Honour in Combat

[Dandelion]

Duke

Very difficult subject.

Basically I still sincerely feel that the GIs at Dachau let their friends down, the men buried from Omaha Beach to Leipzig deserved a lot better performance than that, and so did the good cause. Easy to joke about now, with Iraq controversy and all, but the project was to introduce democracy in Germany, to make friends out of enemies, and it succeeded. It needed no murders, this great project.

And I am a former soldier. Sense of profession and pride lingers strong. You don't shame the corps, or the constitution you represent in a uniform. It's not patriotism really I just feel strongly about accepting representational tasks. I aim the same edge at politicians and all other representatives. Trust is precious. In fact trust is love.

But your feelings run deeper than that and I can relate to them. Let me try and present my sentiment on death, justice and vengeance, though it isn't very easy at all and I begin to regret I got into this difficult debate.

I don't think that courts can deal with what happened during the war in it's entire horror. They are ill equipped to deal with such issues. Courts can only focus on individual acts, not entire popular movements or complex chains of events. Any court can produce a mere snapshot of reality. I appreciate that all surviving leaders were trialled, and that many of the individual perpetrators were trialled for their actions too, but like you write, we're talking millions of perpetrators. Courts cannot successfully combat society.

Although it might disaffect you, I am not particularly interested in singular guards. If they are punished or escape justice does not mean very much to me. They are mere dust, blowing in the wind, and it is the wind that interest me. I do not mean their commanders either, in particular. I want society.

I do not feel that gunning people down really deals with anything. Remember that a great many of the worst perpetrators chose death themselves. To not have to deal with anything.

I believe the only way to deal with what happened is to talk about it. Let everyone understand what they were part of, how they were part of it, and what the consequences of their actions were. Break the cycle of reprisal and counterreprisal. Adopt institutions in society capable of dealing with the intolerance, narrow mindedness, hatred and fear that all societies are afflicted with, and who were the main reasons for what happened. After all, the Western allied nations were also heavily afflicted by the racism of the day, had strong groups of intolerance. Still do. But they were capable of sustaining their societies even so heavily assaulted from within. And they needed no deathcamps to do that. Nor did modern Germany. Miserable as it might seem a dreary day, the Western societies are still the only successful constructions when it comes to dealing with diversity and ideological conflict.

QED, I hope.

Unless you are severely mentally ill, you cannot be cruel against another human. I say that even recognising the streak of sadism in Man. The only reason all of these people could do what they did was that they stopped seeing eachother as humans. Because of existing states of conflict, bilateral or domestic. But you cannot dehumanise a person you have a continuing dialogue with. So there is a need to talk. Dead people can't talk. I didn't like Göring getting away like that, I wanted him sitting in a cell confronted by a society questioning him, and him explaining, perhaps even realising, for the rest of his life.

To quote 2Pac ; "How can the Devil take a brother if he's close to me?" And with the devil I do not mean death, I mean the risk of him becoming a KZ guard, guarding me.

Killing the guards to ensure justice, by vengeance as it was. Well. Vengeance no longer means anything. So many millions of people have already been murdered, and then they have been avenged with new millions of murders. It is a path in itself, leading to new murders, and if you don't like it, you need to leave it. You cannot murder your way to a peaceful future, however justified you feel. You create enemies feeling equally justified in murdering you.

I'll tell you what I mean. I hope. You know as I watched Der Untergang - I'm sure you've heard of it and probably even seen it - I got really, really angry. It grew on me as the film played and got so big my chest almost exploded. I don't see a lot of quality film with people speaking my language, it hits you straight in the heart, feels very real. But I didn't at all get angry at the people I presumed would anger me. The Nazi leadership struck me as authentic and, well, rather uninteresting. But out on the streets, when there was only fire and death everywhere, kids being gunned down, my helpless people being overrun, and then just smoking ruins with dancing Soviets, I was shocked by my anger being directed at those Soviets, the mere sound of Russian being spoken infuriated me and I blush at the hateful thoughts that tortured me for an hour after that. Vengeance seemed extremely important.

The whole emotion was idiotic, the director had gone to some length to explain that the burning ruins and dead children were all because of the government, and actually I really don't need anyone explaining that, but it just went on, I went on being angry about it. I went for a beer, alone, until it had raged out, and it did after an hour or so and I was me again.

