German court convicts 93-year old man for Nazi crimes

[stevenl]

1 hour ago, JustAnotherHun said:

Agree. Most Germans knew at least roughly what was going on, even those living in rural aeras.

 

But what does that mean? Were all of them guilty because they knew and did not uprise? Who of us members of lucky generations can seriously claim he would have resisted the Nazi regime and it's deadly minions?

No, not at all. I don't even know how I would have reacted myself if, in that time, I would have been told to man a watchtower there.

 

I was just reacting to someone making the claim most Germans didn't know.

[Logosone]

29 minutes ago, JustAnotherHun said:

The majority may not have known exactly what was going on but no one could not have realized the sudden vanishing of his jewish neighbor. The jewish life in Germany was rich at that time. No city, no town without jewish communities.

The HC was a huge industrial complex with trains full of prisoners crossing the whole country and a complete infrastructure. There were also hundreds of thousands German troops in the east covering SS-units with "special orders". They saw what happened to the polish and russian jews.

Only who did not want to know did not know.

 

Sure, after the defeat, no one knew nothing about anything. It was much easier than to confess "yes, I knew about the crimes but i was not strong enough to stand up against it. I just tried to keep my own hands as clean as possible."

 

For a start Jews were a tiny minority in Germany at the time, 0.75% of the population. There were only 400,000-500,000 in Germany at the time.

 

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/germany-jewish-population-in-1933

 

There would have been plenty of towns without a large Jewish community. And even in cities and towns with Jewish communities most people would not have had a jewish neighbour.

 

Of course the perpetrators and some soldiers would have known, but even among the Wehrmacht 99.89% of men were not involved with the killing of jews. Those that would have seen it would have been unlikely to make a big deal about it. Trains of prisoners were common then, how would a German grandmother have known who was in the trains?

 

Most people in Germany did not know.

Edited July 24, 2020 by Logosone

[Logosone]

17 minutes ago, stevenl said:

I was just reacting to someone making the claim most Germans didn't know.

Forget that, you also claimed that more than 99%.89 percent of the Wehrmacht were involved in holocaust killings, even though only 20,000 Germans were convicted in the courts.

 

But you have not provided anything to substantiate that claim. 

 

Fact is 20,000 Germans were convicted in the courts.

 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/historian-examines-germanys-minute-number-of-convictions-for-nazi-war-crimes/

 

Fact is 18 million men served in the Wehrmacht. 20,000 from 18 million is less than 0.11%.

Edited July 24, 2020 by Logosone

[stevenl]

5 minutes ago, Logosone said:

Forget that, you also claimed that more than 99%.89 percent of the Wehrmacht were involved in holocaust killings, even though only 20,000 Germans were convicted in the courts.

 

But you have not provided anything to substantiate that claim. 

 

Fact is 20,000 Germans were convicted in the courts.

 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/historian-examines-germanys-minute-number-of-convictions-for-nazi-war-crimes/

 

Fact is 18 million men served in the Wehrmacht. 20,000 from 18 million is less than 0.11%.

No, I did not make that claim, I made 2 posts, first one correcting your wrong assertion and wrong use of stats.

 

The latter you're doing again in this post.

Edited July 24, 2020 by stevenl

[Logosone]

So you think more than 0.11% of the Wehrmacht were involved in war crimes? If so what is your basis

for this?

 

Given that 20,000 were convicted of war crimes and 18 million served in the Wehrmacht.

Edited July 24, 2020 by Logosone

[stevenl]

15 minutes ago, Logosone said:

So you think more than 0.11% of the Wehrmacht were involved in war crimes? If so what is your basis

for this?

 

Given that 20,000 were convicted of war crimes and 18 million served in the Wehrmacht.

Please don't put words in my mouth.

 

You know already I didn't make that claim?

[GinBoy2]

2 hours ago, stevenl said:

No, not at all. I don't even know how I would have reacted myself if, in that time, I would have been told to man a watchtower there.

 

I was just reacting to someone making the claim most Germans didn't know.

