Honour in Combat

[Black Jack Pershing II]

posted by Kingfish:

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> I don't really care when he arrived.

Why not?</font>

[Black Jack Pershing II]

Posted by JonS:

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.

I am not arguing that we should have had a national policy of summarily executing anyone suspected of being a KZ guard. All I am saying is that summary on-the-spot executions of those who were obviously KZ guards was not wrong and should not be punished.

Do you have any reasonable basis for believing that any of the men executed were in fact innocent -- i.e. that they were not in fact members of the SS or were not apprehended at Dachau upon its liberation? If not, you are setting up a gigantic strawman.

[JonS]

A strawman? I hardly think so. I think what you've engaged in is called 'begging the question'. You say they are guilty, but apart from their location and dress you have no other proof, nor do you wish any. How do you know they are guilty? And know it beyond the reasonable doubt required for a death penalty? Those are the questions that are begging to be asked.

Besides, you've missed my consistent point: what about the effect on morale, discipline, respect, etc that goes along with allowing junior officers and EMs to play judge, jury, and excecutioner?

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

posted by Kingfish:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> I don't really care when he arrived.

Why not?</font>

[Black Jack Pershing II]

but if you shoot him before interrogating him, how do you know?

What possible "innocent" reason could he have for being there within the realm of reason.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> but if you shoot him before interrogating him, how do you know?

What possible "innocent" reason could he have for being there within the realm of reason. </font>

[Black Jack Pershing II]

JonS -

Again, I am not saying that summary executions should be an institutional policy. However, in the particular situation of the Dachau liberation, I find it hard to believe that the execution of some of the guards harmed morale and discipline more than treating them as POWs on a par with honorable soldiers would have.

[JonS]

I know that, but you are advocating an organisation that condones murder with a 'nudge nudge, wink wink' attitude. Vigilante justice - regardless of how much it appeals on an emotional level - is no basis for morale or good discipline.

You say 'the particular circumstances of Dachau', but even at Dachau I find your 'particular circumstances' unconvincing grounds for summary executions. More to the point, even if I did, it is just a short series of logical steps before you are summarily executing all SS soldiers, then all German soldiers, then all Germans. That is your slippery slope.

Regards

JonS

[Andreas]

Dachau is not comparable to the liberation of many other camps, because there the guards left before the liberators arrived, probably because they suspected that they would get the BigDuke/BlackJack version of justice. In other cases the camps were dissolved, and the inmates taken on death marches around the countryside, where again the guards (once they had had enough of shooting/clubbing to death those inmates who could not keep up and were not immediately dead when they could no longer go on) departed.

Also, with all this righteous indignation here, one should not forget that at least a number of the victims of the shooting at Dachau were not actually the concentration camp guards.

According to Col. Buechner, who wrote a book called "The Hour of the Avenger," the SS garrison had a capacity of 1473 men. The guards of the concentration camp, who were SS-Totenkopf soldiers, were quartered at the SS garrison, along with Waffen-SS soldiers who had recently arrived from the front. Many of the guards had fled on the 28th, along with the Commandant of the concentration camp, Martin Gottfried Weiss. Their wives and families had been left behind in the SS garrison. Lt. Skodzensky and his combat unit of Waffen-SS soldiers had been ordered to surrender the SS garrison to the Americans; they were not responsible for the Dachau concentration camp, which was administrated by the SS-Totenkopfverbände, not by the Waffen-SS.

Dachau

All the best

Andreas

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

posted by Kingfish:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> I don't really care when he arrived.

Why not?</font>

[Holien]

"A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means. "

Sallust, 'Jugurthine War,' 41 B.C.

Roman historian & politician (86 BC - 34 BC)

This quote sums up the discussion so far.

A pity that some do not get it...

H

P.s. I have just out of interest checked the profile and it shocks me even more... (

[Black Jack Pershing II]

Then when and where do you draw the f***ing line?

If it is ok to shoot SS guards caught in the camps, then what about the ones captured in the neighboring towns? Or identified by former prisoners 40+ years later?

