# Retribution against Germans after the war,graphic,not for everone



## Torch (Aug 19, 2015)

_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTMCE6ZBFL4_


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## mikewint (Aug 19, 2015)

"Many and sharp the num'rous ills 
Inwoven with our frame! 
More pointed still we make ourselves, 
Regret, remorse, and shame! 
And man, whose heav'n-erected face 
The smiles of love adorn, - 
Man's inhumanity to man 
Makes countless thousands mourn! 

"The State, therefore, is the most flagrant, the most cynical, and the most complete negation of humanity. It shatters the universal solidarity of all men on the earth, and brings some of them into association only for the purpose of destroying, conquering, and enslaving all the rest. It protects its own citizens only; it recognizes human rights, humanity, civilization within its own confines alone. Since it recognizes no rights outside itself, it logically arrogates to itself the right to exercise the most ferocious inhumanity toward all foreign populations, which it can plunder, exterminate, or enslave at will."

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## stona (Aug 21, 2015)

Who wrote that? It sounds like something Bakunin or one of his ilk would have written.

Cheers

Steve


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## mikewint (Aug 21, 2015)

Yup, that be him, Mikhail Bakunin
*Liberty is so great a magician, endowed with so marvelous a power of productivity, that under the inspiration of this spirit alone, North America was able within less than a century to equal, and even surpass, the civilization of Europe.*

*I am not myself free or human until or unless I recognize the freedom and humanity of all my fellowmen.
Only in respecting their human character do I respect my own. ...
I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.*

The poem is of course Robert Burns


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## parsifal (Aug 21, 2015)

Please forgive me for not sharing your empathies and sympathies. 

The Russians alone had 26 million reasons for the injustices they inflicted upon the Germans after the war. 

In total, there were about 50 million casualties needed to win the European war. Of which about 6-7 million were German, and of those about 5 million were legitimate military deaths. Of the 45 million or so suffered by the allies and neutrals, about 35 million, give or take (and disregarding the Nuremberg findings that all the allied deaths were unlawful) can at least be termed"questionable". i have a better word, its called murder.

War is not fair, one of the first casualties is justice. In the circumstances of the end of the war, there were bound to be the most awful of reprisals. I dont condone that in any way. but it is understandable. What is not understandable is the apparent pleasure and joy the Nazis derived from the slaughter and torture they showed from their actions, even at times of the war when they could have acted differently

No, I dont feel sympathy. Yes what I have learnt over my lifetime still makes me angry and indignant toward the germans. No, I dont blame the current generation, but no i will never forget what that generation of germans did, and no I will never stop trying to tell the world what germany was guilty. 


_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtRDt6uAB0U_

counter balanced by this


_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0FM_7_drf0_

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## mikewint (Aug 21, 2015)

Michael, while I do understand your feelings Two wrongs do not a right make.

From Confucius: Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, leaves an eyeless toothless world.
and it is always worthwhile to look at things from the other side

“What America is tasting now is something insignificant compared to what we have tasted for scores of years. Our nation (the Islamic world) has been tasting this humiliation and degradation for more than 80 years. Its sons are killed, its blood is shed, its sanctuaries are attacked and no one hears and no one heeds. Millions of innocent children are being killed as I speak. They are being killed in Iraq without committing any sins. . . . To America, I say only a few words to it and its people. I swear to God, who has elevated the skies without pillars, neither America nor the people who live in it will dream of security before we live it here in Palestine and not before all the infidel armies leave the land of Muhammad, peace be upon him.” 
― Osama bin Laden, Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden

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## GrauGeist (Aug 21, 2015)

Goebbels would have been proud of Bin Ladin's propeganda.

As far as the Germans go, they (the leaders) brought this on themselves. Thier brutal method of subjugation drove any last bit of mercy out of the hearts of the people they oppressed.

When the Wehrmacht rolled into the Ukraine, for example, the people lined the streets and showered the troops with flowers. They danced and celebrated at the arrival of their liberators and Russian soldiers even defected to the Germans, wanting to fight the Red Army. Instead of embracing this HUGE opportunity to turn the people against Stalin, they started the systematic elimination and oppression of the people, which would come back to haunt them eventually in East Prussia.

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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 22, 2015)

parsifal said:


> Please forgive me for not sharing your empathies and sympathies.
> 
> The Russians alone had 26 million reasons for the injustices they inflicted upon the Germans after the war.
> 
> ...




The problem with that BS is that even the majority of the generation you are talking about are innocent.

I invite you to tell my wife's Grandmother who was 7 years old at the time that what the Russian men did to her was justified. 

What a crock of ****...

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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 22, 2015)

GrauGeist said:


> Goebbels would have been proud of Bin Ladin's propeganda.
> 
> As far as the Germans go, they (the leaders) brought this on themselves. Thier brutal method of subjugation drove any last bit of mercy out of the hearts of the people they oppressed.
> 
> When the Wehrmacht rolled into the Ukraine, for example, the people lined the streets and showered the troops with flowers. They danced and celebrated at the arrival of their liberators and Russian soldiers even defected to the Germans, wanting to fight the Red Army. Instead of embracing this HUGE opportunity to turn the people against Stalin, they started the systematic elimination and oppression of the people, which would come back to haunt them eventually in East Prussia.



No arguments from me that the Nazi's brought this on the German people, but to say that innocent Children deserved what they got is ignorant and BS. Not saying you are doing this, nor is this post directed at you.

I think it is time for me to walk away...

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## pbehn (Aug 22, 2015)

The problem for Germany is that WW1 and 2 happened after movie cameras were invented. If Napoleons campaigns were caught on camera for example and all other wars for the last 2000 years things would be seen differently.


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## parsifal (Aug 22, 2015)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> The problem with that BS is that even the majority of the generation you are talking about are innocent.
> 
> I invite you to tell my wife's Grandmother who was 7 years old at the time that what the Russian men did to her was justified.
> 
> What a crock of ****...



Unfortunately they are not innocent. To say they are is as bad as any of the holocaust deniers. War guilt goes to a national level, and at a national level, the reason for the war was Germany. Not Hitler, not the Nazis, not Churchill. None of that would have mattered a toss except for one thing....germany

I am sorry to hear about your wifes grandmother, but does not alter the view that i have. I am sorry for that. And I invite you to say to my Jewish friend who lost his entire family to this whole madness that its a crock of BS. Lucky for you lot he is more forgiving than me.

Or my Russian wife's grandmother who watched her mother be torn apart by German guard dogs, and her sister mercilessly raped repeatedly by guess who . 

How many Russians do you think suffered , how many Poles, how many any nation who opposed the Germans. So many died , 35 million, give or take, many of them needlessly, and many of them whilst their torturers stood there laughing.

The crock of BS my friend is trying to convince me how much the Germans suffered. Yes, they suffered, I have German blood too. My father (stepfather, but more father than my own Dad, for the last 32 years) fought at Stalingrad and watched a lot of this happen. Ask him what happened to his sister in '45 at the hands of the Russians. Ask him about the descent into barbarity in the east. There is no morality in this, no right or wrong. Just those that survive and those that dont. And the knowledge of which nation started it all. 

you, of all people should know how cruel a war can be. The little pieces Ive seen here and there, the uglines in myself, I never want to see again, and yet its nothing to what happened in those times. 

Yes I am angry, and for good reason. I havent just read about this stuff and formed some academic conclusion. I have people around me, people I know and care about, people that were there and told me what they saw. I am sufficiently unnaffected to be a voice in this and that voice is is often not liked. These are deep cuts my friend, as deep as the ones you and your family suffered.

So now you know something as to why I am what i am. Deal with it as you believe right.

You are right. Time to walk away from this.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 22, 2015)

parsifal said:


> Unfortunately they are not innocent. To say they are is as bad as any of the holocaust deniers. War guilt goes to a national level, and at a national level, the reason for the war was Germany. Not Hitler, not the Nazis, not Churchill. None of that would have mattered a toss except for one thing....germany
> 
> I am sorry to hear about your wifes grandmother, but does not alter the view that i have. I am sorry for that. And I invite you to say to my Jewish friend who lost his entire family to this whole madness that its a crock of BS. Lucky for you lot he is more forgiving than me.
> 
> ...



I don't give a flying ****. Innocents on all sides of the war are all victims. A child regardless of their nationality is not at fault, did not deserve the atrocities they felt. Just like 7 year old Jewish girl did not ask to be put in a death camp, a 7 year old German girl did not ask to be gang raped repeatedly. 

I am a rational person. I don't pretend the war was black and white as you spew. Where the Germans and Nazi's at fault? Absolutely. Did they bring great suffering on the world. Absolutely.

Does that mean that atrocities on innocent women and children is just. I don't give a **** what nationality they where.

To even say I am the same as a holocaust denier is a low blow and final straw. In the real world that would get you a throat punch. I am not going to sit here and let you put me in the same pot. You understand that. With that comment, and your accusation you have taken this conversation too far.

Don't call me a friend...

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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 22, 2015)

Oh no you disliked my post??!! The hurt the pain...

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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 22, 2015)

Lets see lets dumb this down a bit.

Last Saturday a friend/coworker of mines 4 year old nephew was killed by a drunk driver. The drunk driver was obviously at fault and should be punished. The drunk driver had twin 3 year old kids. Are they at fault? Do they deserve the same punishment? 

Of course not. They are innocent. 

The innocents on both sides lose...

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## parsifal (Aug 22, 2015)

against my better judgement i came back to this discussion. 

Lets get some things straight. i am not saying any of the crimes against innocents are justified. The opposite. Since when though was any war moral. 

I am not saying you are a holocaust denier. And it is childish to threaten me with a throat punch, or even say that you would like to.... the same as if i said that if you tried, it would be the last thing you tried in this world, becaue either I, or my police friends would make sure of it. This is just a conversation. I am saying that those that say Germany does not have national guilt are as bad as holocaust deniers. Know the difference, because they are worlds apart. Your inference is that all but a few germans were responsible for the war. Im saying the war happened because the many allowed the few to run amok. As the saying goes, the best way for evil to flourish is for the many to do nothing. War blame is determined at a national level. The criminal code is at an individual level. The two are completely different concepts, though an individual, in theory at least, can be held accountable for his actions in war. The drunk driver is to blame in the situation you describe, but a war is not a car accident, it is a national decision, to which the nation stands accountable. That was proven at nuremberg. And pretty convincingly. If a nation is responsible for making war, and I assume you concede it was germany that started the war, then who should carry the blame. For individuals who do not follow the rules of war there should be individual justice, for nations that make war, national accountability. unfortunately thats the theory. the truth is that so much blood was shed it was impossible in 1945 to keep everything so clinical. 

The reason the Russians were in Berlin in 1945 was because of the war. We can argue all day about whose fault that is. frankly it doesnt matter. The Russians were there because their country was invaded in 1941 and as a nation almost to a man they wanted revenge. Doesnt make it right. What happened in Berlin, and elsewhere should have been punished but wasnt.

I never said any of this was right. I said i had no sympathy. I dont have sympathy because I know what that war did and it affects me personally. I am not devoid of emotion. if I was I would be like my holocaust friend . I believe it was brought about by Germany.

In war there is no moral high ground. War is amoral. But there is judgement there is emotion and there is guilt. There was a French King once who described war as the perogative of nations. Nations bear the guilt of making war. A nation is everyone, young old, good, bad, innocent, guilty. But the responsibility for making war is the nations. its the responsibility of everyone in that nation, and if a nation is found guilty of aggressive or unnecessary war, then the whole nation is guilty. You dont like me saying that, because you see innocent people getting hurt and blamed, and cannot or do not want to, understand how someone like me says they are guilty. But they are, because of their nationality. There is diminished responsibility , in this case because of their age, and they should be subject to the protections of the law, but in reality that doesnt always happen. Being a national of a nation guilty of making war does not in any way justify what happened, but neither does it mean in 1945 we are all best buddies either. Unfortunately emotions did come into it and vengeance led to crimes like the rape of your wifes grandmother. That was a crime, and its terrible, and the people that did should face justice. Its what happened to your wifes grandmother and 35 million allied casualties to be precise, and in most cases there was no justice for those losses.

I will not yield on this. i will treat you or anyone else with respect, even empathy, but i will not abandon those who can no longer speak, whatever the cost to me personally. And dont try and make out Im disrespecting you or insulting you. i dont want this to be as personal as it has degenerated to, I am not baiting you insulting you or any of that. If you are going to do what i suspect you will , call it for what it is.

And now I really am going to leave this discussion, watch from a distance perhaps.

And hitting the dislike button was not about you, and not aimed at you. It was about what was said, and what i thought about it.


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## mikewint (Aug 22, 2015)

The problem with retributive justice is as I posted before, two wrongs don't make a right. Taking "an eye for an eye" just results in two mutilated people instead of one. Its only purpose is cathartic, and that is retributive justice's other major flaw: it appeals to the worst side of human nature, our sadistic capacity for taking satisfaction in another's suffering. Hence it becomes questionable whether the punishers are really morally superior to the perpetrator.

Opposition to retributive justice has often been expressed, and reform of retributive laws has been growing in Western civilisation since the Enlightenment, also spreading to other cultures. Death penalties are still used in many countries, but public executions are now a thing of the past in all but the most extreme regimes. However, the retributive principle is still very popular, as expressed in public anger and demands for punishment whenever severe crimes are reported in the press. Prison sentences can also be regarded as at least partly retributive, on the understanding that incarceration is what wrongdoers deserve.

Those in Germany who perpetrated these hedinous crimes deserve severe punishment even to death beyond a shadow of a doubt BUT there is simply NO way to justify going into an ethnic German region, rounding up anyone who spoke German, lining them up against a wall and shooting them.
As Chris posted above do we root out the drunk's entire family? And how about all those who saw the drunk and did nothing and those who served the alcohol, and those who saw the accident and did not stop to help and.....

“When you're asked to stay out of a bar you don't just punch the owner--you come back with your army and tear the place down, destroy the whole edifice and everything it stands for. No compromise. If a man gets wise, mash his face. If a woman snubs you, rape her. This is the thinking, if not the reality, behind the whole Hell's Angels act.” 
― Hunter S. Thompson, Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga

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## fastmongrel (Aug 22, 2015)

Pity there isnt a button to dislike a whole thread. 2 people commenting on this thread should know better than to start spouting crap and threats, grow up the pair of you.

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## parsifal (Aug 22, 2015)

I should like to apologise to everyone, including adler for the poor behaviour in this thread.

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## mikewint (Aug 22, 2015)

Michael, I can appreciate your views and though I do not agree this is a FORUM which is by definition a place for opinions to be put forth.
I also fully understand the emotions evoked by this topic. Chris is very directly involved in what was done to innocent (YES, most Germans were, are you personally responsible for everything your government does?) Germans after the war. My relatives in Germany are more distant and I have no first person testimony as does Chris.

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 22, 2015)

parsifal said:


> I am not saying you are a holocaust denier.
> 
> *Actually with these words, that is exactly what you said. You are saying that that if I say a child is innocent that I am no better than a holocaust denier...
> 
> ...



*The feeling is mutual about everything you have spewed in this thread.*


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 22, 2015)

mikewint said:


> The problem with retributive justice is as I posted before, two wrongs don't make a right. Taking "an eye for an eye" just results in two mutilated people instead of one. Its only purpose is cathartic, and that is retributive justice's other major flaw: it appeals to the worst side of human nature, our sadistic capacity for taking satisfaction in another's suffering. Hence it becomes questionable whether the punishers are really morally superior to the perpetrator.
> 
> Opposition to retributive justice has often been expressed, and reform of retributive laws has been growing in Western civilisation since the Enlightenment, also spreading to other cultures. Death penalties are still used in many countries, but public executions are now a thing of the past in all but the most extreme regimes. However, the retributive principle is still very popular, as expressed in public anger and demands for punishment whenever severe crimes are reported in the press. Prison sentences can also be regarded as at least partly retributive, on the understanding that incarceration is what wrongdoers deserve.
> 
> ...



Excellent post.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 22, 2015)

fastmongrel said:


> Pity there isnt a button to dislike a whole thread. 2 people commenting on this thread should know better than to start spouting crap and threats, grow up the pair of you.



My apologies. You are correct. I let emotion get in the way.

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## GrauGeist (Aug 22, 2015)

Sadly enough, the first casualties in a war are civilians.

It has been this way for thousands of years and it seems that even now, in the 21st century, we (as a society) have not learned a single thing from our long, dark past.

The words "genocide", "war crimes" and rules of warfare didn't exist until recently, and even still, doesn't do anything to stop an ancient practice.

Can you imagine what Social Media and news agencies would have to say about Rome's defeat of Carthage? Rome leveled the entire city and hunted down and killed all the Carthaginians as an example to anyone who would challenge Rome.

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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 22, 2015)

GrauGeist said:


> Sadly enough, the first casualties in a war are civilians.
> 
> It has been this way for thousands of years and it seems that even now, in the 21st century, we (as a society) have not learned a single thing from our long, dark past.
> 
> ...



Unfortunately you are correct. 

We as human beings however need to try and have more compassion for one another and do what we can to protect the innocents and those that have no choice to in the situation.


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## mikewint (Aug 22, 2015)

War is not the question here as the war was over, the Germans defeated. I suspect that many motivations were at work, vengance certainly but I also suspect that avarice played a role. The executed and deported left behind all their property and many possessions. I wonder who appropriated them?
Harsh and terrible punishment is also seen as a deterrent. As in the old English "Bloody Code". It was known as the Bloody Code because of the huge numbers of crimes for which the death penalty could be imposed. It would seem as if every crime was punishable by death in the 1800s, even those which we would consider to be very minor or trivial today such as stealing a rabbit. 
The number of crimes carrying the death penalty in 1688 was 50. By 1815 it was 215! 
There were many reasons why the English legal system was so harsh at this time. Attitudes of wealthy men who made the law were unsympathetic. They felt that people who committed crimes were sinful, lazy or greedy and deserved little mercy. As the rich made the laws they made laws that protected their interests. Any act which threatened their wealth, property or sense of law and order was criminalised and made punishable by death. 
You could be executed for stealing anything worth more than five shillings. The law was also to act as a deterrent. It was thought that people might not commit crimes if they knew that they could be sentenced to death. This was also the reason why executions were public spectacles until the 1860s. The authorities believed that hanging criminals in public would frighten people into obeying the law and refrain from committing crime. Traitors were hanged, maned, drawn, and quartered in public, in essence to deter any future traitors.
The Nazis did the same when they executed 100 for the death of one soldier to deter guerrilla attacks .
In the ancient times you mentioned above, Dave, I suspect the Romans, e.g. were motivated in much the same way as the Hell's Angels mentioned above, i.e. inducing abject fear in non-members. You don't have to fight if everyone is terrified and runs. Further the ancient idea of a "Blood Feud" as in the Hatfields and McCoys. If you kill the entire population there is no one left to seek vengeance.


