Honour in Combat

[Michael Dorosh]

Easy, tiger. If you cannot discern a qualitative difference between executing wounded soldiers in a hospital and executing SS men caught red-handed in a death camp, it is time to recalibrate your antennae.

Caught red-handed at what? If in the act of killing prisoners, then you can shoot them. Once they put their hands up, they become prisoners, to be afforded all the protections demanded by the rules of land warfare, the Geneva Convention, and whatever other treaties your army is a signatory to. It is that simple.

I have no problem summarily executing anyone affiliated with running Dachau.

I would have no problem calling you a murderer, and would hope that you would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for not following orders, setting a bad example to others, and acts "prejudicial to the maintenance of good order and discipline." An army is not an armed mob.

Do you really think it is an excuse that someone was working in the kitchens doling out substarvation levels of rancid food?

That would be for a court of law to decide, not a thug with a Thompson. Very hypothetical, isn't it. You have no way of knowing the individual circumstances of every man in the camp. For all the thug knows, one of those SS guards could even be an Allied agent. Or a camp inmate trying to escape in a uniform liberated in the confusion of the final hours of the camp's existence. Or a guard who had been changing documents, sneaking food to prisoners, and providing medical care without the knowledge of his superiors. American prisoners in Japanese camps have reported these kinds of "good" guards who had no choice but to serve and so tried to help their prisoners when and where they could. You would just shoot them all. Those aren't particularly important examples but once you start killing, it is rather hard to stop. Just ask William Calley.

Or that he is on sick-leave from the 3d SS-PD, and is recuperating on light duty at the ol' death camp? Or even that he is, God forbid, mentally deficient? I hope for the sake of their immortal souls that they were mentally deficient.

It's not that black and white. What about American concentration camps? Or Canadian ones? What excuse did the guards in those camps have for depriving American citizens of their rights, their personal property, and their dignity? They weren't murderers, but how many went on trial after the war - none. They were only following orders, after all.

Where does your "slippery slope" lead to?

Loss of moral high ground. Loss of the "right" to try other war criminals who were NOT caught "red handed". Loss of discipline. Loss of pride. Loss of justice.

To more summary executions of death camp guards? I wouldn't mind taking a quick jaunt down that slide, and I think humanity would be better, not worse, for it.

Your concept of humanity is one in which it is okay to murder without due process. How is shooting an SS guard without trial different from gassing a political prisoner without trial? Both men have been found summarily guilty. Caught red-handed as it were. Yet when we do it, it is laudable, and when "they" do it, it is a warcrime? Doesn't follow. If it is ok to shoot whoever you want, you've become the thing you were fighting against.

Should Oskar Schindler have been stood up against a wall and shot? In your scenario, he might have been.

[Black Jack Pershing II]

Caught red-handed at what?

I dunno - running a death camp maybe?

If in the act of killing prisoners, then you can shoot them. Once they put their hands up, they become prisoners, to be afforded all the protections demanded by the rules of land warfare, the Geneva Convention, and whatever other treaties your army is a signatory to.

I would have to say that morally, if not legally, they forfeited their rights when they clipped on that Totenkopf and went to work at Dachau.

It's that simple.

Indeed it is Again, legal and just are not always the same. Just because their acts were technically illegal, does not make them wrong. One could make a good argument that treating KZ guards with the full dignity of prisoners of war would have been a helluva lot worse to discipline and group order than what took place.

How is shooting an SS guard without trial different from gassing a political prisoner without trial?

Because one was running a death camp and the other was making jokes about the government.

[JonS]

Where does the slippery slope lead to?

It leads to summary execution of innocent people. It leads to the execution of witnesses, ensuring the minnows are punished while the sharks go free. It leads to lower and lower standards of proof and guilt being acceptable, until people are being executed for jaywalking, or merely on the say-so of neighbours seeking to settle old scores. It leads to the loss of your own forces morale and discipline. It leads to the corrosion and corruption of your own standards, beliefs, and morals. It leads to a school of thought that allows My Lai, Abu Grahib, Guantanamo, torture, and Extraordinary Rendition to occur and be justified. It leads to the loss of respect for you and your standing in the world.

While at a personal and individual level these actions may be entirely understandable, they are still wrong and criminal. We don't allow vigilante 'justice' in domestic law, and neither do we allow it in military law, and for good reason.