I draw the line at SS troops captured in a death camp. Those are the facts of this situation, and it is pointless to dwell on hypotheticals as there are so many variables at play. That is why it is a waste of time to try to come up with some sort of utilitarian calculus to determine at which point it is OK to stop letting the guilty go free and convict an innocent man.

I am not trying to argue that the executions comported with military law, and I am agnostic on whether they had a negative effect on discipline etc.

All I am saying is that they were not evil or unjust per se, and were certainly not an "atrocity" or in any way comparable to, for example, the Malmedy massacre.

Were any of those executed not actually members of the SS? If so, I will rethink my position.

The point is that here we have an extraordinary situation where the potential for error is extremely low -- Allied agents in disguise? disguised escaping prisoners? -- please.

As a result, there is little, if any, chance for a genuine miscarriage of justice.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Holien:

P.s. I have just out of interest checked the profile and it shocks me even more... (

Holy cow! :eek: Glad I don't live in NYC.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Then when and where do you draw the f***ing line?

If it is ok to shoot SS guards caught in the camps, then what about the ones captured in the neighboring towns? Or identified by former prisoners 40+ years later?

I draw the line at SS troops captured in a death camp. Those are the facts of this situation, and it is pointless to dwell on hypotheticals as there are so many variables at play. That is why it is a waste of time to try to come up with some sort of utilitarian calculus to determine at which point it is OK to stop letting the guilty go free and convict an innocent man.

I am not trying to argue that the executions comported with military law, and I am agnostic on whether they had a negative effect on discipline etc.

All I am saying is that they were not evil or unjust per se, and were certainly not an "atrocity" or in any way comparable to, for example, the Malmedy massacre.

Were any of those executed not actually members of the SS? If so, I will rethink my position.

The point is that here we have an extraordinary situation where the potential for error is extremely low -- Allied agents in disguise? disguised escaping prisoners? -- please.

As a result, there is little, if any, chance for a genuine miscarriage of justice. </font>

[Black Jack Pershing II]

Andreas:

I did read your earlier post and noted from the excerpt that all the men in question were apparently members of the SS. Granted, they may not all have served as guards, but that is irrelevant to the main point. I see no injustice in executing a member of the SS present in a death camp. They were voluntary members of an organization expressly established to protect and expand the Nazi empire. That, in and of itself, merits the death penalty.

I have tried (with one or two failures ) to maintain a civil tone in this discussion and not to ascribe any bad faith or ill will to any of the participants. I would hope to have received the same courtesy.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

Andreas:

I did read your earlier post and noted from the excerpt that all the men in question were apparently members of the SS. Granted, they may not all have served as guards, but that is irrelevant to the main point. I see no injustice in executing a member of the SS present in a death camp. They were voluntary members of an organization expressly established to protect and expand the Nazi empire. That, in and of itself, merits the death penalty.

I have tried (with one or two failures ) to maintain a civil tone in this discussion and not to ascribe any bad faith or ill will to any of the participants. I would hope to have received the same courtesy.

I think it is obvious now that Black Jack Pershing was simply having us on - no true attorney would ever subscribe to the ideas he is espousing and is simply getting us to try and make a case, most likely as an exercise in rhetoric or perhaps a test of some kind.

Have we passed yet?

[Black Jack Pershing II]

Holy cow! [Eek!] Glad I don't live in NYC.

Don't worry, I have no intention of moving to Calgary.

I did get a little chuckle when you accused me of having no understanding of the justice system. Perhaps the answer is that I do indeed have some understanding of matters legal, and that law and justice are by no means synonymous.

I guess the fundamental point on which we disagree is that I believe that by voluntarily joining the SS (Waffen- or otherwise) your life should become forfeit. The fact that an SS member is also involved to some degree or another with a death camp is just an additional aggravating factor.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

They were voluntary members of an organization expressly established to protect and expand the Nazi empire. That, in and of itself, merits the death penalty.

A) No it does not. It may deserve punishment, but not the death penalty.

You have no proof that they were volunteers. As I have pointed out, they can very well have been conscripts, and it is in fact quite likely that some/many/most of them were. You ignoring this point does not make it go away.