Well that is very true, most Germans knew the front end of the process, the deportations, and were perfectly happy to profit from the confiscation of property. What they didn't know was that final part in the death camps.

 

A rather under reported part of the elimination of European Jews was that millions were just shot to death. The death camps were as much a process of trying to save SS officers from the emotional trauma of so much up close and personal murder 

[stevenl]

4 minutes ago, GinBoy2 said:

Well that is very true, most Germans knew the front end of the process, the deportations, and were perfectly happy to profit from the confiscation of property. What they didn't know was that final part in the death camps.

 

A rather under reported part of the elimination of European Jews was that millions were just shot to death. The death camps were as much a process of trying to save SS officers from the emotional trauma of so much up close and personal murder 

Many knew, in spite of denials later.

[Logosone]

17 minutes ago, stevenl said:

Please don't put words in my mouth.

 

You know already I didn't make that claim?

You wrote above, anyone can see, "Your reasoning behind the stats is way off, you can't just relate the 20k convicted to the total number of wehrmacht soldiers for quite a few reasons."

 

So what reasons would these be? 

 

Presumably you believe more than 0.11% of the Wehrmacht were involved in war crimes. Why is this?

[Morch]

9 hours ago, Logosone said:

Of course it matters, he didn't even know at the time what was going on at the camp behind closed doors. He was just a tower guard. 

 

How do you know he didn't know? Because he said so?

 

Spin it all you like, the court did not accept his version and he was convicted. Read the headline if you do not believe this. At the same time, the actual sentence obviously took into account the level of his involvement, his age and health.

[Morch]

9 hours ago, Saint Nick said:

Oh, you wait for it!

He will ride the "just a tower guard"- theory into the ground!

Homophobe, right- winger extraordinaire and now Nazi- defender!

What a guy!

 

I'm sure some of his best friends are _________.

[Morch]

8 hours ago, sanuk711 said:

Every Nazi in it played their part.----But every German wasn't a Nazi

 

Once again I don't want to be (and I am not) writing in defense of the Third Reich--- but with that change in law,

What would you feel would be an appropriate sentence for someone who delivered eggs/the newspapers 5 times a week to the camp.

 

I don't think that the law says all involvement relates the same level of involvement. Kinda doubt delivering eggs and newspapers was done by SS staff, for example. Or indeed, that persons filling such roles were actually charged with anything.

[dimitriv]

5 hours ago, Logosone said:

He was not involved with killing people in the gas chambers. He was a simple guard.

 

If you physically hold me and someone kills me obviously that is a completely different situation to you being conscripted into an army unit where you are assigned guard duty where you do not even know people are being killed.

 

Very different situation.

 

He was a guard in a watch tower. But he didn't see what was going on?  I would think that he had the best view of all on what was happening. Train arrives, people disappear in a building, and some time later the chimneys begin to smoke. But he didn't know that people were being killed?

 

 

 

[Logosone]

20 minutes ago, dimitriv said:

 

He was a guard in a watch tower. But he didn't see what was going on?  I would think that he had the best view of all on what was happening. Train arrives, people disappear in a building, and some time later the chimneys begin to smoke. But he didn't know that people were being killed?

 

 

 

No, he most likely did not see people actually being killed. The camps were large complexes. The killing was done in secret obviously. Chimney's were connected to "crematoria". Unless you knew what was going on there you'd think people were being cremated, ie those who died naturally. He was only 17. He did not serve on the Eastern front. He wouldn't have heard rumours of mass killings.

 

 

[Opl]

12 minutes ago, Logosone said:

No, he most likely did not see people actually being killed. The camps were large complexes. The killing was done in secret obviously. Chimney's were connected to "crematoria". Unless you knew what was going on there you'd think people were being cremated, ie those who died naturally. He was only 17. He did not serve on the Eastern front. He wouldn't have heard rumours of mass killings.

 

 

"He acknowledged hearing screams from the camp's gas chambers and watching as corpses were taken to be burned, but he said he never fired his weapon and once allowed a group to smuggle meat from a dead horse they'd discovered back into the camp."

https://www.euronews.com/2020/07/23/nazi-concentration-camp-guard-bruno-dey-93-convicted-in-germany

 

never too late...

