Former Auschwitz guard, 94, convicted as accessory to murder

[webfact]

Former Auschwitz guard, 94, convicted as accessory to murder

LUENEBURG, Germany (AP) — A 94-year-old former SS sergeant who served at the Auschwitz death camp was convicted Wednesday on 300,000 counts of accessory to murder and given a four-year sentence.

Oskar Groening testified during his trial at the state court in Lueneburg, in northern Germany, that he guarded prisoners' baggage after they arrived at Auschwitz and collected money stolen from them. Prosecutors said that amounted to helping the death camp function.

The charges against Groening related to a period between May and July 1944 when hundreds of thousands of Jews from Hungary were brought to the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex in Nazi-occupied Poland. Most were immediately gassed to death.

Unusually for trials of former Nazi camp guards, Groening has been open about his past throughout the proceedings.

Groening said when his trial opened in April that he bears a share of the moral guilt for atrocities at the camp but that it was up to judges to determine whether he is guilty under criminal law.

In their verdict, judges went beyond the 3 ½-year sentence prosecutors had sought. Groening's defense team had called for him to be acquitted, arguing that as far as the law is concerned he did not facilitate mass murder.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-07-15

[eliotness]

So many war criminals from WW2 escaped justice. This man was just a small cog in a big wheel. It's fitting that he'll probably die in prison, but hardly much consolation to the survivors of the camps.

[HooHaa]

its a little bit late isnt it?

[Beetlejuice]

its a little bit late isnt it?

There can never be time limits on obtaining justice.

The atrocities committed by the German Nazis and their collaborators during WW2, should never be forgotten or forgiven, especially considering that this is still in living memory and still a living nightmare for many who survived.

[eliotness]

its a little bit late isnt it?

There can never be time limits on obtaining justice.

The atrocities committed by the German Nazis and their collaborators during WW2, should never be forgotten or forgiven, especially considering that this is still in living memory and still a living nightmare for many who survived.

Agreed, but those horrific events were brushed under the carpet somewhat (for several reasons) and the consequence was they were repeated in many parts of the world, Kosovo, Rwanda, Cambodia to name just a few. To quote a song "when will we ever learn, when will we ever learn" or perhaps "those that don't learn from history are destined to repeat it".

[masquerade]

its a little bit late isnt it?

There can never be time limits on obtaining justice.

The atrocities committed by the German Nazis and their collaborators during WW2, should never be forgotten or forgiven, especially considering that this is still in living memory and still a living nightmare for many who survived.

So what does placing a 94 year old man in prison prove?, other than teaching younger generations to hate under all circumstances. I do not condone what happened but I am sure at his age, home detention would suffice.

[ezzra]

So many war criminals from WW2 escaped justice. This man was just a small cog in a big wheel. It's fitting that he'll probably die in prison, but hardly much consolation to the survivors of the camps.

There's where the big misconceptions lies.... only a small cog... mind you, that many small cogs

makes for one huge machine and that without the smallest cog to function properly, that machine

will go nowhere... so big or small cog... same justice for all....

[Linky]

A book keeper. Wow, big scalp, I consider this just a vindictive prosecution that serves no purpose.

[hawker9000]

its a little bit late isnt it?

Slow justice is better than no justice...

[Scott]

Numerous off-topic posts and replies have been removed.

[sawadee1947]

its a little bit late isnt it?

There can never be time limits on obtaining justice.

The atrocities committed by the German Nazis and their collaborators during WW2, should never be forgotten or forgiven, especially considering that this is still in living memory and still a living nightmare for many who survived.

Agreed, but those horrific events were brushed under the carpet somewhat (for several reasons) and the consequence was they were repeated in many parts of the world, Kosovo, Rwanda, Cambodia to name just a few. To quote a song "when will we ever learn, when will we ever learn" or perhaps "those that don't learn from history are destined to repeat it".

