German court: former SS Auschwitz guard fit for trial

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

BERLIN (AP) — A German court says a 93-year-old former SS sergeant charged with 170,000 counts of accessory to murder on allegations he served as an Auschwitz death camp guard has been declared fit for trial.

The Detmold state court said Monday a doctor determined that Reinhold H., whose last name wasn't given for privacy reasons, is fit to stand trial so long as sessions are limited to two hours per day.

Defense attorneys and prosecutors now have two weeks to submit responses to the expert opinion. The court will then decide whether to open a trial.

H. is accused of being an accessory to murders at Auschwitz from January 1943 to June 1944. The suspect says he was assigned to a part of the camp not involved in the mass murders.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/47ad617159f24ca28c2fe5cae60987eb/german-court-former-ss-auschwitz-guard-fit-trial

[forest444]

1. Small fish to distract from the big catch.

More tantalising are Bush's links to the Consolidated Silesian Steel Company (CSSC), based in mineral rich Silesia on the German-Polish border. During the war, the company made use of Nazi slave labour from the concentration camps, including Auschwitz. The ownership of CSSC changed hands several times in the 1930s, but documents from the US National Archive declassified last year link Bush to CSSC, although it is not clear if he and UBC were still involved in the company when Thyssen's American assets were seized in 1942.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

2. Is this some kind of German politically correct zero tolerance?

This is like saying every U.S. soldier who served in Iraq is an accomplice/accessory to the war crimes of Bush/Cheney, because they went in with false evidence of WMDs.

Someone assigned to permanent guard duty is generally not an evil mastermind.

[COLGATE4]

3. You really need to educate yourself on the types of

crimes committed by persons guarding Concentration camp inmates. No, they weren't evil masterminds. They were just evil.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

5. If there is evidence of specific crimes done by this individual

then there is reason to prosecute.

If they're prosecuting because he had a vague job title, and accusing him of being accessory to some amazingly large number of deaths, it just sounds like a public relations stunt.

[COLGATE4]

7. Germans have been very reluctant to carry out these

trials for many years now. There had to have been more than adequate evidence to convince a Prosecutor to bring this case. It's not a question of being an accessory.

[happyslug]

24. Yes, once anyone who COULD have done something were dead, Germany went after the low ranks.

It is 2015, thus he was born in 1922. He was 20 in 1942, 17 in 1939 and 23 in 1945. The people holding positions to do ANYTHING about the camps (and to a great degree decided who went to the camps, and that included what guards went to the camps) tended to be in their 30s or older. Those people lived in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and into the 1980s often in high position in the West German Government. Once they were dead of old age, then the German Government decided it was time to go after the remaining "Criminals" of the Hitler era. Thus the charges against 90 old year men and women for "Crimes" they were often ORDERED to do when they were in their early 20s.

Yes, the Germans were reluctant, till all of the people with political connections were dead. It is easy to go after draftees and other people forced by circumstances to do things that if they had a real choice they would NOT have done. It was hard to go after people who actually could have done something to stop the camps, for such people had political connections in the Germany Government well into the 1990s. Thus the Germans only started to go after such criminals, only when the ones who had political connections had died of old age. It is like trying a private who went into Iraq for the war crime of invading Iraq, once Bush, Chaney and the rest of Bush's cabinet had long died of old age.

We are NOT discussing people who had much choice in what they did between 1939 and 1945 when it comes to low ranking enlistees, who are the people the German Government is going after now. In the 1940s, if they had refused, it was a good possibility they would have been shot (or transferred to a discipline unit, that were sent into combat on suicide missions). Desertion was NOT a real option for most people in Germany between 1939 and 1945.

At the same time the present German Government wants to show it disavows what Hitler had done, thus these show trials. More to do with German Politics of today then any real attempt to provide any form of justice, either to these low ranking former guards OR the victims of the camps.

[COLGATE4]

25. So, your point is????

[happyslug]

26. You have to draw the line some time, and going after low ranking enlistee is beyond that line

Germany should just say enough is enough these people were small cogs in a machine that was operated by others. The big cogs are long dead and given their deaths any attempt at justice is long past. Going after a 93 year old man for something he was ORDERED to do in his early 20s, is not justice, either to him or the victims of the camps. This is nothing by a political show trial to show the world that today's Germany is not Nazi Germany. In reality this trial shows that one aspect of Nazism still is alive and well in Germany, the concept of the Show Trial.

