Are Auschwitz guards guilty for just being there?

jonniebgood1

This has developed in the last few days only. Germany has decided to try and locate former guards at some of the more notorious concentration camps from WWII. The reason behind this is apparently the recent conviction of John Demanjuk based on his membership of the SS rather than a specifically proven crime.

The question then in this thread to start with is whether just being a part of the German war apparatus as a guard is enough to warrant conviction. The charge is summarised as being “part of the machine of destruction.”

The former death camp employees are being pursued under a recent legal theory, sparked by the sentencing in 2011 of John Demjanjuk, a former guard at Sobibor concentration camp. Demjanjuk, convicted of accessory to murder of about 28,000 people who died at the facility based in occupied Poland, was found guilty of being “part of the machine of destruction.”

The precedent gave the authorities an opportunity to bring proceedings against anyone who served in a death camp, even if the investigators cannot prove their direct involvement in the crimes due to a lack of witnesses.

http://rt.com/news/germany-auschwitz-investigation-guards-021/

It seems interesting to me that no specific crime needs to be proved. The counter argument to this is that some of these men were serving their time in the army and had no choice but obey orders from higher ranks than themselves.

Fratton Fred

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

This has developed in the last few days only. Germany has decided to try and locate former guards at some of the more notorious concentration camps from WWII. The reason behind this is apparently the recent conviction of John Demanjuk based on his membership of the SS rather than a specifically proven crime.

The question then in this thread to start with is whether just being a part of the German war apparatus as a guard is enough to warrant conviction. The charge is summarised as being “part of the machine of destruction.” http://rt.com/news/germany-auschwitz-investigation-guards-021/

It seems interesting to me that no specific crime needs to be proved. The counter argument to this is that some of these men were serving their time in the army and had no choice but obey orders from higher ranks than themselves.

Iirc, when the SS shipped out en masse in 1945. They used a considerable number of kids, hastily enlisted into the army from the Hitler youth, so many guards arrested by the allies were only in their mid teens and had been in situ for a number of days. In this case, I would suggest not.

A guard rounding up prisoners and driving them to Dachau though, I'm not so sure. Did they have a choice? Probably not. Could they have done anything to prevent the atrocity? No.

Should they stand trial? I guess the only way to really determine their guilt is to put them in front of a jury, so maybe yes.

Manach

Whatever about the awful behaviour during that period - after WWII there was an intensive de-Nazification by both the Allied and German civil authorities. Unless it can be clearly shown that the guards in question had illegally evaded this process, then there is the issue of double jeopardy. At his stage, might also be more trouble than it is worth given their ages.

Jolly Red Giant

String the fascists up by their bootstraps.

Victor

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

It seems interesting to me that no specific crime needs to be proved.

They were members of a criminal organisation - just like people get convicted of IRA membership.

The counter argument to this is that some of these men were serving their time in the army

The SS wasn't the army. The army had conscripts, the SS had volunteers.

Manach

Victor wrote: »

The SS wasn't the army. The army had conscripts, the SS had volunteers.

Offhand, that was so at the start of the conflict but as the situation deteriorated for the Axis power, conscription was use - I think the German novelist Gunter Grass was inducted into the SS in that way.

clashburke

Victor wrote: »

They were members of a criminal organisation - just like people get convicted of IRA membership.

Neither the SS or the nazi party was illegal in Germany while they were part of it though. They became illegal after the allied victory.

Apart from that guards that were members of the Einsatzgruppen or rounded up/ tortured or executed prisoners are guilty in my view

Peregrinus

It seems to me that, if you're a guard at Auschwitz, you can't but know what is going on there.

And you can't but know that you are a part - an active, co-operating part - of the organisation which is doing that.

