Easy to say from the comfort of your warm house and keyboard.........
Regardless of what side you are on, you fight for your side and follow orders. That's the way every successful military functions and only the loser gets the scrutiny........
If you read his defense, he fought bravely on the front lines until he was wounded and following his recovery, he asked to be sent back. (Just like any proud American soldier would have done). Instead, his request was denied and he was sent to Auschwitz as a guard.........From that point on, everything was out of his control.
There were horrendous atrocities committed in Vietnam by American soldiers on innocent people which were largely ignored. Case in point, William Laws Calley Jr only received three and a half years of house arrest at Ft. Benning following his conviction in 1971........
Calley's conviction was based on first person testimony and evidence, Reinhold Hanning was merely a soldier following orders and there is no evidence whatsoever that he did anything more than man a watchtower in Auschwitz.........
“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.