Remember this person was assigned to the camps in 1943 and 1944, at the height of the executions. His role in the camp is unclear, most Guards were Ukrainians. The SS technically ran the camps, thus if you were wounded on the front and sent to the rear to recover, they assigned you to one of the camps to do paperwork while you recovered, for being German he could read and write German. His interaction with the victims of the camps were probably minimal (most victims arrived by train and then sent straight to the gas chambers for execution, under the eyes of SS Officers running the camps, the actual gas chamber were operated by Jews spared from execution so they could operate the gas chambers and dispose of the bodies).

Now this SS Sargent would have been issued a fire arm and expected to shoot any escaping Jew AND any Ukrainian who deserted his guard position. Thus this defendant was a cog in the machine, but like the rifle he was issued, he had no say in how he was to be used and for that reason putting him on trial is like putting his rifle on trial. A useless act, but looks good if you ignore the reality behind who set up these camps and how they lived the rest of their lives.

[COLGATE4]

28. As a person whose immediate family was murdered

in the Holocaust you'll understand that my nature is not as forgiving as yours.

[happyslug]

29. How about a 14 year old Hitler youth ordered to watch some jews in 1945

When the camps were closed, mostly do to the Red Army taking them over, the SS troops in charge did take many of the surviving Jews with them (most of the actual deaths ended toward December 1945 as the camps were taken over as the Red Army took over most of Poland). These survivors were marched into Germany, where Hitler Youth as young as age 12, were ordered to guard them. Should these 12 to 14 year old boys (in 1945) be tried today for what they were ORDERED to do in 1945 (70 years ago). i.e. 82 to 84 year old men being tried for guarding Jews, in 1945 when the men were 12 to 14 years of age?

That is the level we are at when it comes to the people who are still alive and were involved in the Camps. These were not officers or even senior NCOs, these were young teens and 20 somethings who were in a situation where they had to follow orders or be shot (Germany shot over 20,000 of its own soldiers during WWII for NOT obeying orders, and sent another 30,000 to discipline units to be killed in combat, these high levels of punishment was well known in the German Army of WWII.

Please note in WWI, the Germany Army executed less then 200 men for desertion, it is a well documented change in attitude to disobeying orders between WWI and WWII. If you disagree with the war in WWI, your disagreement was noted but that was all, in WWII you were executed for saying you opposed the war. Sorry, the German Military of WWII was much quicker to execute their own people to maintain order, thus the youth of WWII were under much more pressure to obey order, then their fathers had been in WWI. That system of discipline was one of the reason that permitted the Holocaust to occur, and it was tied in with the Officer ranks, who tended to be 10 to 20 years older then the enlisted ranks. Those older Officers are now dead, but the enlisted ranks are still alive. Thus we are punishing victims of the same systems that lead to the Holocaust after leaving the people who could have done something about the Holocaust live out their entire lives. Yes, these enlisted ranks were victims of the Nazis, they suffered and died because Hitler wanted War. They suffered and died so that Hitler could kill all of the Jews in Europe. That was NOT want these enlisted people wanted, but it is want they received.

Please note, this man was in the SS. The SS was an all volunteer force, unlike the Regular German Army which was 100% draftee in the enlisted ranks. Thus he is NOT completely innocent, but somewhere between agreeing to join the SS and actual killing Jews we have to draw a line. I have no problem putting on trial someone who did an actual harm to a prisoner of the camps. I have no problem putting on someone who set up the camps. I have no problem with someone who ran the camps. My line is when it comes to people who had no ability to do any of those things, but were cog of the system that was set up. That is the enlisted ranks who in most cases had no choice to go to these camps, even people who volunteered for the SS like this man.

We have to draw a line some place and I prefer that the line be somewhere above mere cogs in the machine. Thus do we include 14 year old Hitler Youth order to watch starving Jews being moved in front of the Red Army advance? Do we include 18 year old draftees who were ordered to watch such Jews? Do we include a SS Volunteer, who Volunteered to fight the Reds (and common belief at that time period) but ended up in a death camp doing paperwork? It is easy to say all of them much be punished, but is that justice? We have to remember the system each of them were living under, including the ever present death sentences being given out with increase ease come late 1944 and early 1945?

