Posted on 04/29/2016 5:46:09 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
A 94-year-old former SS sergeant admitted in court Friday that he had served as an Auschwitz death camp guard, apologizing to Nazi Holocaust survivors looking on in a German courtroom that even though he was aware Jews were being gassed and their corpses burned, he did nothing to try to stop it.
Reinhold Hanning told the Detmould state court that he had never spoken about his service in Auschwitz from January 1942 to June 1944, even to his family, but wanted to use his trial as an opportunity to set the record straight.
"I want to say that it disturbs me deeply that I was part of such a criminal organization," he said as he sat in a wheelchair, talking with a weak voice into a microphone. "I am ashamed that I saw injustice and never did anything about it and I apologize for my actions. I am very, very sorry."
(Excerpt) Read more at ctvnews.ca ...
And you have proof of this
From a regime that hanged political prisoners with piano wire and used the garrote
In your view they would just be all nice if a soldier refused orders to kill?
“Easy to say from the comfort of your warm house and keyboard.........”
Possibly true although I have meditated on this issue since I was a teenager or younger and I am now 68. I was raised in the old school Catholic tradition and grew up learning about the martyrs. I know I would never deny my faith. The movie, Sophie’s Choice still makes me slightly crazy because of course, the only choice Sophie had was to not choose. I profoundly believe that death is not the worst thing that there is. And I have had loses and pain.
Smart & thoughtful reply. My former neighbor, who moved to the States after WW2, was in the “Hitler Youth” organization...not because he wanted to be, but because if he was not a member things like getting into a university, or getting a good job, was almost impossible.
He despised it, but he wanted to survive, and not bring trouble to his family. If I remember the former German Pope Benedict was a member also.
Being a guard in a watch tower at Auschwitz, would you risk your life in an attempt to desert at the threat of possible execution with the result of never seeing your family again or would you follow orders and maintain your post?
It's not a fair question because neither you nor I nor anyone else here have ever been put into such a position. So who are we to judge?
Any attempt to prosecute him for alleged war crimes does nothing to alleviate the horrors of the death camps and merely serves to keep the wounds open............
He would probably at the age of 94 welcome death. I hope he has made his peace with God.
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