Poland confirms 98-year-old Minnesota man was Nazi commander, seeks extradition

a reply to: Lysergic

I can't comment about the hilarity that has finally caught up with someone who committed heinous crimes? LULZ.

what you a spellin nazi or sumtume, but you knew exactly what i meant didn't you.
and just so you know.

Learner's definition of HEINOUS
[more heinous; most heinous] : very bad or evil : deserving of hate or contempt
These murders were especially heinous. people accused of committing heinous crimes/acts
heinous

edit on 15-3-2017 by hounddoghowlie because: (no reason given)

a reply to: andy06shake

wait, are you implying if a 98 year old today committed a violent crime we should let him walk?? # that! 98 years or not, this man is a criminal and mass murderer who was never held accountable. Putting a slug in his burnt out brain would be more mercy than accountability at this point.

States pass laws to allow people in his age and disposition to have physicians euthanize them, but it would be too much to force him to face his crimes??

Sounds ass backward logic to me. assuming a good Samaritan does not give him mercy, lets hand him over to Poland and allow a mass murder to face trials for his crimes.

a reply to: worldstarcountry

Well how many 98 year olds commit violent crime???

I'm implying if you are deemed unfit to stand trial then you should not. And most nations apply similar logic to there laws.

What im saying is its to late, guy should have been found and made to answer for his crimes long, long ago.

i dont get into this topic too much but just a thought.
lots of people saying hang him and shoot him at his door.

did you feel the same way about wernher von braun and the others that came over during operation paperclip?

ive always wondered why some former nazis people wanted dead and would hunt them down. others....eh
relocate them and give them a job at nasa

very strange

en.wikipedia.org...

He was one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany, where he was a member of the Nazi Party and the SS.

en.wikipedia.org...

program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians (many of whom were formerly registered members of the Nazi Party and some of whom had leadership roles in the Nazi Party), including Wernher von Braun's rocket team, were recruited and brought to the United States for government employment from post-Nazi Germany (after World War II

so murder a 98 year old senile(possibly) old man but relocate and employ 1600 able bodies?

i dont understand

IF deemed unfit it would be inhumane to send him to prison but they would most likely put him in a strictly monitored mental hospital/facility. I understand the urge to want to punish him no matter what but thats stooping pretty close to his level because he cant defend himself (if unfit) just like the majority of people he had slaughtered.

a reply to: andy06shake

should there be a statute of limitations on murder? how about genocide?
if a person is found fit, should they stand trail regardless of age for those?
what about the survivors rights to justice, you know the newborn baby that just lost their mother,father, siblings and every relative they had, have they no right to see justice done?
should someone that was able to conceal their identity for 70 years deserve the right to live until they die of old age if found competent to stand trail?
they may have been very good at concealing identity, or just got plain lucky, should that prevent them from paying for their crimes?

a reply to: introvert

In this case, due to circumstance--illness, I'll agree with you.

If he were competent to stand trial? Hang him.

Thankfully, these monsters grow fewer and fewer by the year, soon they'll all be answering for crimes to a higher authority than I.

Unfortunately, we do seem to be replacing 'em with new model monsters, don't we?? Not quite to the same scope, but not through lack of "want to" on their part.

He needs to be checked out via neutral doctors and other specialists to gauge his health and well being givens he's nearly 100 and thus can explain his side of the case as if he can't then any punishment probably wouldn't meant much anyway.

We're reaching the end of the WW2 sort of finding those people who did the nasty stuff and we need to move more forward once we've done all the dotting of I's and crossing of t's

Let him go at this point.

1. He's not competent to stand trial, it wouldn't be fair.
2. He's not the same person he was when he committed those crimes. There's a lifetime between then and now. People change, and part of closure is forgiveness.
3. Realistically, what are we supposed to do? Imprison him as an example to others? It's a bit late for examples.

a reply to: hounddoghowlie

If found competent, fair trial, which is more than he gave those Poles, then hang 'im high and let the crows have him, assuming he's found guilty.

If he is competent, otherwise what is the point? He won't/can't understand what's going on, can't help in his own defense...a kangaroo court is little better than what he gave the innocents in Poland.

a reply to: Echo007

My thoughts too! He just was doin what he was told, and probably scared as hell not too!

a reply to: Echo007

Forced him to do? Really? Was he some form of robot, automatron, completely at the mercy of his programming?

a reply to: vinifalou

...and how do you guarantee that? You are, of course, assuming he was a normal human being.

Maybe he did have, as you say, demons... Is that supposed to excuse his behavior? As for answering to a higher power? Indeed he will, his day of reckoning is being expedited, if he's competent to stand, of course. which apparently he's not.

Let's not forget the victims here. They didn't get to live that life, and any life, did they?

