He went BEYOND following orders. Next time find a different Nazi if you want to make your following orders argument.

Not sure if you are referring to Priebke or my great uncle! The latter was certainly no Nazi.

On your point about operating beyond orders, actually the Nurmburg Trials Principle IV removed the validity of a defence based on obeying orders. Initially Priebke was acquitted by an Italian court as he was " only obeying orders". Ultimately this defence was rejected using the Principle IV argument but also by stating that the 5 "extra" victims (335 rather than 330 to match the 10 for 1 collective punishment order) were Priebke's responsibility alone and that he went beyond his orders and was therefore culpable.

Unfortunately the same principle implies that my great-uncle was also responsible for his actions and thus committed a war crime......

Unless you give more specific info about what your relative did, we have no idea what you are talking about, and whether he might legitimately be considered a war criminal or not.

Do keep up!

From my post today at 0122, post#22

On a personal note I had a great uncle who served in the Spanish Civil War (he later went on to have a distinguished irregular career, helping establish the Commandos ("United we Conquer" for Blether"s benefit), and served with the SOE and other organizations). In late 1938 his unit picked up a deserter from N.Ireland. By this stage of the war it was widely believed that foreign intervention had both lengthened and intensified the civil war and thus it was fairly common practice to shoot foreign prisoners. As his company commander was no great fan of Britain he ordered my great uncle to take the prisoner out and shoot him. 2 soldiers from the company were dispatched after he left their position and it was clear that they had orders to ensure that the act was carried out. To his lifelong regret he shot the man, knowing the consequence of a failure to do so. Does that make him a murderer and a war criminal on a par with Priebke or is the scale of the murders and the random nature of the victims of the Adreatine Caves in 1944 radically different?

Ah but there lies the problem, a soldier is still a human, he is just as entitled to go home to his family as anyone else.

If you want to be pedantic about it you could say that a volunteer has knowingly put himself in harms way, you can't say that about conscripts.

I'm always wary of believing everything I see, however when I read the runes of the decision here, I can judge that the Japanese fanaticism was a real and present danger, and the order that everyone, civilian and military, was to fight to the death to protect the Imperial homeland, believable.

The President had a duty of care for his military personnel, and based upon the intelligence gathered, and fanaticism demonstrated by the Kamikaze and Banzai charges, he really had no choice but to drop these bombs.

Relatavism is a knotty problem with few easy answers.

Priebke oversaw and took part in the execution of 335 civilians (75 of whom were Jewish) in retaliation for the partisan attack that had killed 33 SS paramilitary police the previous day in Rome. The victims were rounded up fairly indiscriminately to hit the quota of 10 to 1 that had been decreed (five extra victims were rounded up in the haste but were murdered anyway to remove witnesses). A fairly cut and dry case of a war crime you would have thought but with interesting/sad spin offs.

One of Berlusconi's papers, Il Giornale, in the 1990's drove a campaign to label the partisans, whose ambush of the SS was the excuse for the massacre, as terrorists (mainly because they were a communist band of partisans), and equate their actions with that of the SS.

On a personal note I had a great uncle who served in the Spanish Civil War (he later went on to have a distinguished irregular career, helping establish the Commandos ("United we Conquer" for Blether"s benefit), and served with the SOE and other organizations). In late 1938 his unit picked up a deserter from N.Ireland. By this stage of the war it was widely believed that foreign intervention had both lengthened and intensified the civil war and thus it was fairly common practice to shoot foreign prisoners. As his company commander was no great fan of Britain he ordered my great uncle to take the prisoner out and shoot him. 2 soldiers from the company were dispatched after he left their position and it was clear that they had orders to ensure that the act was carried out. To his lifelong regret he shot the man, knowing the consequence of a failure to do so. Does that make him a murderer and a war criminal on a par with Priebke or is the scale of the murders and the random nature of the victims of the Adreatine Caves in 1944 radically different?

Yes it made him a murderer, and you know it.

Does it make him a murderer on a scale with Priebke? It could be argued that it was worse as Priebke did have a "follow orders or be shot" defence.

Did your Uncle fear being shot for not following orders? Was he Spanish? Did he have any lawful business being in Spain? Or was he like many others that got themselves embroiled in a situation far removed from what they expected.

I think your Uncle knew the answer to those questions and hence his regret at following an unlawful order. Did you ever ask him why he did it?