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## pbehn (Aug 22, 2015)

I do wish that the media would realise that history is more than Germany and the Nazis. If you examine any war you will find similar things. I have a TV program called "The History Channel" it only ever shows programs about WW2 and the Nazis. I do not excuse what the Nazis did in any way at all but I dont accept that Germany and Germans are forever to be considered a sort of homicidal race. Napoleons regime was just the same, so brutal on all people even their own the French that Wellington simply bought his way through France from Spain.

Here is an excerpt from an account of the Scottish army that invaded England in 1138

"Then (horrible to relate) they carried off, like so much booty, the noble matrons and chaste virgins, together with other women. These naked, fettered, herded together; by whips and thongs they drove before them, goading them with their spears and other weapons. This took place in other wars, but in this to a far greater extent."[11]
The practicalities of this would support the chroniclers’ tales of sexual abuse of the slaves and casual slaughter of unsalable encumbrances:
"For the sick on their couches, women pregnant and in childbed, infants in the womb, innocents at the breast, or on the mother's knee, with the mothers themselves, decrepit old men and worn-out old women, and persons debilitated from whatever cause, wherever they met with them, they put to the edge of the sword, and transfixed with their spears; and by how much more horrible a death they could dispatch them, so much the more did they rejoice."[11]

If you read and think it is EXACTLY what ISIS are doing in Iraq and Syria

Things culminated in the Battle of the Standard at Northallerton where the Scots were defeated, now a nice north Yorkshire town in beautiful countryside. Am I permitted to harangue the Scots for this? When does it stop?


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## mikewint (Aug 22, 2015)

Such testimony comes from all wars. How about the British and Americans linked by blood and history:
From 1776 to 1783, the British forces occupying New York City used abandoned or decommissioned warships anchored just offshore to hold those soldiers, sailors and private citizens they had captured in battle or arrested on land or at sea (many for refusing to swear an oath of allegiance to the British Crown). Some 11,000 prisoners died aboard the prison ships over the course of the war, many from disease or malnutrition. Many of these were inmates of the notorious HMS Jersey, which earned the nickname "Hell" for its inhumane conditions and the obscenely high death rate of its prisoners.
Christopher Vail, of Southold, who was aboard Jersey in 1781, later wrote:
'When a man died he was carried up on the forecastle and laid there until the next morning at 8 o'clock when they were all lowered down the ship sides by a rope round them in the same manner as tho' they were beasts. There was 8 died of a day while I was there. They were carried on shore in heaps and hove out the boat on the wharf, then taken across a hand barrow, carried to the edge of the bank, where a hole was dug 1 or 2 feet deep and all hove in together.
In 1778, Robert Sheffield of Stonington, Connecticut, escaped from one of the prison ships, and told his story in the Connecticut Gazette, printed July 10, 1778. He was one of 350 prisoners held in a compartment below the decks.
"The heat was so intense that (the hot sun shining all day on deck) they were all naked, which also served the well to get rid of vermin, but the sick were eaten up alive. Their sickly countenances, and ghastly looks were truly horrible; some swearing and blaspheming; others crying, praying, and wringing their hands; and stalking about like ghosts; others delirious, raving and storming,--all panting for breath; some dead, and corrupting. The air was so foul that at times a lamp could not be kept burning, by reason of which the bodies were not missed until they had been dead ten days."


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## parsifal (Aug 22, 2015)

Mike, there are two principles really at the heart of what we are discussing. The first is the principle of retribution, the second is the principle of justice. Justice includes retribution but retribution does not constitute justice, and personal retribution has no place in achieving true justice.

At the end of the war, the problems faced by the victorious allies was that they had a nation that had so soaked itself in blood that it was difficult to separate the emotion of personal hatred for Germans and the desire to seek personal retribution from the concept of national responsibility, national war guilt if you like. Summary retribution of the kind advocated by Churchill and Stalin was not going to solve the problem. But neither could the nation of Germany be allowed to walk free unscathed. There was too much blood on the nations hands to allow that to occur.

To the great credit of the US attorney Jackson the Nuremberg trials offered a partial solution to at least some of this problem Nuremberg was actually a series of trials, but underpinning it was what has been referred to as the Nuremberg principles. These remain the foundation of war crimes justice. There are 7 principles, worth noting....

The Nuremberg principles were a set of guidelines for determining what constitutes a war crime. The document was created by the International Law Commission of the United Nations to codify the legal principles underlying the Nuremberg Trials. They retain considerable relevance even today, though some have been modified over time 

Principle I
"Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment."
This goes to individual responsibility. There were many persons from all the combatants who would meet this criteria. 

Principle II
"The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law."
This principle has been rejected by the US in recent times. It is the main reason why it will not allow its personnel before the ICC. Such a defence was not open to the defeated German nationals in 1945. They effectively had no rights to challenge the forms of justice or retribution that were decided for them. Some wanted to just shoot the leaders and enslave the remainder. To his great and largely unnappreciated credit Jackson made sure this "justice" did not happen. 

Principle III
"The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law." The person would not enjoy diplomatic immunity but would be held responsible under the eyes of international law. This principle can be applied in reverse, and it was at Nuremberg. The leader, or the "govt" is not held to be solely responsible under the code. Individuals are. held just as accountable. 

Principle IV: Superior Orders
"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him". This principle could be paraphrased as follows: "It is not an acceptable excuse to say 'I was just following my superior's orders'".

Previous to the time of the Nuremberg Trials, this excuse was known in common parlance as "Superior Orders". After the prominent, high profile event of the Nuremberg Trials, that excuse is now referred to by many as the "Nuremberg Defense". In recent times, a third term, "lawful orders" has become common parlance for some people. All three terms are in use today, and they all have slightly different nuances of meaning, depending on the context in which they are used.

Nuremberg Principle IV is legally supported by the jurisprudence found in certain articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which deal indirectly with conscientious objection. It is also supported by the principles found in paragraph 171 of the Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status which was issued by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Those principles deal with the conditions under which conscientious objectors can apply for refugee status in another country if they face persecution in their own country for refusing to participate in an illegal war.

Often, since the trials (and because of the harshness set down in other principles below) some have argued that the majority of Germans were not subject to scrutiny under the International justice system. But Nuremberg established some very significant legal precedents for this. The bar for moral choice is very high. A child is not subject to this principle, but an adult generally is. A man with a gun to his head, being ordered to shoot a nother man, still has a choice, though the extenuation is obvious. 

This Nuremberg principle is unpopular because it removes a lot of emotion from the equation, and blows out of the water the sorts of defences being presented here in this debate. But please read on. 

Principle V
"Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law." This again is a major criticism of the Nuremberg Trials, but the principle itself was a critical addition insisted and achieved by Jackson (and others) in the setting up of the tribunals. Generally people criticise Nuremberg because they argue how was it possible for the defendants, or indeed the nation of Germany to receive a fair trial). There is an element of truth to this, but my response is that Nuremberg whilst vastly imperfect, was probably about as fair as it could be under the circumstances. The only other options were either the summary execution and national enslavement models advocated by the main leaders of the times, or let em go, rearm them and continue fighting as people like Patton advocated. There are colourations of these extremes to be sure, but in my view Nuremberg offered the best chances to a lasting peace, a lasting sense of justice that was available at the time.

Principle VI
"The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
(b) War crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
(c) Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime." 

Moreover, in order for any of the other preceding principles to be applied as a "war crime" . principle VI had to be established. When people try to argue that Dresden was a war crime, for example, they conveniently forget about this overarching principle. Its one of the main reasons why no member of the winning allied cause could be placed on trial. The surrender terms of 1945, in part, laid the blame for the war firmly at the feet of germany. it was in effect, and for the purposes of applying this principle, an admission by the entire nation of germany that they alone were responsible for the conflict. that admission has been grumbled about for nearly 50 years as people come out of the wood work to defend Germany, but I have no problem with it. For me, the person or nation who started it all, is important. 

Principle VII
"Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law." 

In the judgements that came out of Nuremberg, it was established that not only individuals were responsible for that, the entire nation of germany was held responsible. Thinking Germans allowed it to happen, they therefore share in the collective war guilt that is Germany's. Again, this is a major point of contention, as you can see.


In the case of the attrocities committed at the end of the war, they are technically not war crimes at least in the context of 1945 (they are so classified today) . They are crimes under the justice code, and what we might term "common law" but in 1945, the military occupations getting underway had lax applications of such principles, hence the numerous breaches of human rights. Stalin also had other ulterior motives for unleashing his barbarous hordes.....he was excocising all possible opposition to the Soviet occupation already, and what better way than to terrorise the civilian population.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 23, 2015)

And children should share that collective guilt? Children that had no say so. Children that in many cases where not even born. 

That justifies the raping and killing...


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## parsifal (Aug 23, 2015)

No, it does not. For the allies that committed crimes prior to the setting up of a military occupation, they needed to be tried under their respective crimnal codes. We know that did not happen, but those same soldiers would not have been in Germany in the first place if Germany had chosen its destiny more wisely. 

For the germans however, the reason those foreign powers were there in the first place was because of actions they as a nation had taken. 

The legal system offered the only way out. The tribunals set up after the war were the best option. The alternatives were much worse. 

Many of the crimes committed during and just after the war went unpunished. German crimes were worse becuase many of them were state sanctioned. Even the russians after the war didnt quite go that far, though it made little difference to the outcome in that case. Eventually even the Russians had to reign in the terror they were inflicting and orders went out to restore order.

Looking for justice in the sense of dealing with every crime committed proved a hopeless task, but the Nuremberg principals lit the beacon for a way out .

The children of germany were victims like any children that suffered in the war. But, their carers had a collective say and chose, through the leaders they chose, to go the path of war. In that sense their parents made the choices for them.

In the case of the Jews, or any of the nations that Germany chose to make war on, such choice was taken away from them


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 23, 2015)

But I thought none of them where innocent? You did say that. And because of that you have no sympathy for them. 

The difference between you and me, is I have sympathy for all the victims and all the innocents. Fortunately I think most rational people feel the same way, and that is a good thing. It is what makes us better human beings than the people that we where fighting against to begin with.


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## parsifal (Aug 23, 2015)

They are not innocent. They are German, that made them guilty. Not my opinion, not an attempt by me to flame this up even more than it already is, just a basic statement of fact (read on please) . They are the findings on which the Nuremberg trials were based. You are mixing up the words innocent and victim. I understand the determination to use crimes such as this to undermine the legal processes that indicted a whole nation, but they are feelings that cant be allowed to exist in the application of the law

They are guilty because as nationals of a country guilty of waging aggressive war (again not my opinion....but the judgement of a court of justice) their nation was the cause of all the suffering of that war. Because of their age the children you refer to have what is referred to as "diminished responsibility", but for good or bad they are still the (defeated) enemy . Being a national of a guilty nation does not make you automatically subject to summary punishment (or even, subject indictment as a war criminal), but it does make you automatically guilty of being a national of a nation found collectively guilty of waging agessive war, and therefore potentially subject to trial, provided the other principles are met. There is no way a dependant minor can ever be held responsible for the nations crimes. But the principle of collective guilt was an important foundation on which some justice could be achieved. For that reason I support the concept. One of the principles of the Nuremberg Charter (the right to a fair trial, which carries with it the presumption of innocence before conviction) ensures that in theory at least no child of that age would ever be found individually culpable. Say, for some insane reason a child was hauled before the tribunal the trial would not have lasted 5 minutes, because the foundation principles could not be met. 

I have no sympathy for what happened doesnt mean i have no emotions (my feelings of no sympathy are personal, I keep them to myself, as I do my other my personal feelings of anger (at least thats what I try to do) at nations having to fight yet another war against a nation so self absorbed it failed to see the great crimes it was committing). I feel great sorrow for what happened, and I know that terrible crimes were done to many children of many nations. But the reason for this happening is directly linked to the decisions made by those childrens guardians to support a regime bent on aggressive war. That needed to be dealt with as a priority at the end of the war, and to a limited extent it was. Those Russians that did what they did was heinous, outside the law, and unfortunately untouchable. So too were many of the nazi criminals, but the difference was their country lost and was found guilty of waging aggressive war and hence committed a war crime. for the law as it existed in 1945 (it has changed since then) the Russians, whilst guilty of common rape and murder, were not guilty of a war crime. Thats not me trying to justify their actions, thats me applying the legal test that needed to be applied in 1945. They were there in Berlin because of what hitler decided to do, and Hitler was there because he was genuinely supported by the German nation.

Soft mushy feelings of sorrow and sympathy are nice luxuries to comfort oneself, or perhaps someone you know , but understanding the reasons and making sure they never happen again are, in my opinion, more important because they can be applied to both people you know and people you dont know, and, people you like and people you dont like. Your sympathy to someone you dont know is nice to hear but doesnt achieve much else and doesnt help them, and certainly leaves the issue of even partial justice unanswered. My opinion is that the conduct of the nuremberg trials, and the application of the principles that underpinned them whilst hard to accept as a person with german sympathies, are a better response to achieve tangibly improved peace conditions after the war.


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## parsifal (Aug 23, 2015)

> It is what makes us better human beings than the people that we where fighting against to begin with.



Having sympathy, or sorrow, or regret are important personal traits. Without it we are quite mindless. It doesnt make us better people if we are all sympathy and no action. And certainly the allies did not have a greater monopoly on sympathy (or any other superior human quality) compared to the Germans. Germans as individuals or even as groups showed great sympathy, kindness charity and mercy. We are no better than they. In the context of 1945 there is only one real difference......the Germans caused it all by starting it. Some of them committed terrible crimes. Some of ours also did. Id like to think more of theirs did more bad things than our guys, but that is hardly a reason to say something was terribly wrong in germany at wars end. What was wrong was that as a nation they had started a conflagaration that cost millions of innocent lives, including many from their own nation, including their children. Therein lies the bedrock of the crime. Some of its people in the institution of that national crime then went on to commit terrible further indictable crimes which are called war crimes. Some of the nation guilty and standing in the dock did nothing and were free to continue their lives. Some, under Soviet control unfortunately were not so free though they had not really done anything wrong


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## pbehn (Aug 23, 2015)

parsifal said:


> They are not innocent. .



If you said "They were not innocent" you may have an argument, it is statements like that which hangs the guilt on present day German children. It is now 70 years since the second world war started, dont drag that into the present day.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 23, 2015)

parsifal said:


> They are not innocent. They are German, that made them guilty. Not my opinion, not an attempt by me to flame this up even more than it already is, just a basic statement of fact (read on please) . They are the findings on which the Nuremberg trials were based. You are mixing up the words innocent and victim. I understand the determination to use crimes such as this to undermine the legal processes that indicted a whole nation, but they are feelings that cant be allowed to exist in the application of the law
> 
> They are guilty because as nationals of a country guilty of waging aggressive war (again not my opinion....but the judgement of a court of justice) their nation was the cause of all the suffering of that war. Because of their age the children you refer to have what is referred to as "diminished responsibility", but for good or bad they are still the (defeated) enemy . Being a national of a guilty nation does not make you automatically subject to summary punishment (or even, subject indictment as a war criminal), but it does make you automatically guilty of being a national of a nation found collectively guilty of waging agessive war, and therefore potentially subject to trial, provided the other principles are met. There is no way a dependant minor can ever be held responsible for the nations crimes. But the principle of collective guilt was an important foundation on which some justice could be achieved. For that reason I support the concept. One of the principles of the Nuremberg Charter (the right to a fair trial, which carries with it the presumption of innocence before conviction) ensures that in theory at least no child of that age would ever be found individually culpable. Say, for some insane reason a child was hauled before the tribunal the trial would not have lasted 5 minutes, because the foundation principles could not be met.
> 
> ...



Wow...

So lets get this straight then. The 3 year old twin kids of a drunk driver who killed someone are guilty because of association as well. But it is only a "diminished responsibility".

That is your logic...


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 23, 2015)

parsifal said:


> Having sympathy, or sorrow, or regret are important personal traits. Without it we are quite mindless. It doesnt make us better people if we are all sympathy and no action. And certainly the allies did not have a greater monopoly on sympathy (or any other superior human quality) compared to the Germans. Germans as individuals or even as groups showed great sympathy, kindness charity and mercy. We are no better than they. In the context of 1945 there is only one real difference......the Germans caused it all by starting it. Some of them committed terrible crimes. Some of ours also did. Id like to think more of theirs did more bad things than our guys, but that is hardly a reason to say something was terribly wrong in germany at wars end. What was wrong was that as a nation they had started a conflagaration that cost millions of innocent lives, including many from their own nation, including their children. Therein lies the bedrock of the crime. Some of its people in the institution of that national crime then went on to commit terrible further indictable crimes which are called war crimes. Some of the nation guilty and standing in the dock did nothing and were free to continue their lives. Some, under Soviet control unfortunately were not so free though they had not really done anything wrong



NOT a single person here is saying that the Nazi's/Germans did not bring this on themselves. You keep tip toeing around the fact that it is okay that it was okay to commit crimes and atrocities against innocent people (yes Children are innocent whether you want to admit it or not with your false logic) simply because they are German.

Lets see, my mother was born right after the end of WW2. I guess because her parents were WW2 Germans, that makes them Nazi's and it also makes my mother a Nazi and she should have war guilt too right? War guilt for something she was not even alive. Lets extend that out to my wife as well who was born 38 years after the war ended. 

God I am shaking may head.

Honestly this is my last response to this thread, or to any post you make from here on out in any thread. Otherwise this will get ugly again.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 23, 2015)

pbehn said:


> If you said "They were not innocent" you may have an argument, it is statements like that which hangs the guilt on present day German children. It is now 70 years since the second world war started, dont drag that into the present day.



This bugs my wife so much...

I guess as a half German, I should feel guilty too. Hell when do we draw the line? Do I have to feel double guilty because the American side of me did terrible things to the Native Americas? I guess so, using his logic.


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## pbehn (Aug 23, 2015)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> This bugs my wife so much...
> 
> I guess as a half German, I should feel guilty too. Hell when do we draw the line? Do I have to feel double guilty because the American side of me did terrible things to the Native Americas? I guess so, using his logic.



I heard it from many working with Brits in Germany and frankly after a couple of years I stopped associating with expats. If you dont stop somewhere with this, you end up with the endless "whataboutery" that can keep the hate going for generations. One of my earliest political memories was the Northern Ireland troubles kicking off in 1969. It is still going on but that is hardly a surprise both sides can hark back to events 200 300 and up to 1200 years before. Roman Catholics and Protestants didnt exist then but hey, thats just a mere detail.