I don't know how it works in the US, but in NZ the GCs are written into the AFDA and the DM69 (c.f. UCMJ), at which point all NZ soldiers, saliors, and airmen are obliged to uphold them, and see that they are upheld, at all times or face the appropriate consequences. It doesn't matter whether we are fighting the Germans in North Africa, the Chinese on the Imjin, VC at Nui Dat, Milisi in Kova Lima, tribesmen in Bamian, or three headed aliens on Alpha Centuri. The GCs apply to all NZers in uniform at all times.

To be sure lapses can, have, do, and will continue to occur. Those lapses might even be completely understandable. That is beside the point, and long as those lapses are investigated, tried, and punished appropriately. Covering them up or shrugging them off as 'victors justice' or 'they got what they deserved' puts you morally in the superset containing the KZ guards.

Regards

JonS

[JonS]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Caught red-handed at what?

I dunno - running a death camp maybe? </font>

[Michael Dorosh]

I was hoping someone would say it better than me. Here is a link to the Canadian Forces Code of Conduct - similar to what JonS outlines for NZ. I am sure the US must have something similar.

http://www.calgaryhighlanders.com/codeofconduct.htm

[Black Jack Pershing II]

Wrong. All you've got is that they were at a death camp. There is a vast difference, and without a trial you will never, ever know.

To my mind, being present at a death camp in an SS uniform merits the death penalty. Such presence proves complicity in the murder of millions of people. I do not care if he had been sneaking food to the inmates or that, in his heart he was really sorry and felt bad.

I don't know how it works in the US, but in NZ the GCs are written into the AFDA and the DM69 (c.f. UCMJ), at which point all NZ soldiers, saliors, and airmen are obliged to uphold them, and see that they are upheld, at all times or face the appropriate consequences.

Again, these are special circumstances. I am not saying that it is always alright to summarily execute prisoners. I am saying that the appropriate consequence for summarily executing a KZ guard is a pat on the back.

[JonS]

these are special circumstances.

Goebbels would be proud of you.

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

To my mind, being present at a death camp in an SS uniform merits the death penalty. Such presence proves complicity in the murder of millions of people.

Sorry, but this is BS any way you look at it. Without even the most basic of investigations you can not determine if the guard in question was there when the first train rolled in, or had arrived only 20 minutes before the Allied tanks crashed thru the gate.

[Bigduke6]

And exactly how would a court have determined which S.S. goons were murderers, and which were fine fellows and patriots and just accidentally recovering from injuries suffered protecting Europe from the Commie horde, I had no idea what was going on in there, honest!

The witnesses were mostly dead because the S.S. had killed them, almost all in horrible torture.

What court was going to have jurisdiction? Think of how big an effort it took to run the Nurenburg process, that sent up what, maybe 100 or so top level Nazis? How many thousands of S.S. soldiers cycled through Dachau alone? Did the records still exist? (We know the answer: highly unlikely, personnel records are the first thing you burn when the enemy is about to catch you at a war crime)

And let's not forget this is not a nice industrialized country where every one has a personal number so the government can keep track of him. This is Germany April 1945, a place bombed a good distance indeed to the stone age, overrun by that great respecter of private property the Red Army, and swarming will tens of millions of displaced persons.

Any talk of a court to mete out justice, under those circumstances, is silly. Wasn't going to happen, and any one with eyes could see it. So if justice of any kind was going to be done, it had to be by the guys who got mad enough to place military rules behind one of the basic, and indeed instinctual rules of humanity, which is: You do not let people who systematically kill whole tribes and nations get away, because if you do, your tribe or nation could be next.

If you want to talk justice, consider the Red Army, which simply killed every S.S. trooper it could lay its hands on. Definately a violation of due process. But on the other hand consider this: For practical purposes, every concentration camp guard that fell into Soviet hands got what was coming to him, justice was done.

And on the Anglo-American side, where the S.S. guards, most of them anyway, didn't get shot down as soon as the Allies broke into the camp and saw all the bodies, what happened to them? Did they all get what was coming to them? Even a majority?

Or did a whole bunch of concentration camp personnel, probably several thousand, manage to lay low until the 1950s, and then re-enter society with a nicely-buffed cover story about what they did in the war?

Sure, no laws of due process were broken. But is that justice?

