and The Stanford Prison Experiment .)
[Continues...]
But in recent years, the "just following orders" defense has been called into question as the "third wave" of prosecutions have begun. (Milgram's experiments, too, have been subject to renewed debate about their meaning.) Groening's prosecution was relatively easy, since he has been forthcoming about his role in the camps for decades. He felt a sense of duty to debunk "Holocaust denier" propaganda, to speak out against Neo-Nazis, and to tell the story of the horrors of the camps, writing a memoir and giving extended interviews to the BBC and Der Spiegel in 2003-2005. At the time, Groening had nothing to fear from the "second wave" standards of prosecution, but now his conviction represents another turning point in Nazi trials.
Beyond the descriptions of the trials, Kolbert's New Yorker article contains a great deal about her great-grandmother who died in the camps, whom Kolbert decided to memorialize in a Stolperstein, a small stone installed in memory of Holocaust victims into the sidewalks or streets in many European cities. She muses in her conclusion on whether these trials of nonagenarians are actually "justice" or something else:
There was never going to be justice for the Holocaust, or a reckoning with its enormity. The Stolpersteine, in a way, acknowledge this. They don’t presume to do too much. That is perhaps why they work. And perhaps the Gröning case and any others that may follow should be approached in a similar spirit. They should be regarded less as trials than as ceremonies—another kind of public art on the theme of its inadequacy.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @10:03AM
Convict every TSA agent of rape.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @10:17PM
Sexual assault.
If a person is obviously no threat why do they stick their hands down their pants?
The American constitution specifically disallows this.
Passing through a border is not justification for a full body grope.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @02:14AM
I get groped every time I go to an airport, roughly 8 times a year. It's never rape or sexual assault. If it is then every Doctor should be in jail for far longer. Every TSA agent has been more annoyed at extra work to do rather than gleeful of a pair of balls to touch.
The crazy obsession with sex in USA really needs to end. Being naked has nothing to do with sex. Getting randomly touched anywhere on your body doesn't have anything to do with sex. Intent matters. If people are so scared and emotionally traumatized by the sight of a nipple or a quick brush of a body part then they need serious mental help before they should go out in public again, should sue their parents for child abuse, and be required to take parenting lessons before being allowed to keep their kids.
I do agree TSA should be removed, but to call what they do rape or sexual assault is complete bullshit. Grow up.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday November 30 2016, @04:44AM
I get groped every time I go to an airport
A friend of mine gets groped every time she goes to work at the Pink Pussycat. Hey, it's a living, the hours are flexible, and you can make a lot on tips.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @11:38AM
A doctor who gets caught non-consensually groping people does go to jail. Maybe they forget to teach you that part, but the lack of consent is what makes in sexual assault.
Now, some people would likely try to claim that traveling is "implied consent", conveniently forgetting to mention that "implied consent" is just another term for "she was wearing a short skirt".
(Score: 2, Insightful) by TheRaven on Tuesday November 29 2016, @10:40AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @11:53AM
Milgram himself replicated the experiment numerous times, in many different populations, with groups of differing backgrounds. It is still robust (in hands of other researchers) nearly fifty years later. And even today, people are still extending that result; just last week I read about a study in which intrepid experimenters asked whether people might administer electric shocks to robots, under similar circumstances. (Answer: yes.)
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-crisis-in-social-psychology-that-isnt [newyorker.com]
Can we have a -1 is completely ignorant mod?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @01:34PM
Nope, you have to read the paper. There they say it wasn't actually a replication, instead they assumed the original results were correct (or something).
https://books.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-64-1-1.pdf [apa.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:41PM
No, you'd have to read something more than the opening paragraph.
While I'm not quite finished yet, the paper explained why ethically the experiment cannot be exactly replicated anymore, why there are variations, and exactly why the 150 volt cutoff was used, and in fact was arguing in part why that should be the standard. Equivalently, it would be like claiming results obtained from a study that went to 800 volts instead of 450 were somehow invalid since they didn't recreate the experiment exactly. What a disingenuous interpretation.
In my replication of Milgram’s research, I took several additional steps to ensure the welfare of participants. First, I used a two-step screening process for potential participants to exclude any individual who might have a negative reaction to the experience. Second, participants were told at least three times (twice in writing) that they could withdraw from the study at any time and still receive their $50 for participation. Third, like Milgram, I had the experimenter administer a sample shock to the participants (with their consent) so they could see that the generator was real and could obtain some idea of what the shock felt like. However, a very mild 15-volt shock was administered rather than the 45-volt shock Milgram gave his participants. Fourth, I allowed virtually no time to elapse between ending the session and informing participants that the learner had received no shocks. Within a few seconds of the study’s end, the learner entered the room to reassure the participant that he was fine. Fifth, the experimenter who ran the study also was a clinical psychologist who was instructed to end the study immediately if he saw any signs
of excessive stress. In short, I wanted to take every reasonable measure to ensure that the participants were treated in
a humane and ethical manner
Ohmigog! They completely changed the entire nature of the experiment!
Another way to say this is that 79% of the people who continued past 150 volts (26 of 33) went all the way to the end of the shock generator’s range. In short, the 150-volt switch is something of a point of no return. Nearly four out of five participants who followed the experimenter’s instructions at this point continued up the shock generator’s range all the way to 450 volts.
How about -1 Reading is Fundamental mod?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @01:37PM
a study in which intrepid experimenters asked whether people might administer electric shocks to robots, under similar circumstances.
So we know people will shock humans just because it appears to be expected of them. But maybe, just maybe, the thought of zapping a robot instead of a human would make them stop and think?
(Answer: yes.)
