Posted on 04/14/2007 8:14:05 AM PDT by Atlantic Bridge
BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) -- A senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party sparked outrage among German Jews and politicians by saying a former colleague and Third Reich military judge was not a Nazi, according to a Reuters report.
Guenther Oettinger, the regional governor of Baden-Wuerttemberg, defended Hans Filbinger, who became a symbol of post-war Germany's failure to face up to the legacy of Hitler's Third Reich, at a memorial service for the politician who died earlier this month.
Filbinger had been head of Baden-Wuerttemburg in the 1960s and 1970s until revelations about sentences he passed as a naval judge in the Nazi era forced him to quit. Oettinger, however, said the lawyer had been an opponent of Nazism, but that like millions of other Germans, he could not escape the regime.
The Central Council of Jews in Germany attacks Oettinger's remarks. Snip.....
Snip.... Filbinger denied any wrongdoing but drew wide condemnation for his part in the execution of a sailor and death sentences he issued in absentia for two others in occupied Norway at the end of World War Two. Snip.....
Filbinger with the German federal president Köhler in 2004
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I know Oettinger, who gave the adress on Filbingers funeral, personally. Since he is a quite adjusted politician I was very astonished that he was representing his really controversial point of view that open. His claim that Filbinger was not guilty of anybodys death is definitly wrong. Everybody knows that Filbinger was executing the will and policy of the nazis with his judgements in the last days of war although he was member in some catholic youth groups (that were forbidden by the nazis) in the 30ties. I do not like deserters either, but it was cold opportunism to kill this boy just one month before Germany surrendered.
This cold opportunism is what Oettinger is defending. This discussion has much more significance to me (and most other Germans) like i.e. the ridicolous "Steinbach-discussion" with Poland (just some "hot air"), since it is really affecting the west German political basement after the war. People like Filbinger recreated Germany, they were conservative literally, they represented right and freedom and... ...they were evil.
Guenter Oettinger
Western Europe Ping!
Western media outlets defend communist judges all the time. European countries and Israel as well do a lot to help them to escape from responsibility. I hate such double standards.
The questions seem rather simple. Was Filbinger a member of the Nazi party or not? If not, then the statement that he was not a Nazi would be true.
As far as executing deserters, the US did so January 31, 1945, just a few weeks before this execution. The sentence itself was not unlawful for the crime charged.
The problem with Filbinger is that he represents the typical German social climber of the 50ties. A former nazi with a "littlebit" blood on his hands, smart and capable. We had much worser cases like Hans Globke, the secretary of the first chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who wrote the commentary to the law "to save the German blood" (from jewish blood) in 1935 and had a close relationship to Eichmann. Adenauer never kicked his a**.
(Sarcasm on) But... ...what would be this world without Wernher von Braun, a SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer that served among others in the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp and even selected prisoners in the KZ Buchenwald for his purposes. The Americans or the Russians would have never got that far in space without the knowlege of such geniuses. (Sarcasm off)
The way we Germans dealt with people like Filbinger says everything about the west German justice after WWII. Personally I would have prefered to see some people hanging on a gallow instead of being a member in the CDU.
Well, if might be true that it was not unlawful. Nevertheless this is not the question. It was lawful in Germany to put somebody into prison over 15 years for consensual sex with a jewish person. Since the jew was no human being for the German officals he was gassed anyway.
The question is if such a judge that represented this legal system deserves a acquittal from a contemporary minister president on his grave or not. I say he does not.
I have not bothered to look at the details of the case as they are are almost invariably the same.
The “guilt” of the individual who served Germany/Nazi regime in WK2 is established using the the late-20thC table of guilt (which refers to the post-Marxist victim set).
This goes like: Nazi Germany was evil. Anyone who did anything anti-Nazi was good. Therefore anyone who did anything against them was evil.
This sums up the whole movement to have deserters declared “innocent” or have their names cleared.
Desertion is desertion. Neither the young conscript doing the deserting, nor the rafts of idiots imposing the “sentence” of “guilty of being evil by aiding the Nazi regime” decades after WK2 were in any position to judge the effect of their small actions on the grand scale.
