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Utopia Talk / Politics / Germans are sick and cruel people
Rugian
Member
Thu Sep 30 12:42:30
Germany charges 96 year old woman for war crimes because she served as a typist at a concentration camp when she was 18.

http://the...used-of-nazi-war-crimes-caught

This obsession that Germans have with purging their collective selves of their Holocaust guilt has morphed into hauling frail elderly people in front of war crimes tribunals over things they did nearly 80 years ago. Sick.
Daemon
Member
Thu Sep 30 12:50:50
卐 Free Brit... eh Irmgard 卐

Habebe
Member
Thu Sep 30 12:51:12
More recently , they are bringing more people who had little impact with direct atrocities. Typists and cooks and shit.
Habebe
Member
Thu Sep 30 12:53:41
*Daemons apartment is raided, he is taken to an underground bunker OF DOOM for interrogation*

PS. They don't find his "I know NaZing" comments nearly as funny as he does.
Dukhat
Member
Thu Sep 30 14:47:38
The law is the law as you conservatives are fond of saying. Just pretend this lady and others like her have black skin and you can go back to not caring.
Habebe
Member
Thu Sep 30 17:24:38
Dukhat should host the view.
Habebe
Member
Thu Sep 30 18:08:55
Its an odd assessment to call this "The law is the law"

Because when she was a typist it wasn't illegal.
Pillz
Member
Thu Sep 30 18:39:25
I'd like the know when typists were implicated as war criminals by Geneva please.

By any western Court, for that matter.

But anyways, symbolic gesture of annointmenr for most, justice for cuckhat, or martyrdom for daemon, she's dead anyways.

The next era of western war criminals will be tried for massacring Asian rats, so I suspect cuckhat is looking to the future and is emotionally invested. He hopes some old women will be found guilty in a hundred years too.
Dukhat
Member
Thu Sep 30 20:45:14
This is what triggers you cuckservatives nowadays? Reaching for straws.
Rugian
Member
Thu Sep 30 21:02:21
Hauling frail old nonagenarian ladies before a war crime tribunal for some secretarial work they did as a teenager is a bit fucked up Dukhat.

I wouldn't expect a heartless monster like you to have any empathy for the plight of the elderly though.
obaminated
Member
Thu Sep 30 21:23:24
He would if you wanted this old bag of bones thrown in jail.
Habebe
Member
Thu Sep 30 21:24:52
For her time a typist job was great, women were new to the workplace , she was a pioneer, not a criminal.

What are they going to do, rehabilitate her? Got to be careful she doesn't join a gang or start typing again.
Dukhat
Member
Thu Sep 30 21:57:10
They charged her. She's old. She'll probably get parole or home arrest at worst which is to say her life will almost certainly be mostly the same.
Habebe
Member
Thu Sep 30 21:59:39
In county there was this old guy Dale, he was 70, but everytime he was parrolled he woild just skip out on reporting and do coke with hookers.
Dukhat
Member
Thu Sep 30 22:04:49
And cuckservatives ignoring that she did abet Nazi crimes. If you're part of a criminal organization, you get charged.

Sounds more like gaslighting about the January 6th insurrection and creating some kind of false equivalency still.

It never ends.
Habebe
Member
Thu Sep 30 22:10:56
Dukhat is actually Joy Be hard, it makes sense now.
murder
Member
Fri Oct 01 05:49:50

"Germany charges 96 year old woman for war crimes because she served as a typist at a concentration camp when she was 18."

You seem to be making to different cases.

1. That she should be left alone because she's a million years old ... which I generally agree with if she's been keeping her head down and not causing problems.

2. That she didn't do anything wrong. I completely disagree with. She's not being persecuted for being a typist ... she's being persecuted for being a typist at a DEATH CAMP.

She contributed to the mass production of death. She typed up death orders. She knew what was going on.

murder
Member
Fri Oct 01 05:51:13

"Free Brit... eh Irmgard"

lol :o)

murder
Member
Fri Oct 01 05:55:14

This is an odd hill to choose to die on.