I'm not saying it's worthless to do that experiment and know for sure, but man is that an unsurprising outcome.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @08:03PM
A terrible year? The social sciences have had a terrible existence, and an awful, draconian influence on politics (How many times has censorship been proposed because of what some laughably flawed social science study said?). Trying to measure the subjective without provably reliable ways of actually doing so and then simply making assumptions about what is happening is a serious problem with the social sciences. Awful replication rates and lack of consensus about many theories are also serious issues. The only defense I hear is 'But the social sciences are harder to do right, so drop your standards!', which is a pathetic argument that doesn't even qualify as a defense; we should not drop our standards simply because doing real science is difficult. If there is no reliable way to find out X, then my position on X will remain neutral until someone proves something one way or the other; shoddy evidence is not acceptable.
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:42PM
First of all, it was Nuremberg that set the initial precedent that 'just following orders' wasn't a valid defence.
I don't know if it set the "initial precedent," since there are cases going back centuries where "just following orders" was rejected as a defense. But, yes, the Nuremberg trials did establish that -- however, when it came to prosecuting former Nazis, that argument was ONLY applied to high-ranking officials and those in command. For many decades, there were repeated German court rulings that if you were just a soldier at Auschwitz "doing your duty," you couldn't be tried for murder, let alone a case like this one where the guy wasn't even directly involved in the process of taking people to the gas chambers or whatever. Unless you were a high-ranking official or went out of your way to murder someone specific not under direct orders (and they could prove that you murdered someone, which is difficult when most potential witnesses were exterminated), it was difficult to convict former Nazis. The New Yorker article explains this in a little more detail.
Second, the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Experiment have so far failed the reproducibility test:
False. There have been replications that have refined the conclusions of both experiments, but there have been replications in both cases that show similar behaviors of subjects. Mostly they haven't been done again exactly the same way out of ethical concerns for the subjects. The study that perhaps most claimed to revise the previous ones is this one [wikipedia.org], which challenged the Stanford idea that "falling into roles" was always a natural process, but instead depended somewhat on ethics imposed by leaders. I think we can all agree that such nuances don't play much role in the case of Nazis, since the ethics imposed by the leaders in their case were clear.
It turns out that their 'random' selection of volunteers in the initial trials included a far higher percentage of sociopaths than the general population.
That criticism has been leveled at the Stanford experiment, since it advertised a study on "prison life," rather than a more generic study. Some psychologists claimed this biased the sample.
However, that criticism has NOT been aimed at Milgram, since Milgram's studies are remarkably wide-ranging in their pool of subjects compared to just about any other psychological study. Rather than just using Yale undergrads (which many studies do -- just looking for student volunteers), Milgram sought out community members using a neutral advertisement and placed them in a variety of situations, about 1000 subjects in total over all the variations. And there have been numerous replications by other scientists (perhaps the most infamous where they actually had people shock puppies right in front of them; this study and its results are well-known, but it was never published due to the uproar it created when it was presented at a conference).
But perhaps more to the point in the specific Groening case: while the standard Milgram experiment had roughly 60-65% compliance to administer the maximum shock, in a variation where the subject was only "involved in the process" (e.g., by reading questions to the "learner") and NOT pressing the shock button him/herself, 37 out of the 40 subjects in that variation went all the way to the maximum shock.
Anyhow, this is all neither here nor there. My point in bringing these experiments was not to say they were valid in all their details, but rather to point out that they influenced the way crimes were understood and prosecuted AT THE TIME, whereas the recent prosecutions are a departure from those previous standards.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @08:05PM
Mostly they haven't been done again exactly the same way out of ethical concerns for the subjects.
Which makes it suspect. Also, without a way to prove exactly what is happening in the subjects' brains, the studies will remain suspect.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday November 30 2016, @01:01AM
Which makes it suspect.
Fine -- if you want, believe that the original studies that have not been replicated exactly are suspect. But exactly why does that allow you to doubt subsequent replicated studies that have basically shown the same thing and drawn the same conclusions in similar circumstances?
Also, without a way to prove exactly what is happening in the subjects' brains, the studies will remain suspect.
"Suspect" in what way? The experimenters told people to do bad things, or experimenters put them in situations where they could do bad things; the subjects did them. How does it matter "what is happening in the subjects' brains" when you're looking at parallels to actions in the real world where other people tell people to do bad things? What matters is that the people do bad things; that's the point of the study.
Unless you have evidence that the subjects were deliberately acting disingenuously (which there really isn't evidence of, aside from a few scattered Milgram subjects out of 1000 who guessed that the thing might be fake), what does their brain chemistry matter on the outcome? And if you think a greater number didn't take this stuff seriously, you just need to look at exit interviews of the subjects to see how sincere their performances were (and how many were disturbed by their own behavior, upon reflection).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @11:43AM
I could see pretty good arguments for why someone who does the bookkeeping (likely includes people in, bodies out, amount of gold and jewelry taken, etc) should be convicted, while some drafted soldier who would probably be shot for deserting should not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @12:33PM
You think the Nazis were above shooting book-keepers?
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Tuesday November 29 2016, @07:00PM
In the US reproduction isn't allowed of those experiments due to it being traumatic to the subjects, so we're relying on 50 year old experiments.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @11:01AM
I never trust the judgement of a court that is ok with prosecuting people it has kidnapped in order to put them on trial.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @11:24AM
Except that this one was a trial in Germany, and Oskar Groening was already living in Germany, and thus didn't have to be kidnapped in order to put him on trial.
Or in short: Your comment is completely irrelevant for the case at hand.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:02PM
I never trust the judgement of a court that is ok with prosecuting people it has kidnapped in order to put them on trial.