His name should live in infamy, just like his deeds.

a reply to: andy06shake

The fact that he's facing a trial would say that we're not them. Very loudly. The fact that he probably won't due to his illness, says we aren't them--if we were them, he'd have been euthanized years ago.

a reply to: TinySickTears

In point of fact, I do.

Operation Paperclip is a dark inkblot on the history of the United States. Those involved should be, however many are alive, should be brought forth and, at the least, humilitated.

Those criminals they brought over are all, as far as I know, long beyond any earthly justice...but their names and actions live on in infamy in my mind, and many others.

Does that answer your question?

The excuse was always, national security. We can't allow the Russians to beat us. Does that sound at all familiar to events happening today?? The entirety of the early Space Race was to show that the west was, in all ways, superior to the Soviets. That meant in many minds that the Nazi's that were useful to them, were to be put to use. The terms used were "de-Nazification" or something of the sort--I'm typing off the top of my head on this, so my be misremembering.

The Cold War was used as an excuse to bring so many "repentant" Nazi's over here to the west. Or placed in the West German govt. The victims, largely, forgotten.

a reply to: Maxatoria

Your post brought something to mind. I wonder if this "person" has a diary of that time and those places. Many soldiers had wartime diaries...

It would, if truthful, make for horrific reading, and tell us much about him.

originally posted by: GraffikPleasure
a reply to: JakeR777

So what do people here think should happen to this guy? I'm curious....genuinely

Graffik

If he has Alzheimers as the article states and that is confirmed, then he should be left alone. The 98 year old in a nursing home with Alzheimers is NOT the same man that fought in WWII.

Otherwise, I'm not real sure I'd support him being prosecuted regardless. War is violent, war is hell, rules of war are ridiculous. One side is trying to kill the other side's people, PERIOD. There is a ridiculous degree of hypocrisy in these scenarios purely because of which side won the war and which side lost it... The Allies bombed civilians to their deaths everywhere they dropped bombs on Germans. I understand prosecuting old Nazis that directly participated in human experimentation, gassing and otherwise murdering concentration camp prisoners, etc... these aren't actions that benefitted the war effort for Germany. Even this man, as the CO of a platoon ordering the village be burned, he wasn't making the final call he was following his orders. Had he refused, he'd have been ordered shot by the first SS oberst he crossed paths with. Had he refused to fight with the SS in the first place, he'd have been shot and his family executed or worse... I mean come the hell on here, the standard that the world courts have applied in some of the more ridiculous former Nazi trials have essentially expected people to sacrifice themselves and their families rather than fight for their nation, all in a conflict in which they had no way of guessing who would win. It is a standard that this country would lose their snip over if applied to the west's various military adventures.

Leave the old guy alone. Either his demons have tortured his soul for the past 73 years or his sould will be burning in Hell within the next year or two... leave well enough alone and move on.

a reply to: hounddoghowlie

Civilized nations do not bestow cruel and unusual punishment as a measure of justice.

Fact is that incarceration of a geriatric 98 year old man fits that bill.

Nor should we allow extradition to a country that may feel otherwise inclined.

Like i said there is a time and place that time and place is long gone.

What about all the Nazi scientists and other miscreants appropriated and given a get out of gaol free card via such nefarious projects as Operation Paperclip and the like, should they also be held accountable for there part in said mass genocide?

Or is it ok because our gooberments deemed them a necessary evil?

The dude is 98, probobly cant stand up never mind stand trial, so whats the point after 80 years?

originally posted by: seagull
Is that supposed to excuse his behavior?

We definitely disagree on this topic, my friend. The "rules of war" are a myopic, counter-intuitive and self denying hypocrisy. The first codes of what's OK and not OK in war were, to my knowledge, the Lieber Code the USA applied during the American Civil War. Guess what? The USA quickly violated the very code they, themselves, had demanded be applied to that war. They forced the defeated South into servitude and comfort of the victorious North, they raped and pillaged the hell out of the South, they bluntly murdered a hell of a lot of southerners who weren't active combatants in the war, and they burnt down hundreds of non military homes and facilities in the south. All in direct violation OF THEIR OWN CODE.

Lesson: War has historically always been a contest to essentially see who can be the most brutal without flinching. Any effort to change that means you're no longer "at war," now you're just playing games with a body count.

a reply to: seagull

Your right we are not them.

Yet we still seem to repeat similar transgressions.

End of the day if offering up a 98 year old Man to the political correct goddess of justice would make a difference then so be it.

But it would prove nothing other than we are just as bad as the person in question.

If indeed he is guilty.

Like i said plenty of other war criminals out there that are ripe for the picking.

Why not go after Bush and Blair, or all the rest for that matter?