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## stona (Aug 23, 2015)

You might as well blame the demise of the vole and other small rodents in Britain on the Italians since it was the Romans who supposedly introduced the domestic cat to these islands.

Steve


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## pbehn (Aug 23, 2015)

stona said:


> You might as well blame the demise of the vole and other small rodents in Britain on the Italians since it was the Romans who supposedly introduced the domestic cat to these islands.



Exactly what I was saying, what did the Romans do for us?

I have been personally held responsible for the invasion of Ireland in 1148, the potato famine, poor medical treatment of the Scots at Culloden, Amritsar, sinking the French fleet at Oran and the A bomb on Hiroshima. It can be fun working abroad.


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## stona (Aug 23, 2015)

pbehn said:


> It can be fun working abroad.



I know I do it all the time 

Incidentally whilst it is true that a significant percentage of the German electorate (which didn't include children) voted for the NSDAP it would be wrong to think that it gained power in a normal way. It was a revolution and *in 1933/34 alone nearly 200,000 opponents of the regime found themselves in one of the many concentration camps.* This was under the guise of so called 'protective custody' and many were released after a short period and a good beating by the SA (the SS gained control of the camps later, but that's another story). Not all though, and some of this initial intake would go on to die in the camps when they became much more lethal, a few years later.

Cheers

Steve


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 23, 2015)

stona said:


> I know I do it all the time
> 
> Incidentally whilst it is true that a significant percentage of the German electorate (which didn't include children) voted for the NSDAP it would be wrong to think that it gained power in a normal way. It was a revolution and *in 1933/34 alone nearly 200,000 opponents of the regime found themselves in one of the many concentration camps.* This was under the guise of so called 'protective custody' and many were released after a short period and a good beating by the SA (the SS gained control of the camps later, but that's another story). Not all though, and some of this initial intake would go on to die in the camps when they became much more lethal, a few years later.
> 
> ...



The thing though is that not a single person here is saying that Germany was not responsible for the horrors of WW2, or the death, pain and suffering that was inflicted on millions of people world wide including the German people themselves. There is a difference however with national blame and personal blame. Which I why I have a problem with the ignorance of saying that ALL were to blame and there was no innocence. I will never stand down on this belief. I don't give two shits if it ruined an "internet friendship".

It is also real easy for someone sitting behind their computer 70+ year later to hold a moral high ground and say that they would have prevented it from happening.


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## parsifal (Aug 23, 2015)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Wow...
> 
> So lets get this straight then. The 3 year old twin kids of a drunk driver who killed someone are guilty because of association as well. But it is only a "diminished responsibility".
> 
> That is your logic...



No, they are not. You cannot apply the tests applicable to the war crimes tribunals to a civil matter. And in a civil matter, it depends entirely on the wording of that nations criminal code. in my country there would be no case for those children to answer. For other countries thats a matter for those countries. in 1945, in Germany, many of the crimes under the international code were not crimes under the National German code. That issue alone had to be dealt with before any german national guilty or suspected of a crime could be brought to justice. . 

Its not my logic. It is the logic that underpins the Nuremberg trials. The alternatives were either shoot or imprison an arbitrary number of germans as Stalin wanted, and enslavement of the remainder, something the Soviets did in their zone anyway....or let everyone go free without trial.

Getting war criminals to trial, with a degree of fairness in that system required tricky legal footwork. Basically an entirely new code needed to be adopted and agreed upon by the victorious allies, all of whom had vastly different legal systems and perogatives. This was the only way to bring the perpetrators to international justice, sidestepping the argument of superior orders and the internal german legal code applicable at the time.

There is nothing hard about this if you think about it. There is no comparison to what you are trying to accuse me of, and what im actually saying. I dont think there is anything more i can do to help you understand how the justice system was made to be served in 1945. I get the feeling you dont want to know either. I believe you think it all so unfair, so, Im open to any suggestion you believe might work better given the legal complexities facing the allies in 1945. Id be interested to hear how you would have made it work. 

As ive stated just about every time youve commented on this, war guilt was established by nationality, on the basis of what that nation did. By its own written confession, Germany admitted war guilt, and even though that confession was extracted under the highest duress, I think Im on safe ground to say it was a fair confession in what it established. That doesnt mean all the nationals of germany are necessarily guilty of anything else, just that they are a national of a nation that itself was guilty of waging an aggressive war.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 23, 2015)

parsifal said:


> No, they are not. You cannot apply the tests applicable to the war crimes tribunals to a civil matter. And in a civil matter, it depends entirely on the wording of that nations criminal code. in my country there would be no case for those children to answer. For other countries thats a matter for those countries. in 1945, in Germany, many of the crimes under the international code were not crimes under the National German code. That issue alone had to be dealt with before any german national guilty or suspected of a crime could be brought to justice. .
> 
> Its not my logic. It is the logic that underpins the Nuremberg trials. The alternatives were either shoot or imprison an arbitrary number of germans as Stalin wanted, and enslavement of the remainder, something the Soviets did in their zone anyway....or let everyone go free without trial.
> 
> ...



You still have not explained how any of that makes a child guilty, or how it is justified what happened to them. 

Don't bother and answer though. I won't be reading. 

Over and out...


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## pbehn (Aug 23, 2015)

I find the concept of a nation being guilty of war crimes about as sensible as Detroit being found guilty of rioting. If the invasion of Iraq is declared a war crime, Britain could be found guilty, despite 2 million protesting against it and almost nobody supporting it.

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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 23, 2015)

pbehn said:


> I find the concept of a nation being guilty of war crimes about as sensible as Detroit being found guilty of rioting. If the invasion of Iraq is declared a war crime, Britain could be found guilty, despite 2 million protesting against it and almost nobody supporting it.



Careful though, you might be called out as bad as a holocaust denier...

I agree to an extent that you can not blame a whole population simply because there are innocence regardless of what a piece of paper in a post war trial says. Having said that though, the German govt represented the German people and in those regards the national was guilty.


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## pbehn (Aug 23, 2015)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Careful though, you might be called out as bad as a holocaust denier...
> 
> I agree to an extent that you can not blame a whole population simply because there are innocence regardless of what a piece of paper in a post war trial says. Having said that though, the German govt represented the German people and in those regards the national was guilty.



Churchill had more reason than most to whip up hate, from what I remember he was very careful to make it clear that The UK and commonwealth were at war to get rid of Hitler and his Nazi regime which was in government.


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## parsifal (Aug 23, 2015)

What ive tried to clarify is the process that needed to be devised in order to bring a degree of justice to the crimes committed by some Germans during the war. It is not a process of trying to state little children or old women are guilty of anything, other than being german, and the nation of germany was held responsible for the war in the first place. Im glad no-one is arguing that point, but it is necessary to get to that point for anythng else to have been possible. Its one thing to get to that point, and then another to get to some point of getting some justice as well. It wasnt easy to set up the the conditions that could get even a nuremberg style result. The alternatives were either to kill an arbitrary number of Germans and enslave the rest, or, let em all go. Collective war guilt was an absolute necessity to get anything moving at all, and if nothing was done, Stalin was waiting in the wings with his solution.

There are no Romans, or rats, or irishmen involved in this line of thinking. There were, however massive legal obstacles to be overcome, if the firing squads for a ton of germans was to be avoided. 

If Ive got any sense, Im not going to waste any more time on this. I am not saying every German was a war criminal. I am not saying a little child is guilty of anything as an individual. I am saying that the nation of Germany was guilty of waging aggressive war, and a nation in part consists of its entire population. By saying the nation of Germany was responsible, however distasteful you lot find this, you have to say every man woman and child in Germany at that time was guilty of waging an aggresive war (that is not, I repeat, not, a accusation of individual culpability, but it is, or should be, an agreed basic fact that Germany was held collectively responsible at the end of the war, and that, unfotunately means everyone carries a modicum of guilt if they were borne before 1945. by going through a distasteful excercise like that, Jackson was able to actually save thousands of innocent Germsans from the firing squads). If this collective culpability process was not followed, you have to understand that a viable legal process would have to be abandoned and let loose stalin and his ideas. Once that was established, other things could follow, leading to the indictments you guys say you are happy to occur. Without that admission (of collective guilt), the only real alternative was stallins firing squad, or let them all go. 

Not a single person born after 1945 was guilty of anything. and not a single person not found guilty under the indictments should be persecuted because of that legal positioning. none of that is the fault of the Nuremberg principles. The prejudices you talk about are the product of our own personal failings

nuremberg had weaknesses, big ones. none of you have bothered to even consider them. But nuremberg was a far better option than anything else possible at the time


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 23, 2015)

pbehn said:


> Churchill had more reason than most to whip up hate, from what I remember he was very careful to make it clear that The UK and commonwealth were at war to get rid of Hitler and his Nazi regime which was in government.



He certainly was the right man for the right time. Historically one of the greatest men of all time. 

Hopefully we as a human race will never have to see these kind of horrors again. No one regardless of nationality deserved what was brought up them.

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## stona (Aug 23, 2015)

I'll just say that the trials for war crimes were arranged and carried out by the victors. It was the victors who decided what did and didn't constitute a war crime. There is a reason why no indictment of any defendant at Nuremberg made any mention of bombing for example. There was nothing like a supposedly impartial body as exists today. Had the Germans prevailed who knows who might have ended up in front of a panel of judges selected by the Nazi regime, rather than those of The US, UK, France and the USSR.

The atrocities committed by Soviet forces as the invaded they Reich were war crimes by any definition. Nobody got tried for them because the Soviet Union was on the winning side. The idea that somehow the Germans brought this on themselves or were somehow deserving of such retribution is, frankly, revolting.

Cheers

Steve


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## parsifal (Aug 23, 2015)

> You still have not explained how any of that makes a child guilty, or how it is justified what happened to them.
> 
> Don't bother and answer though. I won't be reading.
> 
> Over and out..


.

This is not for Adler, it is for the thread.

I have actually explained this several times now.

Because the child is part of the nation, and the nation was found to carry collective war guilt (Im abbreviating the terminology here), the child borne prior to 1945 has the unenvious burden of being assigned collective war guilt like every other person in Germany at that time. I wish ther could be another way of getting to where things had to be. However, on the basis of massively diminished responsibility, and the fact that they personally did nothing wrong, as was the case for many Germans, they are not guilty of anything personally. Ive said repeatedly as well, but unfortunately thats not getting through either....

Collective war guilt was part of the process in achieving some level of justice. Assigning war guilt to the entire nation of germany was appropriate, and in itself some form of appropriate punishment (albeit warped and largely unfair). we would not be here squabbling about it now if it still didnt have some fangs left in it.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 23, 2015)

stona said:


> I'll just say that the trials for war crimes were arranged and carried out by the victors. It was the victors who decided what did and didn't constitute a war crime. There is a reason why no indictment of any defendant at Nuremberg made any mention of bombing for example. There was nothing like a supposedly impartial body as exists today. Had the Germans prevailed who knows who might have ended up in front of a panel of judges selected by the Nazi regime, rather than those of The US, UK, France and the USSR.
> Cheers
> Steve



There is no argument that the Nurnberg Trials was the right thing to do. I think everything from the Nurnberg Trials to the Marshal Plan was the correct way to rebuild a nation, re-introduce its population back to the international community and ensure a lasting peace. It also brought some of the people responsible to justice. All of that however had nothing do with whether retributions on innocent people was okay and justified simply because their govt. that brought it upon them was guilty of the crimes and war itself.

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## pbehn (Aug 23, 2015)

It was political expediency, a certain number had to be executed to satisfy public outrage, sufficient put on trial to remove the most senior nazis left to allow Germany to rebuild, of course if the nazis were valuable and could build a rocket for example they stopped being so evil. Just being a nazi was not sufficient, even if the nazis as a group were collectively and in most cases individually guilty, they couldn't all be found guilty and executed as it would need a system like they had just uncovered.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 23, 2015)

pbehn said:


> It was political expediency, a certain number had to be executed to satisfy public outrage, sufficient put on trial to remove the most senior nazis left to allow Germany to rebuild, of course if the nazis were valuable and could build a rocket for example they stopped being so evil. Just being a nazi was not sufficient, even if the nazis as a group were collectively and in most cases individually guilty, they couldn't all be found guilty and executed as it would need a system like they had just uncovered.



There is some truth to that.


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## parsifal (Aug 23, 2015)

stona said:


> I'll just say that the trials for war crimes were arranged and carried out by the victors. It was the victors who decided what did and didn't constitute a war crime. There is a reason why no indictment of any defendant at Nuremberg made any mention of bombing for example. There was nothing like a supposedly impartial body as exists today. Had the Germans prevailed who knows who might have ended up in front of a panel of judges selected by the Nazi regime, rather than those of The US, UK, France and the USSR.
> Cheers
> Steve



At last someone with a meaningful critique of the Nuremberg process.

Nuremberg was a whole bunch of compromises and imperfections. It was far from perfect, but it was better than any of the realistic alternatives. 

Critics of the Nuremberg trials argue that the charges against the defendants were only defined as "crimes" after they were committed and that therefore the trial was invalid as a form of "victors' justice". The alleged double standards associated with putative victor's justice are also evident from the indictment of German defendants for conspiracy to commit aggression against Poland in 1939, while no one from the Soviet Union was charged for being part of the same conspiracy. As Biddiss observed at the time, "the Nuremberg Trial continues to haunt us. ... It is a question also of the weaknesses and strengths of the proceedings themselves.

Jackson, the principle US attorney responsible for the courts architecture and guiding principles stated in a letter to Truman discussing the weaknesses of the trial, in October 1945 stated that the Allies themselves "have done or are doing some of the very things we are prosecuting the Germans for. The French are so violating the Geneva Convention in the treatment of prisoners of war that our command is taking back prisoners sent to them. We are prosecuting plunder and our Allies are practising it. We say aggressive war is a crime and one of our allies asserts sovereignty over the Baltic States based on no title except conquest."

Associate Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas charged that the Allies were guilty of "substituting power for principle" at Nuremberg. "I thought at the time and still think that the Nuremberg trials were unprincipled," he wrote. "Law was created ex post facto to suit the passion and clamor of the time."

U.S. Deputy Chief Counsel Abraham Pomerantz resigned in protest at the low caliber of the judges assigned to try the industrial war criminals such as those at I.G. Farben.

Many Germans who agreed with the idea of punishment for war crimes, admitted trepidation concerning the trials. 

And yet, the results were not a uniform dispensation of the death penalty for the defendants that were indicted. For the defendants at the main trial about half were sentenced to death, 4 were acquitted (out of 20 brought to trial from memory) and 6 or 7 received lengthy gaol time. Thats harsh, but these guys were the very leaders we have been talking about


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## stona (Aug 23, 2015)

Now with that I agree. The whole Nuremberg process was deeply flawed, but something had to be seen to be done. In the end it served a purpose but any idea that this was somehow the victorious allies dispensing Justice (with a capital J) is ridiculous.

I don't believe inculpating a relative few national leaders, government officials, functionaries and soldiers was necessary to exculpate the German nation as a whole because I don't believe that the German nation ever needed such exhonoration. I think in that we may have differing views.

Cheers

Steve


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 23, 2015)

stona said:


> Now with that I agree. The whole Nuremberg process was deeply flawed, but something had to be seen to be done. In the end it served a purpose but any idea that this was somehow the victorious allies dispensing Justice (with a capital J) is ridiculous.
> 
> I don't believe inculpating a relative few national leaders, government officials, functionaries and soldiers was necessary to exculpate the German nation as a whole because I don't believe that the German nation ever needed such exhonoration. I think in that we may have differing views.
> 
> ...



Agreed, and that has never been disputed here. My beef here was never about the process or the trials, which I think where the only option and course of action that could be taken. That is why there was no _"meaningful critique"_ from me in regards to Nurnberg because there was no dispute over it.


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## mikewint (Aug 23, 2015)

There seem to be two recurring themes here, Collective Guilt or Responsibility and that the German populace, as a whole did not oppose Hitler and his policies.
The first Collective Guilt bothers me the most.

Many Germans were opposed to Hitler and his policies. Some, including military officers, lost their lives heroically trying to assassinate him. Are the families of those men, including their innocent children, somehow stained with a collective German bloodguilt? That they "deserved" to die?
In 1933 the Nazi party received a 44% vote, and only gained control of the Reichstag through a coalition with another party. Within months, through a series of adroit political maneuvers, Hitler managed to gain complete authoritarian control. 
Rarely does any government have universal consent. Sometimes 49% of the people get the government the other 51% percent want. Sometimes 90% of the people get the government that the 10% with more weapons want. 
"The 'populace' voted for that government"? Really?
In war, collateral damage and deaths are unavoidable, but not on the basis of a collective guilt argument. 
Let’s leave Nazi Germany for a bit and see “Collective Guilt” in present day America: 

Pennsylvania’s governor, in a challenge to the NCAA’s powers, claimed in a lawsuit Wednesday that college sports’ governing body overstepped its authority and ”piled on” when it penalized Penn State over the Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal.
Gov. Tom Corbett asked that a federal judge throw out the sanctions, which include an unprecedented $60 million fine and a four-year ban on bowl games, arguing that the measures have harmed students, business owners and others who had nothing to do with Sandusky’s crimes.
”A handful of top NCAA officials simply inserted themselves into an issue they had no authority to police under their own bylaws and one that was clearly being handled by the justice system,” Corbett said at a news conference.
The case, filed under federal antitrust law, could define just how far the NCAA’s authority extends. Up to now, the federal courts have allowed the organization broad powers to protect the integrity of college athletics.
In a statement, the NCAA said the lawsuit has no merit and called it an”affront” to Sandusky’s victims.
Penn State said it had no role in the lawsuit. In fact, it agreed not to sue as part of the deal with the NCAA accepting the sanctions, which were imposed in July after an investigation found that football coach Joe Paterno and other top officials hushed up sexual-abuse allegations against Sandusky, a former member of Paterno’s staff, for more than a decade for fear of bad publicity.
The penalties include a cut in the number of football scholarships the university can award and a rewriting of the record books to erase 14 years of victories under Paterno, who was fired when the scandal broke in 2011 and died of lung cancer a short time later.

A perfect example of ascribing collective guilt. Sandusky is certainly guilty, as are other coaches and administrators who overlooked and covered up his crimes. But how far does that guilt extend? Does it make sense to punish the entire university? Does it make sense to void 14 years worth of victories, erasing them as if they never happened, even though none of the players who won those victories had any involvement in the scandal? So the whole institution has a collective guilt and needs to be punished as a whole?