"On the penultimate day in court, earlier this week, he issued an apology: “The eyewitness accounts and expert reports have for the first time made me fully aware of the extent of cruelty and suffering,” Dey said. "

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/23/former-concentration-camp-guard-convicted-over-5232-murders

[Logosone]

1 hour ago, Opl said:

"He acknowledged hearing screams from the camp's gas chambers and watching as corpses were taken to be burned, but he said he never fired his weapon and once allowed a group to smuggle meat from a dead horse they'd discovered back into the camp."

https://www.euronews.com/2020/07/23/nazi-concentration-camp-guard-bruno-dey-93-convicted-in-germany

 

never too late...

"On the penultimate day in court, earlier this week, he issued an apology: “The eyewitness accounts and expert reports have for the first time made me fully aware of the extent of cruelty and suffering,” Dey said. "

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/23/former-concentration-camp-guard-convicted-over-5232-murders

From your own link:

 

As a guard there, Dey said he frequently was directed to watch over prisoner labour crews working outside the camp.

 

"He acknowledged hearing screams from the camp's gas chambers and watching as corpses were taken to be burned, but he said he never fired his weapon and once allowed a group to smuggle meat from a dead horse they'd discovered back into the camp. "The images of misery and horror have haunted me my entire life," he testified."

 

People die in camps, so corpses taken to be burned would have been nothing unusual at that time and place. When they write he heard screams "from the camp's gas chambers", he would not have known they were gas chambers, he would have heard screams, but only after the war would have found out there were gas chambers. He says so himself:

 

“The eyewitness accounts and expert reports have for the first time made me fully aware of the extent of cruelty and suffering,” Dey said. So he was not aware of what was going on, he did not know there were gas chambers until this was explained to him. Then he would have put two and two together after the fact that the screams came from the gas chambers. At the time he heard them different explanations would have been more obvious to him, who had no idea of the extent of the final solution at that time.

[Opl]

59 minutes ago, Logosone said:

“The eyewitness accounts and expert reports have for the first time made me fully aware of the extent of cruelty and suffering,” Dey said. So he was not aware of what was going on, he did not know there were gas chambers until this was explained to him. Then he would have put two and two together after the fact that the screams came from the gas chambers. At the time he heard them different explanations would have been more obvious to him, who had no idea of the extent of the final solution at that time.

No. He is acknwoledging that he did not fully realized "the extent of cruelty and suffering" until his 9 week trial, the eyewitness accounts etc...  which means that he spent his whole life after WWII ended without even being fully aware, which says a lot about the man who worked in a concentration camp. As you say "people die" in camps. So he never listened to testimonies of people who survived, never heard of Primo Levi, probably was not even interested. 

 

http://msmulhollandonline.weebly.com/uploads/7/9/3/4/7934993/primo_levi_if_this_is_a_man.pdf

 

"“Consider if this is a man…”: the imperative issued by Levi’s text is thus not that one should persist in seeing the human in the inhuman. It is more like its opposite: that one bear must witness to the inhuman in the human. And that our humanity in some sense depends on this."

https://theconversation.com/70-years-on-primo-levis-if-this-is-a-man-is-still-a-powerful-reminder-of-what-it-means-to-be-human-76704

Edited July 24, 2020 by Opl

[tgw]

9 hours ago, n00dle said:

Indeed time to revise the old cv.

I mean... the prisoners were working too

[stevenl]

11 hours ago, Logosone said:

You wrote above, anyone can see, "Your reasoning behind the stats is way off, you can't just relate the 20k convicted to the total number of wehrmacht soldiers for quite a few reasons."

 

So what reasons would these be? 

 

Presumably you believe more than 0.11% of the Wehrmacht were involved in war crimes. Why is this?

