91-year-old woman charged over 260,000 Auschwitz deaths

a reply to: PhyllidaDavenport

I guess somebody have to be charge for crime in history, after all the US and the UK were very nice to all those scientist from the concentration camps that were given special treatment if they would work for them.

a reply to: Asktheanimals

Not quite sure why that was a reply to me...I'm the bugger defending this woman! I was just trying to explain that contrary to popular belief, the SS DID conscript and many women tried to refuse and were punished and sent to the camps themselves.

As to the poster who said she was an adult and had a choice, she is being tried in the Juvenile court as she was a Juvenile at the time!

a reply to: PhyllidaDavenport

Being conscripted and being "lured" or otherwise enticed are two entirely different concepts. No one was conscripted in the Waffen SS.

a reply to: Lazarus Short

The number of people reported to have been executed in concentration camps during the time period in question is pretty much logistically impossible. They simply could not have disposed of so many bodies or even killed so many people given the technology at hand and the resources available.

Im not suggesting the holocaust did not take place. Just wondering as to why TPTB at the time somewhat fuddled the figures and what there agenda was in doing so?

a reply to: marg6043

Exactly, it is the unfairness and the actual charges that I object to...not her age not her gender but the charge of being responsible for the deaths of 260,000 people when clearly she wasn't. Just by being there doesn't make you guilty jeeez!

a reply to: PhyllidaDavenport

Is Stupidity, charging an older women for crimes committed in her youth when she was manipulated by the system that she was born into and believe in.

Is Hypocrisy when US and the UK took actually monsters that worked for the Nazi using human beings for the testing of procedures killing them, gave them special treatments if they worked for them.

Is the irony what gets me the most that some will applaud what this women was charged with.

a reply to: marg6043

Quite

a reply to: PhyllidaDavenport

Neither even remotely the same as this woman - one was conscripted to work in an ammunition factory!

Newsflash - that isn't the Waffen SS.

a reply to: andy06shake

What, you can't see the difference between your grandfather and someone who served in the Waffen SS?

Jeebus, he'd be spinning in his grave (or, if he is still alive, give you a mighty slap for comparing him to them)

Do you even know what the SS was?

originally posted by: Asktheanimals
a reply to: PhyllidaDavenport

They were handing out Panzerfausts to 14 year old boys to defend the Fatherland.
Should we hang all them too?

Again, not in the SS.. They were the Volkssturm...

Seriously, people are having opinions on something they clearly haven't got a clue about.

a reply to: stumason

Actually i am very proud of my grandfathers participation regarding said conflict and he only passed away last year leaving me all his medals and other naval memorabilia. And yes i can see differences between said organisations, but i can also see similarity, hence my dilemma and general ambivalence.

And im sure my grandfather would be fine with my query's considering he himself always taught me to question authority and facts.

No Stu i have no idea as to who the SS, Gestapo or any other relevant organisation of the time period are, just what the history books and my Grandfather told me. LoL

And try to keep the Grandfather jibes to a minimum please, remember its nice to be nice.

a reply to: stumason

My point was that you said they weren't conscripted I was trying to show you that there were conscripts and also trying to point out what happened if you didn't comply! Many were conscripted into the SS during the last months of the war there is evidence all over the place. We don't know if this woman volunteered or was conscripted but I think its irrelevant either way, she was following orders of the Reich and could do jack about it.

And please don't say that I have no clue about this situation, you don't know me

If you have the time, you should read through some of the trial transcripts and you may see the extraordinarily flimsy charges laid against some of the people, including prisoners who worked their way up of all nationalities, and you may also notice that many of the charges were revenge tactics from people with grudges, not relating to war crimes but simple prisoner in-fighting or bribery.

a reply to: andy06shake

If you know about the SS, then you'd know that comparing your grandfather to someone in the SS is not even remotely similar, the same as an ordinary German soldier in the Wehrmacht wasn't the same as an SS soldier.

I'm sure your grandfather would be fine with you asking what the difference is, but I would highly doubt any veteran would be happy with you actually comparing them to the SS as if they were the same, I know mine wouldn't have.

And I haven't "jibed" at your grandfather at all, my apologies if you think I have.

a reply to: PhyllidaDavenport

Your point was pointless - I said they didn't conscript into the Waffen SS so you show me examples of them conscripting people to work in factories! Not even remotely the same.

The only conscripts in the "SS" - and I said this earlier - were the auxiliaries. Actual Waffen SS formations did no such thing.

a reply to: stumason

As i do not know the date she "joined" the SS I can't say for certain but I know for a fact that from late 1943 onwards the strict joining requirements for the SS was dropped and they conscripted people from prisons and workcamps as well as local populace but still referred to them as volunteers. People from the other armed forces who were considered possibly disloyal or even possible activists were drafted into the SS too and warned of the dire consequences if they refused as were "volunteers" from France Holland Poland & Belgium. They needed the numbers by this time and could not rely on volunteers or party members

a reply to: stumason

The similarity's are there, whether or not people choose to accept them. Our perspective regrading the time period in question is after all rather one sided given the mere fact that our nation was victorious, hence pretty much responsible for how history will remember and record the events that took place.