Can you name a justice system that doesn't fit that description? How would that even work? "Mr. Brown, we have a warrant for your arrest. Please come along quietly; we'd rather not resort to persistent begging."
(I'm not saying it's bad to never trust the judgement of any court, full stop; it's just that making the distinction implies you think there are some courts that don't fail it.)
If the distinction you're trying to make is that legal arrest (that is, those sanctioned by the government on whose behalf the arrest is performed) is magically different from kidnapping, well, if the court is "ok with prosecuting people it has kidnapped in order to put them on trial", that sounds like declaring it legal. (More broadly, I'm skeptical of the idea that legality, i.e. "the government says it's okay", can justify anything that would otherwise be unjust. Holy Godwin, the nazis are right there, being kidnapped and put on trial for acts their governments permitted and encouraged.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:18PM
At least their last resort is persistent begging. Just think how horrible it would be if they wrote a strongly worded letter!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @11:23AM
Poetic justice will be when the ones pursing prosecutions now are held to the same standard should there be any doubts. How they can even say this with a straight face is beyond me. It is very easy to suppose how brave other people should be. Very different when the gun is held to your own head.
And if it is true there, isn't also true for prosecutors who lock people up for life under the flimsiest of circumstances? Or worse, get them executed? Evil wears many different faces, and it isn't that rare for it to be the face of righteousness and serving the greater good. The parallels to now should give most a moment of pause.
Even the "reinterpretation" of the Milgram experiments is a complete joke. Is there anywhere identity politics hasn't taken hold? There's a reason why those that hold the line against evil are called heroes, and a reason why they are so rare.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:55PM
A very dark part of me couldn't help noting that they only started switching to the "we don't care if there's no evidence that you ever did a damn thing, or that they'd kill you if you objected, you *gasp* saw something" approach after they ran out of people that had actually done something worthy of demonizing. IOW, the trials have jack shit to do with justice at this point, and I'm not going to even begin to speculate on what the real point is.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @01:26PM
Oh, I could speculate... vengeance. The power dynamic has changed, and especially today there is a tendency to punish beyond any usefulness or reason. This is not justice. This is barbarism given the sheen of respectability, much like...
There was a vid I can't find at the moment which was discussing traits of Medal of Honour winners (or whatever is the British equivalent. I forget) and large percentage were men who were at a young age head of households. That is they were expected to take responsibility for others. It struck me that the same tendency could easily translate into looking the other way at the horrors of Germany if you thought you were keeping the interests of your fellow German at hand (and also why some Germans opposed Hitler in any way they could).
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday November 29 2016, @01:33PM
I've mentioned this book before on this general topic: "The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering," by Norman G. Finkelstein. The Amazon book review says: "Finkelstein contends that the main danger posed to the memory of Nazism’s victims comes from some of the very people who profess most passionately to defend it. Drawing on a wealth of untapped sources, he exposes the double shakedown of European countries and legitimate Jewish claimants, and concludes that the Holocaust industry has become an outright extortion racket."
You can't keep extorting countries on something that happened 73 years ago without milking it dry. This conviction feels to me like they're milking it dry.
I would further reckon that the author of that work was only allowed to publish it because he's Jewish. Gentiles would have been excoriated, shunned, and excommunicated for saying the same thing, no matter how exhaustive their research was. Walt and Mearsheimer, the fathers of modern international relations theory, were so treated after their book, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy." Thought police are alive and well.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:01PM
"The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy."
I'm familiar with that book. Nothing in it AFAIK is technically wrong. However it can be criticized as a classic example of 1970s propaganda vs 2010s propaganda.
So decades ago if you want to convince extremely high functioning white people you write a, no kidding, FIVE HUNDRED page book full of academic footnotes and evidence.
The way the world rolls today, is one programmer writes an extension for chrome called "the coincidence detector" which wraps the names of known Jewish people with parenthesis, and then you screenshot a snap of the wikipedia neoconservatism entry and every name except the top figureheads like Bush are all, repeat all, in parenthesis. And that meme gets like a 100K converts, just one snapshot pix it all it took not 500 pages. This is an infinitely more effective red pill in the 2010s than a 500 page nonfictional book almost no one with an IQ under 140 is going to read.
I think the idea of Israel is kinda cool and wish them the best of luck in a very abstract theoretical sense, but basically infiltrating my own countries government and replacing my own government with the Israeli Department of State is not cool man, very triggering. The Jews like to complain about having been kicked out of European countries hundreds of times over the past couple centuries but all I can say is it wasn't the locals forcing them to meddle where they simply don't belong and where they can't subvert forever without rather harsh retribution inevitably being handed out historically in dozens of countries for centuries.
Its like that crazy chick who fails in relationships with dozens of guys and idiotically goes around saying that obviously the root cause of the problem is all of male humanity are insane and they all hate her and therefore they all need to fix their problems and any criticism of her is mere meaningless hate to be ignored. Well, I guess that's possible, but its infinitely more likely the chick is the one who's nuts and simply has to be shunned but there's always some idiot like a moth to a flame who has to try her out and inevitably gets burned. That's a couple centuries of middle eastern and euro politics in a nutshell right there.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:40PM
I'm not sure you're thinking of the right book. "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy" was published in 2007. It's recent. It came out around the same time as Jimmy Carter's, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," which sharply criticized Israel's policies toward Palestinians. He was decried as an anti-Semite for that. Yes, Jimmy Carter, the American President who did more for Israel's actual security than any other American president, ever. It turns out he is an anti-Semite. The 11th Commandment doth say, after all, "Thou Shalt Not Criticize Israel."