And so it struck me, like a sudden blinding light. That's all it takes.

It never ends. The active choice of not continuing, not being part of it, in heart or action, never ends.

Yes. Long post about a lot of things but no summary and no structure. Normally very arduous to read. Hope you'll make it through anyway Duke.

And if I wrote anything that appear offensive to you, that's not how I meant it.

Cheers

Dandelion

[wunwinglow]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Which kind of brings us back to Lindbergh et al.....

Fascinating thread, chaps!

Tim P

[Dandelion]

Originally posted by Zarquon:

Just trying to sum up the arguments here:

Blackjack says that

a) Anybody belonging to a highly criminal organization (like the SS) is guilty of all crimes perpetrated by the organization and can be shot on sight.

It is the individual soldier's right to decide what a criminal organization is, whether this organization's crimes justify killing all its members and therefore, who can be shot on sight.

c) The state should not interfere with that process because an individual's sense of ethics is sufficient to justify killing somebody.

BigDuke does not go quite so far and argues that

a) putting people on trial has its merits, except when it's impractical to do so. In such cases, BlackJack's version of justice is appropriate and justified.

being a prisoner of the US Army in 1945 does not qualify for a), i.e. by all practical means, the army wasn't capable of putting them on trial. Otherwise it would have been wrong to kill them.

Am I getting this right so far? [/QB]

Hm. I miss a few points.

Both identify strongly with the GIs, and have put a lot of weight on emotional pressure created by the morbid situation at Dachau. Indicating as I understand them, that the unit cracked.

Both have also pointed out the fact that the inmates took an active role, although in different ways.

Both place great emphasis on the importance of justice being done and that this justice must reflect the horror of the crimescene. Both also believe in the DP, I conclude (they have not stated this), which enables them to support the justioce meeted out by the GIs.

Both have low faith and trust in courts, and fear that courts would fail to do justice, lending legitimacy to the executions as an alternative.

Duke regards KZ camps as extraordinary elements of reality and explains his exception from his norm with this. This is by no means an unsupported view, many lawyers have argued that it - deathcamps and KZs - cannot be incorporated into the normal web of justice. Ultimately however, it was.

Well, that on them until they comment. How would you surmise the arguments on the other side?

Cheers

Dandelion

[Other Means]

Dandelion, I think I did when I said this:

If you kill people without due process then you remove from yourself the right to use due process and place your actions outside of its moral framework.

Doing so removes any higher moral ground we may try to hold and therefore removes any right we may have to conduct war on people who have no such moral framework.

[wunwinglow]

Dandelion, your comments regarding the film hit home. How many times has a traffic violation raised your blood pressure to bursting point? How many CCTV crime vids on the TV have had your fists clenched and your teeth ditto?

Those GIs reacted in blind fury. It may have been wrong, it may have betrayed the higher morals of their country, their army, their officers, indeed their own hearts, but in that ultimate 'Red Mist' moment, who amongst us can say that they truly would not have contemplated doing exactly the same thing? To have fought through almost a Year of combat, seen more awful sights and deeds than we could dream of, had comrades killed and wounded right beside them, suffered from the weather and everything else. To then find themselves in, truly, the Gates of Hell itself, with the demons of that Hell at their mercy, with the evidence of the 'crime' all about them; come on guys, such a situation is so far removed from sanity that insanity has to rule. To expect anything else is folly. To hope for anything else, well, that is another matter. And perhaps we should rejoice that these acts of instant retribution were very isolated incidents. Frankly, I am amazed they were so...

Tim P

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by wunwinglow:

Dandelion, your comments regarding the film hit home. How many times has a traffic violation raised your blood pressure to bursting point? How many CCTV crime vids on the TV have had your fists clenched and your teeth ditto?

Those GIs reacted in blind fury. It may have been wrong, it may have betrayed the higher morals of their country, their army, their officers, indeed their own hearts, but in that ultimate 'Red Mist' moment, who amongst us can say that they truly would not have contemplated doing exactly the same thing?

Not the point. The point is that a true soldier would not have given in to the temptation, because of his training and his discipline. Those that failed to live up to the code that soldiers live by should pay the price. Doesn't matter if you wear runes on your collar, or a US flag on your shoulder.