Sure the mass bombing of German cities was terrible, but the Allies had to win asap, how many more millions of innocents would have died

No, no , no. There was NO reason to kill innocent women and children by bombing Dresden. This was inhuman! And is not being justified by attempts to finish war asap. (watch the documentation "Hellststorm")

[h90]

So many war criminals from WW2 escaped justice. This man was just a small cog in a big wheel. It's fitting that he'll probably die in prison, but hardly much consolation to the survivors of the camps.

And all war criminals on the Allied side escaped......

[h90]

its a little bit late isnt it?

There can never be time limits on obtaining justice.

The atrocities committed by the German Nazis and their collaborators during WW2, should never be forgotten or forgiven, especially considering that this is still in living memory and still a living nightmare for many who survived.

He was already trialed decades ago and found NOT guilty. So he is now at court a second time for the same crime of being a bookkeeper who asked 3 times for a different job.

(You really didn't reject a job with the Nazis, unless you want to see Auschwitz from the other side)

[eliotness]

As admin have removed my reply to a comment, I guess it's time to finish this topic.

[Saradoc1972]

We already had a big thread on those belated trials: here.

I did comment on Oscar Gröning back then, my reasoning still stands.

Gröning was a key-witness in numerous trials against the real big-wigs in the 60ies and 70ies, he spoke out against the denial of the holocaust back then.

And now things have come full-circle and he is being prosecuted for his active remorse back then, when otherwise he would have slipped into oblivion.

This is soooo useless and bordering on the unfair, and we don't even know if that verdict will hold. Actually, I can foresee the outcome.

[Saradoc1972]

He was already trialed decades ago and found NOT guilty. So he is now at court a second time for the same crime of being a bookkeeper who asked 3 times for a different job.

(You really didn't reject a job with the Nazis, unless you want to see Auschwitz from the other side)

Nope, he was not trialled, that would be a case of non bis in idem then.

There were investigations against him for murder in 1985, but that never went to court as they decided they could not prove his direct involvement in murder.

They still can't, they just revamped their views as to what constituted murder (or the aiding and abetting thereof).

[h90]

its a little bit late isnt it?

There can never be time limits on obtaining justice.

The atrocities committed by the German Nazis and their collaborators during WW2, should never be forgotten or forgiven, especially considering that this is still in living memory and still a living nightmare for many who survived.

Agreed, but those horrific events were brushed under the carpet somewhat (for several reasons) and the consequence was they were repeated in many parts of the world, Kosovo, Rwanda, Cambodia to name just a few. To quote a song "when will we ever learn, when will we ever learn" or perhaps "those that don't learn from history are destined to repeat it".

Sure the mass bombing of German cities was terrible, but the Allies had to win asap, how many more millions of innocents would have died

No, no , no. There was NO reason to kill innocent women and children by bombing Dresden. This was inhuman! And is not being justified by attempts to finish war asap. (watch the documentation "Hellststorm")

Not only Dresden they were bombing civilians on purpose to disrupt the war industry. Which is a war crime. The allied airplanes shot every civilian they could see in the open. Boats rammed German submarines who gave up. The nukes weren't so nice as well.

[magnacarta]

its a little bit late isnt it?

There can never be time limits on obtaining justice.

The atrocities committed by the German Nazis and their collaborators during WW2, should never be forgotten or forgiven, especially considering that this is still in living memory and still a living nightmare for many who survived.

So what does placing a 94 year old man in prison prove?, other than teaching younger generations to hate under all circumstances. I do not condone what happened but I am sure at his age, home detention would suffice.

Likewise but it gives the hollier than thou brigade a reason to get their post numbers up.Oh Lord it's hard to be humble..,

[h90]

He was already trialed decades ago and found NOT guilty. So he is now at court a second time for the same crime of being a bookkeeper who asked 3 times for a different job.

(You really didn't reject a job with the Nazis, unless you want to see Auschwitz from the other side)

Nope, he was not trialled, that would be a case of non bis in idem then.