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:01PM
I should note that that unofficial rule apply to American Jews as well as non-Jews: If an American Jewish person criticizes current Israeli policy in any way, they become "self-hating" rather than "anti-Semitic", but are similarly ignored and punished for their transgression. Oddly, American Jews have less right to criticize Israeli policy than Israeli Jews - Americans have gotten fired from publications for putting the same kinds of arguments into the American press that are commonly published in Ha'aretz.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday November 29 2016, @08:28PM
I fully expect President Trump to add me to The Great Deportation List for reading Al Jazeera reports on actual laws and actions taken by Israel against Palestinians.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday November 29 2016, @06:57PM
Oh yes same book, but old thinking patterns. Writing 500 page academic tomes is OK and I suppose required so poli sci students have something to read, but its not modern way to output propaganda memes in the sense of mein kampf or maos little red book or was cutting edge at that time or whatever.
Kind of like Hillary ran a picture perfect 1976 campaign in 2016. Didn't work out so well, but that doesn't mean its not 2016 today or her strategy wasn't 1976 era.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday November 29 2016, @11:23PM
That makes sense because they're academics. Propaganda is not their purpose. It's a different milieu with different standards of evidence.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @05:10AM
>The Jews like to complain
like
like
like
>meddle
medddddddllllllleeeeeeeee
>where they simply don't belong
beeeelooooooonnnnggggggggg
>where they
theytheytheythey
>can't subvert forever
ssssssssssubvert
s.u.b.v.e.r.t
sub
ve
rt
>without rather harsh retribution
RATHER!
heh rather
rrrrrat her rat her
>inevitably
ssssssin evitably
sininevitably
sssssin
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @11:28AM
Star Trek did it.
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Duet_(episode) [wikia.com]
A filing clerk tries unsuccessfully to confess to war crimes, is released, then gets murdered by a racist.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:12PM
sounds like a WITCH HUNT: 95 years old in 2016.
prosecuted for things done ... 2016-1943=73 (!) years ago?
real justice should be swift!
eye for an eye -VS- the other cheek, eh?
(Score: 2) by Jerry Smith on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:11PM
Swift justice, comparable to shooting people in the back like US police officers sometimes do? Rather not, no.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:29PM
One of the cornerstones of obedience to authority is that the obeyer is an agent of the commander, with the understanding that he will do the bidding of the commander in exchange of being held harmless for his actions.
If individuals are held individually accountable for their own actions, a very critical leadership tool has been compromised.
Not saying if its wrong or right... just saying leaders will have a lot of problems if people start thinking for themselves instead of blindly following orders. A leader's perceived ignorance of the situation will be taken as grounds for justifiable insubordination.
A lot of leaders can't stand that kind of thing.
This is the kind of thing that has gotten me and a helluva lotta other people into trouble with the authorities: Insubordination.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Tuesday November 29 2016, @04:02PM
thats not how it works in the US military. in the US military, soldiers are responsible for their own actions, not their leaders'. in combat, we have "Rules of Engagement" that say when we are legally allowed to fire and kill; stay within the ROE (stuff like self defense is always covered, from there it varies and can rely on leadership's call, but if they give the go-ahead you're good) and you're safe, go outside it and start committing war crimes and you're going to prison. additionally, it is each soldier's responsibility to only follow legal orders, no matter how pointless or stupid or absurd, and their responsibility to disobey illegal orders and report them to a higher commander.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Francis on Tuesday November 29 2016, @04:10PM
Which is why we had the situation at Abu Ghraib never being properly cleared up. The commanders that were supposed to make sure that things like that didn't happen were never properly held to account. Culpability for it extended much higher up the chain of command than was ultimately prosecuted.
And yes, they do have a limitation to legal orders, but how sure are you that you'd know in all cases where the exact line is? Sometimes its quite clear, raping people is clearly illegal, war or no war, but how about dropping bombs. Precisely how close can you drop them to a hospital without it becoming a crime against humanity? And how harsh can you be on the prisoners before it goes from punishment to illegal torture? These are not necessarily black and white issues that can have a line that everybody is going to depend upon.
It also ignores the fact that if you refuse a lawful order, you can wind up court court-martialed. Even if it is an illegal order, you can be court-martialed, but they don't generally do that, but mistakes do happen from time to time.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @07:51PM
And countless POW's who were executed under order. I can't say much, only that a former Iraq solder in the US Army was ordered to execute numerous prisoners right after they surrendered. Not all at once but after misc skirmishes. Anywhere from just a few to a dozen or so. The rational was "We had no prison or prisoner logistics. If we let them go, they just come back with more guys and more guns". Lined up, on their knees screaming crying "no mista! please no!" And one by one he shot them in the head. I suppose they shoulda thought about that before pointing a gun at a grunt I suppose. This was during the initial invasion so it was all up in the air. Though, it haunts him to this day.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:16PM
Apply this to the police at Standing Rock.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:32PM
I always wonder if this will ever come into play against medical researchers who are just producing BS* "to survive". I don't think the attempt to abdicate responsibility like that would really stand up to public scrutiny. That fear is one reason I try to steer clear of healthcare work these days.
*Im just referring to stuff "everyone knows" is going on like the rampant p hacking leading to misinformed doctors. We don't even need to get into the faulty logic at the root of the problem (NHST) or the pointless torture of animals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:42PM
The bleeding edge of biomedical research is messy (complex systems that have many unknown variables) and much of it is done by people in training (graduate students and post-doctoral researchers), so it is difficult to tell the difference between "honest" mistakes/misinterpretations and the dishonest ones. Maybe there should be a "reckless endangerment" of science that has a lower bar than scientific misconduct.
