Former Auschwitz guard, 93, charged with accessory to 300,000 murders in Germany....

German prosecutors are charging Oskar Groening, a 93-year-old former SS guard, with 300,000 counts of accessory to murder for his role in operating the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, officials said Monday.

Groening, born in 1921, is one of the last living SS members today. While he has admitted witnessing atrocities during the two and a half years he spent at Auschwitz, he maintains that he never committed any crimes there. Groening said he was mainly in charge of guarding the prisoners' possessions.

Groening is being charged for his time as an Auschwitz guard between May and July 1944, during which an estimated 300,000 people, the vast majority of them Jews, were gassed. Around 1.1 million prisoners died while Auschwitz was in operation.

Prosecutors say Groening helped collect money from prisoners’ belongings for the Nazis. “He helped the Nazi regime benefit economically, and supported the systematic killings,” lawyers said in a statement.

The charge against Groening is part of a renewed push by officials across Germany targeting 30 remaining former SS members who all worked at Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland. This renewed push to prosecute former death camp guards came after a precedent-setting ruling in the Munich trial of John Demjanjuk, a former camp guard who was convicted of crimes against humanity in 2011, which overrode the barrier of a statute of limitations on lower-ranking war criminals. Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian who lived for decades in the United States before being unmasked, died in 2012.

Investigators from Hanover in northwestern Germany, where Groening lives, had taken on three other cases of former SS members, but two were considered unfit for trial, while the third died. In March, Groening was formally declared to be healthy and fit to stand trial.

Thomas Walther, a lawyer representing 20 Auschwitz victims and their relatives in the case against Groening, told the Associated Press that the charges represent a last chance for “justice to one of the SS men who had a part in the murder of their closest relatives.”

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I have read many comments by the readers on the news sites and I think that this is all BS. It all has to do with who is in power and the hypocrisy and biases surrounding this witch hunt. I can talk about the war criminals like Henry Kissinger, former Japanese guards from WWII etc. Even, the crimes against the Palestinians committed by the Israelis.

First, there were guards who were doing their job and had to perform duties or else they would be killed. Then there were those who were sadistic. The latter should be held accountable. Where does this guy fit in? Who knows.

2085: Palestinian prosecutors are charging David Hymenstein, a 93-year-old former IDF soldier, with 300,000 counts of accessory to murder for his role in operating the Jewish death camp at Gaza, officials said Monday.

Here we go...

Why prosecute a 93 year old man?

This caught my eye

Quote:Quote:

...overrode the barrier of a statute of limitations on lower-ranking war criminals

It's quite ironic how laws can be overridden at will. Really, it begs the question...what's the point of any laws at all if authorities can cherrypick and/or override which laws are applicable and to whom they're applicable to.

Distasteful as it is, it's really nothing compared to the travesty that was the Demanjajuk case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Demjanjuk

This guy (the 93 year old) is at least a German and presumably volunteered to join the SS. Demanjajuk was a Soviet soldier who became a German POW and was himself sent to a concentration camp. First Israel and then Germany had been persecuting him for decades up until his death in his 80s on the grounds that he was at some point pressed into serving as a camp guard and thus was an accessory to murder. The injustice is simply mind-boggling. Even if the allegation are true-which had never been proven-what exactly was his crime? That between being killed himself and serving as a guard at a camp where jews were killed he chose the latter, apparently. That Germany, the country that forced him at gunpoint to carry out the supposed "crime" was then hellbent on punishing him for said crime 50 years later is just insane.

I think Germans also like to pretend that they were all against Hitler except for a subset of "evil" Germans, rather than admit that they were all somewhat complicit. Think about it this way, all us American citizens who paid income tax during the Bush Wars are mildly complicit in supporting that crap, but nobody will admit it in a million years. Oh no, it was just a few evil Republicans who stole the election and forced us poor middle-easterner-loving Americans to blow up Iraqis against our will.

Now, that said there's a big difference between mildly complicit and being a major actor in a war. But that's the point. We already hung everyone important at Nuremburg, chasing these nobodies is unjust scapegoating.