[MrJingles]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

I was hoping someone would say it better than me. Here is a link to the Canadian Forces Code of Conduct - similar to what JonS outlines for NZ. I am sure the US must have something similar.

http://www.calgaryhighlanders.com/codeofconduct.htm

This is just the kind of stuff that I am looking for. As a Calgarian myself this has certain interest for me. Thanks again!

[Black Jack Pershing II]

Kingfish posted:

Sorry, but this is BS any way you look at it. Without even the most basic of investigations you can not determine if the guard in question was there when the first train rolled in, or had arrived only 20 minutes before the Allied tanks crashed thru the gate.

I don't really care when he arrived.

JonS posted:

Goebbels would be proud of you.

I shall refrain from responding in kind.

[JonS]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

And exactly how would a court have determined which S.S. goons were murderers, and which were fine fellows and patriots and just accidentally recovering from injuries suffered protecting Europe from the Commie horde, I had no idea what was going on in there, honest!

The witnesses were mostly dead because the S.S. had killed them, almost all in horrible torture.

What court was going to have jurisdiction? Think of how big an effort it took to run the Nurenburg process, that sent up what, maybe 100 or so top level Nazis? How many thousands of S.S. soldiers cycled through Dachau alone? Did the records still exist? (We know the answer: highly unlikely, personnel records are the first thing you burn when the enemy is about to catch you at a war crime)

So what? Who said it'd be easy? If you aren't up to the challenge, don't play the game.

To paraphrase someone quite famous: "We choose to try these men. We choose to try these men in court and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our morals and beliefs, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

You do not let people who systematically kill whole tribes and nations get away, because if you do, your tribe or nation could be next.

Um. You just finished saying they'd been bombed into the stone age, and were being overrun by the Eastern and Western Allies. How exactly were the Germans going to do anything to anyone?

If you want to talk justice, consider the Red Army,

Why? Is this from the Two-Wrongs-Make-a-Right school of legal justice? Please re-read my longish post a couple up. Ignoring the GCs has profound negative consequences for the party doing the ignoring, even if you 'get away with it.' Good military morale and discipline is not founded on ignoring the rules when you find them inconvienient.

And on the Anglo-American side, where the S.S. guards, most of them anyway, didn't get shot down as soon as the Allies broke into the camp and saw all the bodies, what happened to them? Did they all get what was coming to them? Even a majority?

Possibly not, maybe even probably not. I'm going to repeat this bit: Please re-read my longish post a couple up. Ignoring the GCs has profound negative consequences for the party doing the ignoring, even if you 'get away with it.' Good military morale and discipline is not founded on ignoring the rules when you find them inconvienient.

Also, our justice system is founded on the principle that it is better that guilty men go free than innocent men be punished. When the punishment is summary execution, the principle is all the more important.

Regards

JonS

[ February 14, 2006, 01:40 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[Michael Dorosh]

I love the quote, man. I get choked up everytime I play the credits from FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON.

Ask not what your country can do for you....man, we don't get good platitudes like that anymore. In all honesty, we could use people who say stuff like that - then actually live their life that way.

And yes, agreement on all your points. Better a guilty man go free than condemning an innocent man is one of the tenets of western society that we fought the Nazis for in the first place.

What about American and Canadian concentration camp guards after the war? Were they, or were they not, "war criminals" for having staffed the camps that deprived those of Japanese descent of their personal property, their rights, and their dignity? Or were they "just following orders"?

Like I said, not black and white.

[JonS]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

I shall refrain from responding in kind.

I don't care how you respond, as long as you do actually respond with a soundly based reason.

Currently all we've got out of you is "shoot them all; don't care if they're innocent; wearing an SS uniform is ipso facto proof of guilt; we should do it because they are doing it; etc"

While those are all somewhat understandable bases for individual action, as the basis for national policy and a system of military justice they are complete crap.

Regards

JonS

[ February 14, 2006, 01:42 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by MrJingles:

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

I was hoping someone would say it better than me. Here is a link to the Canadian Forces Code of Conduct - similar to what JonS outlines for NZ. I am sure the US must have something similar.

http://www.calgaryhighlanders.com/codeofconduct.htm

This is just the kind of stuff that I am looking for. As a Calgarian myself this has certain interest for me. Thanks again! </font>

[MrJingles]

Thanks Michael, its the examples embedded within that code that are of more interest to me, not necessarily the code itself.