As for the "misinformed doctors", you are overestimating the applicability of basic research articles. If you are talking about clinical studies, then that is the responsibility of the FDA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @09:12PM
Then there should be a disclaimer at the top of nearly every paper saying "this was exploratory, poorly thought out, performed by people who don't really know what they are doing, and is most likely incorrect". Instead you get people acting like once something is published it is almost surely correct, along with some lip service like adding the word "suggests" throughout the paper. Also, the p-hacking is actually taught to people as the way to get papers published.
I sat in all the same classes as the future doctors. I know exactly how misinformed they are, because I was trained to be the same way (which is very misinformed). Also, things like the appeal to FDA/etc responsibility is exactly what I am thinking will not stand. At some point people need to take personal responsibility and (at a minimum) leave that career if they think it is toxic and dangerous. Imo, passing the buck to government agencies like the FDA shouldn't be acceptable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @10:54PM
it is almost surely correct
This is not commonly believed by people in the scientific community and, if it is, it would be limited to the specific experimental context. Pre-clinical studies often do not translate (even if they are reproducible) into clinical practice because animal models are often too different from humans.
Also, the p-hacking is actually taught to people as the way to get papers published.
If you know of examples of this then you should try to report them to funding agencies or the office of research integrity.
I sat in all the same classes as the future doctors. I know exactly how misinformed they are, because I was trained to be the same way (which is very misinformed).
Also, things like the appeal to FDA/etc responsibility is exactly what I am thinking will not stand.
As you just mentioned, medical doctors are not adequately trained in the ability to critically evaluate clinical trials or properly analyse statistics. It is reasonable to defer judgement to the people that specialize in this at the FDA.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by pTamok on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:34PM
I have some disquiet at this.
I don't speak German, was not present at the trial, and have not read the transcripts.
That being said, if the situation is one where one refused to do the job at risk of (possibly severe) punishment, then expecting the powerless to refuse to obey the orders of the powerful is asking a great deal, for a couple of reasons.
First, when you are at the hands of a regime that treats some human beings as lesser or inferior people (Untermensch), and you either see, or know of the treatment being meted out, it is understandable that you might be inhibited from drawing attention to yourself by refusing to do as you are told. This is not the "I was only obeying orders defence", but "I was in fear for my (or my family's) life/health/wellbeing." It's only since WWII and the Nuremberg trials that military codes have accepted the correctness of disobeying unlawful orders (History here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders [wikipedia.org] ).
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_cha_chapter43_rule154 [icrc.org]
However, secondly, although it is correct to disobey unlawful orders, and indeed a requirement - in certain circumstances, that requirement is lessened: if you read Nuremberg principle IV ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_principles#Principle_IV [wikipedia.org] ):
"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."
So the question at issue is whether a moral choice were possible. Moral questions can be hard to answer with generally acceptable answers as people's, and culture's moral compasses can be very different. The German courts have, presumably, decided a moral choice was available.
However, thirdly, the moral judgements of the 21st century may well not be the moral judgements of the mid-twentieth century. Many things have changed since WWII, and we should be careful not to judge people's actions according to our current morality, but in the context of the morality pertaining to that time in which their actions were performed. This is not to argue that genocide was acceptable, but the Nuremberg principles were laid down after WWII had ended in the West. Is it fair to convict someone on the basis of rules made after the actions were performed: retroactive application of laws? Most people think that is not correct. Again, I can only assume the German courts are not applying retroactive laws.
I have little sympathy for genocidal maniacs. But I do wonder what the position might be of someone coerced against his or her better judgement into working in or for an organisation run by genocidal maniacs.
I stress, I do not know the details of this case, but I hope that the German courts are not enabling injustice in order to be seen to make a statement about Nazi genocide.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday November 29 2016, @01:00PM
The Left has been obsessed with morally convicting the American Founding Fathers for slavery as part of their ceaseless ideological struggle. Why would they stop retroactively applying their standards to the past?
This show trial is virtue signalling at its worst. Putting a 95 year old man in a cage for things he did 70 years ago cannot be called justice in any sense of the term. Let us not forget that Israel's stance is that the statute of limitations has expired for war crimes committed in 1945 and earlier. [wikipedia.org]
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @01:44PM
> Let us not forget that Israel's stance is that the statute of limitations has expired for war crimes committed in 1945 and earlier.
The state of Israel is not the arbitrator of morality. Far from it in fact.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:08PM
In fact and theory, yes.
Pragmatically in propaganda and control of the media, government, in this situation, the judicial system, oh yes they are. That's kinda the root cause of the problem.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by meustrus on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:46PM
Israel is the single largest body qualified to weigh in on holocaust prosecutions as it represents most of the victims. One would expect them to want more prosecution than is reasonable even. If you want to prosecute the holocaust more than Israel, you've really gone off the rails.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday November 29 2016, @01:36PM
provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him
One example of hair splitting is a low level laborer has very little moral choice available in that insubordination will merely result in some other poor bastard getting punished by a kangaroo court more than half a century later.
Is it more moral to courageously take the hit, or to cowardly make some other poor bastard take the hit for you?
Remember its a given that your refusal to file accounting paperwork does not in any way affect the outcome of the war or the filing of the paperwork or the death of anyone in a camp, it just means you'll be punished and some other poor bastard will have to file the paperwork for you and take the hit for you of "helping the former regime file paperwork".
There's a classic example of Dr Mudd from the Lincoln assassination who got railroaded because he patched up Lincoln's assassin after he got shot and the public wanted blood so they got it. But morally and ethically Dr Mudd did nothing wrong because some poor bastard in the medical profession was going to bandage up the assassin one way or the other so even if he knowingly helped an assassin its not "really" his fault. If anything its the fault of an entire profession taking the Hippocratic Oath and all that crap.