Quote: (09-16-2014 10:03 PM)monster Wrote:  

This caught my eye

Quote:Quote:

...overrode the barrier of a statute of limitations on lower-ranking war criminals

It's quite ironic how laws can be overridden at will. Really, it begs the question...what's the point of any laws at all if authorities can cherrypick and/or override which laws are applicable and to whom they're applicable to.

Laws are usually what the men with the most guns say it is.

There's three reasons to sentence someone to jail:
- dissuade anyone else from doing the same
- protect society from said person
- vengeance (most petty reason)

Definitely a case of vengeance here (Nuremberg trials took care of the first two reasons). This is sad...even if the guy is guilty, what do you get out of sentencing a 93 year old dude? Also, how the fuck do you even prove he was guilty. Shit happened 70 years ago, I wouldn't believe 70 year old testimonials. Well, if that's what it takes to make the Germans feel better about themselves...

Quote: (09-16-2014 08:39 PM)BortimusPrime Wrote:  

2085: Palestinian prosecutors are charging David Hymenstein, a 93-year-old former IDF soldier, with 300,000 counts of accessory to murder for his role in operating the Jewish death camp at Gaza, officials said Monday.

So what exactly is your point? Are you asserting that Israel is participating in a genocide as others here have claimed, or are you saying the holocaust didn't happen and the guy is being prosecuted for fictional crimes?

It's self-righteous vengeance, the equivalent of social justice lynch mobs we see in the US. Most of these guards were foreign conscripts from Eastern Europe themselves and committed no crimes. Every now and then you'll see some 95 year old dragged from his house in Ohio and shipped to Germany just to make a statement (SPD = party of white guilt). Meanwhile, most Germans are clueless they're the 3rd largest weapons exporter and supply some of the worlds best tanks to anti-Semitic places like Saudi Arabia, something in direct contradiction of their Schuldkomplex.

It's a shame really, Germany has so much potential as a world power. It's like a 55 year old man who won't get over his girlfriend from when he was 18 and refuses to date again.

While the principle of going after everyone no matter how high or down the chain of command or time passed isn't wrong per se, the circumstances of this case are just stupid. The Nazi crimes were well documented, prosecuted and punished. It is far more damaging for the memory of Holocaust to engage in this now - especially after such a long pause - than to just let it go. These men are decrepit with old age and it just seems like kicking someone on the ground at this point.

Short version: moronical.

What are they trying to accomplish by doing this? The dude's 93 and has one foot in the coffin.

I call jewish mafia

This is really flogging a dead horse. In fact, I think it is really a sick thing to keep pointing the finger at this supposed evil or try and punish things that happened so long ago.

The poor guy was just doing his job. He didn't kill anyone, or do anything, he just happened to work at a labour camp.

WWII was full of wartime atrocities. But if they were committed by the allies, they were not considered atrocities. This old man is just another scapegoat.

This 6 hour documentary really I think covers the territory about things that allied propaganda has omitted from the history books, and is really rocking a lot of people's worlds at the moment.

http://thegreateststorynevertold.tv/

Total waste of state resources.

Some dogs are best left sleeping.

It's about money. Germany still pay billions in reparations to jews.

Quote: (09-17-2014 12:34 AM)Blick Mang Wrote:  

It's self-righteous vengeance, the equivalent of social justice lynch mobs we see in the US. Most of these guards were foreign conscripts from Eastern Europe themselves and committed no crimes. Every now and then you'll see some 95 year old dragged from his house in Ohio and shipped to Germany just to make a statement (SPD = party of white guilt). Meanwhile, most Germans are clueless they're the 3rd largest weapons exporter and supply some of the worlds best tanks to anti-Semitic places like Saudi Arabia, something in direct contradiction of their Schuldkomplex.

It's a shame really, Germany has so much potential as a world power. It's like a 55 year old man who won't get over his girlfriend from when he was 18 and refuses to date again.

At some point, a German leader (preferably German that is) will need to stand up to other countries and tell them to let WWII go. To stop bringing it up. To stop the Hitler comparisons. To stop talking about evil nazis. Tell the German youth especially today that they need not to carry that burden anymore. All of these things.