I have taken a few classes with Dr. Ferris. In fact this essay is for his land warfare class which I am currently taking. If any U of C undergrads are looking for an interesting class I highly recommend anything taught by Dr. Ferris. His knowledge is amazing and his lectures are very well structered and you feel like you are learning something valuable.

[Michael Dorosh]

He does a great Hitler impersonation, too.

[Black Jack Pershing II]

Posted by Dorosh:

What about American and Canadian concentration camp guards after the war? Were they, or were they not, "war criminals" for having staffed the camps that deprived those of Japanese descent of their personal property, their rights, and their dignity? Or were they "just following orders"?

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

Posted by Dorosh:

[Dandelion]

Duke

What the...? What is this now? I am severely disappointed. You are really the last person on this forum I had expected lynch-mob justice from.

Honourcodes? Difficult for pilots and artillerymen - very easy for infantrymen. Shooting armed men is combat. Shooting unarmed men is murder. Never gets more complicated than that.

Dandelion

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

I don't really care when he arrived.

Why not?

[juan_gigante]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

I am quite sure there were hearings to make sure that only the correct people were interned (i.e. no Filipinos etc).

Oh good. I would be a shame if we put innocent people of the wrong ethnicity into internment camps.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Dandelion:

[snips]

Honourcodes? Difficult for pilots and artillerymen - very easy for infantrymen. Shooting armed men is combat. Shooting unarmed men is murder. Never gets more complicated than that.

I don't think it's quite as simple as that, either. If there's any law or custom of war that says you can't shoot an enemy just because he isn't armed, I'm not aware of it.

"Surrendered at discretion" and "hors de combat" are AFAIR the categories that have convention protection. Unarmed enemy have no protection by virtue of being unarmed (there's nothing illegal about killing tank crew as they bail out). Wounded enemy have no protection by virtue of being wounded (plenty of men have gone on fighting after receiving wounds).

Enemy aliens engaged in war simply don't get the same legal protection as civilians in peacetime.

All the best,

John.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Dandelion:

[snips]

Honourcodes? Difficult for pilots and artillerymen - very easy for infantrymen. Shooting armed men is combat. Shooting unarmed men is murder. Never gets more complicated than that.

I don't think it's quite as simple as that, either. If there's any law or custom of war that says you can't shoot an enemy just because he isn't armed, I'm not aware of it.

"Surrendered at discretion" and "hors de combat" are AFAIR the categories that have convention protection. Unarmed enemy have no protection by virtue of being unarmed (there's nothing illegal about killing tank crew as they bail out). Wounded enemy have no protection by virtue of being wounded (plenty of men have gone on fighting after receiving wounds).

Enemy aliens engaged in war simply don't get the same legal protection as civilians in peacetime.

All the best,

John. </font>

[Black Jack Pershing II]

Posted by M. Dorosh:

So the fact that they were Japanese was all that mattered - they deserved it because they were Nips.

Thanks for the clarification.

You are completely missing my point. I was arguing that the Japanese-Americans got "due process", and they ended up with a manifestly unjust result anyway. That is what I meant by "...my irony meter went into overload. AFAIK, the internees did get due process, and a fat lot of good it did them in the realm of justice." [emphasis added]

The point is that "due process" as such does not ensure justice. Similarly, lack of formal due process does not necessarily entail a lack of justice. I do not see why this is so difficult to comprehend.

Do you care to explain how murdering prime witnesses in future war crimes trials would be of benefit to anyone, or what your thoughts on "better a guilty man go free than an innocent man punished"? Because that seems quite central to the reasons why you don't just let your men execute people without a trial.

Regarding the witness issue, that is what one would call a prudential, rather than a moral, argument. Had the Nazis not been kind enough to leave us with such detailed records of their crimes, I would accord it more weight. Regarding Lord Blackstone's (I think) pronouncements on letting the guilty go free to save the innocent, I would say it makes a nice aphorism and little more. Is it really better to acquit 10 guilty murderers than to unjustly convict me of a parking violation? Of course not. The point is that we should err on the side of caution when there is some reasonable doubt as to someone's guilt.

As regards the KZ guards, there is no reasonable question of guilt. If you can show me evidence to the contrary (i.e. of completely innocent men who just happened to be wearing SS uniforms in Dachau when it was liberated), I would be glad to hear it.