There were investigations against him for murder in 1985, but that never went to court as they decided they could not prove his direct involvement in murder.

They still can't, they just revamped their views as to what constituted murder (or the aiding and abetting thereof).

Sorry, yes you are right....he was investigated and there was no indication that he has any direct involvement. Somewhen 20xx the law changed, which is ridiculous.

[Scott]

Off-topic post removed.

[eliotness]

its a little bit late isnt it?

There can never be time limits on obtaining justice.

The atrocities committed by the German Nazis and their collaborators during WW2, should never be forgotten or forgiven, especially considering that this is still in living memory and still a living nightmare for many who survived.

Agreed, but those horrific events were brushed under the carpet somewhat (for several reasons) and the consequence was they were repeated in many parts of the world, Kosovo, Rwanda, Cambodia to name just a few. To quote a song "when will we ever learn, when will we ever learn" or perhaps "those that don't learn from history are destined to repeat it".

Sure the mass bombing of German cities was terrible, but the Allies had to win asap, how many more millions of innocents would have died
No, no , no. There was NO reason to kill innocent women and children by bombing Dresden. This was inhuman! And is not being justified by attempts to finish war asap. (watch the documentation "Hellststorm")

Not only Dresden they were bombing civilians on purpose to disrupt the war industry. Which is a war crime. The allied airplanes shot every civilian they could see in the open. Boats rammed German submarines who gave up. The nukes weren't so nice as well.

To quote Bomber Harris "they sowed the wind and now they shall reap the whirlwind". The Germans used terror bombing of civilians from the Spanish civil war and in every campaign thereafter. U-boats sank many ships carrying innocent civilians. Mass executions of civilians was undertaken on a regular basis by Nazi soldiers and only the Nazis turned murder into an industrial process.

Just ask any of the survivors of the Holocaust "was mass bombing justified to hasten the end of the war ?" and I'll bet with one voice they will say "YES'

[spidermike007]

One can make an argument that by not speaking out about the atrocities their army was committing the German people shared some of the guilt. Same is happening in the Arab world right now. Few are brave enough to speak out, especially ones in positions of authority. The King of Jordan is one of the few exceptions and is a heroic man. Few were heroic dissenters during Hitler's atrocities. So, does my heart bleed for those civilians? A little, maybe.

[Saradoc1972]

One can make an argument that by not speaking out about the atrocities their army was committing the German people shared some of the guilt. Same is happening in the Arab world right now. Few are brave enough to speak out, especially ones in positions of authority. The King of Jordan is one of the few exceptions and is a heroic man. Few were heroic dissenters during Hitler's atrocities. So, does my heart bleed for those civilians? A little, maybe.

NOT the German Army (Wehrmacht) was to blame here, Auschwitz was purely SS-business and kept under a close lid as even they feared a public backlash. Your chap Oscar Gröning was reminded of his oath to the SS to keep his mouth shut when he was transferred to Auschwitz from his pen-pushing job.

The Wehrmacht certainly had their share in war atrocities, but mostly the kind of "things that happen during war" and not in any organized fashion.

You did not speak up against the Nazis, you followed orders. There were totally ruthless in killing dissenters, they were hanging 15-y-o from street lanterns for not wanting to join totally useless Volkssturm last-ditch suicide missions. All the individual courage got them a place on contemporary exhibitions in German city-halls with their picture and details as to how they got condemned and executed right up until mid-1945.

[hawker9000]

One can make an argument that by not speaking out about the atrocities their army was committing the German people shared some of the guilt. Same is happening in the Arab world right now. Few are brave enough to speak out, especially ones in positions of authority. The King of Jordan is one of the few exceptions and is a heroic man. Few were heroic dissenters during Hitler's atrocities. So, does my heart bleed for those civilians? A little, maybe.

NOT the German Army (Wehrmacht) was to blame here, Auschwitz was purely SS-business and kept under a close lid as even they feared a public backlash. Your chap Oscar Gröning was reminded of his oath to the SS to keep his mouth shut when he was transferred to Auschwitz from his pen-pushing job.