This is completely stupid. It was 70 odd years ago. The guy probably has less than 5 years left. As others have mentioned, he was just doing his job. In war both sides do things that are questionable. One man's terrorist is another man's hero, etc etc etc. What makes me laugh the most is this: if he'd decided to not do his job he'd have been locked up at the least and most likely shot. I wonder how many of the SJW's would have the balls to make that decision. None. Of course, its perfectly OK to prosecute an old man for something he did a lifetime ago.

I would have no problem with this shit if Germany wasn't completely hypocritical. They rarely arrest and try the sadistic East German motherfuckers who committed all sorts of crimes against their own people and humanity despite having detailed records of just about everything they did.

Why? Because former GDR assholes are part of the current leftist parties and they want to 'move on.'

Quote: (09-17-2014 07:40 AM)Old Fritz Wrote:  

At some point, a German leader (preferably German that is) will need to stand up to other countries and tell them to let WWII go. To stop bringing it up. To stop the Hitler comparisons. To stop talking about evil nazis. Tell the German youth especially today that they need not to carry that burden anymore. All of these things.

To do this he will have to raise nationalism, encounter foreign resistance and shaming, take some harsh steps to get trough it and basically become another Hitler.

Hitler was the same - trying to prove that Germans must not remain reparation paying losers from WW1.

The moral - evil is often created trough the refusal to forgive and greed and vengeance of the "good guys"

Think about recidivists. A guy gets sent to a prison and after sitting his sentence he still has his prisoner stigma on him. Cannot get a job or normal social life. People don't forgive him. The only solution - to go back to the path of crime the only path left to him and try to make his fortune that way.

The Holocaust continues to increase in practical significance as Israel commits its own and builds its own Warzaw ghetto in Gaza.

There is no way Israel could act as it has the last decades without playing the eternal victim card. Every attack is deflected by calling people anti-semittes = nazis.

Quote: (09-17-2014 06:06 AM)berserk Wrote:  

It's about money. Germany still pay billions in reparations to jews.

I didn't know that? Do you have any links for further reading?

Quote: (09-17-2014 10:41 AM)Dr. Howard Wrote:  

Quote: (09-17-2014 06:06 AM)berserk Wrote:  

It's about money. Germany still pay billions in reparations to jews.

I didn't know that? Do you have any links for further reading?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germ...02528.html

Quote:Quote:

The German government has agreed to pay €772 million ($1 billion) for the homecare of Holocaust survivors throughout the world. The decision was reached by the German Finance Ministry together with the Claims Conference, a Jewish fund for victims of Nazi aggression, after negotiations in Jerusalem concluded on Tuesday.

How about some more?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...tract.html

Quote:Quote:

The French Foreign Ministry has been forced to begin negotiations with the U.S. State Department about making payments to Holocaust survivors or risk losing out on a billion dollar contract.

The state-owned Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF) runs some of the fastest and most efficient lines in the world but has a dark history which saw it transport thousands of Jews to their deaths in German concentration camps.

The company transported some 76,000 French Jews to Nazi concentration camps during the wartime occupation – of which only about 3,000 survived

.

People really wonder why jews get a bad rep? They simply don't know when to stop.

The guy is an asshole, but he's 93. Prosecuting him at this junction of his life would be in poor taste. He probably doesn't even fucking remember anything.

I find it interesting that it seems it is the German authorities themselves who have decided to prosecute in this case. On previous occasions when pressure groups like the Wiesenthal Centre have dredged up ex SS officers in their 80's and 90's I always got the unpleasant feeling that they knew decades ago that these people were involved in the concentration camps, but chose not to prosecute them because:
1) They were relative small fry...
2) but more importantly they held back so that they had a steady stream of people to prosecute in later years in order to promote themselves and justify their continued existence.

Reason #2 doesn't really cast them in a favourable light. It doesn't serve the general interest to drag these things out. They should gather as much evidence as possible close to the time of the offences, prosecute the people involved and then be done with it.

Also, who is and isn't prosecuted, and when they are prosecuted ,is random when you intentionally hold back. This means justice is not served. This 93 year old man has had a complete life without consequence. A trial now brings no justice at all. It only allows a few prosecutors to grandstand. Whereas an SS member prosecuted decades ago did experience consequences. And some SS people are never prosecuted, but even feted by the world. Werner von Braun, say. Also Herbert von Karajan. Not SS, but a strong Nazi supporter. Didn't really negatively affect his career.