In summary, if uncivilized people want blood, they'll find a way to get it, but it doesn't mean its right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @04:28AM
(Actually, that line had been used before this episode.)
he patched up Lincoln's assassin after he got shot
To be clear, it was Lincoln who got shot--at least at that point.
Some say that Booth fractured his leg when he jumped from the president's box onto the stage.
More likely, it was due to an incident with a horse, later that night.
Samuel Mudd, MD, being unaware of what had transpired, tended to his patient and set the injured leg.
The doctor was tried and convicted[1] then sent to prison for life[2], having done absolutely nothing to deserve that.
Days later, Booth holed up in a tobacco barn which was set on fire[3] when he refused to come out.
Having been ordered to take Booth alive, a trigger-happy sergeant shot him in the neck anyway, paralyzing him.
Booth was dragged out and died after a few hours.
[1][3] by military men, not civilian authorities.
[2] Mudd was pardoned before 4 years had passed.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by tfried on Tuesday November 29 2016, @01:47PM
I do not know the details of this case, either, but, yes, the ruling court did ponder the question whether Groening had any choice, and they concluded that yes, he did have a real choice. Not for open rebellion, I take it, but e.g. applying for relocation or voicing simple "dissatisfaction" with the job would have been entirely possible all along, without risking any severe personal consequences. Note that his was not a combat position, and he did the job for years.
Now, the decision at hand was by an appeals court, and AFAIU, the question of "did he have any choice" was not central to the appeal. That seems to have focussed more on "did he play any significant role", instead. The appeals court concluded "yes, he did", and upheld the earlier ruling.
(Score: 2, Informative) by pTamok on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:40PM
Just as a point of information, according to the Wikipedia article on Oskar Groening (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Gr%C3%B6ning ), he applied for transfer away from Auschwitz, and was refused.
Gröning claims he went to his boss and told him that he could not work at Auschwitz any more, stating that if the extermination of the Jews is necessary, "then at least it should be done within a certain framework".[3]:138 Gröning claims that his superior officer denied this request citing a document he had signed before being posted, forcing him to continue his work.[3]:138
and, again, the claim is he also expressed dissatisfaction
... he yet again complained to his superior.[3]:167–168 His boss, an SS-Untersturmführer, listened but reminded him of the pledge that he and his comrades made. Gröning thus returned to work.
I have neither the time, knowledge of German, or of German law, or even of history to look into this in more detail, but my disquiet (which may be entirely unjustified) remains. In any event, thank you for providing some detail on the deliberations of the court and the basis of the failed appeal.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bd on Tuesday November 29 2016, @06:53PM
Sorry for the long post.
Records showed that Gröning actually was transferred to the front after two years,
something that was fairly high-risk in the later stages of the war, especially as an
SS trooper.
It is often said that no one in the SS was ever punished for refusing to kill prisoners,
but rather transferred to non-related posts, making the "I had to follow orders"
defense useless. But actually, his task was not murder, and therefore he arguably
would have been dealt very harsh punishment for not following his "lawful" orders.
He also would not have exactly known what he signed up for before making the
decision to take this assignment due to secrecy.
So he really was in a situation that he did not want to be in and had no way of
going out other than suicide.
It seems to speak for him that, given that choice, he apparently asked for what
amounted to soviet assisted suicide, if he really wanted to be transferred to the
front in 1943.
Since the 1980's, he actually publicly challenged neo-nazi holocaust deniers and
worked as a witness, which is actually fairly uncommon among SS men.
This is also propably the only reason why he was now tried, because it made
him known to the public.
On the other hand, we will never know how much of the story concerning his
disgust at the time about the mass murders was true and how much was changed
in hindsight, seeing that most of that part of the story is solely based on what
he said himself (other than being transferred in the end).
What made me somehow doubt him was the language he used when he
described Auschwitz. He somehow got back into the persona of an SS guard
and used rationalisations and language that makes your stomach turn.
And he actually said that he was not opposed to murder of jews in general,
but just could not cope with the levels of atrocity that happened there. Which
was the reason why he later felt guilt about it.
Somehow, this actually makes him quite believable, as he _was_ from a
right-wing family and indoctrinated from childhood. I would not have believed
him if he said he thought at the time that murdering jews was wrong.
Well, whatever. They should have tried him properly in the 1970's. And should
have tried people more obviously guilty than this guy. There were literally
thousands of them back then.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday November 29 2016, @07:13PM
Well, he did join the SS of his own will. I guess the question is how much he may have know about what was going on when he made that decision.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday November 29 2016, @01:25PM
Among the weak willed, plus or minus some, enough hate turns you into what you hate. People who don't keep an eye on that get pretty F-ed up. The folks attacking senior citizens are now nazis themselves, which is the greater tragedy in that people complaining about X million nazis now have 2X or 3X or some multiple of younger nazis running around.
Might makes right; we won either the german government in the 30s, or WWII, so we can imprison and kill whom ever we want. If you base all your ethics and morals on the fist and the bullet, well, this kind of uncivilized savage behavior is what you get.
The proper response to lack of hope is terrorism. The German people were convinced the Russians would destroy Europe unless they took extreme measures, some against civilians, which would probably be categorized now as terrorism (or war crimes). Likewise part of why post WWII Germany did not end up like Afghanistan or Iraq was people were willing to (apparently temporarily) let the past die. Now it seems the only possible outcome of your life is swinging on the end of a rope with your family destroyed, well, I see no moral or ethical argument against going out shooting, may as well take some of those bastards with you. I don't know how good 90 year old people are at building IEDs, but theres no remaining moral or ethical argument against it. If you want eternal war until your last enemy is dead, well, that sounds fun and patriotic at first glance, but it turns into an eternal bloodbath no matter if its Germany in the 30s, the 10s, or the USA re-enacting Crusades in the middle east.
