He deserves no more mercy than he showed the elderly under his “care” in the death camp.
Screw him. I hope he lives and dies in pain.
I hope in 50 years, in our global community that we are being pushed towards that Americans who were guards at Abu-Ghraib, Gitmo or Bagwan 10 years ago are not subject to the very same treatment. After lots of war crimes have been alleged at all three sites. It is a political prosecution and done to make a point today against nationalists, not about justice for crimes committed 72 years ago.
As for the guard, an 18 year old following orders is not the same as a 45 year old in a position of power. Any one who went through basic training at 18 can tell you two weeks in that they have inverted all of your home grown morality, replacing it with obedience to authority and loyalty to your group. Killing is no longer a crime, it is something to do at the direction of your leaders, who define the enemy. Yes you are told not to obey illegal orders, but there is no effective path to do this, and if you guess wrong the UCMJ is a very good tool to destroy you. Just ask the enlisted that got shafted at Abu-Ghraid, while the officers who ordered the softening up treatment were let off scott-free.
The Germans had it worse and under their system while you could question an order if you thought it violated the rules of war as printed in your solder book, you had no option but to obey if the officer in charge said “On my authority you are to execute this order.” By German military law that transferred the responsibility to the commander, but required the solder to execute the command.
The time to punish these folks was within 7 years of the war. Folks here are likely unaware of the fact that large numbers of NAZIs were de-Nazified in the period from 1945 to 1952. We are talking older folks who had responsibility, were older and in some cases were fairly high up in the hierarchy. They were for the most part let go and in later years occupied positions of power in the West German government. This includes folks that attended the Wannsee conference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference
If interests page down and see what happened to each of the attendees. Not much in the way of punishment.
Here is another example, this chap was a senior official in the West German government in the 1960s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Oberl%C3%A4nder
do read the above and know when he was de-Nazified it was known what he did. The fact what they could not punish all the people involved, so a lot got a free pass.
he is not a single case, here are a whole bunch, Goodge them if you like:
Now if it was prudent to give such men a pass in the late 1940s and 1950 for political reasons, there is something that stinks in going after a 18 year old soldier in 1942 72 years later. By that time only G-d can judge him, too much time has past for their to be a fair trial.
Not defending or justifying NAZI crimes, just trying to put in perspective the historical background of all of this, which most people do not seem to be aware of.