The GOP needs to give up their Nazi & Confederate fetishes.

murder
Member
Fri Oct 01 05:56:02

"PS. They don't find his "I know NaZing" comments nearly as funny as he does."

Who knew there were comedians in the crowd? :o)

Habebe
Member
Fri Oct 01 06:24:32
1.We agree in general it seems petty and vengeful to hunt down living fossils, she clearly poses no imminent threat.

2. A death camp, Yes. But she was a secretary.It's like charging the doorman at Trump tower for X_enter Trump atrocity_*

3. Seriously though about women in the workplace, imagine being a 19 yr old girl living at that time and place and here you sign up to work and this is the job she is placed in, of course she takes the job.

You hear all these women today talk about how hard it is to do blank in a male dominated field and putting up through micro-aggressions.

Meanwhile demonize a woman for taking a job at admittedly a horriffic place who dealt with REAL prejeduices and struggles.

murder
Member
Fri Oct 01 07:49:59

"2. A death camp, Yes. But she was a secretary.It's like charging the doorman at Trump tower for X_enter Trump atrocity_*"

If the doorman was holding the door to help Trump drag drugged women up to his apartment ... then yeah, you charge him.


"Meanwhile demonize a woman for taking a job at admittedly a horriffic place who dealt with REAL prejeduices and struggles."

The people being incarcerated, forced to labor, and executed, were the ones dealing with the REAL prejudice and struggles.

jergul
large member
Fri Oct 01 10:46:15
Well, like sammy says. Dont lose a war.
Habebe
Member
Fri Oct 01 10:52:22
Jergul, Yeah, there is that.
obaminated
Member
Fri Oct 01 11:36:29
I sincerely doubt she got to chose where she was going to work and had little choice in the matter after her higher ups sent her there.
Habebe
Member
Fri Oct 01 11:59:15
I wonder would the house nigger be liable for fetching the whip so the cracker can beat the field nigger?
jergul
large member
Fri Oct 01 12:36:30
"Charges cannot be read until Furchner, who faces trial in an adolescent court"

She is being tried for transcibing a shit load of execution orders. 11 000 of them from 1943-1945.

There is a limit to how long you can voluntarily collaborate in genocide before you become criminally liable.
CrownRoyal
Member
Fri Oct 01 13:22:09
"There is a limit to how long you can voluntarily collaborate in genocide before you become criminally liable."


her sympathizers should lobby govt to set that limit at 12000 pages of execution orders transcriptions, then she walks. It is doable
Im better then you
2012 UP Football Champ
Fri Oct 01 13:51:23
"Waaa Waaa People are mean to Nazi" Rugian
jergul
large member
Fri Oct 01 14:07:12
CR
To be fair, it is prolly more than 12k pages. Given that it was 11k execution orders. Or execution orders for 11k people. To remove all ambiguity.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Oct 01 14:09:24
Some crimes are so horrific, it is a matter of principle to prosecute them. Even if the punishment is house arrest because she is so old, there is an duty to recognize the crime. It will also set a precedent, if there is an Admin in charge of the database keeping track of some genocide in the future, this trial will be handy.
jergul
large member
Fri Oct 01 14:23:57
"It will also set a precedent"

The real reason our genocidically inclined think this is so unfair :D
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Oct 01 14:40:58
Sorry boys!
murder
Member
Fri Oct 01 15:53:09

"I wonder would the house nigger be liable for fetching the whip so the cracker can beat the field nigger?"

No, the house nigger gets appointed to the US Supreme Court. ;o)

murder
Member
Fri Oct 01 16:01:51

"her sympathizers should lobby govt to set that limit at 12000 pages of execution orders transcriptions, then she walks. It is doable"

Also they should make a movie about how she helped Jews avoid execution by typing really slowly. They could call it "The Slow Typists".