[McIvan]

I should open this post by admitting that I am entirely unsure whether I would not have done almost exactly the same thing. I suspect I might well have shot one or more guards, filled with self-righteous rage, because I do self-righteous rants extremely well. Probably the best I could hope is that I would have asked the prisoners to point out to me which ones deserved to die. If I had managed that I doubt very much whether I would ever have had a second thought.

This does not mean my behaviour would not, in cold reason, be worthy of condemnation.

My big problem with arguments in favour of the shootings is confusion and conflation of two sets of different facts.........demonisation by labelling as if the mere fact of attaching a label constitutes the proof of an action.

The argument seems to be that the death camps existed, a fact not disputed here, therefore anyone found on them other than the prisoners themselves is guilty of participation in mass murder....which is in fact a completely different set of facts. There is a disconnect between those two; an assumption that the US soldiers who arrived had no basis for making other than huge emotion. As has been pointed out, there are any number of reasons why individuals executed might have had for all intents and purposes nothing to do with the death camp other than being a member of the SS, the military arm of the party that spawned it. But then again, so were the Wermacht and every other branch of the armed services. So were the Germans that worked in the arms factories, kept the war economy going, voted (while such things were still allowed) for Hitler, acted as party functionaries.

Labelling someone "SS scum" is no more helpful in determining whether punishment is merited than labeling them children of the great Flying Spaghettit Monster. It is a meaningless word without something to back it up that proves they were "SS Scum". The place in which they were found is powerful evidence but it is not hard to think of mitigating factors, as others have pointed out. Saying they are SS scum as if this in itself merits the death penalty is the absence of reason, a total reversion to might makes right. You might as well be allowed to walk up to a man on the street, call him a child molester (let's assume this merits the death penalty), and pull the trigger. Were you right? Of course you were....he was a child molester, because you said so. How did you know? Well, the "child molester" was found in the same house as an abused child. That's a powerful piece of circumstantial evidence......but......was he a neighbour that had just discovered the child and rung the police or did he live there? Who cares....he was in the house, end of story, right? You didn't ask the child? Didn't need to, did I, had all the eveidence I needed.

If you simply happen to feel that being enrolled, whether volunteer or conscripted, in any branch of the SS is a crime justifying extra-judicial execution on sight, that is unanswerable other than to say I disagree, and disagree vehemently, with your point of view. To me it depends WHAT THAT INDIVIDUAL DID. It is far too easy to focus on a group and assign to all of them the actions of a few, whether for political or military motive or simply because the accuser is too lazy to differentiate, or is simply indifferent to the potential for injustice to individuals in the pursuit of perceived justice for a group. History is replete with examples of sects, groups, societies and entire cultures being persecuted for the actions of some of their members, some of whom have been mentioned in this thread.

The whole notion of collective punishment without regard to individual circumstances is abhorrent, as witness by all the collective reprisals through history.

Let's go to the (absurd) extreme and take the assassination of Heydrich, a clearly criminal act in the eyes of the German authorities. The killers were in a specific village; probably live them, certainly were harboured there, by someone, probably still are there. Should we let the guilty escape because of the risk of punishing innocent villagers, or should we punish the innocent along with the guilty to ensure that the guilty receive "justice"? And are the villagers really innocent? Some of them must have known of the "terrorists" but kept their silence and allowed their murderous conspiracy to continue instead of coming forward. They should all pay.

Should they? The villagers were there, weren't they? No one would talk and it is impractical to torture/interrogate an entire village. "Justice" must be done.

Let's shift along to an unamed guerilla insurgency..think Malaysia, Vietnam/French Indochina, that sort of thing. You visit village....an ammo cache is discovered under one hut along with materials for a booby trap of a type that brutally killed your friend two days ago. No one will admit to owning the hut. Is it really practical to put the village on trial......send out a team of interrogators & police investigators? Not likely.

Naturally then, we should slaughter some/all and/or destroy the village for complicity in and payback for a brutal murder. How could the other villagers not have known it was there? You haven't bothered to talk to them all, but really how practical is that......you don't have the time. Just look at their faces; they're laughing at us.....we're not letting these bastards get away with it. Shoot em all and let God sort it out.....I believe that's the T-Shirt.

You can talk about practicality all you like. Just don't talk about "justice" in the same breath. It is justice cast aside in the search for revenge on the closest target.

