Should This 94 Year Old Have Been Jailed?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3161043/71-years-helped-Nazis-kill-300-000-Jews-bookkeeper-Auschwitz-finally-faces-justice-German-court-delivers-verdict-om-Oskar-Groening-morning.html

/// While none of the victims were able to recall seeing Groening at the camp, he was charged with being accessory to the killings because he was essential to the running of Auschwitz. ///

Perhaps if they could find the camps electricians, plumbers etc, they should also be jailed?

[douglas9401]

If entertainment types are due jail time for touching teenagers, surely these offences are at least as bad.
Unless offenders have a finite 'bad' time after which they get a clean sheet.

[sevenOP]

divebuddy---------------->"Historical crimes are all the rage these days. "

Yes, they are going on all the time.

[retrocop]

aog
I was taught it is bad manners to answer a question with a question so forgive me in advance.
What is your answer or view to your question?

[bednobs]

i was surprised that no-one did anything in the 70 years since the end of the war, however after reading the story i see that they did know about him before, but owing to a change in the law in 2011, they could now prosecute hime.
Odd that - most other laws are not retrospective.
Also odd that 300000 charges of accessory to murder results in a 4 year jail sentence!

[Khandro]

Ludwig;
Despite the tremendous cost of opposing Hitler, many Germans did oppose and resist Nazi ideology and Hitler in some-way, and approximately 77,000 were killed for it. Many of these people are lost to history. As soon as Hitler assumed power, he was ruthless in rounding up political opponents and putting them in concentration camps.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_resistance_to_Nazism

It is easy to sit back now and criticise but terror ruled, if a person didn't display the Nazi flag on their house they were asked why, sanctions and threats followed. On a simple level this was very well illustrated in the film 'Cabaret'.

[retrocop]

I find it odd that he answered a specific number of accessory charges.300,000.
I wonder if his defence asked for each alleged victim's identity be given to each charge against him or did the prosecution pull a number out of a hat?

[youngmafbog]

It is too late now. Jail serves no purpose and would just cost a fortune.

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

/// He was part of the industrial killing apparatus. Time is no escape from the crimes of his past. ///

You could also say that for the Bomb aimers of WW2.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3161346/The-Blitz-brought-life-Incredible-colour-pictures-London-looked-height-aerial-onslaught-WW2.html

[Zacs-Master]

YMB, I'd prefer to hear the opinions of some holocaust survivors as to whether jail serves no purpose.

[Old_Geezer]

When the convicted is 94 I am also of the opinion that it is probably more trouble than it is worth. In any case I suspect the general tradesmen didn't have a lot of choice anyway. Those in control did. I guess 4 years is a token period but will he even survive until 98 ? Oh and the opinion of the victims will be emotional and so ought never have a bearing in the dispensation of justice.

[anotheoldgit]

divebuddy

Yes I know but my reference to the bombings, where in reply to Gromit's "He was part of the industrial killing apparatus".

He wasn't on his own, I'm afraid.

[anotheoldgit]

Old_Geezer

Yes it is strange that there isn't the same energy put into the constant search for those involved in the Japanese slave camps.

[retrocop]

Gromit
//He worked at Auschwitz. It is inconceivable he did not know what his work was for.//

They were Jewish.It is inconceivable that they did not know what the reason for them to be herded into cattle trucks to be worked to death or immediately gassed??
Yes they were unaware of their eventual fate having been told to pack up their valuables and bring the along to be resettled in the East.
Ignorance of what the future brings applies to all.

[Sqad]

So what is the function of the jail sentence?

As a deterrent to others?.......I c an't see ISIS members quaking in their boots at the thought of being caught, tried and punished, or indeed any other perpetrators of crimes to humanity.

To punish him for his crimes? A cell, TV regular meals, healthcare on tap, pool table.....most 94 yr olds would complain about that.

Extremely unlikely that he will serve his sentence.......OR do we want our pound of flesh, to be seen as "humane", understanding, a feeling of smugness and a job well done. Justice has been done and has been seen to have been done.

I am not sure how survivors of the concentration camps would see this.

Waste of time.........

[Clanad]

Making it more personal... would those saying it's a waste of time fell the same if the murderer of their child, say... wasn't identified and confessed until 70 years or so later? I think not!

Additionally, why is it that civilization can produce those that participate to a greater or lesser extent in atrocities against other human beings and yet still produce, concurrently, the likes of Giorgio Perlasca, Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, as well as the better known Oskar Shindler and, astoundingly Albert Goring, the younger brother of the infamous Hermann Goring (how does one do umlauts?)?

The memory and long arm of justice should know no limits in cases such as this...

[Sqad]

Clanad

\\\\\Making it more personal... would those saying it's a waste of time fell the same if the murderer of their child, say... wasn't identified and confessed until 70 years or so later? I think not! \\\

That is hypothetical as the spouses would be 100 yrs old at that point.

But in answer to your question, I do not know how they would feel.

[retrocop]

If my child was murdered I would only be satisfied with the man with the gun who pulled the trigger not a token show trial clerk and his pen.!!

[andy-hughes]

youngmafbog - //It is too late now. Jail serves no purpose and would just cost a fortune. //

Your statement appears to infer that this man is too old to receive justice.

That in turn would appear to indicate that you see a cut-off point at which, a criminal is too old to pay the price for his crimes.

If that is the case, then when does that age begin, and who decides it, is it for anyone, or specific criminals in specific cases?

No - the rule has to be that if you are breathing, you are within reach of justice - anything else makes a mockery of the law.