Johann Breyer , 89, charged with 'complicity in murder' in US of 216,000 Jews at Auschwitz

Breyer, 89, hobbled into a Philadelphia courtroom on Wednesday in a purple inmate uniform, stooped and with a cane. Charged with 158 counts of “complicity in the commission of murder,” prosecutors have accused him of the “systematic murder of hundreds of thousands of European Jews, transported between May 1944 and October 1944 in 158 trainloads to Auschwitz,” according to federal court documents. “Approximately 216,000 Jewish men, women and children from Hungary, Germany.

Johann Breyer , 89, charged with 'complicity in murder' in US of 216,000 Jews at Auschwitz

Well, I am a bit mixed on this. I because I understand the effect that war has on the brain. You do things that you come to regret later on in life .. (Brain washed in a sense) Also if it were true all that they are saying he did, well he was just fallowing orders.
The guys almost 90 years old ..he will answer for his "supposed crimes" in a trial not of man soon ebough.

Dont get me wrong i fully believe in eye for an eye , but i also believe in forgiveness ,love , compassion..

I dono ... Like i said i am Mixed on this....


How about you ATS ? What say you?

I think those who were his victims descendents might feel differently.

The Jewish victims imo are entitled to justice whether the guy is 100 or 30

don't know what to say: I only remember always hearing about "one of the latest Nazis arrested" for years.

why did they wait so long, couldn't find him?

nevertheless, this is very convenient time to arrest a figure like that.

just connect all the dots from the last 2 - 4 weeks...

a reply to: LightningStrikesHere

I'll say the same thing here, I said when they 'found' the last one. They pretty much know where these people are. Yet, what punishment could they possibly pass down on this person? @90, how much longer does he have? What could be the possible gain, socially? I just don't get it.

a reply to: LightningStrikesHere the only good i see here and i hope and pray that numbnut of a president see this. The good news he may get away with murdering millions now but maybe in 30 or 40 years from now when sanity return to the usa they round up all the war criminals from now and the last decade or so and throw then in a cell and forget about them there.

originally posted by: Willtell
I think those who were his victims descendents might feel differently.

The Jewish victims imo are entitled to justice whether the guy is 100 or 30

I think the only justice that needs to be served here is awareness . he needs to re live what he has been trying to run from. He needs to face the "descendants" and feel the shame. Any other form of harsher punishment would be barbaric IMO.
Again , he was part of a war machine , fallowing orders ..we can't assume the deaths of"all the Jews" rests souly on him..

I because I understand the effect that war has on the brain. You do things that you come to regret later on in life .. (Brain washed in a sense) Also if it were true all that they are saying he did, well he was just fallowing orders.

a reply to: LightningStrikesHere

I would hope more soldiers have a moral conscience before killing innocent civilians. If one person is brain washed, I'm sure there are many more who are not. Soldiers are expected to follow orders, but what it really comes down to, is knowing the difference between right and wrong. I would rather face the consequences of refusing an order rather than carry the burden of killing innocent people for the rest of my life and possibly in the after life.

a reply to: LightningStrikesHere

There is no statute of limitations for murder.

Nuff said, really.

"Complicity," but not "murder." Let's examine what probably happened. This guy was 19 years old at the time, just out of high school, just out of Basic Training, the lowest form of Private there was. He couldn't possibly have been in the German Army more than a few months. He's in some sort of unit where his sergeant said, "Go guard that train." or something similar. The German Army being what it was, a disciplined group, he did what he was told. There was a war on, of course, and by 1944 it was going badly. The Russians were kicking their butts. The Allies had landed at Normandy and had just or were just about to liberate France. The American Air Force was pounding Germany to dust during the day, the English RAF at night. Africa was gone. Italy had fallen. From interviews with German soldiers after the war, it is clear they thought they were "fighting to preserve Germany." And they were right. Germany was pretty-well destroyed at the end of the war a few months later. It ceased to be a self-governing state.

In any case, there is no evidence, at least so far, that he killed anyone at all, or that he even pushed anyone around. And a few months later as it all fell apart he managed to escape the whole rotten ordeal and make it to the Land of Freedom, the USA. And he settled down, got a job in a factory, raised his family, retired, got old, and lived longer than the standard actuarial tables said he would. By any measure, all his comrades in arms, all the sergeants, all the officers in charge, all the politicians that made this whole horrible mess happen, are already dead.

But he's alive--one of the last remaining German Army veterans of WW II. But now we're going to "Git 'em!" based on the fact that somehow, someone found an ID card or a record that proves "he was there." There aren't any witnesses against him. All the potential witnesses are dead, too, most of them being older than he is/was. There may possibly be some children who remember him, a 19 year old, who looks nothing like he did then now, and if he did something particularly egregious, they may be able to identify him after seventy years as the same guy. Maybe. If they exist. Or maybe he was just another faceless German soldier in uniform that looked like all the rest, which is the whole idea of sticking young men into uniform on the first place. Dollars to donuts there are no witnesses.