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## Hiromachi (Aug 23, 2015)

parsifal said:


> At last someone with a meaningful critique of the Nuremberg process.
> 
> Nuremberg was a whole bunch of compromises and imperfections. It was far from perfect, but it was better than any of the realistic alternatives.
> 
> Critics of the Nuremberg trials argue that the charges against the defendants were only defined as "crimes" after they were committed and that therefore the trial was invalid as a form of "victors' justice". The alleged double standards associated with putative victor's justice are also evident from the indictment of German defendants for conspiracy to commit aggression against Poland in 1939, while no one from the Soviet Union was charged for being part of the same conspiracy. As Biddiss observed at the time, "the Nuremberg Trial continues to haunt us. ... It is a question also of the weaknesses and strengths of the proceedings themselves.



The only real issue from my perspective was that one totalitarianism (communist) was judging the other (nazis), or more specifically soviet criminals were judging German criminals which makes it a parody of justice. Of course Soviet side was the victorious and along with Allies had to take part in it but it does not change the fact what kind of people participated in the trials.
Lets take for example Iona Nikitchenko who in mid 30s sentenced hundreds of innocent people for death, he even took part in show trials during the infamous Great Purge, when he sentenced Kamenev and Zinoviev. The Soviet prosecutor Roman Rudenko was the one who even tried to bring Katyn as a nazi crime, which brought certain comments from Hermann Goering, eventually that was dropped and few today know of it. 

Few seem to consider the possibility that to make a trial more just, so the victors would not judge the defeated, would be asking a representatives of neutral countries such as Switzerland or Sweden.


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## mikewint (Aug 23, 2015)

This is my number two from the above post. The German people did nothing to oppose Hitler. I know of/have read of several resistance groups with in Germany but let's begin with about the 1,700 Jews who survived in Berlin, and the estimated 20,000 to 30,000 non-Jewish Germans who actively hid them.
The Edelweiss Pirates
A group of ex-Hitler Youth, the Edelweiss Pirates began organizing right before the outbreak of World War II. Mostly comprised of teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18, they had no central leader and were only loosely affiliated with the groups in other cities—sometimes, the only common factor was the Edelweiss flower badge which they all wore. As the war dragged on, the Edelweiss Pirates performed increasingly dangerous tasks, including sabotage against German railways and aiding Jews fleeing from the Nazis. German reprisals were varied, depending on the severity of the crime, but many were sent to camps or prisons, with some even being executed.
The Swing Kids
Mainly based in the city of Hamburg, the Swing Kids began as a counterculture group to Nazism. They were youth who enjoyed American swing music, something the Nazis detested. Though not very political at the beginning, the Swing Kids were said to have begun spreading the truth heard from the Allies to German citizens. (However, most of their protests seemed to be in the form of petty crime or vandalism.) In addition, many of the group members began to non-violently protest other aspects of Nazi rule, with some even going on to join other more political groups like the White Rose. After 1941, the Nazis began to crack down on the swing clubs, sending many of the children to concentration camps.
Johann George Elser
Normally a footnote in the history of Hitler and Nazism, Johann George Elser was one of many men who tried to assassinate Hitler. However, Elser is part of a select group of people who tried to do it alone. Every year, the Nazis would meet at the Beer Hall Putsch, to commemorate the failed overthrow of the German government that landed a younger Hitler in jail. Elser knew this and used it to his advantage. Ten months before Hitler was going to give his annual speech on November 8, 1939, Elser began scouting out the area. For months, Elser worked, hollowing out a stone pillar behind where Hitler would stand, so a bomb could be placed inside of it. He created a timer that would last for 144 hours and set it for 9:20 PM on November 8,right in the middle of Hitler’s speech. Unfortunately, Hitler changed his plans at the last minute because of weather problems and ended 30 minutes early, escaping unharmed. Elser was arrested and imprisoned until April 1945, when he was executed.
The European Union
The original European Union was a group of anti-fascist Germans who despised Nazism and what it had done to their country. Founded in Berlin in 1939, the group began under the leadership of Robert Havemann, a chemist, and Georg Groscurth, a doctor. The European Union produced many leaflets during the war, as well as providing aid and information to Allied Forces and those hunted by the Nazis. However, they never actively tried to take down the government because they felt it would collapse on its own. What they wanted to do was create a unified, socialist Europe. Paul Hatschek, one of the leading members, was captured by the Gestapo in 1943 and ratted out nearly every person in the group, with at least 15 of them being killed.
The White Rose
Only operating for a short time between June 1942 and February 1943, the White Rose was a non-violent group, mostly made up of intellectuals, who distributed pamphlets and used graffiti to try and sway public opinion against the Nazis. The group was led by a group of 20-year-olds who had become disillusioned with what Hitler had turned Germany into. (Many of the leaders were ex-Hitler Youth.) The White Rose became quite popular, especially among college students, and various offshoots popped up in different towns. Three of the founders, Hans and Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst, were eventually betrayed to the Nazis by a janitor at their university and executed on February 22, 1943. Afterward, the White Rose movement fell apart, though almost no one else was caught.
The Solf Circle
The Solf Circle was an informal group of intellectuals who were against Nazism. Established by Johanna Solf, the widow of a German ambassador, the group would routinely meet to discuss their plans to aid the Jews (Solf and her daughter helped hide a number of Jews and assisted their escape from the country). On September 10, 1943 at a birthday party for Elisabeth von Thadden (a famous Protestant headmistress at a nearby school), a secret Gestapo agent was unknowingly invited by one of the members and he reported their actions. Nearly everyone was rounded up, arrested, tried, and executed.
The Catholic Church
Not Pope Pius XII, whose track record is spotty and controversial but rather, certain Catholic priests in Germany, who vociferously fought against, among other things, the T4 program (the so-called “euthanasia program”). Aided by the fact that nearly half of all Germans were Catholic, the Church was able to effectively convince Hitler to abandon the project because he feared having to fight them while he was fighting a war on two fronts.
The Rosenstrasse Protest
A singular event, perpetrated because of the deportation of thousands of Jewish men who were married to non-Jewish women, the Rosenstrasse protest was one of the largest public displays against Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. For over a week in early 1943, the women peacefully marched in protest against their husbands’ deportation. Seemingly faced with death each night at the hands of the guards they marched in front of, they persisted, until Hitler released the prisoners, even those already sent to Auschwitz. No one was punished, and almost all of the men survived the war.
Kreisau Circle
Established and led by Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, Peter Graf Yorck von Wartenburg, and Adam von Trott zu Solz, the Kreisau Circle was stationed at Moltke’s estate. Said to be one of the main centers of the German resistance movement, their goal was to figure out how to establish a peaceful, Christian Germany, after the war was lost. (For them, it was difficult to reconcile their hatred toward Hitler and the Nazis and their patriotic love for Germany.) The group was known for spreading information to the Allies, as well as other resistance groups within Germany. Later in the war, some of the members were involved in a failed assassination of Adolf Hitler and many of the Kreisau Circle were arrested and executed, even those who had no part in the coup attempt.
Red Orchestra
This name applies to both Soviet and German espionage programs such as the Schulze-Boysen/Harnack group, which was created in 1936. Named after Harro Schulze-Boysen (the Luftwaffe staff officer who founded it) and his friends, one of their goals was to gather intelligence for the Allies and help those hunted by the Nazis to get to freedom. However, their primary goal was to incite civil disobedience by distributing a number of leaflets, as well as causing the Nazis grief through the specter of subversion groups. In 1942, after Gestapo agents intercepted some of their radio transmissions, nearly all of the members of the group were arrested and executed.

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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 23, 2015)

mikewint said:


> This is my number two from the above post. The German people did nothing to oppose Hitler. I know of/have read of several resistance groups with in Germany but let's begin with about the 1,700 Jews who survived in Berlin, and the estimated 20,000 to 30,000 non-Jewish Germans who actively hid them.
> The Edelweiss Pirates
> A group of ex-Hitler Youth, the Edelweiss Pirates began organizing right before the outbreak of World War II. Mostly comprised of teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18, they had no central leader and were only loosely affiliated with the groups in other cities—sometimes, the only common factor was the Edelweiss flower badge which they all wore. As the war dragged on, the Edelweiss Pirates performed increasingly dangerous tasks, including sabotage against German railways and aiding Jews fleeing from the Nazis. German reprisals were varied, depending on the severity of the crime, but many were sent to camps or prisons, with some even being executed.
> The Swing Kids
> ...



Oh stop it! You are just as bad as a holocaust denier! 














Just kidding my friend.


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## parsifal (Aug 23, 2015)

how many germans were indicted for being found guilty of collective war guilt? 

The country was stigmatised by it but no-one, in a legal sense was ever punished under the tribunals because of it. 

Collective guilt was needed as a precursor to the unique legal system that was introduced in 1945. Without the indictment of collective guilt against the entire nation, it was possible to argue the existing laws of the german system pre-surrender were valid, did not require suspension and could be relied upon to prosecute the Nazi war criminals. they would have escaped successful prosecution unless the state criminal system under which they operated could be somehow suspended, and further an international legal system could be argued to be in place at the time that the crimes were committed. The only way that Jackson could see of making both presumptions work was to somehow defeat or nullify the german legal system as it existed before 1945. He believed the only way that could be achieved was to indict the entire country.

Without the successful application of the collective war guilt concepts, there would not have been any opportunity to prosecute any german national. I hate to use this word, but it was essentially a legal tool of convenience to allow the real work to be undertaken. truth be known, a lot of legal minds, including me are uncomfortable with some of the concepts behind it, but I support it because it was necessary to do so, or allow alternative far less satisfactory to run their course. 

There is every bit of relevance of this discussion to what we are meant to be talking about. The original discussion is about the injustice of retribution. I have no problem with that. But in the absence of a workable legal framework to try the real guilty individuals, the alternative was either to allow even greater (and state sanctioned) arbitrary retribution as suggested by both Stalin and Churchill, or let the criminals off scot free. I believe Jackson when he (by inference) states they had no choice other than demolish the pre-existing German legal code and argue the application the pre-existence of a notional pre-existing legally binding code at the time those crimes were committed. You could not, at that time apply legitimately a legal code retrospectively. That was the greatest weakness of the Nuremberg principles. They had to argue firstly that the german code of itself was broken, and then, secondly, that in the absence of a viable legal code at a national level, a legally enforceable (and unwritten) international code could be applied. Neither of those presumptions were a given before the tribunals. neither had any hope of success unless it could be shown that in a legal sense Germany was a broken (failed?) state at the times the crimes were committed. 

ill say it again. if anyone has a better legal concept as to how to implement some system or code under which the war criminals of Germany could be brought to justice, and thereby defuse further retributional punishments against innocent people, id love to know. as a person with legal training I sure as hell don't know of any other way. my opinion, Jackson was a brilliant attorney that found a way to avoid a massacre. he should be feted by the german people for that, instead the legal system he devised is castigated for it. I draw my own conclusions from that.


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## stona (Aug 24, 2015)

It would be wrong to suggest that the euthanasia programme ( Operation T-4, after the address of its headquarters in a villa at Tiergartenstrasse 4) stopped in the summer of 1941. At this time around 80,000 people had been murdered in carbon monxide gas chambers, "the unique invention of Nazi Germany" in the words of Henry Friedlander. The killings did continue, but more discretely inside smaller local asylums.
The expertise of the schemes originators, Dr Karl Brandt, Phillip Bouhler, Drs Mennecke, Steinmeyer, Prof. Heyde and many others was not lost. 
From the summer of 1940 Dachau was designated as the collecting camp for sick and unproductive prisoners within the KL system, the so called 'Musulmanner'. Despite many deaths this decision turned Dachau into a place which dented Himmler's own vision of a KL when he visited in January 1941. Something had to be done. Some local Camp SS had taken to murdering sick and weak prisoners on an ad hoc basis but Himmler now turned to the T-4 killing experts. He met with Bouhler and Viktor Brack (who had once worked as Himmler's driver) in January 1941 to discuss how the euthanasia programme could be extended into his camps. Himmler could trust the T-4 officials many of whom were SS veterans, transferred from Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald to the T-4 programme in late 1939. Things moved fast. There was another meeting with Brack on 28th March followed by an official approval, probably from Hitler himself, after which Drs Mennecke and Steinmeyer set to work in Sachsenhausen.
Quotas of those to be murdered were sent to the camps and the local Camp SS sent candidates (ballastexistenzen , roughly dead weights) for selection by the doctors. If selected they would be 'withdrawn from service', another Nazi euphemism for murder. This is the origin of the infamous selections most will be familiar with from later in the war,usually associated with the 'final sulution' to the Jewish problem. The T-4 doctors visited Sachsenhausen (April '41) Buchenwald (June and November-December '41) Mauthausen (June-July '41) Dachau (September '41) Ravensbruck (November '41 and January '42) Gross-Rosen (January '42) Flossenburg (March'42) and Neuengamme (April '42). About a dozen T-4 doctors were involved.
All this was kept secret even from the prisoners themselves. The pretence that the doctors had come to treat, not murder, the sick was rigorously maintained. Relatives even received bogus death certificates. Rudolph Gottschalk, a prisoner clerk at the Buchenwald infirmary was asked to prepare such certificates. When he asked what he should give as a cause of death he was given a medical dictionary and told to pick one out. The German bureaucracy worked well. The operation in the camps was known as 'Action 14f13' but only the Camp SS would have recognised the prefix '14f' which always referred to the death of prisoners.
It did start to creak under pressure. Some found out what was happening from SS men who, despite a pledge, couldn't hold their tongues. Doctors became over worked, the killing couldn't be done quick enough. In one week at Ravensbruck, Mennecke signed 850 death forms including for the first time many women. These prisoners were murdered outside the camp at Bernberg and Mennecke wrote that he was proud of what he and his colleagues had achieved.

A long post, but a little insight into the early camp system. Everyone knew about the camps, whatever they might later have claimed. Almost all believed that they housed asocial elements who were better off in there. Virtually nobody outside those indoctrinated into the T-4 programme or within the Camp SS aware of Action 14f13 knew about the extension of the euthanasia programme into the camps, the first step towards the Jewish holocaust. Most victims of this first phase were not Jewish. The group most likely to be murdered were those classed as asocial.

To hold the German people responsible for a scheme developed by a dozen men and implemented by a couple of thousand more, in secret, in concentration camps seems unfair. The reason the T-4 doctors were moved to Action 14f13 in the camps was because the growing public knowledge of the original T-4 programme had caused its official suspension and actually forced it 'underground'.

Steve

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## Marcel (Aug 24, 2015)

Collective guild is a lame excuse for crimes against humanity. I am very much surprised that anyone can use that argument seriously to warrant crimes against humanity. There is never a justification for rape and murder. And one should never call that justice. The horrible images in the clip in the starting post shows that the victors were hardly better that the loosers. It makes you wonder who really the moral victor was. 
Collective guilt is a dangerous thing. Hatred is wrong. As long as hatred exists, we'll have war one way or the other.

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## parsifal (Aug 24, 2015)

I agree , but what you see in the opening piece isnt "collective guilt". Its murder. Its what you get when you take the lawful out of the law. If you do, you dont have lawful, you have awful...... 

However collective guilt used in a lawful sense can be useful. The final solution architects were acting lawfully in 1941, under German law applicable at the time. If german law had been allowed to remain legitimate in 1945, it was not possible to prosecute those same men. So what do you do? Take them out and shoot them regardless? Punishment without a fair trial? No thanks. That makes us as bad as the Nazis. 

Sometimes in law bad things are needed in order to achieve a greater good. Lining people up and shooting them without trial, is about the worst outcome that you can subject your legal system to. It probably wont survive. If we had summarily shot the Nazi criminals, why cant we shoot our own for similar crimes, why cant we shoot anyone for any thing? Finding that an entire legal system was at fault so that some of the animals of the war could be dealt justice makes me uneasy, but I think worth it if the criminals responsible for the genocide are able to be brought to trial. It meant, however to get those people to trial some rather unpleasant necessities had to be endured.

On a different note, its a sad fact that most Nazis deserving of criminal proceedings escaped justice altogether. OSS estimates at the time suggested about 10000 Germans needed to be brought to trial. In all, from 1945 to 1949, when the last trial was terminated, incomplete, 579 had been slated or captured and were awaiting trial. 189 faced justice (the remaining detainees were simply released without trial in 1949, and some of these were significant players), of which about 36 faced the death penalty, some of which were commuted. Some of the estimated 10000 remained in Germany, a few others hid in various places in Europe (skorzeny was a potato farmer in Ireland for example), but some thousands escaped mostly to Sth America. The chief organisers of the Sth American ratlines were Rudel, Skorzeny and Gehlen. The most significant Nazi who evaded trial in my opinion was Mengele. In 1960 Eichmann was kidnapped and placed on trial. He was excecuted by the Israelis, not under UN control, but still using the Nuremberg principles. After hiding in plain sight for 40 years in France Claus Barbie, the butcher of Lyon was finally arrested by the French police and placed on trial. He was considered untouchable before then. 

Significant numbers who should have faced trial were spirited away by the allies and the Soviets because of what they knew. Werner Von Braun probably should have at least been questioned, but never was.


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## Marcel (Aug 24, 2015)

Hg


parsifal said:


> I agree , but what you see in the opening piece isnt "collective guilt". Its murder. Its what you get when you take the lawful out of the law. If you do, you dont have lawful, you have awful......
> 
> However collective guilt used in a lawful sense can be useful. The final solution architects were acting lawfully in 1941, under German law applicable at the time. If german law had been allowed to remain legitimate in 1945, it was not possible to prosecute those same men. So what do you do? Take them out and shoot them regardless? Punishment without a fair trial? No thanks. That makes us as bad as the Nazis.
> 
> Sometimes in law bad things are needed in order to achieve a greater good. Lining people up and shooting them without trial, is about the worst outcome that you can subject your legal system to. It probably wont survive. If we had summarily shot the Nazi criminals, why cant we shoot our own for similar crimes, why cant we shoot anyone for any thing? Finding that an entire legal system was at fault so that some of the animals of the war could be dealt justice makes me uneasy, but I think worth it if the criminals responsible for the genocide are able to be brought to trial. It meant, however to get those people to trial some rather unpleasant necessities had to be endured



Parcifal the mistake you make in this thread is this thread is not about legal things. It is about real humans and reality. The fact your posts seem to suggest that you agree with the actions in the film because "they are all guilty" is the reason why this whole discussion errupted. Also the fact that you are still angry with the Germans. Maybe because were closer to Germany many in Europe are much more forgiving, although our countries were the ones that really suffered. I think we realised there would be a future after the war and the Germans would take part in that. Hatred would only endanger our own future. This is different when you live on the other side of the globe, I guess. 