You may want to read more about this, see e.g. this, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht

[Logosone]

24 minutes ago, stevenl said:

You may want to read more about this, see e.g. this, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht

As you can see here some historians estimate a very wide range of numbers in terms of number of people who were involved in the holocaust:

 

"Fulbrook, professor of German History and Dean of the Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences at University College London, notes that “perhaps 200,000 people, and possibly closer to a million, were at one point or another actively involved in killing Jewish civilians."

 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/historian-examines-germanys-minute-number-of-convictions-for-nazi-war-crimes/

 

Obviously they were not there and the guesstimate of 200,000 to 1 million is a very wide range. 

 

However the fact remains only 20,000 were actually convicted of war crimes, out of an army of 18 million people, which is less than 0.11 percent. 

 

And that was with victors' justice when in many cases fair trials were not possible. Even now as you can see, a poor tower guard is convicted of over 5000 murders which he did NOT commit and nobody bats an eyelid and thinks its okay.

Edited July 25, 2020 by Logosone

[stevenl]

4 minutes ago, Logosone said:

As you can see here some historians estimate a very wide range of numbers in terms of number of people who were involved in the holocaust:

 

"Fulbrook, professor of German History and Dean of the Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences at University College London, notes that “perhaps 200,000 people, and possibly closer to a million, were at one point or another actively involved in killing Jewish civilians."

 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/historian-examines-germanys-minute-number-of-convictions-for-nazi-war-crimes/

 

Obviously they were not there and the guesstimate of 200,000 to 1 million is a very wide range. 

 

However the fact remains only 20,000 were actually convicted of war crimes, out of an army of 18 million people, which is less than 0.11 percent. 

 

And that was with victors' justice when in many cases fair trials were not possible. Even now as you can see, a poor tower guard is convicted of over 5000 murders which he did NOT commit and nobody bats an eyelid and thinks its okay.

Less than 1% convicted is a total meaningless number when you look at the total background.

 

Many Germans knew of the Holocaust, just as many other nationalities knew. Most did absolutely nothing, which is very understandable, some stood up, which is laudable.

 

For the wehrmacht it is a lot worse, they knew and many, many actively participated in atrocities. That is imo far less understandable.

 

The link I gave and many others explain why not much was done about that after WWII.

[Logosone]

51 minutes ago, stevenl said:

Less than 1% convicted is a total meaningless number when you look at the total background.

 

Many Germans knew of the Holocaust, just as many other nationalities knew. Most did absolutely nothing, which is very understandable, some stood up, which is laudable.

 

For the wehrmacht it is a lot worse, they knew and many, many actively participated in atrocities. That is imo far less understandable.

 

The link I gave and many others explain why not much was done about that after WWII.

No, the number of 20,000 people actually convicted of war crimes is not a "total meaningless number".

 

It's a very important number. It is the number of people who were actually found guilty of war crimes based on facts.

 

As opposed to speculations by baby boomers who weren't there.

 

Even if we allow for the fact that Germany was an occupied nation, that the judicial structures were put in place by the allies, the people put in place to administer justice, were the result of victors' justice. Even if the fairness of the trials can be seriously questioned. The fact remains, these were courts of law where facts were decided upon. And in these courts 20,000 people were found guilty. That is only 0.11 percent of the 18 million who served in the Wehrmacht.

 

Even if you were to take the estimate of 200,000, which were never found guilty but which some historians have made, which is obviously wildly overblown as it includes people like Dey who were mere security guards and not involved in any killing, even that number would only be 1 per cent of the Wehrmacht and 0.25 per cent of the German population at the time.

 

So whilst many people would have known, namely those involved, 20,000 or 200,000, that is only 0.025 or 0.25 per cent of the German population, clearly the very very vast majority of Germans did not know about actual killings of jews first hand. If they would have heard such rumours in a time of war many would have ascribed them to war time propaganda. Even AFTER the war many ALLIED people did not believe the holocaust accounts. Even DURING the war many allied people didn't believe the accounts;

 

"To wit, one item that’s part of the USHMM exhibition shows public opinion polls demonstrating that while half of U.S. respondents in 1943 thought the fact that 2 million Jewish Europeans had been murdered was just a rumor..."