The Wehrmacht certainly had their share in war atrocities, but mostly the kind of "things that happen during war" and not in any organized fashion.

You did not speak up against the Nazis, you followed orders. There were totally ruthless in killing dissenters, they were hanging 15-y-o from street lanterns for not wanting to join totally useless Volkssturm last-ditch suicide missions. All the individual courage got them a place on contemporary exhibitions in German city-halls with their picture and details as to how they got condemned and executed right up until mid-1945.

"Individual courage" does not need to be "recognized" to still be individual courage. Heroes are not always recognized as such, particularly in their own time, or even ever, but that does make them anything less than heroes. Heroism is not a matter of "what it gets you".

I can understand someone who served in the German (or Japanese) Army, as long as they weren't personally involved in any atrocities, claiming that they were forced to serve. I draw the line at allowing them to claim anything "honorable" about that service however. They fought for a brutal, inhuman, rapacious dictator and regime and have no right to claim anything honorable about it, unless it was an effort to overthrow it. I also draw the line at obedience to orders to commit atrocities. That's simply criminal. Not as criminal as authorship or actual willing support for those atrocities, but still criminal to have committed them, even under orders. It may seem like a harsh standard, but humanity DOES carry with certain inherent responsibilities, just as it carries with it certain inalienable rights. And human beings have a duty to refuse to participate in an atrocity, even at the cost of one's own life.

[happy Joe]

Punishing an old man very long time after facts may seem unfair and vindictive.

But war criminals have acted and still act because they feel protected by their status of soldiers.

Justice tells us that there will never forget nor pardon for them. Rather well IMHO.

[Scott]

Troll post removed.

[Pakboong]

I find it a bit odd that this trial took months. He basically confessed so why bring in many holocaust survivors to testify? He was physically present at the camp. So if being present at the camp and on the side with bad guys being all you need, why so long?

There were evidentiary reasons for using the dates of the Hungarian Jews arriving at the camp between May 18 and July 15 1944. Not sure why. The claim is that 300,000 of 437,000 were gassed upon arrival. That is roughly 5,555 per day which is not likely because the 52 crematory muffles could handle only 1248 per day if all were operating 24/7.I simply cannot imagine the Nazis leaving what could amount to over half of the 300,000 bodies stacked up outside awaiting cremation. That is a small city worth of bodies. You can't even pile that many bodies if you tried.

He was at the camp around 2 years and was not a guard. The guards were Ukrainian POWs not SS personnel. The SS cadre was relatively small for many reason but imagine them needing all able bodied German soldiers on the two fronts.

[Saradoc1972]

I find it a bit odd that this trial took months. He basically confessed so why bring in many holocaust survivors to testify? He was physically present at the camp. So if being present at the camp and on the side with bad guys being all you need, why so long?

Nope, it was an extraordinarily quick trial, almost unbelievably so. They even got finished 2 days ahead of schedule.

A conviction cannot be based on the confession of the defendant alone, the law explicitly says so.

And the whole point of the exercise was a new opinion on existing law as to the presence at that camp in any function sufficing to be held an accessory to murder. Wasn't the case until 2004, and you had to ascertain what exact role he played there even so to then give a legal opinion as to that being enough for even this wide view. NOT easy, you don't want to get your verdict dismissed by a court of appeal and start over.

You need to see that sort of trial takes place at a Landgericht (district court), Schwurgerichtskammer at that (literally something to do with "oath", mostly means there will be 5 judges). The panel has to plan the whole process, they need to pick the 2 lay-judges, pick a public defender (Gröning got himself a personal lawyer aside from that, but... procedural reasons), for that kind of trial there will be judges and lay-judges in reserve witnessing the whole thing beginning to end in case the main judges fall ill (you need to have a hearing every 14 days or its over, every judge has to be present the whole time, hence if one judge drops out its a full reset), there has to be a psychological evaluation as to the sanity of the defendant, that expert witness has to be heard. On top, there had to be investigations into the physical health here.