I like the one survivor of the Death Camps said about the Demjanjuk case, give him his home in the US, his pension from working for Ford for 30 years after WWII, but get him to write about his time as a guard. We have no record from that prospective, the Ukrainian Guards were either killed, died or covered up their involvement. Punishing them made no sense to him, for they were NOT the people who sent him to the camp, or made him do what he did in the camp. The people who set up the system, where the ones he was after and in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s the German Government did all it could to protect those people for they had connections with the German Government of that time period. Going after these cogs made no sense to him for they were as much a victim of the system set up by the real criminals as he had been. Justice is going after the people who could have stopped the Holocaust (or at least minimize its extent) not the cogs that could (and often were) replaced by the people setting up the Holocaust. This SS Sargent was one of those cogs, not a person who could have done something about the situation.

[COLGATE4]

30. Your argument is a straw man.

To my knowledge, no one ever argued that 12 or 14 year old Hitler Youth be charged with war crimes because they were handed Jewish concentration camp inmates to guard at the very end of the war. And, more to the point, that's not what is at issue here. What IS at issue is an SS man, a VOLUNTEER who,to become part the elite guard of the Nazi party jumped through many, many hoops in order to be accepted. He had to, among other 'qualities', demonstrate strict unwavering adherence to the Fuhrer's belief in the unhuman nature of Jews and be prepared to carry out the Fuhrer's orders to the letter. It's true that this particular individual drew less than glamorous duty serving at a concentration camp but, even so Himmler was very enthusiastic in praising his men who carried out that 'very important duty' and those personnel had relatively soft duty. He was there because he believed in what he was doing and was prepared to do whatever he was ordered to do - or whatever he knew he could get away with doing.

Records and witness testimony alike document ad nauseam the daily opportunities ALL SS personnel - enlisted and officers alike - had and TOOK to demean, harass, humiliate, beat, strike, hurt, torture and/or kill Jewish concentration camp inmates. Just as there as no line drawn regarding the depths of immoral, inhumane conduct that SS personnel routinely exhibited while serving in concentration camps there can be no line drawn between joining the SS and actually killing Jews. One is merely the inevitable consequence of the other. Pretending that this individual, much like the SS man who was in charge of counting the money (or the gold teeth) stolen from the helpless inmates is somehow less deserving of justice than the worst of the SS executioners is nothing more than exercise in meaningless gradation, not a reason for him to avoid having to account for his actions and face punishment.

[leftynyc]

4. Are you really comparing Iraq

to what was done at a death camp? Systematically choosing who will live and who will die, children ripped from their mothers arms so they can be gassed? You think that's a valid comparison? There's a reason that anyone who uses Godwin's law automatically loses and argument.

[Plucketeer]

20. Think about it this way

Iraq WAS a concentration camp with Saddam as the camp commander. Camp detainees were regularly put to death JUST for their religion or some perceived transgression against the "guards/commander". Just because Iraq wasn't totally ringed by barbed wire, didn't mean it wasn't a detention center. There were THOUSANDS of guards at the bottom of the chain of command - there were even more inmates who were at the mercy of whatever fate befell them ultimately. And you can DAMNED SURE BET there were MANY of them who were systematically chosen to die. Look at what happened to the Kurds! A veritable open air gas chamber!

OK, so because that camp just happened to float on oil, our CIC found a way to crack open the camp doors and go after the camp staff. There were camp "guards" who killed the U.S. intruders because they knew it was that or lose their heads by the hands of the camp staff. The collateral damages (the innocent Iraqis) was horrific. Old folks, middle-aged folks, young folks, baby folks - they were blown literally to smithereens in the melee. BTW, as heartless as it sounds, babies are just little human beings. So that bit of haart-string plucking is not a real denominator when we talk about crimes against humanity.

So...... Iraq didn't attack us - they didn't even have the hardware to do so. But we sent in our forces to force the camp crew out. We KNEW (in spite of Cheney's laughable claim that we'd be hailed as liberators) that innocent people (babies included) would die as we blasted our way thru. So WHAT absolves our fighting folks of guilt for carrying out orders from above???
I don't wanna hear Bush and Cheney and Rum-dumb are at fault. Rightly or wrongly, US troops caused deaths to innocent folks that were trapped in a concentration camp called Iraq. I don't care if they (the US troops) were wielding a huge automatic weapon or dispensing toilet paper from a forward supply depot - they ALL had a hand in the slaughter. Sound absurd? It's as absurd as that elder gal that was recently charged for being a radio operator at one of those Nazi death camps. You'd have had her do what - get up from her station and casually commit herself to the next scheduled round of gassing?