But based on this record or ID card some prosecutor is going to "Git 'em!" because, after all, he was "complicit" and did not voice opposition to his comrades or his sergeant or his officers, that it was "wrong" to guard a train. If he had done that, he would have been shot on the spot, of course. "Due process" in the German Army during WW II? Sure. You bet.

American justice. You gotta love it!

This isn't about justice, it's about revenge. And these prosecutors are getting desperate as time is literally running out. WW2 ended 70 years ago. This I read a few months ago and it's disurbing:

The Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes—set up in Germany in 1958 to investigate Nazi war criminals—is located in the small city of Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart, in an 18th-century former women’s prison. For decades, prosecutors have used the dreary compound as a base to launch thousands of investigations into Nazi crimes.

*snip*

This renewed surge of Nazi trials would have been impossible just a few years ago; after seven decades, the surviving evidence was judged to be too fragmentary. But a controversial new interpretation of German criminal law—inspired by the much-publicized 2011 conviction (pending appeal) of death camp guard John Demjanjuk in Munich—has changed all that. According to the new interpretation, specific evidence of a crime—relayed by living witnesses or confirmed by physical evidence—is no longer necessary to prove guilt. All prosecutors need to show is that an individual worked at a concentration camp. In other words, to have been there—even, perhaps as a cook or laundry worker—is to be guilty of accessory to murder.

www.macleans.ca...

originally posted by: WeRpeons

I because I understand the effect that war has on the brain. You do things that you come to regret later on in life .. (Brain washed in a sense) Also if it were true all that they are saying he did, well he was just fallowing orders.

a reply to: LightningStrikesHere

I would hope more soldiers have a moral conscience before killing innocent civilians. If one person is brain washed, I'm sure there are many more who are not. Soldiers are expected to follow orders, but what it really comes down to, is knowing the difference between right and wrong. I would rather face the consequences of refusing an order rather than carry the burden of killing innocent people for the rest of my life and possibly in the after life.

that is easier to say than do.
and that is exactly why the military system is very effective.

it's easy to say I would do this, I would do that if you're not in a situation like that.

do you think you're the only one who actually wouldn't want to kill anyone?

that is exact reason why they have military training - to train not only your body, but your mind as well - to KILL.

not civilians of course but if they are not considered civilians at the moment?

just think about it - it's easier to say than do.

a reply to: schuyler

I usually agree with you, but this time?

Not so much.

This "victimhood" meme should not apply here, in my humble opinion.

Say it was 1954, he'd have been 30. If he were caught then, would his age had made any difference?

originally posted by: WeRpeons

I because I understand the effect that war has on the brain. You do things that you come to regret later on in life .. (Brain washed in a sense) Also if it were true all that they are saying he did, well he was just fallowing orders.

a reply to: LightningStrikesHere

I would hope more soldiers have a moral conscience before killing innocent civilians. If one person is brain washed, I'm sure there are many more who are not. Soldiers are expected to follow orders, but what it really comes down to, is knowing the difference between right and wrong. I would rather face the consequences of refusing an order rather than carry the burden of killing innocent people for the rest of my life and possibly in the after life.

You say that now , but its harder than you think.

The brainwashing is not limited to just "carrying out orders"
It goes byond that . you have the mindset of nationalism a superior mindset .
This mindset suppresses emotions and causes one to act with no question.


Just saying..

a reply to: LightningStrikesHere

By "supposed crimes" do you mean you don't believe in the holocaust or that he allegedly did it? And what do you mean by "brain washed"? Nevermind, you answered the brain washing in the post above.

How about all the soldiers who killed someone in all the Wars? Isn't this the same? They were all following orders, were they not? Take all the Civilians killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

a reply to: intrepid

That's a little ridiculous.

But no one seemed to care about Operation Paper Clip? Them Nazis are okay? But that cook?

GET HIM!!!

If they go through with it, he'll end up with an awesome medical plan!

Maybe a bit off topic but how absolutely arrogant of the american justice system. Judging a guy for doing what your own people did. Lets not forget one thing. The us dropped 2 nukes on 2 cities. Indiscriminately killing and maiming millions of innocent people. YES i said millions as those bastards who made the decision to drop those 2 bombs knew that their actions will not lead to the death of the current people who lived there the day the bomb was dropped. Their effing actions is still killing and maiming today. Radiation sickness, cancer, missformed babies born still today. What happened to those mass murderers. They are hailed as god dam heroes by your imbisils who cant think past the length of your noses. The american armed forces killed more men woman and children than that guy saw in his life. It is a farse a absolute abomination the whole usa.

originally posted by: Swills
a reply to: LightningStrikesHere

By "supposed crimes" do you mean you don't believe in the holocaust or that he allegedly did it? And what do you mean by "brain washed"?

Innocent until proven guilty .

brain·wash
ˈbrānˌwôSH,-ˌwäSH/
verb
gerund or present participle: brainwashing
make (someone) adopt radically different beliefs by using systematic and often forcible pressure.
"the organization could brainwash young people"
synonyms: indoctrinate, condition.


Hope this helps.

a reply to: LightningStrikesHere

Yeah thanks, I didn't need a definition.