 

https://time.com/5327279/ushmm-americans-and-the-holocaust/

 

So if even the population in Allied countries was inclined to view accounts of the holocaust as rumour, how much more inclined would Germans have been to dismiss this as propaganda during war-time?

 

It's almost like we are trying to make up for this initial disbelief by convicting people like Dey of 5000 plus murders, who did not murder anyone, 75 years after the fact. How anyone can think it's okay that Dey who was a 17 year old tower guard who did not murder anyone is convicted of murdering 5000 plus people which he never murdered, I will never know.

 

 

 

Edited July 25, 2020 by Logosone

[stevenl]

12 minutes ago, Logosone said:

No, the number of 20,000 people actually convicted of war crimes is not a "total meaningless number".

 

It's a very important number. It is the number of people who were actually found guilty of war crimes based on facts.

 

As opposed to speculations by baby boomers who weren't there.

 

Even if we allow for the fact that Germany was an occupied nation, that the judicial structures were put in place by the allies, the people put in place to administer justice, were the result of victors' justice. Even if the fairness of the trials can be seriously questioned. The fact remains, these were courts of law where facts were decided upon. And in these courts 20,000 people were found guilty. That is only 0.11 percent of the 18 million who served in the Wehrmacht.

 

Even if you were to take the estimate of 200,000, which were never found guilty but which some historians have made, which is obviously wildly overblown as it includes people like Dey who were mere security guards and not involved in any killing, even that number would only be 1 per cent of the Wehrmacht and 0.25 per cent of the German population at the time.

 

So whilst many people would have known, namely those involved, 20,000 or 200,000, that is only 0.025 or 0.25 per cent of the German population. So very clearly the very very vast majority of Germans did not know about actual killings of jews first hand. If they would have heard such rumours in a time of war many would have ascribed them to war time propaganda. Even AFTER the war many ALLIED people did not believe the holocaust accounts. Even DURING the war many allied people didn't believe the accounts;

 

"To wit, one item that’s part of the USHMM exhibition shows public opinion polls demonstrating that while half of U.S. respondents in 1943 thought the fact that 2 million Jewish Europeans had been murdered was just a rumor..."

 

https://time.com/5327279/ushmm-americans-and-the-holocaust/

 

So if even the population in Allied countries was inclined to view accounts of the holocaust as rumour, how much more inclined would Germans have been to dismiss this as propaganda during war-time?

 

It's almost like we are trying to make up for this initial disbelief by convicting people like Dey of 5000 plus murders, who did not murder anyone, 75 years after the fact. How anyone can think it's okay that Dey who was a 17 year old tower guard who did not murder anyone is convicted of murdering 5000 plus people which he never murdered, I will never know.

 

 

 

How anyone can stick to those believes when the evidence otherwise is overwhelming is beyond me.

Looks to me there was more wrong in Germany than you want to admit.

[dimitriv]

3 hours ago, Logosone said:

However the fact remains only 20,000 were actually convicted of war crimes, out of an army of 18 million people, which is less than 0.11 percent. 

 

And that was with victors' justice when in many cases fair trials were not possible. Even now as you can see, a poor tower guard is convicted of over 5000 murders which he did NOT commit and nobody bats an eyelid and thinks its okay.

 

You are really making the wrong conclusions from the fact that only 20.000 were convicted.

 

You try to say that 20k convicted means that the others were not guilty.  While in reality it means that the majority of people guilty of crimes were never brought to justice.

 

That was the reality in Nazi Germany after the war. The complete system was so ill, and so many Nazi's were in leading positions, that even after the war, fair justice and convicting guilty people was nearly impossible.

 

 

 

 

 

[Logosone]

24 minutes ago, dimitriv said:

 

You are really making the wrong conclusions from the fact that only 20.000 were convicted.

 

You try to say that 20k convicted means that the others were not guilty.  While in reality it means that the majority of people guilty of crimes were never brought to justice.

 

That was the reality in Nazi Germany after the war. The complete system was so ill, and so many Nazi's were in leading positions, that even after the war, fair justice and convicting guilty people was nearly impossible.

