Posted on 04/19/2019 2:22:19 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
BERLIN (Reuters) - German prosecutors have charged a 92-year-old former concentration camp guard with being an accessory to murder, in what will be one of the last ever cases against Nazi-era war crimes.
Hamburg prosecutors accused the man, identified only as Bruno D., of aiding and abetting 5,230 cases of murder during the almost nine months he spent on duty at a concentration camp watch-tower at the end of World War Two.
According to Die Welt newspaper, which first reported the charges, the man admitted to prosecutors during a voluntary interrogation last year that he had seen people being taken to gas chambers to be murdered.
“What good would it have done for me to leave? They’d just have found somebody else,” he told prosecutors, according to the newspaper.
The case against another nonagenarian former guard at Stutthof, where more than 60,000 people died, was halted last year because the suspect was too infirm to stand trial.
Another, Oskar Groening, known as the “Bookkeeper of Auschwitz” for his job counting cash stolen from people sent to the most notorious of all the regime’s death camps, died last year aged 96 as he waited to begin his sentence.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
That’s true about Finland. That just vanished. My theory is that since the Finns basically went nazi in WWII, nobody much cared anymore after that.
But also Finns are just different. Even their language is a complete oddity in that part of the world. They aren’t Russia, they aren;t scandinavian in the way Norwegians and Swedes are. Finns are something of their own sort.
ANd they are the only ones resisting the islamic horde.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_invasion_of_Ladoga_Karelia
You might want to read about Finland invading all the way to Lake Lagoda and cutting off the northern half of Leningrad. But thankfully Leningrad hung on and those extra nazis weren’t freed up to go elsewhere.
After WW2, they cut a low profile to avoid being invaded and absorbed by the Soviets.
They did not go Nazi. They only fought the Continuation War with the aim of taking back the territory the USSR took from them when the Soviets invaded Finland. Had Finland gone full Nazi they would have advanced into the Soviet Union and helped fully cut off Leningrad. Had they done that Army Group North would have effectively won and been able to be diverted to the attack on Moscow or whatever other target the Germans decided upon.
People argue about this all the time, but the goal of the Continuation War from the Finish perspective seems to have only been to recapture lost territory. They provided their German allies some assistance around Leningrad, but could have done much more. Had they fully committed to helping encircle and choke out Leningrad, the entire war may have turned out differently.
WINNING we have very very Long Memories. Plus we could write.
How about Babi Yar? A lot of Germans and Ukranians should have received death sentences for that atrocity.
The dirty little secret is that Stalin was hoping the Nazis would have wiped Leningrad off of the face the Earth. He was always suspicious of anyone from Leningrad. He deeply resented the fact that during the Siege, the leadership of Leningrad was cut off and acted on their own. After the war, Stalin had many of the heroes of Leningrad killed.
Vasili Blokhin, right? He was not only the main triggerman at Katyn, he also pulled the trigger on all the Old Bolsheviks executed during the Show Trials in 1937-38.
Ironically, he preferred German pistols for his work.
Had that occurred in 1941 the Soviet Union would likely have been defeated. Leningrad was reinforced and ordered to be held at all costs. Maybe beyond 42' it would not have been decisive, but in the original campaign it almost certainly was.
I think you are right about the rest. I've read similar historical accounts that match what you are saying about his disdain for the leadership of Leningrad. Still, had it fallen early enough in 1941 it is very likely the cream of Army Group North could have merged with Army Group Center for Operation Typhoon and taken Moscow.
If the guy was involved in war crimes, his age or the time since he committed the crimes should make no difference. Why should he be given a reprieve just because he had escaped detection for so long? Those who committed serious war crimes should never rest easy.
The one thing that gives me pause is his explanation of how he got into the SS. It strikes me as odd that a teenager with a heart problem managed to get in to the SS, even for concentration camp duty (and presumably not a real Waffen SS unit).
I might be making your argument for you but I don't have trouble believing that. Near the end of the war, the Nazis were so desperate for soldiers that they were pressing teenagers and middle-aged men into service.
‘Well ironically Stalin did have most of the original Bolsheviks killed.’
You’re full of crap, he had ALL of the original Bolsheviks killed [LOL], I think by the early 1930s he did in the last one...at least according to a book that I read.
And the Bolsheviks were young, idealistic, people, and they were absolutely insane, even by Soviet Standards - they actually wanted to impose the ‘commune’ in ‘communist’, and have everyone live in group homes, no privacy - like giant barracks, with their kids taken from them and raised by the state.
Stalin knew how dangerous these people were, and given the timing of things, I suspect every one of them was killed by Stalin [or Lenin] well before their 40th birthday.
The Soviets were never held accountable because the UN and one of our major parties are chock full of communists who thought that the USSR were they good guys in the cold war.
I am not sure being assigned watchtower duty qualifies as a war crime by itself. Perhaps if he shot escapees or something beyond guard duty? But just being a tower guard near the end of the war as a teenager. I dunno. I am guessing he is only being prosecuted because there are so few Germans left that can be traced directly to concentration camps.
I might be making your argument for you but I don't have trouble believing that. Near the end of the war, the Nazis were so desperate for soldiers that they were pressing teenagers and middle-aged men into service.
Indeed, and the standards for all units dropped significantly. I am just wondering if a teenager who claims he had heart disease would be allowed in any SS unit - even the SS deaths head concentration camp formations. Even so late in the war when he could have been assigned a civil defense posting if it was prior to the Volksstrums formation. Pressed into service, sure, recruited for an SS unit.....not so sure I believe him.
So yeah, I am arguing that a teenager who did guard tower duty and didn't participate any further isn't much of a war criminal in my book. On the other hand, I am not sure his story is believable either.
Near the end of the war, I’m assuming that they were desperate for anyone who was capable of holding a rifle, hence the use of the Hitler Youth and “Old Guard” as the allies closed in. After they pushed to Russia, men were lost in droves and those who were not were not allowed to retreat (officially). It came down to those with Slavic family lines being admitted to the SS in order to bolster their numbers as well, so exceptions were made.
“” “” The Soviets were never held responsible for their mass starvation, murder, imprisonment and a death count that likely far exceeded what the Nazi’s did. “” “”
I have no idea where it comes from. A great number of Stalinist murderers were prosecuted under Khruschev regime and well into the 1970s. Starting from the higher ups and down the ladder.
If the Nazis had tried some of their own for what they did, one could still say that their regime was never "held responsible" for its actions.
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