I understand there were any number of surviving prisoners at Dachau that could have identified guards for the Americans as opposed to, for example, the somewhat unfortunate detachment that got lumbered with the camp after the actual guards ran off. There was no reason of which I am aware for the soldiers to think that somehow the guards were going to escape justice if they weren't shot straight away......the witnesses were right in front of them. For that reason I reject arguments that the extra-judicial murder of prisoners had to occur or some of the guilty might have gone free. I would agree with arguments that the killings meant that those guards that had left the camp were now less likely to be punished than before. It is entirely possible that the killings increased injustice rather than provided it by inadvertently helping to shelter the guilty.

[zmoney]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Not the point. The point is that a true soldier would not have given in to the temptation, because of his training and his discipline. Those that failed to live up to the code that soldiers live by should pay the price. Doesn't matter if you wear runes on your collar, or a US flag on your shoulder. [/QB]

You mean to tell us those guys weren't real soldiers? They are still human and gave a human response to the horror they encountered unexpectantly.

I understand that you serve in the Canadian Army, but I assume you have never encountered something like they did, so you don’t know 100% how you would have reacted to such a situation.

[McIvan]

Originally posted by wunwinglow:

Those GIs reacted in blind fury. It may have been wrong, it may have betrayed the higher morals of their country, their army, their officers, indeed their own hearts, but in that ultimate 'Red Mist' moment, who amongst us can say that they truly would not have contemplated doing exactly the same thing? To have fought through almost a Year of combat, seen more awful sights and deeds than we could dream of, had comrades killed and wounded right beside them, suffered from the weather and everything else. To then find themselves in, truly, the Gates of Hell itself, with the demons of that Hell at their mercy, with the evidence of the 'crime' all about them; come on guys, such a situation is so far removed from sanity that insanity has to rule. To expect anything else is folly. To hope for anything else, well, that is another matter. And perhaps we should rejoice that these acts of instant retribution were very isolated incidents. Frankly, I am amazed they were so...

Tim P

I was busy nodding my head in agreement with this when I realised that plenty of other US soldiers, British and commonwealth troops, plenty of whom had been in combat considerably longer than a year, managed not to promptly slaughter the guards of the camps they liberated, as you seem to be aware. So to expect anything else is not folly, but actually the norm, which tends to knock over your earlier and quite persuasive argument.

[JonS]

Originally posted by wunwinglow:

... who amongst us can say that they truly would not have contemplated doing exactly the same thing?

I would probably have smashed their ****ing teeth in, crushed their nuts, and shot them through the stomach.

However what I, or anyone else here, would do is completely beside the point. Those GIs did it. It was wrong, and it was a crime (based on the reports previously posted, blah, blah).

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by zmoney:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Not the point. The point is that a true soldier would not have given in to the temptation, because of his training and his discipline. Those that failed to live up to the code that soldiers live by should pay the price. Doesn't matter if you wear runes on your collar, or a US flag on your shoulder.

You mean to tell us those guys weren't real soldiers? [/QB]</font>

[Black Jack Pershing II]

Posted by Zarquon:

Blackjack says that

a) Anybody belonging to a highly criminal organization (like the SS) is guilty of all crimes perpetrated by the organization and can be shot on sight.

It is the individual soldier's right to decide what a criminal organization is, whether this organization's crimes justify killing all its members and therefore, who can be shot on sight.

c) The state should not interfere with that process because an individual's sense of ethics is sufficient to justify killing somebody.

I agree (I think) with the first half of (a) and none of the rest. Analogizing to a criminal conspiracy, it is fair to attribute the crimes of the SS to each of its voluntary members (for the sake of argument, let's ignore any conscripted members who, AFAIK, represented a miniscule portion of the membership).

Maybe that is where the disconnect is here. Each SS member willingly joined an organization one of the avowed purposes of which was the subjugation and/or annihilation of all Untermenschen. And unlike the nutters out in Idaho and Montana (not to cast any aspersions), theirs wasn't just talk; they actually took some significant steps towards achieving their goals. Accordingly, I would have absolutely no problem (from a moral perspective) with the execution of every member of the SS simply for having been a member. I would not need any evidence of atrocities committed by that particular member to hold him accountable for the SS's crimes as a whole.

