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cali

(114,904 posts)
Fri Jun 17, 2016, 03:15 PM Jun 2016

The end of an era. Germany convicts 94 year old Auschwitz Guard

From the NYT is this long, interesting piece:

In many ways, it is fitting that Germany’s last trial of a former SS guard at Auschwitz played out far from the spotlight, in this pretty provincial town of 70,000 souls.

It was from places like these — a rural corner of North Rhine-Westphalia, modern Germany’s most populous state — that the Nazis formed their bedrock, the millions of men and women who signed up to Hitler’s apparently triumphant cause and with little questioning executed its murderous maxims.

They were people like Reinhold Hanning, 94, who on Friday was sentenced to five years as an accessory to at least 170,000 deaths during his time as an SS guard at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, from January 1943 to mid-1944.

After World War II, Mr. Hanning was in British custody, and he was released in 1948 to live out his life in his hometown, Lage, six miles from Detmold. He said he never spoke about Auschwitz to anyone, not even to his wife, two sons and grandchildren.

His four-month trial yielded a brief, carefully crafted apology of sorts from him for being a member of “a criminal organization, which is responsible for the death of many innocent people, for the destruction of countless families, for misery, torture and sorrow on the side of the victims and their relatives.”

<snip>

read:http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/18/world/europe/reinhold-hanning-nazi-auschwitz.html

A German court convicted a former SS guard at tje Auschwitz death camp of acting as an accessory to the murder of 170,000 people, said Anneli Neumann. spokesperson for Detmold district court, Friday.

Reinhold Hanning was convicted of having assisted in the deaths at the concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland between 1943-4.

"You spent nearly two and half years in Auschwitz and therefore you helped in the mass murder," said Judge Anke Grudda during sentencing, according to CNN Affiliate ARD.

The court then sentenced the 94-year-old man to five years in prison, or about one minute for every 15 lives.

Hanning denied being directly involved in the killings.

<snip>
read:http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/17/europe/auschwitz-ss-guard-convicted/

And no, I don't give a fuck that he's a very old man who will die in prison. Of the thousands of guards at Auschwitz, only 26 were ever prosecuted. That old man is directly responsible for this:



and this:

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cali

(114,904 posts)
3. He lived free most of his life. He was lucky. He's a war criminal
Fri Jun 17, 2016, 03:22 PM
Jun 2016

who committed heinous acts.

steve2470

(37,457 posts)
2. There is no statute of limitations on aiding and abetting war crimes
Fri Jun 17, 2016, 03:21 PM
Jun 2016

The guard should be grateful he got to spend so much time outside a prison, and to be alive. His charges didn't get that chance.

 

cali

(114,904 posts)
4. kick. The deaths at Auschwitz were more than the numbers of deaths
Fri Jun 17, 2016, 03:49 PM
Jun 2016

of British and American troops in WWII.

Behind the Aegis

(53,833 posts)
5. Good. Thank you for posting this.
Fri Jun 17, 2016, 09:21 PM
Jun 2016

Sure, it isn't exciting and there are no strawmen to attack, but it is still important and has meaning.

He got off light with 5 years.

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