Ex-Auschwitz guard Reinhold Hanning, 94, sentenced to 5 years in prison

tbh he will be comfortable in jail... it will not be like a moldy dungeon. certainly better accommodation than for the people in Auschwitz.

While I agree he will be comfortable, you have to remember he was just a guard. Does he really deserve essentially going to jail for the remainder of his life because he did his job. If he were to not do said job he would have been reprimanded - possibly even shot. It's hardly fair to punish him this late in life.

In general I think it's very easy for people to want to string up the security guard, the guy who sorted the mail etc, i.e. people that may not have been fully aware of what exactly was going on or buried their heads in the sand at camps like this, but at that time a lot of people will have just wanted to not think about it and not make trouble. After all if you turned around and said I won't kill these people they're our equals, you'd soon find yourself gassed alongside them. Now yes it is cowardly to say/do nothing, but I guarantee that if our government started doing something which was partially covered up at first but horrific and whispers were going around, a lot of people in public sector jobs that had a degree of involvement in it, directly or indirectly, wouldn't rally against it, they'd do their jobs with a heavy conscious and talk about their worries between themselves. Very few are brave enough to stand up when they're likely to be executed for it and the country is on a war footing.

I repped you for making this thread, but I thoroughly disagree with the sentiment that he should be pardoned on account of his age. The most extreme criminals, that is those who commit genocide and crimes against humanity should never be allowed to escape justice.

I'll c/p what I said before

you have to remember he was just a guard. Does he really deserve essentially going to jail for the remainder of his life because he did his job. If he were to not do said job he would have been reprimanded - possibly even shot. It's hardly fair to punish him this late in life.

Although I do agree with you, that is those who commit genocide and crimes against humanity should never be allowed to escape justice. I guess I'm on the fence on saying definitively whether he committed genocide. He was certainly part of it but it wasn't his idea, while [I assume] he put them in gas chambers, like I said before he HAD to do that, he had no choice.

I'm defiantly in minority on this one, everyone I have spoke to about this has said he committed genocide.

Guilty of committing a crime (or actually not doing anything to stop it, being an accomplice), and being on the losing side

Obviously the allies committed atrocities too - e.g. the Bengal famine, which the British did nothing to stop (and by the same logic makes them accomplices in the millions of deaths), and the vast majority of them have been forgotten, but we should not forget that he is guilty, and therefore should be tried

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/former-auschwitz-guard-reinhold-hanning-awaits-verdict-germany-n592951

"It disturbs me deeply that I was part of such a criminal organization," he told the court in April. "I am ashamed that I saw injustice and never did anything about it and I apologize for my actions."
During the four-month trial in northern Germany, several Holocaust survivors gave harrowing testimonies of the horrors they faced at the death camp.


Holocaust survivors and Jewish organizations quickly hailed the verdict, with World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder saying Hanning "got the sentence he deserved."

What a joke, he's 94 - Will probably die in the next 5 years, literally no need to do this.

World war 2, wasn't that like 100 years ago?

Posted from TSR Mobile