The proper way to do diplomacy is to never turn the other cheek to assume moral supremacy. Nothing says Christianity quite like turning the other cheek. Damn that Ghandi and MLK for their mostly nonviolent civil disobedience, that is the nuclear option of politics. Of course the few Germans left who aren't overrun by Muslims now are cowardly Satanists, do onto others before they do onto you, do whatever feels good, F all this morals and ethics stuff. On a small scale this means weak little damaged people full of hate endlessly repeating tragedy from the past, if they're gonna punish us we are fully justified in repeating our side and having another pogrom or holocaust, I mean the whole point of never letting the past die is to kill a lot of people to keep past grudges alive. On the large scale in foreign diplomacy this kind of idiocy has always lead to eternal pointless war.
There are judicial issues. Israeli control of the media has slipped pretty bad, and probably isn't coming back, for a variety of technological and cultural reasons, so they kinda have to shoot their load now while they have what little influence they still have. Everyone laughs at the propaganda on CNN or CBS but a rapidly shrinking fraction of the population at least still watches, for now, so they need to act now. The left has vastly overextended itself and is getting pushed rather forcibly back, which frankly is good. Also the globalists have overreached and are getting pushed back and globalist or neocon means basically Israeli for all practical purposes. Essentially the whole topic is Israel is weakening so is making a show of force to appear less weak. Nothing says "failed judicial system" quite as well as a system where individual court cases are tried primarily on international politics and economic forces and the facts of the case be damned someone has to be made to pay. The Jews and Germans of 2010s are doing an excellent job of emulating the kangaroo courts of the nazi 30s and 40s, they're such good little nazis, more devout than the American alt-right in many ways.
Its interesting to compare the whole "roman salute" thing in the USA today vs Germany. In the USA some folks give the "roman salute" because they see a rise in the good aspects of nationalism. Meanwhile in Germany and Israel, they've earned themselves a "roman salute" for emulating and carrying out all the bad weak parts of nazi beliefs. Its an interesting contrast. In the USA to be a nazi or white nationalist in 2016 means to hold the revolutionary and heretical belief that maybe being anti-white or anti-male is a bad idea, which violates uncountable left wing religious beliefs but doesn't hurt anyone. In Germany to be a nazi in 2016 means to emulate all the bad parts of the good ole days of the 30s.
Those Germans (and admittedly its mostly Israelis doing this stuff) in 2016 have turned into such good little nazis, they're not doing anything wrong, I'm sure they'd say they're just following orders.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @01:46PM
> Among the weak willed, plus or minus some, enough hate turns you into what you hate.
Written without a hint of irony.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @01:47PM
Judge the post, not the poster.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:15PM
The funniest part of the whole exchange is AC #1 doesn't realize that unless he's really, really careful in his hatred of the right, he's going to end up red pilled and hanging out on /pol/, merely a matter of when, not if.
The winds of history will not change direction merely by anonymously pissing into them. Or, ironically taking it full circle, consider /pol/ ? Of course /pol/ might be more of an example of a million NEETs doing meme magic and that clearly pragmatically works, rationalized or ritualized don't matter much if it works.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:20PM
http://www.pierretristam.com/Bobst/library/wf-200.htm [pierretristam.com]
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/32514139/ns/us_news-military/t/calley-apologizes-role-my-lai-massacre/ [nbcnews.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @04:58AM
http://www.google.com/search?q=My.Lai+Son.Thang+Thanh.Phong+Son.My+Binh.Hoa [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:42PM
Nazi nonsense aside, this is a step in the right direction to combat the surveillance state. In the past, whenever one of those mass-surveillance programs got leaked, everyone except maybe some middle-weight scapegoats got away with it. Now, with any luck, we'll start seeing whistle-blowers from the rank-and-file as they're trying to save their own asses from this new liability.
When accountants know the official's signature taking responsibility to everything from budget overruns to illegal programs isn't legally binding, they'll start queuing up for whistle-blower protections. That's when we know we've won.
compiling...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:53PM
Quite the opposite, really. Any potential whistleblowers now have to worry more about being prosecuted themselves. This is a dangerous precedent for justice when everybody with first-hand knowledge of the crime can be committed for it. This will chill whistleblowing. Those with the knowledge to speak out will no longer do so for fear of being prosecuted themselves.
This is a grave day for justice indeed.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:10PM
That's not whistle-blowing. Whistle-blowing is to have the bureaucrats say No as soon as the papers land at their feet and immediately blow the whistle and notify the public what's going on.
What you're talking about is witness immunity. That's part of the prosecutor's office and can still be granted regardless. In fact, by extending liability, it encourages more witnesses to come forwards seeking such an immunity simply over the numerical case that there are more libel people to sue.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:45PM
The bureaucrats are the ones in charge of the wrongdoings. It's the lower level people, the clerks, secretaries, and increasingly the programmers and mathematicians, who are likely to blow the whistle. And witness immunity is a tricky thing. If it isn't offered before the prosecutor even knows what the confession is about, the witness has to trust that they will get it after they have incriminated themselves. Only the strongest moral crusaders will come forward without any existing promises.
Edward Snowden may one day be vindicated for blowing the whistle. Do you want him to then face prosecution for his role in what he himself decried? Because that's what this is about.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday November 29 2016, @07:10PM
The bureaucrats are the ones in charge of the wrongdoings.