So, morally, I think you have a substantial case to answer. You might have an answer, e.g. that you are compelled to do this by fear for yourself or your family if you refuse; that you are young, powerless, defencless; that you are a victim of brainwashing; that you are immature; etc, etc. All that depends on the facts and the circumstances, and on value judgments about how sound these defences actually are. But, the point is, the question of your having to make a defence of this kind wouldn't even arise if the simple fact of your having been a guard at Auschwitz didn't point strongly to the huge moral issue of your having been complicit in an appalling crime.

Now, legally, there are other issues such as double jeopardy, lapse of time, etc. Legally, we'd also have to look at exactly what charge is being brought. Are the former guards being located and charged with active participation in genocide or similar war crimes or crimes against humanity, or are they being charged with lesser matters such as membership of a nazi organisation? The linked article suggests that the charge is going to be "complicity in murder", and my instinct is that, yes, having been a guard at a concentration camp does amount to a prima facie case of complicity in murder. It remains to be seen whether, on the facts, any of the guards will be able to rely on defences such as compulsion.

Snickers Man

Absolutely ****ing ridiculous.

Should any GI who served in Vietnam be liable for prosecution for what happened in My Lai? They were in the same army after all.

Should any British soldier, who served in the Army in 1972 be liable for common cause with the paratrooper thugs who shot unarmed civilians on Bloody Sunday? (Send a snatch squad to arrest Tac Foley now!!!)

If the prevailing international mood changes over the next 30 or 40 years and the British/American invasion of Iraq is seen for the illegal and criminal adventure that it almost certainly was, would people be justified in hunting down octogenarians and nonagenarians who might have served in that conflict and try them for crimes against international law?

I can think of at least one moderator on these boards who would have grounds to be very afraid if that were the case. The defence "But I was a nice guy only doing my job and I was never anywhere near Fallujah" wouldn't wash.

The Demjanjuk case was an abominable show trial which will be the cause of much regret when the implications of the precedent it set become real in years to come. Mark my words.

Even the Israelis refused to have anything to do with it once it was proved he couldn't have been the so-called Ivan the Terrible.

Santa Cruz

Manach wrote: »

Offhand, that was so at the start of the conflict but as the situation deteriorated for the Axis power, conscription was use - I think the German novelist Gunter Grass was inducted into the SS in that way.

The old "I was just following orders" defence was ruled out immediately at Nuremburg.

Manach

Santa Cruz wrote: »

The old "I was just following orders" defence was ruled out immediately at Nuremburg.

On one hand -
Numerous legal jurists have pointed out flaws of Nuremburg : as an example of Victor's justice, or that the Soviet judges were graduates of the 1930s show trials and or that either the theoretical basis of retroactive laws (as per HL Hart) or the concept of an overriding concept of natural law had no firm international basis.

However, to agree with you - having read books on that era by Kerhsaw, Sandberg, Burleigh etc "I was just following orders" does not stack up. Even if one is aware that in cases where there were objections to what had occurred (for moral or religious reasons ) resulted only on the objector being transferred to other units.

Peregrinus

Snickers Man wrote: »

Absolutely ****ing ridiculous.

Should any GI who served in Vietnam be liable for prosecution for what happened in My Lai? They were in the same army after all.

Not a good a parallel. Nobody is suggesting that anybody who served in the German forces should be charged. Nor are they even suggesting that anyone who served in the SS should be charged. The suggestion is simply that anyone who served in a concentration camp should be charged in connection with what was done at that camp while they served.

The appropriate parallel you are looking for would be charging all the US servicemen who participating in the My Lai operation, and I don't see how you could characterise that as "absolutely ****ing ridiculous". In fact 26 of them were charged, though only one was convicted.

Your other attempted parallels are similarly overblown.

jonniebgood1

Peregrinus wrote: »

Not a good a parallel. Nobody is suggesting that anybody who served in the German forces should be charged. Nor are they even suggesting that anyone who served in the SS should be charged. The suggestion is simply that anyone who served in a concentration camp should be charged in connection with what was done at that camp while they served.
......

The SS are already held as a criminal organisation in Germany. Conscripts from the end of the war ware excluded. This was the judgement from the Nuremburg trials.