If you desert your comrades in the face of the enemy they may well die as a result of your actions. If you desert your comrades in the face of the Bolshevik horde many women and children may be raped and killed because they were unable to evacuate West in time - all because the deserter ran away.
Desertion and desertion in the face of the enemy should carry the death sentence. Otherwise, many more deaths, and worse can result. It was the same in all armies - at least until the terminal decline of Western civilization.
Filbinger should not have served a regime which failed to grasp such a basic principle, or used the post-Marxist victim set as its value set. He was right to resign.
The whole erroneous “superior orders” issue (sometimes called “illegal orders”) started at Nuremberg (although actually stemming from the Leipzig trails) is bearing fruit today as evidenced by the various cases of soldiers, sailors and airmen refusing to serve in the Middle East.
Befehl ist Befehl. Know that.
You are correct, Filbinger´s decision to let the deserter die was cold opportunism, and this decision was evil. Do the actions of this completely mislead person (in 1945) justify the hate campaign against him until his death? I don´t know whether Filbinger has regret his behaviour in the Nazi era. Nevertheless he has served the state of Baden-Württemberg very well. I understand this discussion to be rather useless, and probably more interesting for people from the Southwest.
BS. The lawsuit and the excecution took place in Oslo. Far away from any red hordes.
Befehl ist Befehl. Know that.
Yeah. That is what the SS said after the war after they "served" (deathly sarcasm) Germany in Poland with such "wonderful" outcome:
No. Befehl is not just Befehl. We Germans living today have developed our laws away from such barbarism. If you deny a order because of a obviously unlawful basement you are not punished anymore in contemorary Germany. What you demand is exactly what pushed my nation into death and decay. We Germans call that "Kadavergehorsam" (obedience of a rotten cadaver). Only those who stood up against the nazis and denied their orders were heroes. Fighting knowingly for the evil is not honorable.
This is the key question. If you give your blessing to the nazi laws you have to see the resistance as criminal. The officers around Stauffenberg i.e. all denied orders and/or acted against their oath. Our few nazis that are left in Germany still see them as traitors that deserverd death and (thank God!) all others celebrate them as heroes.
Filbingers statement should have been different: "What was right in those days is definitly wrong today."
P.S.
The whole erroneous “superior orders” issue (sometimes called “illegal orders”) started at Nuremberg (although actually stemming from the Leipzig trails) is bearing fruit today as evidenced by the various cases of soldiers, sailors and airmen refusing to serve in the Middle East.
It is indeed funny to me that some Americans are that frightened of (European) ICC justice.
He had not.
Nevertheless he has served the state of Baden-Württemberg very well.
This is indeed true. He was technically a good minister president.
I understand this discussion to be rather useless, and probably more interesting for people from the Southwest.
Nope. The case Filbinger is a example of the resurrection of office-holders of the former 3rd Reich after the war. The notorious secretary Globke still is a burden of the historical image of Konrad Adenauer, although Adenauer was for sure everything else than a nazi.
Fascinating discussion.
...obviously unlawful basement...
foundation.
He was a military judge in the German Navy [least Nazi of all the services], and the case involved a deserter from the German military in time of war, after a court martial. So I disagree with you.
By 1945, the Red Army was on the border of Northern Norway.
If you want “real poets”, try the Croatians. I read somewhere that SS officers complained of the Croatians’ brutality to prisoners.
Recently letters from Adenauer were re-discovered, dated from the 30´s. Adenauer´s brave words against the Nazis give me a feeling of relief, that our Republic´s founder was indeed a honest and honorable person.
The discussion about Filbinger and Oettinger´s remarks is useless to me, because a) there are no Nazis in German governments anymore, b) there haven´t been many Nazis in Germany´s post-war governments and c) they are about to die and we have to look forward. Oettinger´s defense for Filbinger´s behaviour during the Nazi era was wrong, but he shouldn´t “apologize” for it. Filbinger was a Nazi, at least until the end of the war, and not a Nazi opponent. Period.
We (respectively I) have more important tasks than caring about this dead man.
Btw, I recommend to visit documentenarchiv.de - there´re interesting documents of the German history, like the original texts of Nazi laws. You cannot imagine that people supported the end of the Republic in 1933, or the increasing powers for the military in the name of peace in the mid-30´s when you read the texts...
Ever heard of Private Slovik?
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