Everyone is responsible. Everybody is guilty. From the citizen that isn't protesting or even taking arms to the politician pocketing those fat brown envelopes with all the bureaucrats and functionaries in-between. It's all simply a matter of degree. And the judicial system should acknowledge that.
It's impossible to run a corrupt and immoral system without at least the indifference of it's members. If a soldier can be found accountable for pressing the trigger that kills an unarmed citizen, an accountant can be found responsible for the signing off of provisions and bullets. Similarly, an engineer is responsible for setting up a data center designed to violate privacy. It doesn't mean they'll receive the same punishment, but the precedent needs to be set.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday November 29 2016, @08:49PM
What you're talking about is just punishment for moral wrongdoing. What I am talking about is punitive incentives not to engage in wrongdoing. It's a fine distinction, but I believe that when we allow our sense of justice to focus on just punishment rather than incentives, we fail to do everything we can to keep wrong from being done to begin with.
The practical result of a world in which "an accountant can be found responsible for the signing off of provisions and bullets" is that accountants of strong ethics and character will refuse to participate. But this does not mean the provisions and bullets will not be procured. It just means that somebody with shakier morals will be employed. Persons of strong moral character will find themselves unemployable in virtually any industry, and may even get themselves imprisoned or killed. The net result will be the opposite of your goal: rather than people feeling more compelled to speak out against wrongdoing, those with adequate character will never find themselves in the position to do so.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:23PM
I think you're reaching when you try to connect this judicial decision with surveillance. TFA is about liability for following orders to kill civilians or do them grievous physical harm.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @08:11PM
Conducting mass surveillance on the populace is a serious matter, so the logic should remain the same. I know our courts probably won't see it that way since they despise the Constitution in general, but that's how it should be.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:04PM
War is evil, and even well-meaning people are inevitably caught up in doing unthinkable things to other human beings.
With the Marshall Plan, the US rose above this at the time: Re-building Europe, including West Germany, in hopes of producing a more prosperous future. And it worked!
Prosecuting "war crimes" like this? This is the winners extracting petty revenge, over the course of more than six decades. What possible sense is there in prosecuting a 95 year old enlisted bookkeeper, who was under military discipline and simply following his orders at the time? Especially one who has since worked on behalf of Holocaust victims?
Had the allies lost, the firebombing of Dresden and the nuking of two cities in Japan would have resulted in war crimes prosecutions. Would it be appropriate to prosecute not only the leaders, but the aircrews, and even the aircraft maintenance staff? And to drag this out for sixty years?
Pathetic, just pathetic.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @07:39PM
Yes, the winners write the rules, so the badness and what gets punished are sometimes disconnected.
But while pointing this out, careful with the Bad-O-Meter.
The firebombings in Germany and Japan were an order of magnitude less casualties than the Holocaust.
Also, they were against a foe that had declared war and attacked and would not stop even facing likely defeat.
None of the above acts are good, but downplaying the extreme badness of the Holocaust is the kind of thing that provides what little justification prosecuting a 95 year old has.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday November 30 2016, @12:43AM
I agree with a lot of what you say regarding winners making "rules"... BUT:
This is the winners extracting petty revenge, over the course of more than six decades. What possible sense is there in prosecuting a 95 year old enlisted bookkeeper, who was under military discipline and simply following his orders at the time?
Except these prosecutions are happening in GERMAN courts on GERMAN citizens. To my knowledge, there is no pressure for these prosecutions coming from the U.S. or French or UK governments or whatever. Sure, I'd bet there are Jewish citizens in these countries, and in Germany, who are pushing for them, among other victims, but these prosecutions can hardly be blamed on the "winners" of WWII.
Especially one who has since worked on behalf of Holocaust victims?
I would note that in reading about this case, I came upon at least one Holocaust survivor (and victim of the work of Josef Mengele, no less) who has spoken out with a different opinion about what might constitute "justice" here. From Eva Mozes Kor [itv.com]:
"He has accepted responsibility and admitted his guilt. [...] But I do not think the court has acted properly in sentencing him to four years in jail. It is too late for that kind of sentence. [...] My preference would have been to sentence him to community service by speaking out against neo-Nazis. I would like the court to prove to me, a survivor, how four years in jail will benefit anybody. Groening said in his statements that he was wrong, it never should have happened, and it should never happen again."
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday November 30 2016, @01:22PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:07PM
Probably a bit of both.
Justice:
He was a small fish in a big pond of exceptionally terrible things and was forced to pay a price.
Politics:
At 95, it's nearly the last chance to catch a fish. He got to live a full life and then was forced to be a political pawn.
This seems unlikely to deter other bad folks from doing bad things.
If there is any good from this it is to remind that the Germans did a terrible thing to the Jews, two generations ago.
As a history lesson, it seems more about vengeance, as in teaching one set of kids to do bad things to another set of kids.
It may provide some comfort to the hunters, but the cost of this life long obsession far outweighs.
They may not be able to go any other direction, but they might consider if at this point, it is wise to teach any kids this lesson.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:42PM
It's the mentality of a Middle Eastern culture: hate the other tribe forever, never let it go.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by nukkel on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:49PM
Them Jews sure know how to hold a grudge.
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Tuesday November 29 2016, @07:04PM
The guy was an accountant. If he decided not to count beans he probably would have been shot in the head, and thrown in a ditch. What's next? The nazi bread baker for feeding the troops? The jews for having too much money and funding the Nazis?
(Score: 2) by charon on Tuesday November 29 2016, @07:26PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @10:48PM
Does Godwin's law apply to this discussion?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30 2016, @01:44AM
No,
That law is about applying an irrelevant but powerful reference to make a point.
Hitler was front and center from the start here.