Former SS Auschwitz guard apologizes at trial

The Associated Press ^ | April 29, 2016 | David Rising

[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."

[Ouderkirk]

In this case or any other of a specific individual who worked in these places. Just what would anyone expect them to do about what they saw?

One guy says “no I won’t do it” and they would kill him immediately as a warning to the others.

There wasn’t any “transfer out” for whatever objections he may have held personally. Do what you are told or we will execute you too.

Sabotage the process....really? How did that work out for Colonel von Stauffenberg?

The machine had it’s own inertia and we, in the here and now, simply cannot imagine the circumstances of these individuals. The pressure to perform, or die. However in this case this guy probably was a willing participant. As a Sergent he had rank and was in a position to give orders, and ensure that the orders of others was completed as directed.

By the same token, what are you going to do about it now? He’s 94 years old....in a semantic sense how do you punish him, he has already lived a full life, and outlived many if not all of his compatriots. He’s the same age as my father would have been, except he’s been dead for 20 years.

[Lera]

[[America is headed in the same direction as Germany before WWII. Except in this case, White People (not the Jews) are the cause of all the world’s problems.]]

Believe me what the left is fermenting in America will turn on America’s Jewish population .

All you have to do is look at who the left is lining itself with to see that they are doing exactly what they did in Nazi Germany . Leftist + Islam is a very dangerous combination that always ends up turning on the Jews.

[Sans-Culotte]

[Gamecock]

Albert Speer gets 20 years and they are going after an old man who was a guard brainwashed by the Reich?

[Romulus]

For what? For being a powerless kid in the wrong place? We kill people for that now?

[No_More_Harkin]

Hmm.. yes that seems to be the historians universal belief. Since I don't have proof to the contrary I would tend to believe that is most likely the case. Saying "No" German personnel is far too cut a dry for the simple fact no one person knows every case. I did find this:
However, officers such as Hornig were imprisoned, beaten, stripped of rank and prestige and threatened with death for their impertinence. Hornig, a staunch Catholic, actually ended up in a Jewish concentration camp with those he did not kill.

[Romulus]

This thread stinks of moral vanity.

[Fiddlstix]

.....Liberals love the rationale because it opens up a whole travel agency’s worth of guilt trips they can send people on.

Well Said!

[treetopsandroofs]

Right, and the president is just really incompetent.

[originalbuckeye]

I am reminded of the last Seinfeld episode........

[Coffee... Black... No Sugar]

I appreciate this forward-looking post. It is grim, and perhaps very very early, but without affirmative measures ...

[jalisco555]

I’m not familiar with the Hornig story. Did he simply say no or do something to actively impede the killing?

[crz]

What this man did openly, and now admits to, is far more than that nazi bastard Soros has ever done.

What do you do to a man who is admitted to his atrocity compared to a man who has not yet, but is continues on his path of detruction?

WHY has Soros not yet been charged with crimes against humanity?

[cotton]

Somehow I am reminded of Corri Ten Boom.(spelling error) After the war she met one former guard. She forgave him.

[Sirius Lee]

And how far do we want to go with “inaction” crimes?

He wasn't inactive. He was a willing part of the Nazi machine. His job was to shoot unarmed Jews if they tried to flee. Stop making excuses for this piece of Nazi filth. Hang him. Hang him now.

[Sirius Lee]

When do start trying all the Gulag guards and Stasi from the communist empire?

The sooner the better.

[Sirius Lee]

For what? For being a powerless kid in the wrong place? We kill people for that now?

Tell me how powerless this Nazi was whose job was to shoot and kill unarmed Jews if they tried to flee death. Stop making excuses for this Nazi piece of filth. Hang him. Hang him now.

[Starstruck]

What could a mere soldier, under orders from his superiors in the Nazi regime, do about it?

It will be bad precedent for the military when enlisted men have to make decisions about whether orders are lawful.

[Gamecock]

See my 44

[RummyChick]

I don’t justify what they did..but I am reminded it of when our soldiers face court martial for trying to save women and boys who are beaten and raped and stoned. It disgusts me that they have to allow a boys to be chained to beds, tortured, and raped