I disagree with the remainder of your assertions. I am fully aware of the need to maintain order and discipline in military units, and of the need to minimize the chances of inflicting harm on any innocents. As a result, I would never authorize willy-nilly executions as a general rule.

In this situation, however, we know the facts and we know the consequences. The men executed were all SS personnel, and the executions did not set off a firestorm of "vigilantism" or any other widespread breakdowns in discipline or morale.

Hence, (A) I cannot see how what the men did was wrong in a moral sense, since the men executed were indeed worthy of the death penalty, and ( I do not see the point in prosecuting these men legally on the "no harm, no foul" rule (to cite binding legal precedent ).

Posted by Dandelion:

Both identify strongly with the GIs, and have put a lot of weight on emotional pressure created by the morbid situation at Dachau. Indicating as I understand them, that the unit cracked.

Both have also pointed out the fact that the inmates took an active role, although in different ways.

Both place great emphasis on the importance of justice being done and that this justice must reflect the horror of the crimescene. Both also believe in the DP, I conclude (they have not stated this), which enables them to support the justioce meeted out by the GIs.

Both have low faith and trust in courts, and fear that courts would fail to do justice, lending legitimacy to the executions as an alternative.

Duke regards KZ camps as extraordinary elements of reality and explains his exception from his norm with this. This is by no means an unsupported view, many lawyers have argued that it - deathcamps and KZs - cannot be incorporated into the normal web of justice. Ultimately however, it was.

Well, that on them until they comment. How would you surmise the arguments on the other side?

I appreciate your attempt to understand my point of view.

I wouldn't say that I have little faith in courts; rather, I dispute that the sole route to justice is through the courts. The purpose of a trial is, in essence, to determine facts. If the facts are not in dispute, there is no need for a trial.

To my mind, there are precious few instances when one is justified in initiating summary executions -- walking into Dachau and finding SS men still there is one of those instances.

[JonS]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

The men executed were all SS personnel, and the executions did not set off a firestorm of "vigilantism" or any other widespread breakdowns in discipline or morale.

Quite probably because someone had the balls to stand up and so "NO!", and start the investigation which led to the report quoted by Andreas.

[JonS]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

I would never authorize willy-nilly executions as a general rule. ...

[but] I would have absolutely no problem (from a moral perspective) with the execution of every member of the SS simply for having been a member.

Well, I'd call declaring open season on some 900,000+ people based solely on their uniform to be pretty willy nilly, but maybe that's just me.

[Black Jack Pershing II]

Quite probably because someone had the balls to stand up and so "NO!", and start the investigation which led to the report quoted by Andreas.

I have no problem with an investigation. I also would not have a problem with the higher-ups saying that if such a thing happens again, there will be hell to pay and then following though if it did happen again. In fact, I would not be too upset if the Lts in question got court-martialed simply on principal (although on balance I would think they got a raw deal). The only thing I have a problem with is referring to this incident as a "war crime" or an "atrocity." To do so renders those notions meaningless.

Out of curiosity, do you know whether there were indeed any courts-martial, and if so, what the results were? I'll check the internet, but hadn't seen anything on the thread thus far as to the actual outcome.

[Black Jack Pershing II]

Well, I'd call declaring open season on some 900,000+ people based solely on their uniform to be pretty willy nilly, but maybe that's just me.

You miss my point. I am not arguing that soldiers should have been permitted, if not encouraged, to go out and execute SS men. I am arguing that SS volunteers are ipso fact deserving of the death penalty, to be imposed in an orderly manner in accordance with all prudent procedural safeguards. In the Dachau instance, however, I would be willing to waive the procedural niceties with a clear conscience.

[JonS]

Well, according to the ICRC the following are warcrimes:

1. Grave breaches of international humanitarian law applicable in international armed conflicts:

a) one of the following acts committed in violation of international humanitarian law:

i) wilful killing;

ii) torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments;

iii) wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, in particular rape;

iv) compelling a prisoner of war or another protected person to serve with the forces of a hostile Power;

v) wilfully depriving a prisoner of war or another protected person of the rights to fair and regular trial;

vi) unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person;

vii) taking of hostages;

viii) extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.