 

 

 

 

 

In West Germany and united Germany between 1946 and 2005, cases were brought against 140,000 individuals, but only 6,656 were convicted of Nazi crimes. 

 

That's excluding East Germany, where 12000 plus were convicted. 

 

So around 200,000 people actually WERE put before courts, exactly the number historians estimate to be the number of perpetrators.

 

However, the low number of convictions shows that even in a victor's justice system the evidence against those accused was in the majority of cases insufficient for convictions.

 

Rather than few people being brought to justice it would appear that a lot were. However in the majority of cases there was insufficient evidence to convict the accused.

 

The system is indeed ill NOW if it convicts a 17 year old tower guard of 5000 plus murders when EVERYONE but everyone knows for a fact he did not kill a single person. That is indeed an ill system.

 

That people can defend such a travesty of justice is incomprehensible and a sign of how far re-education has gone.

 

 

[dimitriv]

32 minutes ago, Logosone said:

However, the low number of convictions shows that even in a victor's justice system the evidence against those accused was in the majority of cases insufficient for convictions.

 

That is not strange if you let Nazi's find evidence to convict Nazi's.

 

Some time ago I saw an article about what happened with Nazi's after WW2. Most had leading positions in justice and the government. I will try to find it for you. Maybe it will make you understand why almost nobody was convicted.

 

What happened was very bad. I understand that you are German. Don't make it worse by trying to find excuses for your fellow countrymen.

 

 

Edited July 25, 2020 by dimitriv

[Logosone]

1 hour ago, dimitriv said:

 

That is not strange if you let Nazi's find evidence to convict Nazi's.

 

Some time ago I saw an article about what happened with Nazi's after WW2. Most had leading positions in justice and the government. I will try to find it for you. Maybe it will make you understand why almost nobody was convicted.

 

What happened was very bad. I understand that you are German. Don't make it worse by trying to find excuses for your fellow countrymen.

 

 

Yes, I'm well aware there were a few Nazis in political positions post WWII but to believe every single judge in 200,000 plus cases was a Nazi is just not credible, sorry.

[nausea]

Sartre said, controversially, that the French people were responsible for WW2 cos they did nothing to stop it - so who's responsible for the holocaust? Some 93 year old guy, who was 17 at the time; obviously not, his influence on events was minimal. He's a scapegoat for German collective guilt. There was a whole society behind him. 

[Jingthing]

5 minutes ago, nausea said:

Sartre said, controversially, that the French people were responsible for WW2 cos they did nothing to stop it - so who's responsible for the holocaust? Some 93 year old guy, who was 17 at the time; obviously not, his influence on events was minimal. He's a scapegoat for German collective guilt. There was a whole society behind him. 

Not exactly. 

He volunteered for the SS. 

That was never required. 

Another way to look at it. 

Five cars are speeding on a road. 

The cops stop one of them. 

Those are the breaks. 

 

[herfiehandbag]

19 hours ago, Logosone said:

You wrote above, anyone can see, "Your reasoning behind the stats is way off, you can't just relate the 20k convicted to the total number of wehrmacht soldiers for quite a few reasons."

 

So what reasons would these be? 

 

Presumably you believe more than 0.11% of the Wehrmacht were involved in war crimes. Why is this?

Some years ago I read an absolutely spine chilling book titled "The Good Old Days". It was an account of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, compiled from interviews with and accounts of the activities of some of the perpetrators. What was absolutely clear was that participation in and knowledge of the killings and the whole process was widespread, if not universal, thought the German Military. They knew what had been done, they new what retribution was coming. Why do you think that such large elements of the German armed forces fought so desperately up to the end.

 

If this fellow was a guard, irrespective of his age, volunteer or conscript, he knew what was going on in the camp. The machine gun in his tower wasn't just for him to lean on!

 

Guilt is guilt, irrespective of his age. The court showed mercy in its verdict, mercy which was denied to the thousands who died in the camp he guarded.

Edited July 25, 2020 by herfiehandbag