To give you a story. My grandfather was in the resistance. He suffered much from the Nazi's and lost all his friends in Mauthausen. After the war he never wanted to go along with with the collective guild. He was angry with his son-in-law (my father) for using the word "moffen" for Germans, ths being the call-names name for Germans. After the war he build friendship with Germans and often went on vacation there. He had all the reasons to hate them but didn't. Why then should we be angry with the Germans, while we never were there in person. 

Still, when we play soccer against the Germans, Adler will be my Archenemy for 90 minutes

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## pbehn (Aug 24, 2015)

parsifal said:


> how many germans were indicted for being found guilty of collective war guilt?
> 
> The country was stigmatised by it but no-one, in a legal sense was ever punished under the tribunals because of it.
> 
> ...



All of the above I am sure is true but it is a construction. 

The allies knew they were going to win long before they did. The discussions about what to do after the end of the war started long before it actually did. There was a need for justice. Justice for the people killed tortured and robbed by the Nazis. But also justice for Europe.

Nurenburg was a show trial. In a show trial the victors decide in advance what the outcome is. The laws used and the verdicts reached were as the trials were meant to be. There was never any doubt that a clever lawyer was going to get Goering freed on a technicality. If all of the people put on trial had been shot instead of arrested only legal purists would have complained bearing in mind the feelings in 1945. However as others have pointed out not everyone was convicted of all charges, if they were it would be seen that justice was purely in the hands of the victor and that a German or other axis member could never get a fair trial. I believe the structure and practice of the trials achieved its aim of bringing some order and punishing the very guilty, if in a war that means anything, but the legal arguments justify what was agreed to be done in advance.

In English Law you cannot claim ignorance of a law as a defence but you cannot be convicted of a law that did not exist when you committed it and when convicted your sentence is that stated at the time of the crime.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 24, 2015)

Marcel said:


> *Collective guild is a lame excuse for crimes against humanity. I am very much surprised that anyone can use that argument seriously to warrant crimes against humanity. There is never a justification for rape and murder. And one should never call that justice.* The horrible images in the clip in the starting post shows that the victors were hardly better that the loosers. It makes you wonder who really the moral victor was.
> Collective guilt is a dangerous thing. Hatred is wrong. As long as hatred exists, we'll have war one way or the other.



Thank you my friend.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 24, 2015)

Marcel said:


> Hg
> 
> *Parcifal the mistake you make in this thread is this thread is not about legal things. It is about real humans and reality. The fact your posts seem to suggest that you agree with the actions in the film because "they are all guilty" is the reason why this whole discussion errupted.* Also the fact that you are still angry with the Germans. Maybe because were closer to Germany many in Europe are much more forgiving, although our countries were the ones that really suffered. I think we realised there would be a future after the war and the Germans would take part in that. Hatred would only endanger our own future. This is different when you live on the other side of the globe, I guess.
> 
> To give you a story. My grandfather was in the resistance. He suffered much from the Nazi's and lost all his friends in Mauthausen. After the war he never wanted to go along with with the collective guild. He was angry with his son-in-law (my father) for using the word "moffen" for Germans, ths being the call-names name for Germans. After the war he build friendship with Germans and often went on vacation there. He had all the reasons to hate them but didn't. Why then should we be angry with the Germans, while we never were there in person.



Well said, and I agree! Which is why I said the Nurnberg Trial has nothing to do with the argument. Nobody was saying that it was not the right thing. No one was saying that Germany was not guilty of the things that happened in that war. It however at no point made an innocent child or person or woman who worked in a farm field to feed her children guilty of anything that would justify being raped, murdered or tortured.

Two wrongs do not make a right, and the fact that one person has no sympathy for an innocent child or person regardless of what side their country was on (especially when all of Europe and the World where victims of the Nazis if you want to be honest about it) is very disturbing. Aren't we supposed to be better than the evil we where fighting? 



Marcel said:


> Still, when we play soccer against the Germans, Adler will be my Archenemy for 90 minutes



I would not have it any other way! It is way too fun!


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## parsifal (Aug 25, 2015)

The last thing I am about is agreeing with the murders taking place in that film. And to an extent the linkage between what happens there and what im talking about is tenuous but in my opinion if you think it through it has every connection.

If I can just jot down the reactions, and the self talk that I have in no particular order when I see that video, it is

1) Feelings; anger, frustration, shock, sorrow. crime, powerless ness, anarchy, vengeance, politics, application of the Stalinist retribution model needs to be halted.
2) what to do/how to react.....legal process essential, deal with problems that can be solved, acknowledge those that cannot, don't get hung up on untouchable elements (like the Russians). always forward movement, stay on the front foot. Due process important. significant legal barriers, especially in 1945, don't allow process to degenerate to retributive justice. Punishment for the murderers important
3) failings and shortcomings. the Russians, the allies, cold war, economics, reconstruction, social healing all work to prevent or diminish the pursuit of justice. Is justice that important.....no peace possible until justice is done
4) important to stay focussed. what is really important......context
5) moral arguments are dangerous and emotive don't solve anything. Be outcome driven. 
6) examination and standards of evidence how to deal with that 
7) why couldn't the Nuremberg process be extended in 1945 and improved above what it ended up being. imperfect model, but best available at the time. brilliant response to difficult problem. some justice better than no justice. problems of bias and incompleteness self evident

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## parsifal (Aug 25, 2015)

> The allies knew they were going to win long before they did. The discussions about what to do after the end of the war started long before it actually did. There was a need for justice. Justice for the people killed tortured and robbed by the Nazis. But also justice for Europe.


Actually there was a great deal of dispute about what they were going to do. There were probably three or four leading contenders. Morganthau wanted to reduce the whole population to subsistence, but that was pretty quickly rejected. the French (I think) wanted to break up the german state. Britain wanted to simply round up the ring leaders and shoot a few without trial, maybe amounting to a few hundred, and break up the General Staff again. Roosevelt at first supported the Morganthau plan, but overriding that sentiment, the Americans just wanted to get out of Germany as soon as they could after surrender. immediately after the surrender, Patton wanted to rearm the Germans and continue the fight against the Russians. Of all the national positioning, the US views were the least practical, and the desire to pursue a lasting peace by achieving a just outcome slowly gained traction. It was under the so-called 'London Declaration' in which the issue of genocide and crimes against humanity wasn't even the focus of debate that the early forms of the tribunals and principals to be applied began to be tackled (The London Declration was an Inter-Allied Declaration Against Acts of Dispossession Committed in Territories Under Enemy Occupation or Control, better known as the London Declaration). The measure declared that the allies would no longer recognize the transfer of property in occupied countries even if it appeared legal. The allies were aware that the Nazis were forcing people in occupied countries to sell or transfer their property to them under force. Up until this date the Nazis had painstakingly created the illusion that such transfers were legal. this illusion of legality forced the Allies to co-operate to find ways to deconstruct that illusion, and the exercise from that point adopted an increasingly legally driven exercise compared to the initial political responses that drove the initial attempts. The makeup of the tribunal, the principals that it was to work under the emphasis on process, how to sidestep the enormous legal hurdles that were by now very evident, did not reach a consensus agreement until late 1944 (it may have been 1945). 



> Nurenburg was a show trial. In a show trial the victors decide in advance what the outcome is. The laws used and the verdicts reached were as the trials were meant to be. There was never any doubt that a clever lawyer was going to get Goering freed on a technicality. If all of the people put on trial had been shot instead of arrested only legal purists would have complained bearing in mind the feelings in 1945.



The justice meted out would not pass a legal test of impartiality in the modern sense. and that's something Ive acknowledged previously. But it was also about as good in terms of fairness as it could be in 1945 and given the widely separated national interests underpinning it. but it was more fair than any of the other viable alternatives.

The outcomes of the trials were anything but predictable. that's one thing I don't agree with. sure goring was always going to get a hangmans noose. But the others were far more random. Of the original 24 defendants in the 1st round 3 were acquitted, 6 were given prison sentences and 14 were executed. Dontiz and Speer could have expected a bullet if the trials were rigged. Instead they both r4ceived light to moderate sentences.

Of the 179 convicted, only about 40 were sentenced to death and several of these were commuted. nearly 70 were acquitted  



> However as others have pointed out not everyone was convicted of all charges, if they were it would be seen that justice was purely in the hands of the victor and that a German or other axis member could never get a fair trial. I believe the structure and practice of the trials achieved its aim of bringing some order and punishing the very guilty, if in a war that means anything, but the legal arguments justify what was agreed to be done in advance.



There was little, if any agreement about what to do at a political level, with stalin worrying about a continuation of the allied advances into the newly conquered territories in the East, and the west worrying pretty much the same in reverse. it essentially degenerated into a kind of Mexican stand off with the details worked out by the respective legal teams. There is no evidence as far as im aware that verdicts were pre-determined.

After the initial 1st level trials, relations broke down. both the french and Russians retired from the process as the Cold war set in and the French did what the French always do....sulk. The british continued to participate but the trials reverted to the US courts martial formats and procedures, though the principals laid down remained in place. to that extent the trials were rigged because they were based on questionable precedents, but at least plausible precedents that have since been modified, but more or less retained under the ICC and re main valid. For example, it is still invalid to apply a "superior orders" defence as the various defendants from the Balkans and Africa have found. 



> In English Law you cannot claim ignorance of a law as a defence but you cannot be convicted of a law that did not exist when you committed it and when convicted your sentence is that stated at the time of the crime.



Actually, you can, as the various terrorists held at the moment are finding, and in our country as various illegal immigrants are also finding. it depends on the terms of the nations concerned constitutions as to the extent they can be held without trial and the extent they can prosecuted under retrospective legislation


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## Marcel (Aug 25, 2015)

parsifal said:


> The last thing I am about is agreeing with the murders taking place in that film.


I think it is critical that this is clear. I would have been disappointed if it would have been any other way. 

To me it seems like this discussion ran on two levels. The first on personal level about atrocities against individuals, which is, as I understood, the intention of the topic starter. The second is about justice and the Neurenburg trials. This whole discussion has been a confusing mix of these two levels and I fully understand the emotional response that it provoked. The connection between the film and the Neurenburg process is there, but not very obvious. I think an academic discussion about legal justice should belong in a different thread, but that is my opinion. Ah, well, it's the danger of the internet. Communicating only in a textual way tends to provoke misunderstandings...

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## parsifal (Aug 25, 2015)

It emotional personal and irrationsl. I sure as hell did my bit towards all of those, so no Im not clean as the driven snow in this. The attack dog in me clicked on and from there...well...you know


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## Marcel (Aug 25, 2015)

parsifal said:


> It emotional personal and irrationsl. I sure as hell did my bit towards all of those, so no Im not clean as the driven snow in this. The attack dog in me clicked on and from there...well...you know



Can happen to anyone.


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## stona (Aug 25, 2015)

Which of these two sentences would you write:

1. The Nazis had plans to annihilate the entire Jewish population of Europe.

2. The Germans had plans to annihilate the entire Jewish population of Europe.

Nazis and Germans are not always interchangeable words, in either direction.

Cheers

Steve


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## parsifal (Aug 25, 2015)

Clearly the first, but that isnt the whole issue.I would rewrite number 1 to say, "The Nazis had plans to subjugate Europe and annihilate anyone who opposed them, and needed and received the support of Germans to do so".

From that position comes what we might refer to as the "failed state" (failed in the sense of moral bankruptcy) and from there, the ability to apply "international codes" that suspend or override the existing body of law at the time. This was something that had never been tried in history ever, and in attempting it, the architects were mindful of the failed attempts at war crimes justice in the last war, with the so called "Leipzig courts", a near total farce. 

At Nuremberg, Jackson installed a number of checks and balances to try and avoid the excess of ordinary Germans being hauled before the IMT simply because they had been patriotic Germans. To be brought before the commission, a German had to be shown to be a member of one of the 5 or 6 (I think that was the number) of declared "illegal organisations" . There were about 6 million members of the Nazi Party, one of the banned organizations, so there were plenty of people to investigate potentially. 

At Nuremberg, Jackson deviated from this path here and there. Inclusion of Alfred Krupp in the initial main trials had been advocated, but had to be dropped because he just failed to meet the necessary criteria for indictment. There was never any recorded verdict, he just was released, only to be re-arrested in 1947 along with 11 other Krupp executives, and indicted on slightly different charges, under a US court jurisdiction. The charges became

1. Crimes against peace by participating in the planning and waging of wars of aggression and wars in violation of international treaties;
2. Crimes against humanity by participating in the plundering, devastation, and exploitation of occupied countries;
3. Crimes against humanity by participating in the murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, and use for slave labor of civilians who came under German control, German nationals, and prisoners of war;
4. Participating in a common plan or conspiracy to commit crimes against peace. 

Charges 1 and 4 were soon dropped, but Krupp was convicted on items 2 and 3, justifiably so. He received an 11 year sentence for his part, one of the other 11 was acquitted, the others received gaol time ranging from 1 to 6 years. Krupp also had a sizable portion of his estate confiscated.


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## stona (Aug 25, 2015)

Above is an illustration of one of the deepest flaws in the Nuremberg process. That of tailoring the charges, which in fact amounts to making up legislation, to fit a potential defendant.

The Germans mostly did support the war once it began, but that does not equate to supporting the annihilation of the Jewish population of Europe or anybody who opposed their government's plans for a European empire.

It takes an acute moral compass to be aware of the results of inaction. I remember the story told by a prominent member of the Dutch resistance. After the German (not Nazi) occupation of his country a sort of census was carried out. One of the questions asked whether the responder had any Jewish grand parents. The man in question could truthfully have answered 'no'. He chose not to answer the question as, by doing so, he believed he would be contributing to the discrimination (this is long before the annihilation) of his fellow Dutch who happened to be Jewish. How many of us would have even thought to do the same thing?

Cheers

Steve

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## parsifal (Aug 25, 2015)

The rules of evidence applicable to the IMT courts were different to those we would normally apply in our current court system, enabling a degree of "double jeopardy" to be applied to cases. This was because the defendants often had state apparatus of the regime they could call on extensively to cover their tracks and sometimes many of the victims were dead. From a legal perspective that makes me uncomfortable, but I can understand it and reluctantly condone it. It was entirely consistent with the rules set up for the conduct of the IMTs to apply relaxed rules of evidence (and by extension allow application of double jeopardy) 

Remember, that only those Germans that fit the narrow criteria were brought before the courts. 

Krupp was initially charged the same as the 1st gp of defendants, namely: 

1) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of a crime against peace
2) Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace
3) War crimes
4) Crimes against humanity 

These were innappropriate charges to be laid against Krupp, and jackson knew it, but his stubbornnes meant he was initially indicted anyway. Krupp was guilty of other things which were brought against him. Of the four charges brought against him, he was acquitted of two, but the two most serious ones he was appropriately found guilty of. For Krupp it was a flawed process, brought about by the inner personality failings of Jackson, the chief US prosecutor, but it was still the right outcome eventually. My opinion is that Krupp was not over punished. It was innappropriate to lump him in with the likes of Bormann and Goring. Real Nazi he was not. But he did knowingly use slave labour and participate in their mistreatment for his own personal gain. 

No one who just supported the Nazis, and did their duty as a German but did nothing else wrong was ever convicted of anything. People who were suspected of doing other things were subjected to trial, and in a few instances were subjected to double jeopardy rules. As I pointed out above, I think that reasonable given the very strong efforts many of them made to cover their tracks. And the evidence of the relatively fair outcomes is reflected in the proportions of acquittals and reduced sentences that were handed out.

I am reasonably comfortable that most ordinary German were not affected directly by the trials, moreover, most germans accepted that a cleansing process of their society had to occur. Thats an opinion, of course, but seems reasonable. Many Germans resented the stigma that went with being branded as solely responsible for the aggressive and destructive war. That resentment continues. Understandable I admit, but as ive pointed out repeatedly, a necessary step in the legal process, and the legal process was essential to avoid further retributions by the likes of Stalin (which he did anyway on his own). If you want my personal opinion, i think it is appropriate to lay war blame at the feet of germany, and has been pointed out, no one here is really questioning that here, though it often is in other places. 

What I object to is that the process was terminated incomplete. There were many serious, big time players who escaped scot free, and we as the victorious allies have only ourselves to blame for that. we abrogated our responsibilities to serve our own self interests.


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## stona (Aug 25, 2015)

parsifal said:


> What I object to is that the process was terminated incomplete. There were many serious, big time players who escaped scot free, and we as the victorious allies have only ourselves to blame for that. we abrogated our responsibilities to serve our own self interests.



I agree with that. I've just been looking at some of the perpetrators of some of the grossest crimes ever committed against humanity, the architects and operatives of "des Einsatzes Reinhardt" (as they are spelt in the original German documents). 
I am still wondering how a man like Franz Stangl was able to escape the Americans, pass through the Middle East to South America, never even bothering to use an alias, even registering under his own name with the Austrian consulate in Sao Paulo and remain free and unmolested until 1967. Then his arrest was due to the persistence of Wiesenthal and not the Austrian or German governments, the former of which had belatedly issued a warrant for his arrest in 1961 and done precisely nothing to enact it. Remember he was registered under his own name with one of its consulates.

There are hundreds of equally culpable men, and some women, not all Germans, who got away with it.