one of the following acts, when committed wilfully, and causing death or serious injury to body or health:

i) making the civilian population or individual civilians the object of attack;

ii) launching an indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population or civilian objects in the knowledge that such attack will cause excessive loss of life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects, which is excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;

iii) launching an attack against works or installations containing dangerous forces in the knowledge that such attack will cause excessive loss of life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects, which is excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;

iv) making non-defended localities and demilitarized zones the objects of attack;

v) making a person the object of attack in the knowledge that he/she is hors de combat;

vi) the perfidious use of the distinctive emblem of the red cross or red crescent or of other protective signs and signals recognized by international humanitarian law.

c) one of the following acts, when committed wilfully and in violation of international humanitarian law:

i) the transfer by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory;

ii) unjustifiable delay in the repatriation of prisoners of war or civilians;

iii) practices of apartheid and other inhuman and degrading practices involving outrages upon personal dignity, based on racial discrimination;

iv) making the clearly-recognized historic monuments, works of art or places of worship which constitute the cultural or spiritual heritage of peoples and to which special protection has been given by special arrangement, for example, within the framework of a competent international organization, the object of attack, causing as a result extensive destruction thereof, where there is no evidence of the use by the adverse Party of such objects in support of the military effort, and when such historic monuments, works of art and places of worship are not located in the immediate proximity of military objectives.

d) wilful acts or omissions, in violation of international humanitarian law, which seriously endangers the physical or mental health or integrity:

subjecting persons who are in the power of the adverse Party or who are interned, detained or otherwise deprived of liberty, to any medical procedure which is not indicated by the state of health of the person concerned and which is not consistent with generally accepted medical standards which would be applied under similar medical circumstances to persons who are nationals of the Party conducting the procedure and who are in no way deprived of liberty, in particular to carry out on such persons, even with their consent:

a) physical mutilations;

medical or scientific experiments;

c) removal of tissue or organs for transplantation.

There are more, but those are the Grave Breaches*. So, yes, what happened at Dachau would seem to qualify as a warcrime, your mores aside.

The odd thing, Jack, is that you seem to be contradicting yourself now. You want 900,000+ people summarily executed, but you'd have no problem with investigations and court martials of the perpretrators of the executions.

BTB, I don't know if there were any court martials.

Regards

JonS

* Grave Breaches as of 2006. I acknowledge they may well have been different in 1945.

[ February 15, 2006, 08:05 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[JonS]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

You miss my point. I am not arguing that soldiers should have been permitted, if not encouraged, to go out and execute SS men. I am arguing that SS volunteers are ipso fact deserving of the death penalty, to be imposed in an orderly manner in accordance with all prudent procedural safeguards. In the Dachau instance, however, I would be willing to waive the procedural niceties with a clear conscience.

Ah. Ok. That seems a substantially lesser position than you've previously been advocating, but that could just be my reading comprehension.

Well, as you know by now, I disagree. What the GIs did at Dachau was clearly a crime, and I disagree with 'waiving the nicities' because those nicities are what should give us our moral superiority.

As to the first part, well, I am no fan of the SS, and frankly to SS-Groupies that one so often seems to come across frankly creep me out. However, that aside, I am entirely uncomfortable with the notion of killing 900,000+ people because of their membership of an organisation, no matter how loathsome.

Actually, take the number out of that sentence: I am entirely uncomfortable with the notion of killing people because of their membership of an organisation, no matter how loathsome. That's better.

By all means, try and punish people based on what they did, but not based on what they thought. Oradour sur Glane, Marzabotto, the camps, Malmedy, ad nauseum. Sure, ping individuals for active involvement in those. Simply being in the SS? Er, no.

[ February 15, 2006, 09:26 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[Black Jack Pershing II]

There are more, but those are the Grave Breaches. So, yes, what happened at Dachau would seem to qualify as a warcrime, your mores aside.

We can argue all night as to whether this was a breach of the GC (did the GC contemplate that there would be an organization operating both as a military force and as a genocide detail?). My point is that the common understanding the term "war crime" is that it is something really, really bad (to use another legal phrase). The Dachau incident, while perhaps a breach of discipline and good order, was not "really, really bad."

The odd thing, Jack, is that you seem to be contradicting yourself now. You want 900,000+ people summarily executed, but you'd have no problem with investigations and court martials of the perpretrators of the executions.