Better yet....... I was in Nam. Volunteered to go there - not to have a chance to shoot someone, but to experience working around aircraft in a wartime atmosphere. 20 years old and full of patriotic fervor - I jumped at the chance to go with a squadron of bombers that were being stationed there. Did I know I was a cog to killing? I think I did. And I thought it was justified because we were holding back the "Red Tide" that was just a vast ocean away from my threatened Michigan home! No one ever talked to me about the innocents that were being decimated by the bombs and rockets our planes dropped. Certainly, our dumb bombs were seeking out and only killing the baddies, Right? Right?

But NOW - now that I wear clothes made in the country we couldn't vanquish, I have to wonder to WHAT degree am I responsible for having killed or disabled folks that I never knew and might well have liked if it hadn't been for the pressure from above. So when's my trial gonna take place? When am I gonna serve my sentence for being an obedient cog with no real way out???

[leftynyc]

27. No - I wont think of it that way

because I lost too many family members to the systematic murder done to millions by the nazis. What part of systematic murder are you having trouble with? That is no way is comparable to the heartbreaking reality of Iraq (or Vietnam) - just because they're both tragedies doesn't make them comparable on this level.

[Plucketeer]

31. I probably lost family

in both World Wars. I can't say for sure because my progenitors were all escapees from various blights in Europe and didn't stay in touch once they came to the USA. I also could be related to dastardly sorts as these folks who were assigned to the death camps - three of my four bloodlines being of nationalities that were part of the Nazi horde for at least part of WWII. I don't know as to either count and don't care. Evil is Evil - one on one or many on millions. Dead is dead. There's no better or lesser degrees of it.

I'm genuinely sorry for your losses and that they still give you grief. But beyond your personal pain, if the Nazis had only killed WAY less folks than they did - a mere half million or so - at what point would those deaths be equal or less egregious than the number of innocents in Iraq or Vietnam? What I'm looking for is the break point in the slaughters where I can get a pass for my part (however much removed from the actual detonations I was) in blowing away Vietnamese innocents. When can the endless stream of American military folks just say: Enough is enough! and quit showing up for "work"? Truth be told, I volunteered to go into a war zone because Hollywood, peers and a recruiter told me it was the right thing to do for my country. At 18, who was I to question such influences? Many of my family fought in WWII - who was I to shirk my perceived duties?

[leftynyc]

32. I've already called Vietnam

a tragedy and I'm sorry you were part of it. Truly sorry you got taken in by those you trusted. But there is a difference between a war and a genocide where there was a SYSTEMATIC attempt at killing an entire group of people - and not just Jews but gays, the disabled, Romas. There just is a difference and numbers are only part of it. Those kinds of comparisons help nobody.

[NonMetro]

21. I See No One Else Was Wiling To Support Your Point, But I Will.

And if someone wants to tell me to "educate" myself, I will warn them in advance they can go to hell.

That said, you're right: The war in Iraq could be declared a war crime, even a genocide of sorts, and a lot of people already think it is. And unlike this Nazi soldier at this concentration camp who probably had only two choices: be there or be dead, our soldiers all volunteered to take part in Iraq. Now, they may have been ordered to go there once they volunteered to be in the military, but they did volunteer knowing full well they could be ordered into combat.

Now, I, personally, do not hold any young soldier who went to Iraq responsible for anything that happened there. It wasn't their doing. The responsibility rests with those who sent them there. But that's just me. Other people would hold them personally responsible for everything that happened there.

So, I feel your point is perfectly valid.

[gladium et scutum]

22. Actually I think the choice give to the Nazi guards

was either guard concentration camp inmates or we will find you a position in an infantry unit fighting the Red Army on the Eastern front.

[Demeter]

6. You know, this is just not good

It looks bad; it looks more than vindictive.

It looks like the theory is: kill the old Nazis, and we won't have to do anything about our present-day Nazis, or Nazi tendencies as manifest in the Eurozone politics.

It looks like the mercilessness of Nazism, all over again.