It could be like Schindler's List.

obaminated
Member
Fri Oct 01 16:14:22
You guys have lost all touch with reality.
murder
Member
Fri Oct 01 17:09:11

Who are you referring to? There are several people in this thread expressing differing opinions.

Paramount
Member
Sat Oct 02 01:59:23
”Germany charges 96 year old woman for war crimes because she served as a typist at a concentration camp when she was 18. ”


But if she is a Nazi shouldn’t they put her in jail?
Habebe
Member
Sat Oct 02 02:52:56
"There is a limit to how long you can voluntarily collaborate in genocide before you become criminally liable."

Is there? Define collaborate, becuase here it seems** that she knew what was going on and kept records on it.

If she wasnt there, it would have continued.

Plus again lets really put ourselves in her shoes as a 20 year girl working for the Hitler administration, how liable is she?

How "voluntary" was it?
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Sat Oct 02 05:50:50
Habebe
The nazis were a cult and like any cult hijacking a nation the closer you were to the belly of the beast the less doubts they have and more convinced are they of the cult ideology. There are exceptions, but that is what they are and for the courts to figure out.
Habebe
Member
Sat Oct 02 05:58:27
To me going after a 96 yr old secretary jut looks vengeful and petty.
jergul
large member
Sat Oct 02 06:16:50
habebe
Completely voluntary. German labour shortages gave civilian employees great leeway. Everyone was also aware that working in concentration camps was not for everyone, so rotation out for any German was completely acceptable.

The guards did not like transferring as their alternative was the eastern front. Her alternative was part of a typing pool anywhere in the 3rd Reich.
jergul
large member
Sat Oct 02 06:18:48
Your position represents a failure of imagination.

11000 execution orders were dictated to her. She took each down in short hand, then typed them out for signatures and stamps.

11000 times.
Habebe
Member
Sat Oct 02 07:01:58
I think we just have different views of culpability.

Did she create the order? No.

Did she take those lives with her own hand? No.

The argument mainly seems to focus on the fact that she knew what was going on and did not try hard enough for a different job.

And again at her age she poses no threat and offers little to no deterent effect.

This is a bunch of angry people taking vengeance out on the elderly.
Pillz
Member
Sat Oct 02 07:11:09
In 50 years jergul and cuckhat are going to want people who manufactured plastics executed.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Sat Oct 02 07:34:54
Habebe
Her age may be grounds for leniency when sentencing, it has no bearing on her guilt. You have a strange angle coming imo, we are talking about the largest genocide in modern history, vengeful and petty to prosecute those involved? She didn’t shoplift or DUI. And she was involved, the level as acertained should be reflected in the sentence.
Habebe
Member
Sat Oct 02 07:53:09
Not the largest genocide in modern history.Probably the most notorious.

How involved do you think she was?

What about the guys who delivered supplies?

The cooks?

And again lets look at why we imprison people.

Will she re offend? No.

Will this act as a deterrent? No.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Sat Oct 02 08:01:59
"Not the largest genocide in modern history."'

It's not the salient point, but fine I typed it that way. Genocide is sufficient for my argument.

>>How involved do you think she was?

What about the guys who delivered supplies?

The cooks?<<

I don't know, that is up to the courts to decide and irrelevant to should she be put on trial or not.

"And again lets look at why we imprison people."

Those are not the only reasons, judgment of guilt and punishment is a form of restitution to the victims. The scope of the crime demands justice and as I said, I was serious, precedent. Knowingly partaking in any aspect of a genocide is not something we are going to accept. Give her a verbal warning if that makes you feel better, because of her age. There is a pragmatic path forward, without getting stuck on "poor old lady".
Habebe
Member
Sat Oct 02 08:29:07
"I don't know, that is up to the courts to decide and irrelevant to should she be put on trial or not."

I suppose it is up for the courts to decide, but it should* be very relevant, other wise.your just arbitrarily locking up the elderly.