As to the SS among other nefarious groups operating at the time and obvious genocidal racial orientated actions/all out murder of innocents. Have you any idea what our own soldiers got up to during lets say the Boer war? Where we pretty much invented/re-instituted the very notion of what we consider to be a modern day concentration camp.

No group or organisation working toward victory is ever squeaky clean in time of conflict, there will always be innocent blood split to satisfy the needs of our nation, or any other nation for that matter. Thats just how humanity conducts itself in time of war. But as i said, the people who win are responsible for recording the events and hence shape and mold our very ideas and opinions.

As to the Grandfather jibe remark, possibly an over reaction on my part, his passing is still a touchy subject for me. Thanks for the apology anyhow.

a reply to: stumason

She would have belonged to the SS-Helferinnen auxiliaries and was neither a conscript nor a member of the Waffen SS, in principle this was no different than the numerous voluntary roles for women in wartime Britain to free up men for fighting duties, of course volunteering for such a particular role showed support for the ideology of the Government but the SS were greatly admired in Germany at the time as an elite fighting force, volunteering to serve your country and it's fighting forces in time of war is not a crime.

Female guards were generally from the lower to middle class and had no relevant work experience; their professional background varied: one source mentions former matrons, hairdressers, tramcar-conductresses, opera singers or retired teachers.Volunteers were recruited by ads in German newspapers asking for women to show their love for the Reich and join the SS-Gefolge ("SS-Retinue", an SS support and service organisation for women)

And at the Nuremburg trials it was said that when they condemned the SS as a criminal organisation they excused the SS conscripts sworn in after 1943 therefore the Waffen SS did apprently conscript

I am sure the women will be taken to trial for propaganda and due to her advance age, she will be allowed to die in peace, I just find that all this is nothing but for the amusement of some groups that are still digging to find scapegoats to blame for evil that they still feel is have not been rightfully brought to justice no matter how long is been.

Y'know the more I think about it the more Nazi doctrine can be compared to ISIS...they sure as hell have similar goals!

a reply to: buster2010

Sorry to state the obvious...
Most legal systems, don't require you to physically kill someone, to be actually prosecuted for involvement in that same person's death.
You could be aiding and abetting, and complicit in the death, by your actions or in-actions. And could spend time in jail, if found guilty.

In the same way, this woman here is not charged with physically killing all those people.
From my knowledge of the laws involved (admittedly without knowing all the details about this specific case) - she is charged for being complicit in the acts and enabling the system that killed them - to function.
If it were a simple case of murder, she would have been prosecuted in most western jurisdictions, for complicity in a death, so why not in this case?



I understand the concept is slightly hard to comprehend by some - but this is about War Crimes(!!) and the fact they usually require a working mechanism operated by willing participants, to execute those crimes.
And those who were involved do need to stand in court - to defend and justify their activities. And have the courts decide on their guilt.
Its irrelevant who they are, how old their are, nor who were their victims.
It is the reason why war crimes tribunals still take place.

a reply to: Kantzveldt

Some corrections:
The concentration camps were developed and operated under the SS-TV of the Waffen-SS [SS-Totenkopfverbände, Known in English as the “Death’s Head Unit”].

In 1942, for administrative reasons, the guard and administrative staff of all the concentration camps became full members of the Waffen-SS, and the concentration camps were placed under the command of Department D of the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (WVHA) [Main Economic and Administrative Department of the SS].

Within the SS, the women VOLUNTEERED and served in the SS-Helferinnenkorps [“Women Helper Corps”], in various roles.
It was NOT considered and cannot be compared to any other woman auxiliary services in allied forces, nor axis powers. The main differences being the required Aryan background (and selection) as well as ideological motivation, and the foremost loyalty and devotion to the party and Hitler that was required.
It is also not likely that a radio operator working in the SS was uneducated – as in the 1940’s it was considered a highly skilled role (unlike the woman guards, mentioned) and SS radio operators were exposed to highly classified and restricted information.

Regarding awareness of what was going on in the camps (an excerpt from Wikipedia, I attach the link at the bottom):
By 1944, with the concentration camps fully integrated with the Waffen-SS and under the control of the WVHA, a standard practice developed to rotate SS members in and out of the camps, based on manpower needs and also to give assignments to wounded Waffen-SS officers and soldiers who could no longer serve in front-line combat duties. This rotation of personnel is the main argument that nearly the entire SS knew of the concentration camps, and what actions were committed within, making the entire organization liable for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
[en.wikipedia.org...]


Also: the Auxiliary-SS (SS mannschaft) was an organisation that arose in 1945, as a last ditch effort to keep concentration camps running. Its members were not considered regular SS.
The woman prosecuted was not part of this, she was regular SS.




I agree – most of those people may have been brain washed, yet they could not be qualified as stupid, or unable to think. Its people who volunteered and had motivation – to do what they did, and did it in the most efficient way they could.
These were not helpless people who had to obey commands at gunpoint - they were agents of the state who willingly killed innocent civilians, on an industrial scale.

I am not blaming them for being human.
I blame them, as most of the civilized world, for doing in-humane crimes (many with great zeal) for which they do need to answer.