Steve


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## mikewint (Aug 25, 2015)

I think that we can all agree (hopefully) that in the light of the horrors of the Second World War, in particular the Holocaust, trial and punishment of the Nazi leadership was necessary. I also think that we can also agree that the Nuremberg trials failed to impact in any way international practice, since no leader has been deterred from engaging in aggressive war or from ordering and committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. The international community had not succeeded to follow-up on the Nuremberg Principles, although there had been countless wars of aggression and innumerable war crimes and crimes against humanity following the Nuremberg Trials. Not only had the Trials failed as a deterrent to aggressive war, they had even failed as a deterrent against the most horrible crimes of torture and genocide.
No international criminal tribunal was ever established to adjudicate over the horrors of India-Pakistan War of 1971-73 that ended, after enormous cruelties and civilian casualties, in the emergence of the new State of Bangladesh. No international criminal tribunal ever condemned the use of prohibited chemical weapons or the massacring of child soldiers in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980's. No international tribunal ever sat over Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge to condemn them for their policy of genocide, although, he was placed under "house arrest" in August 1997 and died in April 1998 in the Cambodian Khmer hide out.
Only after the end of the cold war between the communist and the capitalist world was it possible to achieve consensus in the United Nations and establish two tribunals to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity. One for the War in the Former Yugoslavia 1991 to 1995 (established by decision of the UN Security Council, Resolution 827) and one for the civil war in Rwanda in 1994 (S.C.Res. 935/1994).
During the trial, none of the accused admitted knowledge of the gas chambers. The prosecution had assumed, but was unable to establish, their actual knowledge; moreover, many of the accused insisted that although they were aware of the manifold anti-Jewish measures adopted by Hitler, they had not learned about exterminations until the Nuremberg trial itself. 
Hans Laternser, in fact, had presented 3,186 affidavits to the Tribunal, many of them describing the measures taken by many Army Generals and Colonels to ensure the observance of the Hague and Geneva Conventions, including the prosecution by court martial of Wehrmacht soldiers who had committed crimes against the civilian population in occupied territory, as well as the disregard or non-transmittal of Hitler's illegal Commissar and Commando orders. The originals of these affidavits are found at the Peace Palace at the Hague, but not a single one of them was reproduced in the published 42-volume IMT documentation.
As to the verdicts, IMHO Grand Admiral Dönitz should not have been convicted on the evidence, nor Julius Streicher, whose main crime was that of being repulsive. Again, IMHO the Tribunal was influenced by the likelihood of a negative public reaction if Streicher got anything less than the death penalty. Mitigation in the case of Seyss-Inquart could have justified a prison sentence of twenty years instead of death, but his case was apparently not pressed forcefully enough. On the other hand, the evidence fully justified the death sentence against Jodl. The death sentence against Funk would have been appropriate, in that Speer was at least as guilty as Sauckel for the use of forced labor in the war industry and could similarly have been sent to the gallows. All sentences were submitted to the Allied Control Council for clemency; but the Control Council was a political body, not a judicial appellate court. In spite of the arguments made by defendants' lawyers, all sentences were confirmed. Goering's, Keitel's and Jodl's petitions to be shot rather than hanged were rejected.
As to the execution by hanging of the ten remaining convicts in the early hours of October 16, 1946, numerous press articles criticized the fact that apparently the drop was not long enough and that the men had not been properly tied, so that their heads struck the platform as they fell and they "died of slow strangulation" (London Star ). Reports indicated that Jodl took 18 minutes to die, Keitel 24 minutes, and that Streicher kept moaning long after the fall.
Over the dissenting vote of the Soviet judge, three of the accused were acquitted: Hans Fritzsche, Franz von Pappen and Hjalmar Schacht. After their release, they were all subjected to further penal proceedings in spite of the Ne Bis in Idem principle. The Spruchkammer in Nuremberg sentenced Fritzsche to nine years of hard labor, loss of voting, pension, and public office rights; von Pappen was sentenced by the same court to ten years in a labor camp. Similarly, Schacht was sentenced by a Stuttgart court to eight years in the Ludwigsburg labor camp; on appeal he was acquitted, but then subjected to further denazification.
At the trial, Hans Frank put his finger on perhaps the most important flaw in the trial: the double-standard or double-morality of the victors. When testifying during the trial, Frank had acknowledged the enormity of the German crimes: "a thousand years would not suffice to erase the guilt brought upon our people because of Hitler's conduct of this war". Now he rectified his prior statement: "Every possible guilt incurred by our nation has already been completely wiped out today, not only by the conduct of our wartime enemies toward our nation, and its soldiers, which has been carefully kept out of this trial, but also by the tremendous mass crimes of the most frightful sort which -- as I have now learned -- have been and still are being committed against Germans by Russians, Poles, and Czechs, especially in East Prussia, Silesia, Pomerania, and Sudetenland. Who shall ever judge these crimes against the German people?" 
The double standard once again, if the Nazis had been convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity partly upon the specific indictment of having carried out compulsory population transfers, how will history judge the Allied prosecutors and judges whose governments were, at the very same time when the Nuremberg trials were being conducted, engaged in the process of expelling 14 million Germans from their homelands, a barbarous process which more than two million did not survive. Additionally the allied powers had agreed to use German labor as "reparations in kind" effectively reintroducing slave labor

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## parsifal (Aug 26, 2015)

> I think that we can all agree (hopefully) that in the light of the horrors of the Second World War, in particular the Holocaust, trial and punishment of the Nazi leadership was necessary. I also think that we can also agree that the Nuremberg trials failed to impact in any way international practice, since no leader has been deterred from engaging in aggressive war or from ordering and committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. The international community had not succeeded to follow-up on the Nuremberg Principles, although there had been countless wars of aggression and innumerable war crimes and crimes against humanity following the Nuremberg Trials. Not only had the Trials failed as a deterrent to aggressive war, they had even failed as a deterrent against the most horrible crimes of torture and genocide.


Au contraire! At least for the claim that the Nuremberg IMT had no effect. In itself it was a special international military tribunal set up for a specific purpose. It proved an effective vehicle in the delivery of justice under the circumstances confronting it, but the relms of international politics and the desires to preserve nations sovereign rights are powerful countervailing forces. It would be more than 50 years after the last Nuremberg trials before anything like it would be formed, under the auspices of the UN (Nuremberg was not part of the UN mandate). In the meantime the Nuremberg IMT established some enduring principlas and established precedents about how International justice needs to be configured. The following is a very brief summary 

The Tribunal is celebrated for establishing that (quoted from Heller, Kevin Jon (2011). The Nuremberg Military Tribunals and the Origins of International Criminal Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-923233-8.) "crimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced." 

Nuremberg and its subsidiary trials served as a direct model for the International Military Tribunal for the Far East which tried Japanese officials for crimes against peace and against humanity. It also served as the model for the Eichmann trial and for present-day courts at The Hague, for trying crimes committed during the Balkan wars of the early 1990s, and at Arusha, for trying the people responsible for the genocide in Rwanda. In the modern format under the ICC ther have been 29 current convictions and 9 ongoing major investigations that I know of.

From Heller again...."The Nuremberg trials had a great influence on the development of international criminal law. The Conclusions of the Nuremberg trials served as models for:

The Genocide Convention, 1948.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.
The Nuremberg Principles, 1950.
The on the Abolition of the Statute of Limitations on War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, at the similarly named convention in 1968.
The Geneva Convention on the Laws and Customs of War, 1949; its supplementary protocols, 1977.
The International Law Commission, acting on the request of the United Nations General Assembly, produced in 1950 the report Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nürnberg Tribunal and in the Judgement of the Tribunal (Yearbook of the International Law Commission, 1950, vol. II]). This enshrines the Nuremberg Principles as the basis of the UNs efforts to apply Internationals controls on war crimes and the conduct of war.

The influence of the tribunal can also be seen in the formation of the permanent international criminal court, and the drafting of international criminal codes, later prepared by the International Law Commission.

The tribunals were wound up with much unfinished business, which I think is to our great shame, but I do think the stability and harmony of Germany, and the way that most European disputes are resolved these days,, owes in part, a great debt to the conduct of those trials. When in 1990 (ish) the cold war came to an end, there werent massive disputes abput the old borders with Poland, though of course there are always exceptions



> IMHO Grand Admiral Dönitz should not have been convicted on the evidence, nor Julius Streicher, whose main crime was that of being repulsive


.

Dont know too much about the latter, but Donitz had four indictments to face, of which the most famous being that he prosecuted unrestricted warfare in contravention to the international convertions of the sea. He was convicted of this crime, appropriately,. but the IMT imposed no penalty in relation to this charge, after the testimony of Nimitz (legal opinion is that the "Nimitz defence" was based on a false premise. basically it is not a valid defence to arguer "he was doing it why cant I?"). He was however found guilty on the other charges levelled at him, which namely were 

Permitting Hitler's Commando Order of 18 October 1942 to remain in full force when he became commander-in-chief of the Navy, and to that extent responsibility for that crime. His defence was that the Order excluded men captured in naval warfare, and that the order had not been acted upon by any men under his command. His defence failed because he knowingly maintained the order, , in modified form orders were issued to the Uboats to deliberately target defenceless survivors in the water and in lifeboats and men were so excuted because of it (according to the Russians) , after taking office as head of state (the latter I dont believe, but the former is well documented)
Knowing that 12,000 involuntary foreign workers were working in the shipyards, and doing nothing to stop it. There should be no debate about this charge. 
Advice in 1945 when Hitler asked Dönitz whether the Geneva Convention should be denounced. Hitler's motives were twofold. The first was, reprisals could be taken against Western Allied prisoners of war; second, it would deter German forces from surrendering to the Western Allies (as was happening on the Eastern Front where the Geneva Convention was in abeyance). Instead of arguing the conventions should never be denounced, Dönitz suggested it was not currently expedient to do so, so the court found against him on this issue; but as the Convention was not denounced by Germany, and British prisoners in camps under Dönitz's jurisdiction were treated strictly according to the Convention, the Court considered these mitigating circumstances. Still a breach of the law was found to have occurred. His reduced sentence of 10 years was, in my opinion appropriate to the crimes he had committed.


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## mikewint (Aug 26, 2015)

Again I do not dispute the horrors committed by the Nazi or that punishment was required but I do question the instrument chosen and the farce using Law to cloak it in and I am not alone in that assessment. 
IMHO the Nuremberg trials were organized not to dispense impartial justice, but for political purposes. Sir Norman Birkett, British alternate judge at the Nuremberg Tribunal, explained in a private letter in April 1946 that "the trial is only in form a judicial process and its main importance is political."
Robert Jackson, the chief US prosecutor and a former US Attorney General, declared that the Nuremberg Tribunal "is a continuation of the war effort of the Allied nations" against Germany. He added that the Tribunal "is not bound by the procedural and substantive refinements of our respective judicial or constitutional system ..." 
Judge Iola T. Nikitchenko, who presided at the Tribunal's solemn opening session, was a vice-chairman of the supreme court of the USSR before and after his service at Nuremberg. In August 1936 he had been a judge at the infamous Moscow show trial of Zinoviev and Kamenev. At a joint planning conference shortly before the Nuremberg Tribunal convened, Nikitchenko bluntly explained the Soviet view of the enterprise: 
We are dealing here with the chief war criminals who have already been convicted and whose conviction has been already announced by both the Moscow and Yalta declarations by the heads of the Allied governments... The whole idea is to secure quick and just punishment for the crime...
The fact that the Nazi leaders are criminals has already been established. The task of the Tribunal is only to determine the measure of guilt of each particular person and mete out the necessary punishment -- the sentences.
Some of the Americans who participated in the Nuremberg trials became disillusioned with the entire business. One of the few to make public his feelings was Charles F. Wennerstrum, an Iowa Supreme Court justice who served as presiding judge in the Nuremberg trial of German generals. "If I had known seven months ago what I know today, I would never have come here," he declared immediately after sentences were pronounced. "The high ideals announced as the motives for creating these tribunals have not been evident," he added. 
Wennerstrum went on to state: "The entire atmosphere here is unwholesome ... Lawyers, clerks, interpreters and researchers were employed who became Americans only in recent years, whose backgrounds were imbedded in Europe's hatreds and prejudices." He criticized the one-sided handling of evidence. "Most of the evidence in the trials was documentary, selected from the large tonnage of captured records. The selection was made by the prosecution. The defense had access only to those documents which the prosecution considered material to the case." He concluded that "the trials were to have convinced the Germans of the guilt of their leaders. They convinced the Germans merely that their leaders lost the war to tough conquerors." Wennerstrum left Nuremberg "with a feeling that justice has been denied."
America's leading jurist was dismayed by the Nuremberg process. US Supreme Court Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone remarked with irritation: "Jackson is away conducting his high-grade lynching party in Nuremberg. I don't mind what he does to the Nazis, but I hate to see the pretense that he is running a court and proceeding according to common law. This is a little too sanctimonious a fraud to meet my old-fashioned ideas." In a private letter he wrote: "... I wonder how some of those who preside at the trials would justify some of the acts of their own governments if they were placed in the status of the accused." On another occasion Stone specifically wondered "whether, under this new Nuremberg doctrine of international law, if we had been defeated, the victors could plausibly assert that our supplying Britain with fifty destroyers in 1940 was an act of aggression ..." 
In Congress, US Representative Lawrence H. Smith of Wisconsin declared: "The Nuremberg trials are so repugnant to the Anglo-Saxon principles of justice that we must forever be ashamed of that page in our history ... The Nuremberg farce represents a revenge policy at its worst." Another Congressman, John Rankin of Mississippi, stated: "As a representative of the American people I desire to say that what is taking place in Nuremberg, Germany, is a disgrace to the United States...
Probably the most courageous condemnation was by US Senator Robert A. Taft, widely regarded as the "conscience of the Republican party." At considerable risk to his political career, he denounced the Nuremberg enterprise in an October 1946 speech. "The trial of the vanquished by the victors cannot be impartial no matter how it is hedged about with the forms of justice," he said. Taft went on: 
About this whole judgment there is the spirit of vengeance, and vengeance is seldom justice. The hanging of the eleven men convicted will be a blot on the American record which we will long regret. In these trials we have accepted the Russian idea of the purpose of trials -- government policy and not justice -- with little relation to Anglo-Saxon heritage. By clothing policy in the forms of legal procedure, we many discredit the whole idea of justice in Europe for years to come.
Milton R. Konvitz, a Jewish specialist of law and public administration who taught at New York University, warned at the time that the Nuremberg Tribunal "defies many of the most basic assumptions of the judicial process." He went on: "Our policy with respect to the Nazis is consistent with neither international law nor our own State Department's policy... The Nuremberg trial constitutes a real threat to the basic conceptions of justice which it has taken mankind thousands of years to establish." 
In conducting the Nuremberg trials, the Allied governments themselves violated international law. For one thing, their treatment of the German defendants and the military prisoners who testified violated articles 56, 58 and others of the Geneva Convention of July 1929. Justice -- as opposed to vengeance -- is a standard that is applied impartially. At Nuremberg, though, standards of "justice" applied only to the vanquished. The four powers that sat in judgment were themselves guilty of many of the very crimes they accused the German leaders of committing. Chief US prosecutor Robert Jackson privately acknowledged in a letter to President Truman that the Allies:
have done or are doing some of the very things we are prosecuting the Germans for. The French are so violating the Geneva Convention in the treatment of German prisoners of war that our command is taking back prisoners sent to them for forced labor in France. We are prosecuting plunder and our Allies are practicing it. We say aggressive war is a crime and one of our allies asserts sovereignty over the Baltic States based on no title except conquest.
In violation of the first Nuremberg count of "planning, preparation, initiating or waging a war of aggression," the Soviet Union attacked Finland in December 1939 (and was expelled from the League of Nations as a result). A few months later the Red Army invaded Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and ruthlessly incorporated them into the Soviet Union. The postwar French government violated international law and the Nuremberg charge of "maltreatment of prisoners of war" by employing large numbers of German prisoners of war as forced laborers in France. In 1945 the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union jointly agreed to the brutal deportation of more than ten million Germans from their ancient homes in eastern and central Europe, a violation of the Nuremberg count of "deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population." 
While Allied prosecutors charged the defendants with a "crime against peace" in planning the German invasion of Norway in 1940, the British government eventually had to admit that Britain and France were themselves guilty of the same "crime" in preparing a military invasion of Norway, code-named "Stratford," before the German move. And in August 1941, Britain and the Soviet Union jointly invaded and occupied Iran, a neutral nation.
At the end of the war Eisenhower ordered that German prisoners in American military custody were no longer to be treated according to the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. This violation of international law removed masses of Germans from the protection of the International Red Cross (ICRC), and condemned hundreds of thousands of them to slow death by starvation and disease.

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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 26, 2015)

Mike, which in turn brings us back to the original discussion, which the Nürnberg Trials have nothing to do with. A nations guilt does not make everyone guilty and gives 0, Zero, Nada, Zilch justification for "retribution" crimes against innocent people. Regardless of someones 70 year old hatred.


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## parsifal (Aug 26, 2015)

> Again I do not dispute the horrors committed by the Nazi or that punishment was required but I do question the instrument chosen and the farce using Law to cloak it in and I am not alone in that assessment


. 

So what solution do you think would have been better?

These were the realistic options available

Stalin: Summarily execute without 50-100000 of the german leadership, and about the same number of army officers, without trial. permanent occupation of Germany by foreign powers. to a large extent this is what happened in the Soviet occupied zone. 
Churchill: Advocated a policy of summary execution in some circumstances, with the use of an Act of Attainder to circumvent legal obstacles (an ancient provision of the british constitution), being dissuaded from this only by talks with US and Soviet leaders later in the war . An Act of Attainder is an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without a trial. As with attainder resulting from the normal judicial process, the effect of such a bill is to nullify the targeted person's civil rights, most notably the right to own property (and thus pass it on to heirs), the right to a title of nobility, and, in at least the original usage, the right to life itself. Bills of attainder were passed in England between about 1300 and 1800 and resulted in the executions of a number of notable historical figures.

The use of these bills by Parliament eventually fell into disfavour due to the obvious potential for abuse and the violation of several legal principles, most importantly the separation of powers, the right to due process, and the precept that a law should address a particular form of behaviour rather than a specific individual or group. For these reasons, bills of attainder are expressly banned by the United States Constitution of 1789 as well as by the constitutions of all 50 US states.

Roosevelt: Initially advocated the de-industrialization of Germany under the Morgenthau Plan
France: Not as clear, but as far as I can tell, the French advocated the full and permanent dismemberment of Germany in much the same way as it was after the Napoleonic wars

There really were no other other options. Speaking in December 1946 Geoffrey Lawrence (Chief Judge for the British at Nuremberg) wrote:

"_There were, I suppose, three possible courses: to let the atrocities which had been committed go unpunished; to put the perpetrators to death or punish them by executive action; or to try them. Which was it to be? Was it possible to let such atrocities go unpunished? Could France, could Russia, could Holland, Belgium, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Poland or Yugoslavia be expected to consent to such a course? ... It will be remembered that after the first world war alleged criminals were handed over to be tried by Germany, and what a farce that was! The majority got off and such sentences as were inflicted were derisory and were soon remitted_" 

Moreover, the Nazis had made arrangements that would, on the basis of the law as it existed virtually impossible to put them to trial. They expected that the allies would either have to summarily execute them, or let them go. they were counting on the latter, but the former was still okay, since it would at least hand their cause a moral victory of sorts.