In 80 years should we be hunting down anyone affiliated with the Taliban?
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Sat Oct 02 08:41:52
"your just arbitrarily locking up the elderly."

It's the opposite of arbitrary, it is according to a set of codes called laws.

"In 80 years should we be hunting down anyone affiliated with the Taliban?"

But we are not hunting down everyone affiliated with the Nazis, we are hunting that everyone affiliated with a specific genocide in this case.
Habebe
Member
Sat Oct 02 08:54:36
I meant arbitrary to the point of how culpable she should be, but whatever, I'll agree to disagree.

1. "Everyone affiliated" , a secretary seems like a pretty large net.

2.Lets say in the future a 96 year old woman was implicated in a specific attack, she kept stock or whatever and knew What they were for.

They may very well go after them, but it would clearly be punitive only and to me would still look petty.

Personal opinion.
jergul
large member
Sat Oct 02 08:57:07
habebe
The elderly argument has no merit. Are you arguing that there should be a statute of limitations for genocide?

In your legal system, it would fall under conspiracy where she most definitely committed overt acts to further the crime. In this case, she did it 11000 times as the executions required paperwork according to 3rd reich norms.

Now, she may be able to defend herself successfully. Hence a trial in a youth court. The outcome is not given.

That you think her innocence is so clear that no trial should be held at all boggles my understanding.
Habebe
Member
Sat Oct 02 09:10:48
"The elderly argument has no merit. Are you arguing that there should be a statute of limitations for genocide?"

1. To not is to be ok with revenge by the state.Which again, if that's your thing, fine, I understand it.

If a guy rapes a young girl and gets hit by a bus rendering him mentally retarded, the father of the girl may still want him executed, but at that point it's pure revenge.

I'm well aware of conspuracy to commit, it's fucking terrible, one of the worst oarts of the US legal system.

But lets point out the elephant in the room

1.These are not "laws" as we would generally know them in regular use.

They never existed during the events for starters.

2. They are only applied because they lost the war. Russia and China have done FAR worse, killing many folds more and yet, they didnt lose the war.

So it isnt any sort of noble upholding of just laws. Its punishing the elderly because theyre side lost the war 75 yeqrs ago, thats it.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Sat Oct 02 09:20:54
Habebe
You are relativizing and diminishing by comparing it to other crimes. I think genocide is a special crime. It is the scaling up (bigly) of some horrible thing in our nature, that runs far beyond the scope of most people minds to fully comprehend. There is a "sound" rational behind killing an entire tribe of people and taking their lands and stuff. We could do that to each other again on an even bigger scale. In many ways it has scaled beyond even the capacity in our nature. What does millions of dead look like? Your concern and empathy doesn't scale with the bodies stacking up, it actually diminishes as it is divided by more bodies, until we because words in a conversation... 6 million dead, 20 million dead 50 million dead.

A more fair comparison than the Taliban, would be the Khmer rogue or China's cultural revolution.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Sat Oct 02 09:23:26
Edit:
"until the *become words* in a conversation"
jergul
large member
Sat Oct 02 09:49:50
habebe
Revenge by the State? Well maybe the state does that in your country (see huawei executives charged with frivilous things for political reasons), but not in Germany. I would weigh the preventive a lot higher than you do. Dont participate in genocide. Its not ok.It also meets my sense of justice. You just canoot type out 11000 execution orders for a criminal regime and think that is ok.

It may not be rehabilitating. Because, well, she is 96.

But again, this is just a trial. We do not know the verdict.

jergul
large member
Sat Oct 02 09:52:12
I think you forgot using WMD on population centres. If looking for crimes that definitely would be against humanity if you had lost the war.
Habebe
Member
Sat Oct 02 10:08:44
It just seems like your all chasing a white whale.

Were talking Jimmy Carter age, and that's someone whonhas had access to some of the world's best medical care ever.

Jergul, How is not revenge?

Generally people who are jailed for a few reasons.