Not at all. I am just emphasizing the difference between justice and legality. The Lts in question may well have violated military regulations and, for all I know, may have had orders saying: "Whatever you do, don't shoot any KZ guards, we need them for questioning." Accordingly, I have no problem with their facing the legal consequences of their actions (although I personally would not impose any penalty knowing what I know now). You may recall in one of my initial posts, I said that I was disappointed that one of the Lts in question did not accept responsibility for his actions and made up an excuse.

However, if I had been in that position and did what one of those Lts did, I think I could meet my maker with a clear conscience (at least regarding that ).

[JonS]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> There are more, but those are the Grave Breaches. So, yes, what happened at Dachau would seem to qualify as a warcrime, your mores aside.

We can argue all night as to whether this was a breach of the GC (did the GC contemplate that there would be an organization operating both as a military force and as a genocide detail?). My point is that the common understanding the term "war crime" is that it is something really, really bad (to use another legal phrase). The Dachau incident, while perhaps a breach of discipline and good order, was not "really, really bad."</font>

[Black Jack Pershing II]

Ah. Ok. That seems a substantially lesser position than you've previously been advocating, but that could just be my reading comprehension.

I think I have been consistent, but I am quite willing to acknowledge that I have failed to elucidate my position clearly.

Are you really a lawyer?

In fact, I am.

And I will reiterate, the point of a trial is to ascertain facts; if there is no dispute as to the facts, there is no need for a trial. As such, by summarily executing an SS member, admitted as such, there is no moral problem. There may well be reasons that we do not want to execute every SS member, but that does not give a free pass to everyone else.

[Bigduke6]

Dandelion,

Excellent, outstanding, well-reasoned post. I'll start by saying you certainly haven't offended me, if anything you've made the best attempt so far to undermine my arguements.

I absolutely agree the"final solution" (sorry) - and this is where I am constantly impressed by the modern German society - is to look history in its face, with all its warts and complexity,and to try and understand what happened and why it happened, so that it will never happen again. Knowledge, and if you will enlightenment, are the only effective barriers to future Holocausts.

Films are powerful things. I am extremely mistrustful of entertainment media, but when I watched Schindler's list, like you I was taken into the story. I was hoping, wishing, praying, that forces in play during WW2 would arrive to end the horror I saw on the screen.

The funny thing is, the emotions I felt were almost diametrically opposite of what you felt. I wanted the Red Army to arrive from the East side of the screen, I wanted them in there now, I wanted T-34s breaking down Auschwitz's gates, I wanted Fiennes in the hands of grubby Russians. I didn't care if the Red steamroller killed innocent German civilians in its path to get there, and if they killed S.S. along the way, I would have cheered. Damn S.S., fighting like fools to prolong a war pointlessly, getting more people killed because of their dumb concept of "honor". Vermin, the world is better rid of them.

If I know Russians, had they broken into the camp, they wouldn't have even shot Fiennes. They would have just handed him over to the camp inmates, and that would have been fair.

Of course, after the film I realized that had the plot gone that way, the odds are extremely high the Russians would have shot Schindler out of hand, and then culled the inmates for anti-Comminist elements, and if they found any they would have shot them too. Good thing the lights came on, eh?

I think the point is a concentration camp was such an evil place, it sparks extreme emotions in most people.

If a film can make otherwise reasonable people like you or me at least temporarily abandon precepts about fairness and law we have been taught all our lives, then ask yourself: What must if have been like for those U.S. soldiers, who were in a real total war and confronted by not images of a concentration camp, but the actual stinking real thing?

John D. Salt,

As some one who almost always supports due process and restraint on the power of government, I can see how I ticked you off. But reread my previous post. I see a concentration camp as an exception to the rule. That is far from saying due process needs to be thrown out the window, all the time in all situaitons.

In my opinion, at least from a technical point of view, there is such a thing as collective guilt. A fair example is the "collective guilt" of the German society to let a band of thugs take over their goverment, and to at minimum sit passively, and at maximum to cheer enthusiastically, as those thugs proceeded to plunge Europe into the most horrible war it has ever seen.

So, do I advocate punishing each and every German, judically or maybe some other way, for that comlicity? I do not. There is the problem of practicality: How do you come up with a punishment that you can apply to an entire society? Then there is the problem of fairness: How do you apply a mass punishment when it is certainly arguable that many, if not the majority, of Germans simply tried to live their lives properly (whatever that means) so how can you punish a whole society for behaving that way, even if the results are horrific.