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## mikewint (Aug 26, 2015)

Chris, you are correct, we/I have wandered afield here though IMHO the mindset of the allies towards the German PEOPLE as a whole was to hold them ALL accountable and that attitude was also evident in the Nuremberg trials. The idea of "collective guilt" and thus "collective retribution" was well in place before the war's end.
This poster and other posters like it were distributed in occupied Germany in the summer of 1945, immediately after World War II. There was an Allied directive to Allied press agencies stating that the goal of these publications was *to convince the German population of their collective guilt.*
My best translation:
*These crimes: your fault!* In twelve years of the Nazi criminals millions of Europeans have been tortured and murdered. Men, women and children were rushed from Hitler's henchmen brutalized and tortured to death simply because they were Jews, Czechs, Russians, Poles or French. You quietly watched and condoned. In the battle hardened soldiers of the Allies could not hide their  and outrage in the face of the gassed and charred and emaciated bodies of the victims in the concentration camps. In Buchenwald camp by German reports 50,000 people were burned, shot, hanged. In Dachau, American soldiers found 50 wagons with rotting corpses. Since the beginning of this year, 10 000 people there died of their tortures. British troops found in Belsen torture chambers, incinerators, gallows and Auspeit-research piles. 30,000 people have been killed there. In Gardelegen, Nordhausen, Ohrdruf, Erla, Mauthausen, Vaihingen were countless forced / trafficked political prisoners and an inferno, as it has never seen in world history, as a victim! *You have watched idly. Why have you not a word of protest, with no outcry roused the German conscience? This is your big debt - you are responsible for this horrible crime!*
1) Freight cars loaded with dead bodies were discovered by American troops at Dachau.
2) Layers of corpses stacked like firewood were found by American troops in the Dachau concentration camp. The blood flowed across the floor when the soldiers arrived.
3) The inmate of the Dachau shame-camp was found emaciated and hollow-eyed with hunger by the American soldiers.
4) Part of 1000 corpses found in a pit, which were found by British and American soldiers during the liberation of the camp.
5) American soldiers inspect an abomination camp where the burned bodies of Nazi victims are piled up.
6) Charred bodies of political prisoners who have been harassed by SS troops in the Dachau death camp.

7) An inmate of the Dachau camp viewed the bodies of his comrades, the victims were brutalized by SS troops. The Nazis poured gasoline over the bodies and burned them.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 26, 2015)

mikewint said:


> Chris, you are correct, we/I have wandered afield here though IMHO the mindset of the allies towards the German PEOPLE as a whole was to hold them ALL accountable and that attitude was also evident in the Nuremberg trials. The idea of "collective guilt" and thus "collective retribution" was well in place before the war's end.
> This poster and other posters like it were distributed in occupied Germany in the summer of 1945, immediately after World War II. There was an Allied directive to Allied press agencies stating that the goal of these publications was *to convince the German population of their collective guilt.*
> My best translation:
> *These crimes: your fault!* In twelve years of the Nazi criminals millions of Europeans have been tortured and murdered. Men, women and children were rushed from Hitler's henchmen brutalized and tortured to death simply because they were Jews, Czechs, Russians, Poles or French. You quietly watched and condoned. In the battle hardened soldiers of the Allies could not hide their  and outrage in the face of the gassed and charred and emaciated bodies of the victims in the concentration camps. In Buchenwald camp by German reports 50,000 people were burned, shot, hanged. In Dachau, American soldiers found 50 wagons with rotting corpses. Since the beginning of this year, 10 000 people there died of their tortures. British troops found in Belsen torture chambers, incinerators, gallows and Auspeit-research piles. 30,000 people have been killed there. In Gardelegen, Nordhausen, Ohrdruf, Erla, Mauthausen, Vaihingen were countless forced / trafficked political prisoners and an inferno, as it has never seen in world history, as a victim! *You have watched idly. Why have you not a word of protest, with no outcry roused the German conscience? This is your big debt - you are responsible for this horrible crime!*
> ...



See I have no problem with collective guilt per say. Germany was guilty. My whole stance is just that a nations guilt does not equal violence, rape, murder and beatings to individual people that are innocent. Their nation is guilty, and as a whole that makes the population guilty in a victor/loser or political way, but there are still people innocent of crimes themselves (especially children). The Nuernberg Trials have nothing to do with that or make it justifiable. That really was the heart of the discussion, the Nuernberg Trial discussion was a side topic that quite honestly was a side note.

As for the collective guilt, unfortunately there are ignorant people today that still do that. My wife gets it all the time. She has been told she should feel shame for what happened and that it was her fault. He parents where not even born during WW2, so these ignorant people can kiss my ass. I wish my wife would sometimes not take the high ground and tell them to **** off. She just smiles and walks away.


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## parsifal (Aug 27, 2015)

There should be no shame for any German who remained within the law. Much less any German not even born at the time. A patriotic german who remained within the law (not the law of the land as it existed 1933-45, rather the application of the law as set down under the Nuremberg principles....that incidentally is one of the weak points of Nuremberg), there certainly should not be any punishment for people simply because they were germans. The judgement made against Donitz is very illustrative in this regard. Donitz was guilty of unrestricted warfare, and a conviction against him was so recorded. But the circumstances he found himself in 1939-45 fully justified that type of warfare, and that explains why, despite having a conviction recorded against him, he received no penalty for it.

The problem is this. If you don't apply standards of international law to the defendants of 1945, you don't have a case. if the laws of 1933-45 were not somehow suspended, these guys are not guilty of anything. The only way to suspend the legal system of hitlers time was to destroy it. the only way to destroy it was to show the whole state to be unlawful, and that unfortunately has a very distasteful spin off. the nation is the people, and by applying the war guilt clauses in 1945, it effectively indicted every man, woman and child in Germany. from that point, nothing happened to the vast majority of germans, but still the stigma remains, to this day. 

The atrocities we see in that opening piece have nothing to do with the Nuremberg application of collective guilt, and it was to avoid those sorts of scenes being played out that the IMTs were set up . unfortunately, all too often people bent on revenge took the law into their own hands.


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## Marcel (Aug 27, 2015)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> As for the collective guilt, unfortunately there are ignorant people today that still do that. My wife gets it all the time. She has been told she should feel shame for what happened and that it was her fault. He parents where not even born during WW2, so these ignorant people can kiss my ass. I wish my wife would sometimes not take the high ground and tell them to **** off. She just smiles and walks away.



Ah Chris, here in the Netherlands, I was accused being guilty for slavery trading *which happened about 300 years ago*. When does that stop? Which brings me to another question, we now have trials running where people from Suriname want righteousness for this slave trading which 'affected their lives' and want to have money from the government. Apart from the fact that many of them live on our social security and are able to buy iphones, cars, have a nice house, all provided by the Dutch government, where does this 'collective guilt' stop? When do you stop being angry with people? What does a nation have to do to redeem themselves? For me 'collective guilt' is all theoretical BS. It is a way to simplify the complex reality and also give yourself an easy way to find a target for your frustration. This being used in the Neurenburg Trial only shows the shortcomings of the legal system in my opinion.

Why being 'angry with the Germans after 70+ years? Unfortunately not everyone is as great a man as my grandfather....

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## parsifal (Aug 27, 2015)

some of my most cherished quotes about the law:

Silent enim leges inter arma” (In war laws are silent) 
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished.

But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, 'whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,' and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.” 
― John Adams, The Portable John Adams

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” 
― Voltaire

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.
Aristotle

When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty. ~Norm Crosby


A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. ~Robert Frost


This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

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## stona (Aug 27, 2015)

Marcel said:


> Ah Chris, here in the Netherlands, I was accused being guilty for slavery trading *which happened about 300 years ago*. When does that stop? ...



We have the same thing here. Tony Blair was cajoled into a position where he expressed 'deep sorrow and regret' for Britain's role in the slave trade, but at least had the wherewithal to point out the nation's role in ending that trade.

As for reparations, a line has to be drawn. Maybe I should be looking for reparations from the people of Northern Germany and Scandinavia for the deprivations inflicted on the British by the Vikings. Certain monasteries would have substantial claims if only Cromwell and Henry VIII hadn't dissolved them 
Most people in Britain came down firmly on the side of the Germans when the Greeks tried to open this can of worms recently.

Cheers

Steve


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## Marcel (Aug 27, 2015)

stona said:


> We have the same thing here. Tony Blair was cajoled into a position where he expressed 'deep sorrow and regret' for Britain's role in the slave trade, but at least had the wherewithal to point out the nation's role in ending that trade.
> 
> As for reparations, a line has to be drawn. Maybe I should be looking for reparations from the people of Northern Germany and Scandinavia for the deprivations inflicted on the British by the Vikings. Certain monasteries would have substantial claims if only Cromwell and Henry VIII hadn't dissolved them
> Most people in Britain came down firmly on the side of the Germans when the Greeks tried to open this can of worms recently.
> ...


I blame the Romans. They killed my would-be-ancestor and now I have to do with this genetic material. As a compensation I want the Italians to give me an endless supply of fresh pizza.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 27, 2015)

Marcel said:


> Ah Chris, here in the Netherlands, I was accused being guilty for slavery trading *which happened about 300 years ago*. When does that stop? Which brings me to another question, we now have trials running where people from Suriname want righteousness for this slave trading which 'affected their lives' and want to have money from the government. Apart from the fact that many of them live on our social security and are able to buy iphones, cars, have a nice house, all provided by the Dutch government, where does this 'collective guilt' stop? When do you stop being angry with people? What does a nation have to do to redeem themselves? For me 'collective guilt' is all theoretical BS. It is a way to simplify the complex reality and also give yourself an easy way to find a target for your frustration. This being used in the Neurenburg Trial only shows the shortcomings of the legal system in my opinion.
> 
> Why being 'angry with the Germans after 70+ years? Unfortunately not everyone is as great a man as my grandfather....



We are going through that right now here in the US. If you are white you are racist and to blame for slavery.

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## pbehn (Aug 27, 2015)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> We are going through that right now here in the US. If you are white you are racist and to blame for slavery.



Stealing our thunder again, Tony Blair assures me that the British did it. All of which ignores the fact that the USA and the UK are 2 of the few nations in history to make it illegal on moral grounds, and slavery was never ever legal in England/UK, those that kept slaves did so purely because they could not because they had a legal right to.


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## stona (Aug 27, 2015)

pbehn said:


> slavery was never ever legal in England/UK,



Errr, after 1833 a total of 46,000 Britons were compensated for the loss of their 'property'. It cost the government £20 million then, which is equivalent to about £17 billion today. It was the biggest bail out in British history, until 2009.

The records of the Slave Compensation Commission survive. It amounts to a census of slave ownership as of 1st August 1834. It lists those 46,000 slave owners in Britain.

The largest single beneficiary of compensation was John Gladstone, father of the future prime minister, who received £106,769 for the 2,508 slaves he owned across nine plantations. That's equivalent to £80 million today. Hardly surprising that the first speech the son, William Gladstone, made in parliament was in defence of slavery.

It gets worse. The enslaved people ultimately paid for their own manumission. They were compelled to provide 45 hours free labour per week to their former owners for 4 years after their supposed liberation.

There are important differences between the abolition of the slave trade, initially in 1807, and the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act which freed about 800,000 people who were the legal property of Britain's slave owners. It wasn't until 1838 that slavery was officially abolished in British colonies, despite the earlier Act.

Despite acknowledging all that I do not feel responsible for it, nor do I feel that I owe anyone an apology.

Cheers

Steve

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## pbehn (Aug 27, 2015)

stona said:


> Errr, after 1833 a total of 46,000 Britons were compensated for the loss of their 'property'. It cost the government £20 million then, which is equivalent to about £17 billion today. It was the biggest bail out in British history, until 2009.
> 
> The records of the Slave Compensation Commission survive. It amounts to a census of slave ownership as of 1st August 1834. It lists those 46,000 slave owners in Britain.
> 
> ...


That was compensation for slavery outside the UK, there was never a status of "slave" within the UK. As with the opium wars some commited acts that were illegal in the country they came from (UK) and the country they demanded military support from when things went pear shaped. Not a surprise that those i power used the UK treasury to launder illegal money into the good stuff.


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## stona (Aug 27, 2015)

British could own slaves, they could bring them to Britain if they wished. What do you imagine the status of the people locked up in Bristol and other ports awaiting transport to the Carribean was? The trade was triangular and Britain was at one of the angles.
Slave ownership was legal for any British subject who could afford it. What you couldn't do was enslave another British subject, which is an entirely different thing. This harks back to the foundations of western civilisations, neither the citizens of a Greek city, nor a Roman citizen could be legally enslaved (by that city state or a Roman respectively)
Cheers
Steve


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## pbehn (Aug 27, 2015)

stona said:


> British could own slaves, they could bring them to Britain if they wished. What do you imagine the status of the people locked up in Bristol and other ports awaiting transport to the Carribean was? The trade was triangular and Britain was at one of the angles.
> Slave ownership was legal for any British subject who could afford it. What you couldn't do was enslave another British subject, which is an entirely different thing. This harks back to the foundations of western civilisations, neither the citizens of a Greek city, nor a Roman citizen could be legally enslaved (by that city state or a Roman respectively)
> Cheers
> Steve



The first time it was tried in court it was thrown out. The case of Somerset v Stewart 1772

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset_v_Stewart


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## stona (Aug 27, 2015)

That is a very narrow judgement, and as we well know thousands of slaves passed through Britain subsequently. Even today the precedent set by such a judgement is debated. It did set a ball moving that resulted in the various Acts that eliminated both the trade in enslaved people and slavery itself over the next 30-60 years.
There had always been religious arguments against slavery. Some even made a distinction between enslaving Christians and non-Christians. Despite this the Church of England was a major owner of slaves in the West Indies, but then that's what you get with an established Church .
Cheers
Steve


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## pbehn (Aug 27, 2015)

stona said:


> That is a very narrow judgement, and as we well know thousands of slaves passed through Britain subsequently. Even today the precedent set by such a judgement is debated. It did set a ball moving that resulted in the various Acts that eliminated both the trade in enslaved people and slavery itself over the next 30-60 years.
> There had always been religious arguments against slavery. Some even made a distinction between enslaving Christians and non-Christians. Despite this the Church of England was a major owner of slaves in the West Indies, but then that's what you get with an established Church .
> Cheers
> Steve



Steve, I am not excusing anything or denying anything. It was well known that slaves passed in their hundreds of thousands through Bristol, Liverpool and others. I presume they had some sort of "device" like extraordinary rendition. I was just saying that keeping a slave in UK was unlawful. Slavery grew out of piracy and didnt harm anyone in UK, no one minded when people were making lots of money and there was no international law at the time covering it. Slavery like the opium trade was something that the UK drifted into without thinking because many made huge amounts of money, they wernt stupid the act of getting rid of it made them not only rich but somehow respectable.


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## stona (Aug 27, 2015)

I understand, but slaves were held in the UK. Some even managed to later write accounts of the experience and how they finally freed themselves. ,Less known than 'Equiano' who was free by the time he came to Britain, was Ignatius Sancho was brought to London as a child slave in 1731 and remained one until at least 1749.
Cheers
Steve


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## pbehn (Aug 27, 2015)

stona said:


> I understand, but slaves were held in the UK. Some even managed to later write accounts of the experience and how they finally freed themselves. ,Less known than 'Equiano' who was free by the time he came to Britain, was Ignatius Sancho was brought to London as a child slave in 1731 and remained one until at least 1749.
> Cheers
> Steve



Steve
There are estimated to be up to 25,000 slaves in UK now. They occasionally get free and appear in the press, many of their "owners" have diplomatic immunity.


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## stona (Aug 27, 2015)

pbehn said:


> Steve
> There are estimated to be up to 25,000 slaves in UK now. They occasionally get free and appear in the press, many of their "owners" have diplomatic immunity.



Sadly true.

Cheers

Steve


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## pbehn (Aug 27, 2015)

stona said:


> Sadly true.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Steve



Our politicians would rather blather about events 300 years ago than confront the reality that people are housed in Mayfair mansions as slaves, the WC stadiums built in view of the whole world are being built by people living and dying as slaves, easier to wring hands and apologise for the past than do something.


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## FLYBOYJ (Aug 27, 2015)

This is all too coincidental for me! I just discovered that I have at least two ancestors (and maybe more) who owned slaves. My 7th great grandmother owned 4 mulatto slaves, My 3rd great grandfather owned 8 black slaves and were included as part of a purchase of a villa in Puerto Rico. By today's standards I could condemn this but will refuse to take responsibility for the social norms that existed 160+ years ago. I will not hide this in my family history and would tell any bleeding heart to p!ss up a rope if the word 'reparation' was even mumbled to me, unlike this @sshole,

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## mikewint (Aug 27, 2015)

Slavery??? No way....
The Allied powers had decided at the highest level (Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin) to repudiate the Geneva Conventions, especially after the extinction of a German government able to negotiate with the Red Cross. (The Soviet Union, of course, had never signed the Geneva Conventions in the first place.)
Under the Geneva Conventions, POWs are to be sent home within months of the end of the war. The Allies instead decided to hold prisoner many POWs. To side-step the Geneva Convention the POWs had been redesignated as "disarmed enemy forces" and were used as slave laborers, providing "labor reparations" to rebuild the damage inflicted by Nazi aggression in the west. In the spring of 1945, the US held 3.4 million German POWs and Britain held 2,150,000 . According to the International Red Cross these men were divided up amongst the various allied nations to provide these “reparations”. The demands of France for “labor reparations” were considered especially compelling. After screening the POWs, releasing the old men and boys of the "Volkssturm," and detaining Nazis for prosecution, the USA transferred 740,000 of the remainder (including some of those shipped back to Europe from the USA) to France. By August of 1946 the United States held 140,000 (US Occupation Zone) 680,000 were still held in France, 30,000 in Italy, 14,000 in Belgium, Yugoslavia 80,000, Belgium 48,000, Czechoslovakia 45,000, Luxembourg 4,000, Holland 1,300 and Great Britain held 460,000 German slaves. The Soviet Union had captured 4,000,000 - 5,000,000 German soldiers and civilians who disappeared into the USSR.
An outraged International Red Cross organization stated: "The United States, Britain and France, nearly a year after peace are violating International Red Cross agreements they solemnly signed in 1929. Thousands of former German soldiers are being used in the hazardous work of clearing minefields, sweeping sea mines and razing shattered buildings in spite of the fact that the Geneva Convention expressly forbids employing prisoners 'in any dangerous labor or in the transport of any material used in warfare.'
The Western nations sent their last German POWs home in 1948 (often under US pressure), while the Soviets kept theirs as late as 1956.

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## parsifal (Aug 27, 2015)

This is the article that probably best discusses the issue of post war PoWs. 

U.S. (and French) abuse of German PoWs, 1945-1948

very disturbing, but the more outlandish claims relating to numbers at least, in the US care that died is pretty comprehensively debunked. 

For Britain, 450000 ex-PoWs were held without their consent until mid-1947. They returned to Germany by the end of the year, 25000 promptly emigrated back and close to 200000 voluntarily returned 1948-52 on paid temporary work visas.

undoubtedly a form of slavery and to the allied shame as a result, but not in the same league of mistreatment as the Nazis. even the Soviets come up better in this regard. in terms of raw numbers the Nazis had put to death over 70-90% of the polish and soviet PoWs in their care, according to other articles Ive seen. For the germans captured at Stalingrad, the mortality rate was higher, but the post war bag of PoWs suffered losses of under 50% to the end of 1955. Attrocities by the Soviets are horrific, for example they used ex-PoWs in dangerous uranium mines and also mine clearance work, but they still don't compare to the magnitude and viciousness of mistreatment meted out by the nazis. 