1. Political reasons, often seen as unjustly.

2. To rehabilitate the person so they wont re offend.

3. Just to pull such a dangerous person off the streets.

I think on the age factor most of agree at the very least some lienency should be afforded.

Nimatzo, Fair enough,Khmere or the revolution, Stalin etc.

We dont chase down Stalin's secretary in nursing homes.

I think this is just something I'll agree to disagree on, odds are she doesn't any longer know what she did or maybe even who she is.

jergul
large member
Sat Oct 02 10:13:09
She is being tried in a juvenile court for things done as an 18-20 year old. How much more leniency do you want? You try mentally handicapped 14 year olds as adults yourselves.

Read up on what purposes imprisonment serves for societies.

jergul
large member
Sat Oct 02 10:13:51
You dont have jurisdiction in Russia.
Habebe
Member
Sat Oct 02 10:35:37
"You try mentally handicapped 14 year olds as adults yourselves."

And that's fucked up.Two wrongs dont make a right, didnt your mother drill that into you?

What reason(s) do you want for the purposes of imprisonment.
jergul
large member
Sat Oct 02 10:42:30
1. Punishment
2. Deterrence
3. Protection of the public
4. Rehabilitation
jergul
large member
Sat Oct 02 10:43:28
5. Meet the public's expectation of justice
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Sat Oct 02 11:08:21
"We dont chase down Stalin's secretary in nursing homes."

Two wrongs don't make a right. This is why all these other examples are pointless imo. Either we agree on the principles or we don't. And then whatever you believe applies to all instances, the fact that the world looks the way it does, where Germany took this issue very seriously and others didn't, is secondary.
murder
Member
Sat Oct 02 16:00:38

"Not the largest genocide in modern history. Probably the most notorious."

There's been a larger genocide in modern history?

Habebe
Member
Sat Oct 02 16:12:37
Murder,

Mao's great leap forward killed 45 million people in 4 years.

Stalin's farm policy killed like 18-24 million.

The holocuast killed 6 million.
Habebe
Member
Sat Oct 02 16:20:41
"Germany took this issue very seriously and others didn't, is secondary."

Because they lost. Russia crumbled from within, they were not conquered.

But your right, the existence of one not being punished isnt an excuse for the other.

But again for context, genocide at thw time was not a crime , rather a sovereign right.Not saying it really excuses it, but it adds context.


jergul
large member
Sat Oct 02 22:05:57
habebe
Nurenburg trumps your context. Genocide has specific criteria. If you just want to toss about numbers then the German regime is responsible for 27 million deaths.
jergul
large member
Sat Oct 02 22:35:22
Salient point: "Common Law Disproves Point That Legislation is Source of Law"
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Sun Oct 03 09:19:03
Right, lets not go astray into a quasi-whatabout discussion about what is the greatest. We can commend Germany for dealing with the past, and shake our heads at China and Russia.

I do however have to concede that the holocaust still stands out because of the very specific, codified in ideology, extermination aim of an entire lineage of humans on ethnic grounds. You can deduce that there will be a lot of violence by understanding what Karl Marx was saying and understanding revolution and usurpation of power from history, but not that this was one of the goals of the ideology. It was one of the central goals of the Nazi ideology to exterminate among other things Jews from the face of the earth. That is a a very high level of ambition when it comes to genocide, unique I think.
Daemon
Member
Sun Oct 03 09:27:37
http://exh...nal-imt-at-nuremberg-1945-1946


http://news.stanford.edu/2021/09/30/stanford-scholars-expand-digital-database-historic-records-nuremberg-trial/

September 30, 2021
Stanford scholars expand digital database with historic records from the Nuremberg Trial

Stanford University is marking the 75th anniversary of the International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg with a significant expansion of records from the historic trial. (...)
Rugian
Member
Sun Oct 03 09:28:18
There's been a lot of idiocy in this thread, where a bunch of authoritarians autistically cry out "prosecute her!" even though her prosecution at this point does nothing in terms of bringing justice to Holocaust victims or rehabilitating her. It's literally needlessly punitive and vindictive, and it's the latest instance of a German society where the people, in a never-ending attempt to dissociate themselves from the evils of Nazism, take things too far into the other direction and commit new evils themselves.