I would say a concentration camp staffed by S.S. guards is a different kettle of fish. Here just about any one in an S.S. uniform is, at minimum, guilty of allowing the horrible conditions of a concentration camp to continue. At maximum members of this group participated actively in visiting concentration camp conditions on innocent people. In Goetedaemmerung Germany, the chances of holding fair trials for these S.S. troopers, and the ones you haven't caught, are slim to none.

So what's just, under these conditions?

I submit that the scale of the crime demands punishment, full stop. It was so bad, and it was so critical society acknowledge it was bad in order to prevent repetition, that the need for punishment of the guilty trumps the need for protection of the innocent. The innocent in this group were terribly few, in any case. Even the western legal system acknowledges that precents may be set aside in extreme circumstances: for instance the suspension of habeus corpus in a wartime society.

So I accept the possible punishment of possibly innocent S.S. troopers, in the first place because punishment of the guilty ones is so critical to society, and in the second place because chances finding a truly innocent S.S. trooper are awfully small. I acknowledge this is vigilante justice, and I tell myself this could well be the beginning of a slipperly slope. But I also tell myself the concentration camp was too horrible to allow me any other approach.

You can disagree with that attitude, I think I understand your concerns. But I think, at minimum, you owe me an apology by accusing me of not knowing due process "if it bit me."

Michael,

I would respond to your "well they were soldiers they should have followed the rules" arguement this way: Those soldiers were humans and men before they became soldiers, while they were soldiers, and after they stopped being soldiers. In my opinion just because a rule is writting in a Mililtary Justice Code, a person in a uniform is certainly not freed from the obligation of thinking about right and wrong. Yes, I am quite aware this undermines combat efficiency, and I am also aware young men in particular are not inclined to think this way.

I'll agree with you those soldiers broke rules imposed on them by their obligation of uniform. But I cannot agree that they deserve to be punished in any meaningful way for coming upon a concentration camp and attempting to administer justice as humanity demanded.

[Grimthane]

Black Jack, I am interested to see a lawyer say that the point of a trial is to ascertain facts.

If that were the case, I would like to know why we pay these judge chappies so much? Surely they are superfluous.

Then, in some places, there is that strange troublesome group the jury, who certainly do not contribute to the 'ascertainment of facts'.

Trials in which 'the facts' are apparent to all are still carried out in most countries I know, despite the time and expense. There are several reasons for this, which I suspect you know perfectly well.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

Michael,

I would respond to your "well they were soldiers they should have followed the rules" arguement this way: Those soldiers were humans and men before they became soldiers, while they were soldiers, and after they stopped being soldiers. In my opinion just because a rule is writting in a Mililtary Justice Code, a person in a uniform is certainly not freed from the obligation of thinking about right and wrong. Yes, I am quite aware this undermines combat efficiency, and I am also aware young men in particular are not inclined to think this way.

I'll agree with you those soldiers broke rules imposed on them by their obligation of uniform. But I cannot agree that they deserve to be punished in any meaningful way for coming upon a concentration camp and attempting to administer justice as humanity demanded.

You are wrong.

Soldiers are expected to disobey illegal orders - this was not so in 1945, though it was retroactively expected of them. All armies today, however, make it very clear that they are to think for themselves, exactly as you mentioned.

And that thinking for themselves is reasonably expected to include the belief that murder is wrong, and all the other things mentioned in this thread.

"Wanting to kill somebody" - and that is all it boils down to, no matter what kind of psychological doubletalk you apply to it - is not a defence for murder. Not in our society, anyway. Certainly not in modern western militaries.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

Each SS member willingly joined an organization one of the avowed purposes of which was the subjugation and/or annihilation of all Untermenschen.

I don't know why this is not getting through. I would like to know why, after having been told numerous times, you still come back with the 'willingly joined'? Is the concept of conscription alien to you? Maybe you need to look it up in a dictionary?

So for the umpteenth time. You are totally, utterly, flat-out wrong about all Waffen-SS members being volunteers. And you know it, and still you make this false claim.

Why? It may not appear like that to you, but if you want to be the Devil's Advocate, complete misrepresentation of reality does not really help your argument.

All the best

Andreas