All the best

Andreas

[Richie]

I see no injustice in executing a member of the SS present in a death camp. They were voluntary members of an organization expressly established to protect and expand the Nazi empire. That, in and of itself, merits the death penalty.

Extremism is always best served straight from the coals.

Once in U.S. history an episode of Islamic terrorism was very quickly stopped. It happened in the Philippines about 1911, when Gen. John J. Pershing was in command of the garrison. There had been numerous Islamic terrorist attacks, so "Black Jack" told his boys to catch the perps and teach them a lesson.

Forced to dig their own graves, the terrorists were all tied to posts, execution style. The U.S. soldiers then brought in pigs and slaughtered them, rubbing their bullets in the blood and fat. Thus, the terrorists were terrorized; they saw that they would be contaminated with hogs' blood. This would mean that they could not enter Heaven, even if they died as terrorist martyrs.

All but one was shot, their bodies dumped into the grave, and the hog guts dumped atop the bodies. The lone survivor was allowed to escape back to the terrorist camp and tell his brethren what happened to the others. This brought a stop to terrorism in the Philippines for the next 50 years.

Interesting Alias you've picked BTW... but I wonder if they got "ALL" the perps... or just some Islamic fellas in the wrong place at the wrong time... Well, they were there so they were guilty anyway, right?

[Black Jack Pershing II]

I think it is obvious now that Black Jack Pershing was simply having us on - no true attorney would ever subscribe to the ideas he is espousing and is simply getting us to try and make a case, most likely as an exercise in rhetoric or perhaps a test of some kind.

Have we passed yet?

Of course I am playing a bit of devil's advocate here, but I at the end of the day, I am not going to lose any sleep over the fact that a bunch of SS were summarily executed at Dachau.

[zmoney]

Originally posted by Kingfish:

If it is ok to shoot SS guards caught in the camps, then what about the ones captured in the neighboring towns? Or identified by former prisoners 40+ years later? [/QB]

I don't know if you meant this as a joke, but they did still hunt down the gaurds 40+ years later. In fact just a few months ago the US finally agreed to send a retired automotives worker from Michigan to Israel to stand trial. He was suspected of being a gaurd at a concentration camp.

And to suggest that they should just be forgive 40+ years later isn't sound judgement.

[Black Jack Pershing II]

zmoney:

To be fair, I think Kingfish was asking whether a summary execution of Mr. Demjanjuk (I assume that is who you are talking about) would have been appropriate, or if he should be entitled to a fair trial.

[zmoney]

Originally posted by Richie:

Interesting Alias you've picked BTW... but I wonder if they got "ALL" the perps... or just some Islamic fellas in the wrong place at the wrong time... Well, they were there so they were guilty anyway, right? [/QB]

Uhm I think you answered your own question with this statement: This brought a stop to terrorism in the Philippines for the next 50 years.

[zmoney]

Originally posted by JonS:

I know that, but you are advocating an organisation that condones murder with a 'nudge nudge, wink wink' attitude. Vigilante justice - regardless of how much it appeals on an emotional level - is no basis for morale or good discipline.

You say 'the particular circumstances of Dachau', but even at Dachau I find your 'particular circumstances' unconvincing grounds for summary executions. More to the point, even if I did, it is just a short series of logical steps before you are summarily executing all SS soldiers, then all German soldiers, then all Germans. That is your slippery slope.

Regards

JonS

I don't think its much of a slippery slope because we're dealing with history from 60+ years ago, where the facts state that the US GI's didn't go to the surrounding towns and kill as many Germans as they could. They only killed the scum at the camps.

Now if this happened yesterday then it would be a slippery slope because you would defenitly want to draw the line so the GI's wouldn't go around killing prisoners. But that wasn't the case anyway.

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by zmoney:

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

If it is ok to shoot SS guards caught in the camps, then what about the ones captured in the neighboring towns? Or identified by former prisoners 40+ years later?

I don't know if you meant this as a joke, but they did still hunt down the gaurds 40+ years later. In fact just a few months ago the US finally agreed to send a retired automotives worker from Michigan to Israel to stand trial. He was suspected of being a gaurd at a concentration camp.

And to suggest that they should just be forgive 40+ years later isn't sound judgement. [/QB]</font>