This isn't the first time this has happened either. See also the whole "let's place foster children into homes run by pedophiles, because the Nazis would have HATED man-on-boy love" thing they were doing in the 1970s.
Rugian
Member
Sun Oct 03 09:33:48
What we aren't seeing here isn't justice, it's an act of witch-burning being carried out by a society caught up in religious hysteria and attempting to carry out its desire to commit collective acts of flagellation.
murder
Member
Sun Oct 03 10:20:35

"There's been a lot of idiocy in this thread, where a bunch of authoritarians autistically cry out "prosecute her!" even though her prosecution at this point does nothing in terms of bringing justice to Holocaust victims or rehabilitating her. It's literally needlessly punitive and vindictive, and it's the latest instance of a German society where the people, in a never-ending attempt to dissociate themselves from the evils of Nazism, take things too far into the other direction and commit new evils themselves."

I want to agree with you ... but you keep going off the rails. What do you mean taking things too far in the other direction? What's too far from Nazism and genocide?



"... take things too far into the other direction and commit new evils themselves."

You can agree or not agree with the decision to prosecute the old woman, but it can not be "evil" to prosecute someone for participating in genocide.



"What we aren't seeing here isn't justice, it's an act of witch-burning being carried out by a society caught up in religious hysteria and attempting to carry out its desire to commit collective acts of flagellation."

She's not being burned for being a witch. She's being burned for being a witch that typed out execution orders for thousands of innocent people.


If she had been prosecuted in 2001, would it have been justice then? How about 1981? At what age does justice turn to an act of overcorrecting evil?

Habebe
Member
Sun Oct 03 10:22:06
Jergul, "habebe
Nurenburg trumps your context. "

Yes, they lost the war.This is treated as it is because they lost the war, you said it yourself.

That's the difference in the examples.
Habebe
Member
Sun Oct 03 10:28:52
"I want to agree with you ... but you keep going off the rails. What do you mean taking things too far in the other direction? What's too far from Nazism and genocide?"

All, not to amswer for him but...

In their attempt.to to be so anti Nazi, they have gone on a search with Israelis to track down these "Nazis" that they now are arresting secretaries so old that thenodds they would even live through sentencing is questionable.

Theyve pulled off an Uber Mcarthyism.
Rugian
Member
Sun Oct 03 10:50:07
"I want to agree with you ... but you keep going off the rails. What do you mean taking things too far in the other direction? What's too far from Nazism and genocide?"

Prosecuting a 96 year old woman for an event that occurred almost a century ago and was completely out of her hands. That's too far in the other direction.
Rugian
Member
Sun Oct 03 10:51:35
Do none of you have grandmothers, great-grandmothers? I feel like you guys don't understand what the term "96 year old" means.
murder
Member
Sun Oct 03 10:58:39

"Theyve pulled off an Uber Mcarthyism."

It's nothing like McCarthy because McCarthy was persecuting people that weren't guilty of anything.


murder
Member
Sun Oct 03 11:05:32

"Prosecuting a 96 year old woman for an event that occurred almost a century ago and was completely out of her hands. That's too far in the other direction."

Her defense has a right to make that case. But unless you're arguing that they have the wrong person ...

There's no statute of limitations on murder in the US.

And she wasn't taking lunch orders ... she was typing execution orders. What ever the bar is to establish complicity, I think that clears it.

jergul
large member
Sun Oct 03 11:39:41
Ruggy
Will you stop with the little old lady card already? We understand the concept of aging.
Habebe
Member
Sun Oct 03 13:19:07
I mean im not saying that what they are doing is illegal, especially under that ruling a while back that expanded who was "involved".