In the US proper, treatment of the estimated 540000 prisoners held in the continental US continued until 1947. kramers studies into this group suggest a firm but fair treatment in the post war period . About 45000 elected to stay in the US after being offered repatriation in 1947. in a very small number of cases, it has been pretty conclusively shown that the US military engaged in serious torture of these detainees, though Im not sure if that was during the war or after. the torture is described as "serious" to "severe' in the reports ive seen . 

French treatment was fairly shocking, and was commented upon by US prosecutor Jackson in his letter to Truman December 1946 (or'45?). This letter led to the French pullout of the IMTs, and at the height of their mistreatment, about 2000 per month were being lost. all up losses of german PoWs under western allied care 1945-8 was 56000, for a group numbering about 5.5 million men. that's a mortality rate of just over 1%. that's a bit lower than the mortality rate being experienced in Germany itself in that same period.

There was definately mistreatment occurring in the west in this period, particularly by the French, but it is arguable as to just how bad it actually was.


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## meatloaf109 (Aug 28, 2015)

(Disclaimer. I injured my back at work today and am on pain meds)
The very idea of "Rules of War" makes me want to vomit. No mercy was shown in ancient times. Kill. Rape. Enslave. Steal.
Consider this, the reasons for war are,
1) I want what you have... Simple enough. Selfishness and greed.
2) You don't believe in the same deity as I do, and mine says you must die. A little more complex, but still boils down to selfishness and greed, with a dash of ignorance.
3), well there is no 3, unless you concur with the idea espoused in the movie "Gettysburg" when Col. Chamberlain states, "We are an Army to set other men free." Noble, if true. Contemporary evidence suggests that this opinion was in the minority throughout the first years of the Civil war.
As a species we have slaughtered each other for greed, selfishness, and ignorance with no end in sight. Innocent people suffer, both in war and in peace. The unknowing working class person, while a citizen of a country, has no more responsibility for the actions of the rulers than does a blade of grass in that country. Yet they often suffer for the actions of the rulers.
The Nazis were bad, no rational human being disputes that, but the actions of fanatics on either side in a war provides no excuse for crimes against innocents. To suggest that all of a population share a collective guilt for the actions of the rulers is wrong and propagates even more hate and misunderstanding.

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## parsifal (Aug 28, 2015)

Im going to refer to your good self as Attila in future.....


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## parsifal (Aug 28, 2015)

The problem is that the mistakes of the few have always affected the lives of the many.

And we are at the same juncture as we started. Nuremberg, ensured that only the "leadership" was prosecuted....those most responsible. Nuremberg, targeted no more than 10000, had 580 (ish) lined up for prosecution and actually tried 179, of which about 100 were actually punished. compare that to the 100000+ that Stalin wanted, inevitably that would mean otherwise innocent people being hurt even more. or in some ways the even more grotesque proposals put forward by Churchill. 

People keep saying they agree with the Nazis being punished. Then they qualify that by saying they don't want group or collective guilt, and seem to say Nuremberg was a form of collective punishment. 

There are so many inconsistencies with that positioning its not funny. In no particular order....there were over 5 million registered members of the nazi party. Does that mean 5 million convictions, or five million summary executions? Most of those 5 million were nothing worse than the local postman wanting to keep his job. That's never going to work.

Collective guilt. again, most people want the main perpetrators punished. That, by definition requires some kind of due process, in which the basic rights to a free trial, and a set of rules would apply. what rules????????? If the nazi regime's rules are allowed to stand as valid, the bad guys are guilty of nothing and walk scot free. That needs to be soaked up and accepted in this circular never ending debate. someone please tell me how they are going to respect basic human rights AND get the bad guys, and get past this enormous legal obstacle without breaking a few eggs and declaring the entire German legal system as invalid 1933-45, because it was serving a regime whose whole existence was bent on acting unlawfully. 

If there is a better way of addressing all these competing and conflicting demands, Im all ears.


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## Marcel (Aug 28, 2015)

parsifal said:


> The problem is that the mistakes of the few have always affected the lives of the many.
> 
> And we are at the same juncture as we started. Nuremberg, ensured that only the "leadership" was prosecuted....those most responsible. Nuremberg, targeted no more than 10000, had 580 (ish) lined up for prosecution and actually tried 179, of which about 100 were actually punished. compare that to the 100000+ that Stalin wanted, inevitably that would mean otherwise innocent people being hurt even more. or in some ways the even more grotesque proposals put forward by Churchill.
> 
> ...



Parsifal, I don't nothing about law stuff and I'm pretty sure I'm missing something. Could you explain in short to me the following for my understanding? 



> The only way to suspend the legal system of hitlers time was to destroy it. the only way to destroy it was to show the whole state to be unlawful




So I don't understand the connection between collective guilt and punishing the guilty ones. If I understand you correctly, in order to overrule the laws in Germany during the Nazi rules (which would make them legally innocent) you have to make the whole state unlawful. That I understand. But does that automatically mean that every *individual* in that state is guilty and can be hold responsible? Maybe I am interpreting this word 'collective guilt' wrongly?

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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Aug 28, 2015)

Marcel said:


> Parsifal, I don't nothing about law stuff and I'm pretty sure I'm missing something. Could you explain in short to me the following for my understanding?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



No it does not. Only if someone chooses to do so...


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## stona (Aug 28, 2015)

Not every individual is guilty but no individual could justify their actions by using the laws of the Nazi regime.

Steve

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## parsifal (Aug 28, 2015)

> So I don't understand the connection between collective guilt and punishing the guilty ones. If I understand you correctly, in order to overrule the laws in Germany during the Nazi rules (which would make them legally innocent) you have to make the whole state unlawful. That I understand. But does that automatically mean that every individual in that state is guilty and can be hold responsible? Maybe I am interpreting this word 'collective guilt' wrongly?



This stuff had never been tried before in history. So hang on and I will do my best to explain the concepts.

The defeated Germany in 1945 was not part of a new empire (with the exception of the Soviets who did view it that way), it was an occupied nation who had been defeated on the field of battle and had surrendered unconditionally, meaning they accepted any terms that were placed on them. One of the terms imposed on the germans when they signed the surrender document was that they accepted the full blame for the war, and that they had embarked on a war of aggression. It was, in effect a signed confession by the nation. And not able to be revoked or challenged except by a return to battle. 

We might argue the morals and worth of that confession, but they are the starting point for the recovery actually. The alternative would be to continue to fight until every individual in Germany chose to surrender or fight till they died. I should add that in war, individuals dont fight wars, nations do, but conversely the nation is its people. This is all theoretical stuff , it didnt happen this way, but its tied in with the concept of the pre-eminance of the state over individual rights. its what allows an abstract concept, like a nation to rule over you, make laws to restrict you activities, make you pay taxes fight on its behalf, suffer its justice and the punishments that it chooses to mete out on its population. Armies dont make war, they are the instrument of the nation for making war. They do what they are told, and the nation (its people) tell its army how it wishes to fight and whom it wishes to fight, and for what reason it wishes to fight. Of course the reality is that armies often rebel from its nation master (the state) and often try an impose its will on its people by trying to take over the nation (through a coup). History records that the Nazis attempted a coup, lost the ringleaders given light sentences, came back and were voted into power, to rule thereafter by emergency provisions. But on the face of it a legitimate govt of Germany, recognized internationally as the legitimate govt (legitimate govt is defined as "a government generally acknowledged as being in control of a nation and representing the intrests and wishes of its people and deserving formal recognition, which is symbolized by the exchange of diplomats between that government and the governments of other countries"). It is the representative of its people, by installation of that regime as its leadership, the german people, whether they realized it or not were saying "these guys are us. Everything they do is what we, collectively wish to happen". In a democracy there are laws , like a constitution that place limits on the leadership, and install a series of checks and balances designed to ensure that the govt retains the true interests of its people and protects their rights in its decisions. The system separates the functions of the lawmakers, the executive and the law administration to try and ensure that there was a not a corruption of state power over the rights of the individual. This was almost immediately repudiated by Hitler...he hated democracy and its principals). This failed in Nazi Germany, all power was vested in one man, who then re-delegated that power, but only in the interests of what he deemed to be appropriate. All individual rights were suspended, all opposition quashed and all basic human rights disregarded. All because the many, in the beginning, believed in him and supported him. 

Because the nation is the people and the govt is the representative of the peoples wishes (Hitler said "I am the state", which is just such a loaded statement), international law had to establish that the state represented those wishes. There are two ways might want to interpret the next bit. First alternative is that the state policy did not represent the wishes of the people. If so the conclusion is that the people carrying out the wishes of the state were not carrying out the wishes of its people, and the state therefore had no mandate to make laws, mete out punishments or administer policies. That makes the whole govt apparatus illegal , or without authority, and is a very dangerous concept. it means that every govt official would be guilt of a crime. Its a theoretical position only never been tested, but ive read about it....

The second way of interpretation (which the pathway followed by the IMTs) is that certain unwritten norms and standards applied to govt conduct and that criminality applies to individuals who execute the wishes of the state still applies because in the background a higher law, based on generally accepted common laws, like it being unlawful to commit murder even on behalf of the state, if that state was acting unlawfully itself, still apply (it is not necessary to do this in the current form of international law, but it took more than 50 years to get to that modified state of law. In 1945, it was crucial to establish the basic ciminality of the entire German state). This meant that the state of Germany (which ultimately was its people, not just the apparatus meaning its legislature, its legal system and its executive...which in reality was just Hitler) was a failure and that state therefore, by its very existence was unlawful in the way that it existed. This is the hard bit though. Hitler was not the state, despite his rhetoric. The state was the German people. They had entrusted their interests in one man, and of that they were guilty. They commissioned him, and he turned out to be a criminal. But the actions of that one man, Hitler, because they had given him power in the first place, made them still responsible for the crimes that state (Hitler) committed in his name. 

Thats the collective guilt element. Its messy and clunky and questionable, but from there the Nuremberg principles ensured that this concept of collective guilt did not result in collective punishment. It enabled the IMTs to argue that individuals despite undertaking things in the name of the state could be held individually responsible for their own criminality, and that the measure of that criminality was not the warped legal system in force at the time within Germany. Overarching that national code of laws was a greater law, the so called Nuremberg principals....another weak point of the theory. Another way to describe this is to say the laws of the time were unlawful, "ultra vires" is the latin term (literally "beyond the powers" as opposed to "Intra Vires" "within the posers" ) ...,.of the state.

The law until that time was that the sovereignty (understood in jurisprudence as the full right and power of a governing body to govern its people and order them to act as it deems necessary itself without any interference from outside sources or bodies. In political theory, sovereignty is a substantive term designating supreme authority over some polity. It is a basic principle underlying the dominant Westphalian model of state foundation). This was to be the primary defence for most of the defendants.......the laws of superior orders. In order for that primary defence to be defeated the Nuremberg rules had to establish a greater preeminence of its rules, where the state could be shown to be acting unlawfully, and obviously so. Without that latter safeguard, anybody could have been hauled before an international court. In today's ICC arrangements its different, but in 1945, the IMTs had to set up their pre-eminance over nazi sovereignty the hard way.

Probably doesnt help, if not , just say and I will try to simplify or re-phrase

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## parsifal (Aug 28, 2015)

> But does that automatically mean that every individual in that state is guilty and can be hold responsible



We are all guilty of something. I was guilty of being born, not eating my sprouts (I hate sprouts to this day). The German people were guilty of something more serious, but they had no fear of being punished unless other criminality could be proven. The German people were guilty of supporting Hitler, thats it, hitler became the state, and the state committed gross acts of criminality, to the point that the state itself was acting unlawfully. Individuals then responsible for those gross acts could then be held individually responsible even though they were acting in the name of the state.


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## mikewint (Aug 28, 2015)

To use terms like LAW and MORALS in any discussion is to use meaningless terms. What is LAWFUL today can become UNLAWFUL tomorrow. MORALS likewise shift in the same manner especially when you cross time and cultural barriers. Slavery was at one time both the lawful and moral (white mans burden) thing to do. In addition those who were taken as slaves were actually captured and enslaved by their own people who in turn were acting under their own set of laws and morals.
Michael posted: *breaking a few eggs and declaring the entire German legal system as invalid 1933-45, because it was serving a regime whose whole existence was bent on acting unlawfully. *. A wonderful thing as long as it is not YOUR eggs getting broken. One of our basic precepts in western justice is the concept of "EX POST FACTO" or simply speaking you can't make something illegal AFTER the fact. New LAW passed today: * From Jan 1, 2000 anyone with more than two children will be jailed.* Suddenly people who were not breaking the law _at the time_ have been made into law-breakers and face punishment. Additionally the entire country is held accountable since they should have known having 3+ children was immoral and illegal thus facing "collective guilt" and "collective retribution"
That the US base at Guantanamo Bay is a military prison for terrorists is pretty well known. "ENHANCED INTERROGATION" is used and "due process" ignored. US citizens are doing nothing to stop these gross violations of human rights: "collective guilt" for the entire country.
Marcel posts: *does that automatically mean that every individual in that state is guilty and can be hold responsible? Maybe I am interpreting this word 'collective guilt' wrongly?* No you are not and Yes it does. If you, the victors, declare the entire set of laws in effect for 5 years invalid then everyone who was legally following those laws, _at the time_, is now a criminal and as such subject to punishment. Those same specters of "collective" raise their ugly heads and we're back to "How could you not have known" and "Why did you do nothing to stop it".
Every part of me totally rejects "collective" anything and "collective punishment" is the worst of all. Consider Germany in 1945:
The extent of physical and moral devastation in 1945 was unprecedented. For years the Western Allies had pursued an escalating strategy of carpet bombing that reached far beyond many definitions of military or industrial targeting. This air war left approximately six hundred thousand civilians dead, and wounded as many as nine hundred thousand more; more than 7 million Germans were left homeless at the end of the war (around 10 million people had been evacuated from the cities to avoid the bombings). Population transfers" from eastern Europe and the eastern parts of the Reich numbered as many as 12 million, and at least a half million ethnic Germans died or were killed in the process. More than 5 million German soldiers were killed in the war, leaving more than a million widows; the gender disparity after the war—more than two "marriageable" women for every man—was among the most significant demographic consequences of the war, which is to say nothing of the large number of fatherless or entirely orphaned children. Just one consequence of the mass rapes of German women toward and after the end of the war and of the rampant prostitution and semi prostitution born of extreme necessity, moreover, was an astoundingly high venereal disease rate among German women.
Physically to speak of Germany as a ruin in 1945 is to romanticize it. Germany was a wreck not a ruin, a rock covered landscape of disaster in which the homeless lived like mole people. Any type of housing was more than devastated. Then add in the fact that approximately 12 million ethnic Germans that had been expelled from the East with more than a million dying in the process (the flight from the East had begun well before the end of the war, as early as 1943 in many cases).
The conditions for German soldiers in Allied captivity were horrific, with severe food shortages (a Red Cross train load of food for the German POWs…whoops…Disarmed Enemy Forces had been stopped and turned around) and often inadequate or nonexistent shelter (The worst US temporary enclosures were the 16 "Rheinwiesenlager" ("Rhine meadow camps"). These were simply barb-wire enclosures out in the open, with no shelter apart from what the DEFs might dig in the ground, and nothing to sit or lie on (above the mud and puddles) apart from their own helmets and greatcoats for those who had them. This was during the spring and summer, when there was no danger of freezing; nevertheless, given Germany's cooler, wetter climate, these open barbed-wire "cages" were much more of a hardship than similar temporary expedients in North Africa and Italy. 557,000 DEFs were held from April to July 1945 in the six worst of these: Bad Kreuznach-Bretzenheim, Remagen-Sinzig, Rheinberg, Heidesheim, Wickrathberg, and Büderich . The Maschke Commission would later tabulate 4,537 parish-registered deaths in these 6 worst RWLs, 774 from the others. They thought the actual death toll might be twice this, but were skeptical of an eyewitness claim of 32,000 deaths. Of the 3 million or so German soldiers taken by the Russians at least a million died there and tens of thousands were not released until well into the 1950s. And that does not address the millions of German civilians taken as the Russians over-ran Eastern Germany.
When is enough, ENOUGH

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## Marcel (Aug 28, 2015)

Thank you Parcifal. It is almost clear, will have to read it a couple of times more 



parsifal said:


> We are all guilty of something. I was guilty of being born, not eating my sprouts (I hate sprouts to this day). The German people were guilty of something more serious, but they had no fear of being punished unless other criminality could be proven. The German people were guilty of supporting Hitler, thats it, hitler became the state, and the state committed gross acts of criminality, to the point that the state itself was acting unlawfully. Individuals then responsible for those gross acts could then be held individually responsible even though they were acting in the name of the state.


Okay actually it means that everyone was still responsible for their own actions, am I reading that correctly?

One objection here. Hitler never got the majority of the votes. I still have troubles with the statement that Hitler became the state because the support of the people. But this is pure theoretical as, they were not prosecuted for that, am I correct?


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## mikewint (Aug 28, 2015)

Marcel, The so called LAW is not nor ever will be absolute. LAW is a plastic wiggly squirming thing that is more than willing to serve any master. As I posted earlier 44% of voting Germans had voted for Hitler. The Hitler _as he had portrayed himself to be at the time_. Look at your own politicians and their election to office did they all remain steadfast to their pre-election selves or did the morph into something else after the election? With the entire machinery of the state, gestapo, and SS under his control what choice did the ordinary citizen have?
Once defeated the victorious Allied nations wanted and needed to punish the Germans. There was really no direct and existing way to do that under the existing legal structure plus the concern that all would claim "Befehl ist Befehl". In 1921 Lt. Karl Neuman, a U-boat captain sunk the Dover Castle a hospital ship. Tried in Germany at the end of WWI, the Leipzig Supreme Court (then Germany's supreme court) acquitted him, accepting the defense of superior orders as a grounds to escape criminal liability. Elaborating on its decision the court had this to say in the matter of superior orders: *"... that all civilized nations recognize the principle that a subordinate is covered by the orders of his superiors.* This decision set the stage and as a result many accused of war crimes were acquitted on a similar defense, creating immense dissatisfaction amongst the Allies. Thus the specific removal of this defense in the August 8, 1945 London Charter of the International Military Tribunal.
A required course in Law School is: Swallowing Camels and straining at Gnats


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