[COLGATE4]

9. Why is it vindictive? Or do you believe in a

'statute of limitations' for these killers? As long as they're 'old' killers, leave them alone. Otherwise it's mercilessness?

[LanternWaste]

18. I don't think actual justice is predicated on simple appearance...

I don't think actual justice is predicated on simple appearance or the considerations of optical branding or even the allegation that it looks like such and such a thing.

[47of74]

8. There's a part of me that says I don't give a flying fuck about how fit he is.

This is certainly a lot more than he gave his victims.

[COLGATE4]

10. There's more than a part of me that agrees with you!

[KatyMan]

11. All of me agrees.

I don't care if these fuckers are 120 years old and bedridden, pull out of bed and put them on trial. Nobody that served in a death camp is innocent and they should be hounded to the end of their days.

[NonMetro]

17. And There's The Rub: This Guy Was Born In 1922, And Will Be 100 In 7 Years.

As I recall, the oldest Civil War Veteran, who had been drummer boy, died in 1952, 87 years after the war ended. It's now been 70 years since WWII ended. In a few more years, we'll be down to prosecuting people who were teenagers when the war ended instead of in their early 20's. My own feeling is that it's over now. This one could be the last one, and the "justice" in this will be questioned years from now.

Most people alive today, including me, hadn't even been born yet when WWII ended - and that includes even most people in Germany.

[sorefeet]

12. I still think Bush and Company

will be tried and found guilty. They will be exiled some where.

[Reter]

13. Prescott was the Nazi one

Can't blame Poppy really.

[BigDemVoter]

14. I think they should proceed with the prosecution.

Simply because I believe Germany should prosecute any of these former guards does NOT mean I think they should be all executed or imprisoned. What is important is that there be a trial for the crimes that were committed. If they are acquitted, so be it. If they are found guilty and are only given a slap on the hand, it is still important that they be tried. It has only been in relatively recent times that Germany has been willing to pursue any of these alleged criminals. I say "alleged" in this case, as this person has not been tried yet.

The crimes that were committed at Auschwitz demand that there be some accountability if any is to be had at this point. The defendant should understand that he must answer for any crimes he may have committed and that the atrocities that took place at Auschwitz were so atrocious that even 70+ years on, responsibility for it must be accepted.

I lost a great grandmother and a great aunt in the Holocaust, but they never even made it to a killing factory, as they were neglected, mistreated, and starved to death in a ghetto. My great aunt was mentally handicapped and depended on my aged great grandmother for her care. After my great grandmother's death, my great aunt died a lonely and horrible death, unable to understand why she was being treated in such a way. Had they not died of "natural" causes, they likely would have been shipped to Auschwitz/Treblinka/Sobibor/Majdanek to be gassed.

My grandfather, long dead, would have wanted to see at least a tiny piece of justice served for the death of not only his mother and sister but also for the millions of others.

On edit-- After my grandfather's death, we found dozens of letters from his mother in Germany, asking that he help her and his sister to emigrate to America. The letters describe a menacing and claustrophobic situation for Jews in Germany. I have had some of these letters translated and am waiting to have more translated soon. It is a slow process, as the letters are written in a mixture of Yiddish and German.

[Yupster]

15. There was an article a few months ago about a guy who was stationed at Auschwitz

He was in the finance department. His job was to count and bundle the many kinds of currency taken from the incoming victims and send it to Germany.

He had nothing to do with the murders but knew they were taking place. He asked his commander for a transfer to the front which he got after a few requests covering about a year. This may be the results of his appeal.

It seems crazy to me unless they have a specific charge against him. What was he supposed to do? In Hitler's Germany not following orders meant violating your oath and death and deserting could mean death for your family.

[jtuck004]

16. How many counts of murder we would all get for profiting off the death of 50 million indigenous

people? Or the profits we all made from a nation built on slavery? The innocent families we are destroying today with our drones and bombs?

Except that we won't that, because we are much better than Nazi prison guards. I am told.

America the two-faced.

[LanternWaste]

19. I don't think the trial is being held in America

I don't think the trial is being held in America. I don't think the US court system has anything to do with this. I even don't think this is in any way predicated on or based off of any profits American may or may not make from waging its own wars...

[Behind the Aegis]

23. Good. Everyone deserves a fair trial.

I always find it interesting on how many are willing to let people like him "slide" as opposed to having his day in court.