Im saying its wrong.But its not that deep...
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Sun Oct 03 14:15:56
jergul
"We understand the concept of aging."

Number go up? :D
jergul
large member
Sun Oct 03 16:15:32
Nimi
Always. It is much better than the alternative :D
obaminated
Member
Sun Oct 03 22:24:26
This is the most idiotic argument I've ever witnessed on this forum. She was a secretary. She was not giving orders. She was told what to write. She did not execute anyone. She kept notes on what was happening. She is now 96 years old. You people are laughably serious if you think she should be found guilty of anything.
jergul
large member
Mon Oct 04 02:05:06
Obam
You send people to juvenile courts for truancy.

Aiding and abetting genocide is illegal. It is as simple as so.

I find the clogging sentimentality inherent to the little old lady argument disgusting.

What, you think it would have been better for her to be charged, tried and sentenced at 50?
Seb
Member
Mon Oct 04 05:48:42
This feels very much on the cusp.

Pulling the trigger and using the order are both elements of clear culpability.

Transcribing the order feels a step removed.

But that's for the court to determine I suppose.

Everything else is just irrelevant circumstance.

Let justice be done, though the heavens may fall.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Mon Oct 04 06:16:22
I still do not understand the objections, is it her age? Should we not prosecute people after a certain age? That is not justice. Is it about here role and to what degree she can be found culpable? Well apparently that is why we have trials in the first place! Yet you guys seem to have all the facts to render a not guilty verdict, based on what exactly, a news article? You are taking this whole jury of your peers thing way too far.

Many things are then assumed about a future verdict and additionally the inappropriate and inhumane punishment to follow.

^None of those things have happened and there is literally no reason to think, that even if she was found guilty of something, that the German state would lock the poor old lady up and throw away the key.
Paramount
Member
Mon Oct 04 06:55:27
” This is the most idiotic argument I've ever witnessed on this forum. She was a secretary.”


Well, if everyone had refused to type the execution orders, then Hitler would have had to type all the execution orders himself, and he would probably not have the time to do that, and so the holocaust would never have happened, and Israel would probably never have been created either. She was an important cog in the wheel. Just like the people who drove the trains were. The traindrivers did not give orders. They did not execute anyone. They only drove trains.

Yeah, she is 96 now. How many execution orders for 5 year olds did she type?

I don’t know for how long she worked there, but she could have said ”Fuck it, I quit” anytime.
Seb
Member
Mon Oct 04 07:00:08
Nim:

For me, it's culpability.

But absolutely that's for a trial. She has a case to answer.

To issue an order to kill someone clearly makes you culpable.

To pull the trigger also makes you culpable.

And we have established "just following instructions" is not a mitigation.

To me though, relaying that order seems a step further out. The man who organised the roster for the firing squad. The person who typed up the orders.

And then you can go the next ring out:
the people who knowingly provided the ammunition to the firing squad, the woman who have the typist ink...

There is a level where key much everyone in Germany was culpable to some degree. At some point you have to draw the line on personal criminal liability.

This feels very much like being an accessory than a perpetrator and no real reason that she would be more guilty than anyone that knew what was going on and participated in whatever way in the operation of the camp. Say, the chef that prepared the food that fed the guards at the camp.

I don't think this will help deter future responsibility. A regime bent on genocide will not allow staff retention to get in the way. "She knew and did not object strongly enough" ... well many many Germans are guilty of that.


Seb
Member
Mon Oct 04 07:02:25
Paramount:

No, Hitler would simply have threatened to shoot the head of the SS, who would have threatened to shoot his subordinate etc. all the way down the chain.

Lots of stuff needs to happen to kill as mass scale. I don't see this woman as being more culpable than anyone who knew what the camps were and still had any have in their operation.