Then there are witnesses. Those get cross-examined by the defense, and by the co-plaintiffs. It will be a difficult hearing, as they certainly did not give evidence against Gröning directly, but only as to the general circumstances in those camps. There were 51 co-plaintiffs (meaning descendants of the victims who have a right to prosecute along with the state's attorney) in person and represented by 15 lawyers of their own, and to ask the witnesses questions of their own.

There are "paper witnesses" which cost even more time, as any documents discussed in court need to be validated and explained in a historical context by expert-witnesses.

Gröning is not in splendid health, so they could only schedule hearings to last some 2-3 hours a day. Courts do not convene every day of the week, the judges still have other cases and need to do some office work aside from trials. When Gröning or one of the elderly co-plaintiffs or witnesses was really ill for a day, that hearing got cancelled. Happens.

This is a fully fledged big carnival, even if nobody starts obstructing it and without special difficulties.

IF Gröning had opted to delay the trial, that trial would have gone for over a year. Easily.

There was the Demjanjuk case, where the defense tried to call in hundreds of witnesses, had every single documents discussed by several expert witnesses, and indulged in "Kammergymnastik" (gymnast exercises for the panel). That is a jocular term for a defense strategy where every move and utterance by the judges is answered with a motion by the defense, making the judges leave the room for consultation and come back with a majority-decision on that move, starting with the customary motion to disqualify the judges for bias.

Gröning, apparently for moral reasons he has to be commended for, did not choose that confrontational strategy to be able to admit to what he calls "moral guilt" and apologize to the victims, possibly hoping he would not be held culpable by law for things he had been publicly stating since the 1960ies and not been put on trial for.

See where that got him.

Edited July 18, 2015 by Saradoc1972

[Saradoc1972]

Just in case anyone is wondering:

I am German, until 2011 I was a fully-fledged German attorney-at-law, until I quit on health-reasons (and got an adequate pension to enable me to live in Thailand).

I certainly never was an expert on Criminal Law, in my time I represented some 5-6 cases over 10 years. Like the old geezer who clipped someone's a side-mirror in traffic and could not hear it.
One re-opening of a case, hooray, almost unheard of. Let's say I wasn't half-bad at what I was doing back then.

English is not a first language of mine, I like to think I make do.

If I state legal terms on this topic, I do it in German (with a translation close behind) because a translation to English does not catch these terms adequately. It's technical language, so any terms mean "this" within a very narrow band of that expression in that language, but not as much or as little as the very same term implies in the other language. No way around this.

In some cases it is Latin, you might have to google it, it's universal for most Western legal systems. As in: no bis in idem means: you cannot prosecute someone twice when it has been settled once in court, sine lega scripta means: you cannot prosecute someone under a law for things preceding that law in writing.

So if anyone here has a question on German law, criminal or procedural-wise, do ask them. I'll do my best.

Edited July 18, 2015 by Saradoc1972

[SheungWan]

I find it a bit odd that this trial took months. He basically confessed so why bring in many holocaust survivors to testify? He was physically present at the camp. So if being present at the camp and on the side with bad guys being all you need, why so long?

There were evidentiary reasons for using the dates of the Hungarian Jews arriving at the camp between May 18 and July 15 1944. Not sure why. The claim is that 300,000 of 437,000 were gassed upon arrival. That is roughly 5,555 per day which is not likely because the 52 crematory muffles could handle only 1248 per day if all were operating 24/7.I simply cannot imagine the Nazis leaving what could amount to over half of the 300,000 bodies stacked up outside awaiting cremation. That is a small city worth of bodies. You can't even pile that many bodies if you tried.

He was at the camp around 2 years and was not a guard. The guards were Ukrainian POWs not SS personnel. The SS cadre was relatively small for many reason but imagine them needing all able bodied German soldiers on the two fronts.

You should imagine less and study more.