Maybe they all have a case to answer. This feels on the limit.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Mon Oct 04 07:15:33
Seb
I am totally on board with her not being anywhere near the worst offender in the hierarchy of guilt. That post wasn't meant for you or anything you said, your stance reasonable.
Seb
Member
Mon Oct 04 07:30:17
Nim:

I suspect some of the others objecting to this as a monstrosity feel some kind of low level affinity.

I don't mean in the sense they are secretly nazi sympathisers, just that they find it easier to identify with the individual being held to account than the victim of the crime, or visceral repulsion of the act yet are indicated over: either because the crime is too abstract or distant, or the victim too unrelatable, or the crime a set of actions they can imagine themselves being involved in (even if they recognise it as wrong).

Full disclosure, having worked in govt and been involved with a binder of things I personally disagreed with, perhaps I am unduly lenient.

Equally though, I put a lot of thought on what the things might be that would prompt me to resign and suffice to say it was a lot less than "transcribed orders for genocide"; but it did allow "faithfully work out how best to implement brexit according to govts stated aims and desire".
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Mon Oct 04 07:52:58
"implement brexit according to govts stated aims and desire"

May god have mercy on your soul, because the future tribunal of angry millennials in their 50's will not. :P
murder
Member
Mon Oct 04 07:58:15

"And then you can go the next ring out:
the people who knowingly provided the ammunition to the firing squad, the woman who have the typist ink..."

Seb: But it can be debated whether those people knew what supplying the ammo and ink were to be used for. This woman was typing out the orders so she knew exactly what the result of her actions would be.
murder
Member
Mon Oct 04 08:08:27

I'm firmly in the "let sleeping dogs lie" camp. Unless she's still an active Nazi, I would not throw her in jail. But I do see the value of taking this to a verdict and labeling her a war criminal.

Making Nazis and/or Nazi sympathizers angry should not be a deterrent. Those people get angry when they take a good crap.
Seb
Member
Mon Oct 04 11:08:00
Murder:

That's why I said "people who *knowingly*".

If you worked anywhere in the camps of their supply chain, and knew what the camps were doing, I'd argue you are equally as culpable as she can be said to be.

"I'm firmly in the "let sleeping dogs lie" camp."

If she had committed a murder, or been accessory to murder, we'd still prosecute.

The principle is "you cannot evade justice"

Sentence is likely to be suspended due to age etc.

Part of the point of the criminal justice system is procedural. The state acknowledges that a particular person was guilty of a crime - irrespective of the sanction applied to them.



Seb
Member
Mon Oct 04 11:09:26
And the deterrent here is: if you partake in these types of activity, at the very least society won't forget and will condemn you and it will stain your legacy, even if takes 70 years to catch up with you.

murder
Member
Mon Oct 04 14:13:41

"If she had committed a murder, or been accessory to murder, we'd still prosecute."

We would, but I might not. I tend to view prison as a means of protecting society. After an extended period of keeping your nose clean, it can be assumed that you are not an active danger to society.

Although it depends on how heinous the crime, and I have to admit that it kind of depends on the day of the week too. I don't feel the need to be consistent all of the time.



"And the deterrent here is: if you partake in these types of activity, at the very least society won't forget and will condemn you and it will stain your legacy, even if takes 70 years to catch up with you."

I can agree with that. The conviction will have value even if she's placed under house arrest.
Seb
Member
Mon Oct 04 17:16:44
Looking at similar cases, the sentence is often suspended. A lot of European countries do not seems to view prison as a moral punishment in the way US/UK do, so much as a deterrent and a safeguard for society.

In a way I do wonder if some of the gut "this feels wrong" reaction - and I include my own - to this is actually an implicit assumption that if found guilty it is automatically assumed she must go to prison.

Mandatory sentencing and the idea of prison as being a punishment necessitated by conviction is a rod we make for our own back and as much as I think we need to be more flexible in this on an intellectual level, I have to admit it takes a lot of conscious effort to remind myself prison need only be an option, not automatic outcome of conviction.
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